Me, evil?

An eeeeeviiiiilllll friend passed me the link to this:

http://home.att.net/~slugbutter/evil/

Right.

Turns out I'm not evil, I'm just twisted! Very niched.


How evil are you?

Don't You Want Somebody To Love

This was Princess when she was, what, 5 months? Adorable thing.

When the truth is found to be lies
And all the joys within you dies

Don't you want somebody to love
Don't you need somebody to love
Wouldn't you love somebody to love
You better find somebody to love

When the garden flowers baby are dead yes
And your mind is full of red

Don't you want somebody to love
Don't you need somebody to love
Wouldn't you love somebody to love
You better find somebody to love

Your eyes, I say your eyes may look like his
But in your head baby I'm afraid you don't know where it is

Don't you want somebody to love
Don't you need somebody to love
Wouldn't you love somebody to love
You better find somebody to love

Tears are running ah running down your breast
And your friends baby they treat you like a guest

Don't you want somebody to love
Don't you need somebody to love
Wouldn't you love somebody to love
You better find somebody to love

['Somebody To Love' by Jefferson Airplane]

New printer!

Recently I've been buggered by the fact that my old printer, a loyal Canon BJ230, has been on the fritz a bit too often. It's not as if there's some mechanical malfunction or summat, it's just that the ink cartridge has been playing up.

Now this printer is just your regular black-ink printer that'll do the perfect job for usual printing needs ie. resumes, sudoku sheets, stuff off the 'Net, and to cut costs instead of buying a new cartridge altogether it's much cheaper to get a refill and do-it-yourself. The only hazard is spilling ink all over the place, or worse, having ink spilling out from the cartridge after refilling it.


Anyways. I couldn't print anything these past few months because of my printer cartridges, even after getting a new one, and refilling that a couple of times, so I thought that it's time to upgrade. Enter the HP PSC1510!


Yow. This baby won over the Canon Pixma iP4200 because of three things: first, the Canon costs RM699 (with free pendrive thrown in, last 2 models available) compared to the HP that costs only RM379 (normal selling price RM399); second, the Canon can only print lovely colour prints and CD labels, while the HP can print lovely colour prints, and is also a scanner and copier; and third, the Canon uses 4 cartridges (black, magenta, cyan and yellow) while the HP uses only 2 cartridges (black and colour).

A main concern I had while getting this printer was that it may be too big to fit the table (it's about twice the width of the old printer), but after getting everything out of the box and setting up, hooray! It fits!


Now I'll just wait for the parents to wake up and see the thing and screech at me.

Being straightforward

You know how it is with guys generally lah. Can't really be obscure in your meanings one. Sometimes *nudge nudge* or *wink wink* or lines like, "You know about 'that thing' hor?" cannot penetrate the thick desensitised husk that is Ah Beng's brain. Must be like the brave girl taking her medicine or lancing a boil - deep breathe, close eyes, DOWN! Wanna get the message across, must take the leap.

So we're rather grateful when we got this yesterday. No mistaking the intent.

Grateful for getting a flower and thankful for the straightforward intent so no need to wonder so much what the flower means!

Personal stock take

Looking back and wondering what have we achieved or where are we going:

Our life is aimless.

We have no long-term goals.

Nothing to claim to my name in achievements.

Whoa our life is pretty much worth shitzilch.

Storywriter's Helper

Just starting a new story game with some friends and I thought about this: what to do when you get writer's block? So! Introducing the Storywriter's Helper! Just get a dice and throw and refer to the table below as a matter of some guidance.

Step 1 - Regarding Main Story
1: Introduce a new character
2: Natural disaster
3: New topic/Plot twist!
4: Anonymous encounter
5: Waste time on nonrelated topic
6: Kill someone

This should be simple enough to get you onwards. But if the block is bad, so bad you might want more from the Helper. So from dice roll number one, refer onwards!

