"Gotta Knock A Little Harder"

From the soundtrack of Cowboy Bepop The Movie: Future Blues.

Gotta Knock a Little Harder

Happiness is just a word to me
And it might have meant a thing or two
If I'd known the difference

Emptiness, a lonely parody
And my life, another smokin' gun
A sign of my indifference

Always keepin' safe inside
Where no one ever had a chance
To penetrate a break in

Let me tell you some have tried
But I would slam the door so tight
That they could never get in

Kept my cool under lock and key
And I never shed a tear
Another sign of my condidtion

Fear of love or bitter vanity
That kept me on the run
The main events at my confession

I kept a chain upon my door
That would shake the shame of Cain
Into a blind submission

The burning ghost without a name
Was calling all the same
But I just wouldn't listen

The longer I'd stall
The further I'd crawl
The further I'd crawl
The harder I'd fall
I was crawlin' into the fire

The more that I saw
The further I'd fall
The further I'd fall
The lower I'd crawl
I kept fallin' into the fire
Into the fire
Into the fire

Suddenly it occurred to me
The reason for the run and hide
Had totalled my existance

Everything left on the other side
Could never be much worse that this
But could I go the distance

I faced the door and all my shame
Tearin' off each piece of chain
Until they all were broken

But no matter how I tried
The other side was locked so tight
That door it wouldn't open

Gave it all that I got
And started to knock
Shouted for someone
To open the lock
I just gotta get through the door

And the more that I knocked
The hotter I got
The hotter I got
The harder I'd knock
I just gotta break through the door

Gotta knock a little harder
Gotta knock a little harder
Gotta knock a little harder
Break through the door

Au Revoir.....It's been a good run.

I have recently acquired a new car for Initial D, the Honda S2000 (AP1)(Manual). Been running it quite a bit these past few days, trying to get the feel of the manual transmission and to the sensitivity of the steering. Not to mention its more capable engine. Like what Brendan said, there comes a time where you can't do much more in an automatic and this is that time. Not to mention the point of saturation where the ole' Integra can't really keep up with any of the more powerful models which them other players are sporting today. To prove this point my rather decently tuned Integra was beaten by a stock S2000 which Brendan drove. Maybe it just wasn't my day as my mood was never really there, try as hard as i may but to me it was blatant revelation that it's time was up. True you can never really master your car if it's on auto and i would like to come back and switch the Integra to a manual after i've mastered the intricate and delicate art of gear shifting. But for now i need to keep up with the competition so the Integra will be officially put into semi-retirement at the end of October and the S2000 will be the new number 1 car. It's going to take some time but i'll make sure i master the manual transmission before i go back to SG. It's been a good run Integra, but i think it's time for a change.

This is War. The Feud. Vulgar no more.

A series of 3 shorts about what happened during the passing week.

"This Is War"

This was my reply to lil' john's cries of bully and cheat when i gave them no quarter in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade last week. Now i will humbly state that though i might have played the game since it's first release in 2004 (for ye oldies who still remember the original Dawn of War) i am still very much a novice at it. I will readily state that there are many amongst my friends back in Singapore who could very easily hand my ass to me in under 5 minutes. Tim for example has done it before. I do however know that the key to mastering the game is speed, the most decisive factor in every game but even more so in this one. You do not play DoW like other strategy games where you can amass a huge army and slowly slug it out with the other opponent. In DoW you need to strike fast, and strike hard. In fact no game should last more than 15 minutes and i normally attack within 5. Now the way lil' john likes to play games is to slowly build up a huge force and try to slug it out with the enemy in a war of attrition. This is absolutely the wrong way to play DoW and in fact any other strategy game. You do not need huge armies and massive armada's to defeat the enemy, a small elite troop specifically applied to critical targets will just as well win you the game, which is how i usually play. With 3 squads of marines i swept through Roy's base and John's base in under 10 minutes. They were ill prepared with little or no troops to oppose me. John then promptly went on to start his usual whining about cheating, bully, gang bang, etc, etc. And if i remember correctly he was the one who shot his mouth off at how good he is and wanting to challenge me. Fool, i may not play the game very often, but in terms of experience I've got loads more than that upstart who didn't even finish the campaign, the ultimate test of skill where the rush is always the key to success. And i completed it in hard mode. And from what James has told me he does not count that defeat and wants a re-match. Fine with me, I'll crush him slowly this time, just the way he likes it.