Introduce a New Character
1: Sidekick to main character/party
2: Wiseman/Oracle/Elder etc
3: Intelligent animal
4: New villian
5: Family member/Friend of main character/party
6: Return of supposedly-vanquished villian

Natural Disaster
This one actually depends on your story setting. But you could use this as examples or replace them with relevant disasters e.g. Alien Invasion, Bull Stampede. Heck it doesn't have to be a natural disaster.
1: Earthquake
2: Hailstorm
3: Tornado
4: Volcano eruption
5: Flashflood
6: Flashfire

New topic/Plot twist!
I guess if you could somehow incorporate 'New topic - Alien war' into 'Main story - Stone age' then you shouldn't need the Helper in the first place.
1: "Meanwhile, in another part of [insert variable location here], [character] is [verb]..."
2: Reveal a betrayer!
3: "Meanwhile, a secret weapon is being constructed/made at..."
4: Villian kills some unrelated person
5: Someone in the party/close to main character is kidnapped!
6: Totally new unrelated topic that will weave into main story

Anonymous Encounter
Speaks for itself.
1: Ambushed by [insert creature type/class type here]! A fight ensues!
2: Angel/Spirit/Friendly ghost gives advice
3: Damsel in distress
4: Possession by spirit/demon
5: Old friend/family member/member from same homeland appears
6: Neutral [creature type] bars the way

Waste Time on Nonrelated Topic
If you read Douglas Adams or watched Monty Phyton then you probably have some idea of how they can waste time on totally nonrelated topics. For this, look outside your window, or watch some telly, or play some games, and use some of that to help you. Think of it like some sudden cut-scene talking about some other part of the story but has no direct relevance to it.

Kill Someone
Take your pick.

A good long rest

Chinese New Year 2006 is a lovely one: falling on the weekend, public holidays are then pushed forward till Thursday due to Federal Day on Wednesday, and most people (some compulsory tho) taking Friday off...that's a very long week for holidays man! Count it! 9 days!

During this whole CNY hols, there was a 'feeling' about it that I just couldn't place. Not until last night at Vincent's open house and I was chatting with Randall. The 'feeling' was akin to the same feeling one gets when it's the school holidays! Of course!

Sigh. Not counting the university years la (since uni life was ultra-flexible with variable timetables) it's been 6 years already since a whole bunch of us could enjoy a good long break of 2-4 weeks at the same time. School holidays meant day after day of games and hanging out and doing nonconstructive things with everyone. School holidays meant going for trips with everyone. School holidays meant you had no worries totally.

Flash forward to after the education phase. When you're working, there's no chance of taking more than a week's worth of leave without consequences. Plus, you're taking that leave alone, or with few colleagues/friends. You gotta plan for fun stuff like travelling and such already. No chance of an impromptu get-away-from-it-all.

A: Eh, let's go Singapore tomorrow! Stay for one week! The rest of the gang confirmed woh!
B: You want me to die-ar? Now is our company's peak period! No chance I getting away!

Heh. This kinda 'feeling' (pronounced in that very Chinese way, "fee-LING!") is very rare nowadays. Even when I had my stint as man of leisure (read: jobless) I didn't had this feeling because everyone else was still working. Holidays are meant to be shared together.

Anyways, here's going out to everyone: I hope you'd a good long rest!

Kung Hei Fatt Choy!

Small Goals 1

Browsing today at 1U I found the following:

What is it? Monty Phyton's Spamalot - the soundtrack of their musical. A Monty Phyton Musical! Actually what really caught my attention was the grail picture - I love Monty Phyton and the Holy Grail - and so natural reaction for me was to pick it up and look it through. It's gonna be most likely that I'll enjoy this. Measures of self-control were overridden when it comes to stuff that you know are rare, or know prices won't change anytime soon no matter how long you wait, or worry that once it's gone, it's gone. Unlike the OST for Perhaps Love, which I can always wait until the price drops to something more appealing.

Listened to the musical on the way to (and back from) Klang I just fell in love with it. The same appreciative feeling that I got from The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables I had with this, although instead of just being immersed totally to the music I had a better time listening to the lyrics. I mean:

LADY
I'll sing it in your face
While we both embrace

BOTH
And then we change the key!

DENNIS
Now we're into E
That's awfully high for me

LADY
But everyone can see
We should have stayed in D

BOTH
For this is our song that goes like this

...that goes on until...