The Feud

This is something which has been festering for some time already, a cancerous cell within a body of friends. Now we all know that Roaldy can make quite a jack-ass out of himself sometimes, OK most of the time (ah ha ha ha) but it seems that his overbearing personality is starting to rankle another of the equally stubborn sort, Brendan Tong (aka sibu ang kau). Although I'm not exactly certain of what has happened (i don't live in the city and as such am not around 50% of the time besides I'm more of a stand-in for NYH who is busy wasting his life serving the country, which i will also have to do soon, out of sheer patriotism and because the government is holding $75,000 of mine hostage) it seems that Brendan's patience with Roaldy is fast wearing thin. There was the Camry case, the Dinner case(s), the Foosball case and most recently the Birthday case (actually Brendan was rather pissed off with everyone there). I will only comment on the Foosball case as that was the only one where i was present. Roaldy magically came up with this "no-hacking" rule which meant that the players in the mid-field cannot score goals. His theory was that mid-fielders should pass the ball to the strikers as the strikers are supposed to score the goals. Another argument was that if you score from the mid-field it is purely through luck and chance as you never expected to score from there in the first place. I am of course a reasonably fair person under the depths of the ever constant torrent of vulgarities which i spew out and will forgive him for making one of the most retarded comments which i have ever heard as he is quite foreign to the real game of soccer. Number one, any player can score a goal in soccer, as long as the ball is in the net it's a goal (unless of course a foul was committed or it was offside) . In fact goal-scoring is typically a shared duty between mid-fielders and strikers. The great Peter Schmeichel, a former Manchester United (probably the best ever) goalkeeper, has also scored a few goals in his career. I myself as a goalkeeper and defender have scored that all too miraculous goal once in a blue moon. Secondly, no goals are ever scored by accident (except of course own goals), everyone who takes a shot at goal no matter how outrageous a shot it is intends on scoring. He keeps insisting that i learn to pass to the strikers in order to score as i have a knack for scoring from midfield which obviously pisses him off. All in all i feel that everyone is welcome to have their own opinions about things but they should never try to impose it on others. Roaldy of course has a slight tendency to try and impose his views on others and likes things done his way, feeling that it is "the best" and "proper" way of doing things (a good trait to have if you're a lawyer, but as a person you're asking to get whacked). But it's not like Brendan is any saint himself. In a way you can say that both of them have similar traits, although at varying intensities of course (like magnets, similar people tend to repel each other i guess). I will abruptly conclude this unsightly matter by saying that everyone should try to be accommodating with each other, within a reasonable extent of course. Nothing will be gained through feuding, simple dialogue will more often than not solve such problems fast enough and not leave a sour taste in the mouth.

Vulgar no more

This is of course the story of me trying to get rid of my bad habit of spewing out vulgarities as soon as i open my mouth. Now Brendan, Xander and the kids find this rather strange and feel that something is amiss (with those two coming up with rather strange conspiracy theories). I would just like to clarify that i am not doing this to appease anyone and I'm just trying to find out what effect not saying vulgarities would have on my day. As we can see from my performance last week quite well in fact. I whooped the lot of them at Foosball, blitz through DoW (although the competition was rather lacking) and won the Initial D challenge. I have come up with the theory that by me releasing my daily torrent of vulgarities i am scaring away all my luck and good fortune, not to mention what that amount of shouting does to my throat and concentration. As such the vulgarities will be toned down permanently. So for those who rely on my daily rantings for amusement you'll have to find it somewhere else you sad bunch of.....Besides i have a funny feeling that the vulgarities are contributing to my current and prolonged singlehood.....