LADY
I can't believe there's more

DENNIS
It's far too long I'm sure

LADY
That's the trouble with this song
It goes on and on and on

BOTH
For this is our song that is too long

Or another song example!

LADY
Whatever happen to my part?
It was exciting at the start
Now we're half-way through Act Two
And I've had nothing yet to do
I've been off stage for far too long
It's been ages since I had a song

I mean, she's singing about not having a part in the musical! This CD had songs not only from Monty Phyton and the Holy Grail but also from Monty Phyton's Life Of Brian, while some of the other songs while I don't recognize they do sound familiar as if it was a parody of some other popular musical.

Gotta love Monty Phyton. If you ever thought that Terry Pratchett was hard to follow, or thought that Douglas Adams was wacky, try Monty Phyton. Lords.

Which brings us to todays title. Having short memory means I've gotta jot down 'small goals' before I forget them or deprioritize them. Small goals are stuff that I can slowly do bit by bit over any amount of time, not really needing a lot of saving up or heavy investment. So some things to jot down and more to add on when I think about them:

DVD Collections
Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, both Fellowship and Two Towers extended 4-DVD set. I already have The Return of the King and I want the originals for this.
Queer as Folk. Probably not very important, and definitely something I'll only get when I stay out on my own (very controversial after all). Would be nice if I could get the UK version. This one no need originals.
Sailormoon, Sailormoon R, Sailormoon Super S and Sailormoon Sailorstars. I have Sailormoon S already (best season to my opinion) as well as the movie collection, and I have all the episodes for Sailormoon and Sailorstars in Realplayer format so no rush here also.

Plays and Musicals to watch
Monty Phyton's Spamalot!
All Discworld plays! Especially Wyrd Sisters (love Granny Weatherwax!) and Maskerade!

Book Collections
All things Terry Pratchett. This include the entire Discworld series and their other spinoffs like The Science of Discworld etc. Oh must keep an eye on the Discworld maps collection.
Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah. I think that's the only missing book in my collection.
Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series. The only thing that keeps me from actually making this a priority buy the fact that the books are small, but the price is big.
JK Rowling's Harry Potter: Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Started my collection backwards.
Magic: The Gathering: Ravnica series - Ravnica, Guildpact and Dissension.
Once I get my own place and have my own athenaeum I'm definitely looking to expand my range.

Gadgets and Gizmos
I guess next on my list is a digicam so I can be better camwhore. This one can consider a bit of a 'medium goal' actually.
Tetris DS for NDS.
New Super Mario Bros for NDS.
WACOM tablet and stylus? I guess this one is definitely out of reach plus the fact that it's more for professionals than for dabbling in doodling.

WTF I just made a wishlist! It's not a wishlist! Bah who am I fooling. >:P

Random rants

Amazing. It's one of those points when our brain's fizzing like fireworks with many many questions, probably like that of an Izzet mage's mind. And at night. And after we've reached a state of high that's induced alcoholically and/or nicotinically. And worse of all all these thoughts during a shower where it's not possible to jot down the points, where it's forgotten (or lost in further extrapolation) once out of the shower and ready to pen down.

So this time we're gonna blog like how we sometimes hold 'serious' conversations (I think some people will share this view): random jumps to different topic points rather than focusing on a main subject. And how we jump from topic to topic.

How did it start anyway? I guess:

Probably how men's thinking differ from women's. And how we have biased opinions about how the other thinks. Men being more focused and to-the-point, more towards confrontation, thoughts being on self rather than group. Women being more sensitive and caring towards the collective/others and thinking more about the whole than the singular objective. Had thoughts back towards Frank Herbert's Dune series, especially from God Emperor onwards, as to why the Tyrants army of Fish Speakers consisted of women only, and also how only the Bene Gesserit (guild of...for lack of a better word, witches) was the only guild to last throughout the thousands of years without suffering much change. Need to reread the books again to get the key points about that.

Damn I'm getting more sober as the clock ticks away. Can't remember the argument and if it was even valid or not.