Gotta Knock a Little Harder

Been having some sort of a writer's block lately, for no particular reason it just seems that i have run out of subject matter to write about. You'd think that with all the crap that's going on in the world as usual such as the Myanmar crisis and the excessive use of violence by private security firms in Iraq would have provided me with some good material to expand on and write about but sadly the ideas just won't come up. I have actually written a brief draft of my views on the Myanmar crisis but am reluctant to finish it and post it up as the Myanmar crisis is too large and complicated to some up in one post as there is a sod of a large amount of background material which needs to be included to make much sense of the situation today. I might however post it in a few parts, if i ever find the time and motivation to do so of course. I feel that the source of my writer's block comes from the fact that i have not read any good or new novels for the better part of 2 months. The last novel i read being the 2nd Gaunt's Ghost omnibus, "The Saint". I try not to bore the arses off people by writing about my rather routine and increasingly boring daily schedules as my life is simply that uninteresting, such is the life of the single man, single and deprived of his beloved alcohol. In all honesty i haven't had a decent drink since i krunked myself with the Upps the 2nd last Saturday before my return to dreary Melbourne. Now that was some serious shit.....imagine losing consciousness at 8pm and waking up the next day at 8am. Now that was wild, and apparently i caused some real damage as well in my drunk and violent state. The last thing i could remember was drinking mutton soup before my whole world went dark. Now what happened that night i will never remember but it seems that the whole lot of us are banned from ever going to that restaurant again, and apparently i gave my dad a good one to the face in my drunk and homicidal state, much to the amusement of my mum who found that rather hilarious while me dad on the other hand was reasonably pissed. After having imposed an Inquisitorial Edict upon myself after that unsavoury incident it seems that the drinks are slow to come. Well i had a couple when good ole' Morgs came over, a few bottles of rather unsavoury Carona, some red wine of unknown vintage and good ole' Chivas. Nothing too heavy as the lot of them didn't feel like pushing the limits of safe alcohol consumption then. The next time after that was when Sharad had just returned from Adelaide and i met him and the rest to see Jack perform at the preview of MANIFEST 2007 (which i also attended over the course of the next two days, an excellent two days it was!). Then after that it was off to the Union Bar at Melbourne Uni for a few jugs of beer (forgot what it was already.....but it was during happy hour and we got a good deal at $12.50 per jug!!). No more drinking after that till John's birthday party where i only had 1 bottle of Carona for honour's sake as i was rather ill at the time with my voice giving way and all, not to mention a rather horrendous runny nose (which resulted in me postponing my performance when we sang K that night, but I'm sure there will be other times). And since it's already the month of October, the days where i can get illegally drunk are fast ticking away.....and i plan to krunk myself one last time before i take a back seat and let them young'ens take over. Of course i might just think twice about that with the exams being so near an all. Well aside from that not much to add, oh and one last thing, i have been trying to limit my excessive usage of vulgarities these past two days and it seems to have worked quite well if i might add. The only problem is that Brendan and Xander find it rather weird, a Kenneth devoid of vulgarities. And it may be true, after having used them all that much often vulgarities have become very much a part of my character, not a very good trait but nevertheless it was a clear an obvious sign of my direct and and outspoken personality, not being one to beat around the bush with trivial niceties an all. A direct result of my forgoing the use of vulgarities is my rather good form at Foosball and Initial D where i scored some very good wins and comebacks. (MUA! HA! HA! HA!) Not to mention me blitzing my way through Dawn of War: Dark Crusade yesterday with my Midnight Drakes Space Marines. To tell you the truth i was rather shaky as i have not played the game for the better part of 3 months, but the kids, especially lil' john, were no match for me as i was the more experienced player and i play it like how its meant to be played, under 15 minutes blitz style) were no match for me. So there you have it, a Kenneth who limits his alcohol consumption and vulgarity production drastically, and you begin to wonder "What the hell has happened to Kenneth?"

(Side story- Brendan issued me a challenge that if he and Xander could win me at Initial D three times consecutively i would have to change my car and switch over to using manual transmission. The courses chosen for the challenge against Brendan were, Akina Uphill, Irohazaka Downhill and Tsukuba Inbound. Courses chosen against Xander were Akina Downhill, Irohazaka Uphill and Tsukuba Outbound. I promptly handed their asses back to them and kept my Integra Type R DC-2 (automatic). WHOOP PAH!!)

The month of October.

CHEE BAI LAN JIAO! It's already October! How fast it seems time goes by this year. October means many things to many different people, for the Germans, Oktober Fest, a month of wild lager chugging which i plan to attend sometime in the future. But for me, October heralds the beginning of the end of a rather lacklustre year, and of course the coming of the long-awaited big 1-8. Not to mention the exams, which will of course be preceded by intense cramming. I can safely say that this year has been a rather quiet one, with many characters missing from last year's portrait. The loud-mouthed and insane Nyh, the unassuming Andrew who seems to be good at everything and good ole' alcohol guzzling Brendan (the Indian one) all of whom are "proudly"(more like cursing and swearing their bums off.....) serving the state in NS. Then there's Morgan, the Monkey Sage, who after making a rather disastrous and i must say ludicrous decision to further his studies in Malaysia finally seemed to remember that he does in fact have a fully functioning brain and that he should give himself a better chance in life by going back to Australia to study. However he seemed to have gotten himself rather lost and confused and ended up in the wrong frakkin' state, instead of Melbourne he ended up in Queensland. So, life has pretty much quietened down abit without these troublemakers around, not to mention gotten a lot more dull. Of course the next time these fellas come over,it'll be my turn to go back for god-damned NS, althought i can safely assume that not many people will even notice i was even there to begin with, although the sudden vacuum of vulgarities might leave the barest hint of my existance to begin with. So we have the month of October, 3 more months left to 2007, 4 more weeks left to my first paper and approximately 2 months before i return to Singapore. Again i wonder what new adventures await me when i return, will i encounter stranger and more insane characters, will there be a "fateful" encounter of sorts? That of course will be a thing of the very near future, the current matter at hand is to of course get myself wasted, one last time, my final act of insane illegal drinking, before i'm finally 18. Let me savour what little of this youth remains, and then after that i guess i'll have to take life more seriously. And of course it'll have to take me more seriously too. And after the drink, it's time to do the cramming of my life, to study like i've not done since the days of the legendary 'O' Level cramming sessions, greater even than that, because this time the stakes are much higher, because this time my future is well and truly on the line. I pray then for the strength and wisdom, to do what must be done.