Amazing how Frank Herbert can write rather engagingly. His emotionally-detached Bene Gesserit, his logic-dictated Mentats, prescient leaders...how conversation have double meanings etc. Sometimes it does make you open your ears and eyes a bit to what goes on around you. And sometimes it does. Interestingly, two conversations (more like, two replies) of a certain subject told me a different story: their words meant one thing, but the reason why they replied such and how it was phrased told me another. Personally I wasn't offended in the first place but the response made me think, "What was that about?" While I know it's human nature to talk about people (especially discuss about people in their absence) it never really was an issue to me before except this sparked that curious question. Knowing myself, I'll soon forget about it so I won't really put any effort into it.

Speaking of effort. Having no direction in life really leaves us with no point in putting in effort anywhere. A downward spiral of degeneration. Work? Friends? Relationship? Future? Am definitely in a rut. What am I looking forward to? Even I cannot answer that. I may suggest something to myself and my own answer is along the lines of, "Too much effort." Bad. Very bad. Nowadays too many things get the "Too much effort"line from me. Personal self-destruction. A way out? "Too much effort."

Drat. Forgotten some line I thought about regarding infatuation. Can't remember what it was about also. Yeesh. 'How poor the man who discovers all it ever was was infatuation?' I really really cannot remember the exact line but probably around there. And I wasn't thinking of it due to personal applications. It was just a line. Reason I'm feeling chagrined is that I've forgotten the line so soon.

Sleepy. Probably randomly rant more next time and hopefully without the inner editor staring in horror at what I'm typing (he'd already deleted quite a few paragraphs of dead-end nonsense). Not like this one's getting anywhere.

'Live' with Bambi!

Whoa. From minishorts we followed this link. Very interesting but unsure how informative. btw the Catergory 2 bit minishorts blogged about was informative.

http://homepage.mac.com/gillian_tan/iMovieTheater49.html

Food Fiesta!

I find that I should really learn to be a camwhore if I want to do this kind of blogs right. Unfortunately our (pseudo)phonecam cannot do nightshots well as it doesn't have flash. But still.

Last night we tried a new place: Roadhouse Grill at Jalan Ampang. When I get photos I'll post 'em up. Orders varied from T-bone to Ribeye steaks to Filet Mignon to Mixed Seafood Platter to Lamb Chop...whooo. Food was good. There was a bucket of peanuts to while the time away while waiting for food also. Good place, good food. Just a wee bit hard to reach at Jalan Ampang.

Today met up with 'Ward and Pai Lian to lunch at Sakae Sushi. I guess ordering a sushi set wasn't really a good move as most of the sushi were the regular fare...not much in the lines of crabsticks or fish eggs or salmon...but at least the set was more filling compared to grabbing dishes from the tray. To bad we didn't try ordering 'online', mebbe next time. We did torture our tastebuds and palate as we kinda overdid the wasabi. As we left we filled in the Comments Form: can't recall about the gradings, we guess Pai Lian gave good/average ratings in terms of decor etc, but in the 'Others' we filled in 'Not Enough Cute Guys'. And left them Pai Lian's email. Should check with her one day regarding feedback on that.


After sushi we backtracked to this Chocolate Fountain store we saw...very tempting. A stick of choco-covered strawberries: RM3.50. A stick of choco-covered marshmallows: RM2.50. The chocolate orgasm that follows: priceless.


Our suggestion to spend the rest of the time at Borders had it's good and bad points. Undeniably Borders is a good place to hang out. Unfortunately very hard to control the urge to expand our library, especially when 'Ward also buys books. We encourages him to buy he encourages us to buy. And Pai Lian has to go look at books on food. With pictures. Tempting, sinful pictures of ice-cream. We just had to look for a sorta desserts place after that - ended up in Juiceworks for some yummy smoothies. We had a tropical breeze while both 'Ward and Pai Lian decided to *eat sheet*.


After watching Memoirs of a Geisha we decided to stop by Charms for nibbles (and dinner for njapf). Their Carrot Cake is good, the Fried Wantons were wonderful and the Pineapple Fried Rice came in a pineapple! (No photos to tempt tho' T_T)


After nibbles the family dinner was up! Jake's Charbroil Steak restaurant! Oysters and escargots seem to be our family regular's appetizer where available. Yum. Had me second Garlic Steak and tortured my tastebuds and palate again, this time with mustard.

And so ends our culinary capers.

Learn something new

Yesterday we learned:

• There's only a 1 day returns policy on Padini shirts bought at Jusco Dept stores
• Where to report our lost parking tickets at 1 Utama
• Lost parking tickets cost RM20 now at 1U
• TGIF's make people stand on chairs and give speeches before they sing songs for you
• Making speeches still give me the jitters
• Karaoke sessions need some 3 hours or more to cover most of the songs the majority likes
• We can't sing the default pitch given without doing some falsetto
• Things can only get better

Lazyman's Wrapping 101

We picked up a new trick for wrapping while shopping at MidValley. This be good for wrapping articles of clothing.

Requires:
Tissue-type wrapping paper
String

Place present diagonally on wrapping tissue, front side facing downwards in the middle. Size of present should be roughly 1/3 that of wrapper.

Fold each corner towards the centre. Tissue wrappers have an advantage in that crease lines don't show so you can adjust till you get it right. If the corners fold over to the front, fold backwards and inwards at the edge.

Voila. Then tie up with string. Simple, no?

The Zen of ensuring minimal stress

To ensure stress does not ruin the day even before it begins, one must prepare one's path to work.
For less stress, one prefers to drive to work than commute as it takes less time and one is in control.
For this, the choice for one: 1) should one spend 20 minutes looking for parking space at Kelana Jaya LRT Station before proceeding to take a 45-minute trip to KLCC; or 2) should one drive 20 minutes to KL Sentral and park there before taking a under-10-minute trip to KLCC.
To choose, one thinks: "One is able to claim expenses for working in such a faraway branch, as was dictated by one's contract."
And such is that one has already minimised stress in THREE ways: one does not have to leave earlier to work; one does not have to waste time commuting; and one does not have to worry about expensive parking fees nor mileage nor tolls.

At work, one found out that one did not fully prepare oneself for the lunch meditation: one has forgotten to bring one's Book-Of-The-Moment.
To minimise stress one must have a book for the empty moments of lunch.
One decides the only way is for one to visit Kinokuniya - the retail therapy of shopping also reduces stress and increases happiness.
One decided on a major stress-reducing capable book: Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones' Diary.
See, stress again minimised TREBLY: one has new book; one's lunch is complete; and one did good positive shopping.

During work, one is happy to be able to 'wash one's eyes' as it leads to inner happiness and serenity: the 'quality' of customers in KLCC seen in one day equaled that which one had seen in ALL other branches in ONE YEAR.
One must realise what is meant by 'quality' may differ for different individuals, quite misunderstanding, but so long that the 'quality' looked for reduces stress in one, one is happy.
One also saw 2 happy couples, which somehow elicit the undiplomatic reaction of wanting to laugh within one.
By this, one had no control of how stress was minimised saved by the fortunes of the day.

After work, one must dare the after-work commuters' sardine squash.
One prepares to minimise this part of stress - newly-purchased book in hand, iPod plugged in and bags positioned to cushion one from crowd.
However, new challenge appears to stress one!
"Sila ambil perhatian tuan-tuan dan puan-puan: terdapat masalah di stesen Masjid Jamek, oleh itu kita akan bergerak dengan lebih perlahan-lahan dan berhenti untuk lebih lama di setiap stesen."
One is faced with new choices while one is pushed around by the LRT crowd: does one focus on book or does one watch a podcast, perhaps one like Happy Tree Friends?
Both options provided stress minimization in such an evil situation and so both one did as one desired.

As one prepared for the drive home one now faces the final challenge: the traffic jams at Jalan Damansara and past Plaza Tol Damansara.
One has preparations to minimise the stress of this challenge: Bodyjam 35 music.
One's stress is further minimised by scaring the cars about one by doing the dance moves in one's car to the music.
And stress again is reduced in many ways: time passed much faster with engaging music; dancing makes one happy; risk of accidents reduced with cars worrying for the sake of one.

And one is home.
The penultimate stress-reducing activity is Bodycombat by Calvin.
The ultimate stress-reducing activity is harmonious good dinner.
And the day is done, with minimal stress leading to maximal happiness.

Hopes and Fears

Hopes and fears are something that keep us alive.

I hope for the best but I fear the worse.

Hope allows us to continue living this sometimes dreadful, sometimes wonderful existence. If we hadn't hope, some of us would have jumped off a cliff or similar a long time ago. Imagine going through the drudgery of day-to-day without hope, like walking through a dark tunnel with no light at the end, if there is an end to the tunnel. It's hope that drives one forward:

I should get that bonus/promotion/confirmation by the end of this year!
Someone will come rescue us.
He/She is still single...
Maybe today will be different.
He/She will get better soon...

I hope that things will always remain the same even though I fear that can never be true.

I must say that I tend to live my life partly on a day-to-day basis, I haven't any plans or ambitions for the future. Maybe because part of my life has been handed to me on a plate and I did not question it. But now, life isn't that simple anymore. You could say that 'life sucks once you enter the workforce' but really, life just sucks when you're forced into a change of lifestyle that takes you out of your comfort zone with no aim.

I hope to live simple but I fear its complicated.

I used to be happy with the fact that I was able to stay up all night and take things slowly and leisurely. Now, that's a luxury. Waking up early is mandatory, you've to rush through things everyday, days off are rare and coveted.

And I've to start thinking of the future.

Financing for a car? A house? For retirement? For emergencies? To take holidays? I even have trouble financing my monthly expenditure! And that scares me, because sooner or later there won't be anyone around who can help me. I never really give much thought to anything beyond a month, unless it was a special occasion!

I hope to save enough money to travel by next year but I fear my spending habits make it difficult.

Fear, however, is what keeps us alive instead of blindly rushing into things without care of safety or consequence. It stops us from 'acting now, think later'. Fear for the sake of loved ones, fear of our lives and health, fear of the future...Fear is necessary. But should we let our fears get the better of us? How much fear is good? How do we know our fear isn't actually holding us back from achieving our hopes?

What if this new job I'm applying is worse than my last?
My parents won't approve of him/her/about this.
If I move overseas, I'll be alone...
What if he/she rejects me?
Would this business venture work?
I don't want to get out of bed!

I hope to be happy as a bachelor-for-life but I fear it'll be a rocky road.

I'm a rather shy, timid and tacit person. I don't generally make the first move, and I only show more of myself in the presence of friends. For example, when I go for Bodycombat/Bodyjam alone when the others aren't free I just go through the class as usual but I wouldn't interact with anyone before/after that. Mebbe smile/nod acknowledgement to other regulars, but will only reply if asked, "Where're your other friends?" And then remain in my private cocoon like I do with my lunch breaks during work.

Yeah, it's also my fault because I don't put in any effort to be more sociable. Otherwise I would have probably be much more friendlier with the choir group I was in in Strathclyde. See me, come to practise with my ears plugged in and face stuck in book, join in the singing, and leave after as I came. With the Fencing Club it was my batchmate who did the chatting and I hid in her shadow, joining in conversations occasionally but only with her.

My fault because I fear the effort needed to be sociable. Because I fear my approach isn't correct for building friendships but only acquaintences.

I hope I'm still able to remain aloof but I fear I'm not able to cope without friends anymore.

Now that I'm no longer studying the number of familiar faces has dropped. Thankfully doing my housemanship there was a group of us. And working in a retail pharmacy I met my junior there, along with other pharmacists who were easy to mix with. One thing I suspect difficult when I first tried a sales job was that there wasn't anyone that I could relate to - no one my age mainly or was a pharmacist. Man, I was suppose to be quite independant.

With most friends I don't share much because I fear their reactions (knowing some people). But the quality time spent with my friends now is much better, because with them I am able to be more open. And a part of me actually is afraid about this, because it makes it hard to live without them when they're gone (God forbid anything bad happens). When you've learnt to open up, it's hard to close up and be a recluse again.

I hope to be able to admit some things but I fear rejection.

How would I expect to meet new people, or at times when I contemplate about it, establish a relationship if I dare not make a move? One thing to fear rejection but I dread that it'll lead to a total cut-off. I really let fear control my life on this point. And I cannot move on until it's too late and there is no hope. Then life would move on, with new hopes and fears.

I hope some things were otherwise but I fear that's just wishful thinking.

So. I've been told that I have no backbone, which is true because I let my fears cripple me. How about you?

This is a podcast 3!

My Magic Bean Stalk is getting creepy.

This is a podcast 2!

Whoa. From the hearts-and-arrow symbol to the quote. Worra Magic Bean. Grow big! Reach for the sky!

Scabbed memories 1...

Been rummaging through my piano stool for something other than the Claydermans and classicals and Canon in Ds. And what did I find?

All my old songsheets and exam sheets! The ones from my old church choir days. Just last Christmas the P&W team had sung part of the Celebrate His Glory medley and I was wondering how long ago it's been since I'd heard that song. The medley had most of the advent carols in quite an upbeat tempo.

Another favourite was the God With Us production, originally done by Don Moen (I guess), with our WMCK's Bernard Shim organizing and leading everything. God With Us was big, I mean, BIG. We'd gotten the accompaniment tracks (just background music), we'd plenty o' singers for the SATB, the Praise Team SATB and the Solo singers. *Sigh* Bernard was very much dedicated in serving the Lord, and he did well in music.

Looking back at the songsheets it all just comes flooding back in again. Amazing how you can hear the music by just looking at the notes, all the naunces, the inflections, everybody's parts (having just past puberty I could juggle between tenor and bass then).

I'm gonna hunt down the CDs someday. I think I enjoy Christian songs best as battle hymns (think Cliff Richards' Millennium Prayer).

Then horror struck! Amazing how the brain can edit memories to allow us to continue living life sanely. An excerpt:

Test 8A

(i) To sing or play from memory the lowest part of a short three-part phrase played twice by the examiner. The key-chord and starting note will first be sounded and named, and the pulse indicated...

(ii) To identify the cadence at the end of a further (following) phrase, played twice by the examiner, as perfect, imperfect, interrupted or plagal...

(iii) To identify up to four chords in the above cadential progression, played twice by the examiner, as tonic (root position, first or second inversions), supertonic (root position or first inversion), subdominant (root position), dominant (root position, first or second inversions), dominant seventh (root position), or submediant (root position). Candidates may alternatively use the equivalent roman notation...

OMG ask me now I sure flunk straightaway man. Can't begin to wonder how in the world I managed to pass my Grade 8 (the second time). After all I didn't appreciate all this in my younger years. Thankfully I was allowed to drop my Music Theory at Grade 6. Even looking at the Sight-Reading sheets give me the shudders.

Still, nowadays I think my practical music level has dropped waaay below Grade 6. My best is still my hymnals (to some extent) and playing simple stuff by ear in G (not C, funnily enough, and not D, which is in vocal range).

Blahblahblah

Murmurs of discontent and puzzlement could be heard rippling throughout the Circles of Hell like raindrops on a lake. From the lowest imp to the Dukes of Hell, all wondered why the Prince himself allowed such to go on.

And so Beezlebub asked of Satan:

"What be thine reasoning that the peoples of the Earth be allowed to walk untainted? Surely our mission, nay our very being, against divine right, be to darken the hearts of men and bend their minds to acts of sin? All Hell is puzzled by thine order to quit the temptation and corruption of men and returneth to Pandemonium at speed."

And Satan replied:

"You could start speaking a bit more modern, you know."

"Thine chastenment doth answer not mine question, Lord."

"I want humans to start doing good."

"!" Beezlebub cursed, causing the air around him to turn into something unpleasant. His face squirmed at the thought.

"In the long run you will find that humans, in all their good works, will build their bridge to us. All we need do is wait. There is no need for Armageddon even!"

"I confess that thine logic be difficult to comprehend."

"Wait, and see."

***

And surely enough, in a small matter of time, a road to Hell was paved without the help of evil. Imps fluttered about Pandemonium, demons harassed lost souls already in Hell, the Dukes thought of other classical Grecian tortures, all denizens of Hell were bored and yet...souls were pouring in. Most came rolling down the road, while others still fell from Earth above (none fell from Above anymore however).

And Beezlebub spoke with awe to Satan:

"Lord, how be this?"

And the Prince of Hell told him.

And Beezlebub went to look at the road to Hell.

And he said, "Truely, the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions..."

***

All right. That was stupid. Prolly I'm bored.