March 2003 – Page 4 – sixthseal.com

Magnum “The Sixties Nine” #1 – Wood Choc

March 16, 2003 by HB

Oh no! Magnum came out with another limited edition series! Now I’ve
got to eat all of them again. This series is called “The Sixties Nine”
and it’s about icons and themes of the 60s. There are 9 flavors in
total, but the series is probably also named that way for the other
connotation. The one I just ate is called Wood Choc, a word play on the
Woodstock [woodstock69.com] festival.

This is the cover:

Psychedelic theme with part of a guitar visible.

This is the back:

It’s the summer of love, and this festival’s all about loving the
ice cream. Slide your naked tastebuds though thick mud ice cream and
rock on and on and on.

This is the Magnum:

It’s mud ice cream inside with a strange chocolate-white
chocolate-chocolate shell. Tastes like chocolaty chocolate chocolate.
Does that make sense? 🙂

This is the stick:

Share love, not ice cream.

I’ll post more when I eat them. 🙂

My tattoos

March 16, 2003 by HB

For Likki [blogspot.com]:

This is the one on the right wrist. Just a plain barb wire design I
did back in 1997 in Christchurch. Did it on a whim while passing by a
tattoo place. I’m just impulsive like that. The tattoo artist forced me
to give it a 2 hour cooling off period to consider it. He actually said
24 hours coz I was just 16 then. Heh. Managed to convince him that I’ve
given it serious thought after 2 hours. Didn’t regret it, however I had
to wear a bandage around it during Form 5 in Malaysia because of school
rules. A running joke was that I was so accident prone my left wrist
was always fractured. 🙂

This is the one on the left, done in 2000 in Melbourne. It’s between
the wrist and elbow and reads “Louisa Lee”, my girlfriend’s name. The
tattoo artist also asked me to seriously reconsider this as she has met
plenty of people who did tattoos of their girlfriends/boyfriends and
came back a couple of months later after they have broken up to do a
cover up tattoo. I was forced to give it a 2 hour waiting period before
she would do it. I was with two other people so we just went to Burger
King and talked. One of my friends wanted to do one of her boyfriend’s
name too, but she was underage. It’s 18 for tattoos here. It’s done in
gothic font and the inside of the hollow fonts are purple bleeding into
a white center. The color doesn’t really come out on the digicam. I
actually have before and after photos of this taken, but they’re back
in my home in Malaysia. Those are intriguing, if you like to see blood.
😉 I never regretted this either, and I’m still with my girlfriend.

Mine are currently pretty standard stuff but I want to do a big
piece on my back with a large crucifix and Jesus with his thorn of
crowns and wounds and everything. The cross will have INRI on it and
below I’ll have “Leading the wild into the ways of the man”.
Unfortunately, my father threatens to disown me after I bounced the
idea off him. 🙂

Another one I wanted to do is a large dragon (not ah beng style)
starting from my right thigh and winding around my body and the head
comes up above my right shoulder and it’s breathing fire and there’s a
scene of hell on my chest and stomach and they’ll be little flying imps
trying to put the fires out with buckets of water. One of the fires
will be engulfing my left chest around my nipple. There will be another
wall of fire on my stomach to border the scene from hell. I thought
that would go well with the crucifix on the back. Oh well, that’s what
I’ll like to have someday. Just need to convince a couple of people
that this is a good idea. 😉

I’m not quite sober now, and I strongly suspect I’ll regret making this post tomorrow.

Magnum “The Sixties Nine” #2 – Cherry Guevara

March 16, 2003 by HB

This is the second one I ate. It’s called Cherry Guevara and it’s a word play on Ernesto Che Guevara (1928-1967)
[el-comandante.com] the revolutionary figure who became Minister for
Industry in Cuba in the 60s. He wrote the book Guerrilla Warfare and
was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis as well. Hmm…a bit of a
history lesson going on here. 🙂 Anyway, the ice cream tasted really
good but the cherry taste is a bit strong. It tasted good because of
that anyway.

This is the cover:

Lots and lots of cherries in the background and a black and white picture of Che Guevara.

This is the back:

The revolutionary struggle of the cherries was squashed as they were
trapped between two layers of chocolate. May their memory live on in
your mouth!

This is the Magnum:

It’s plain vanilla ice cream but the cherry sauce was really strong
tasting and that made it taste good. Not making much sense here.
Yeah…the cherry sauce is between two layers of chocolate shells. Gives
it a bizarre effect and looks pretty. 🙂

This is the stick:

We will bite to the end!

Well, writing this with correct grammar and spelling and punctuation
took a lot of concentration and a lot of help from Microsoft Word.
Haha! Yes…a little personal joke there.

Old photo of me (1997)

March 15, 2003 by HB

Aha! I found an old picture of me (circa 1997) in my autograph. Yes,
I had one back in Form 5. I was going for a Keith (Prodigy) hairstyle
and I had a nose piercing through the middle part of my nose then. I
remember being forced by my Biology teacher to remove the piercing the
next day. She won’t let me go on the field trip otherwise. Hah! This
was in Christchurch, New Zealand. I was doing Year 12 there at that
time. Come to think about it, in that year alone, I had piercings on:
the middle part of my nose, the right side of my nose, two on my left
eyebrow, 5 on my left ear, my lower lip and my tongue. Not all at the
same time though. And it cost me NZ$40 for each one, except for the
tongue piercing which was NZ$100. I also got a barb wire tattoo on my
right wrist too, for good measure. Geez…I was such an attention freak
then. I admit it! I did it all for attention! :p Well, I was studying
in Riccarton High School
[riccarton.school.nz] then. Er…looking at their webpage, I noticed that
the principal is still the same. I had a few run-ins with him during my
time there. Wonder if he still remembers me…Now, I’ve removed all my
piercings (except the tongue piercing – it wasn’t visible) after my
1998 image makeover (returned to a Malaysian high school), but I did
get another tattoo in 2000. Unfortunately, I also lost the tongue
piercing due to the stud disappearing down the sink in a teeth brushing
accident. Couldn’t get it replaced coz they don’t sell those things in
my hometown. Hmm…the urge to pierce is with me again…

Hot Wong’s @ Clayton

March 15, 2003 by HB

Hot Wong’s @ Clayton Road

I checked out Hot Wong’s today with Adrian and Christopher. It’s a
newly opened Asian food outlet at Clayton and we all live in Clayton so
we might as well check out the new place to eat in town. The first
thing that struck me about this place is the sign that said “20%
discount if you present your student card”. 20% is a pretty high
discount, especially for food.

Hot Wong’s Interior

Anyway, I had the KL Chilli Chicken. It comes with rice if you order
the combo meal. Oh, and when you order a meal, all soft drink cans are
80 cents only. I went for a more interesting drink though – canned
young coconut juice (with pulp). Come to think about it, I’ve never
heard of KL Chilli Chicken until today. Is there such a thing as KL
Chilli Chicken?

Hot Wong’s KL Chilli Chicken

Well, the dish was quite hot (about 2/5 on my scale) but I have a
high threshold for hot food, so your mileage may vary. The portions are
fairly generous, but it’s not the size of normal Chinese restaurants. I
had to dig around a bit to find the meat in the mix too. Most of it was
vegetables.

One of the many pieces of art (?) on the wall – each one shows a
stick figure with a rice farmer hat engaged in a different sport

Anyway, I guess the best thing about this place is the prices. It’s
really cheap, compared to other places around here. The meal was A$6.50
and that’s only A$5.20 after the 20% discount. Just remember to show
your Student ID card when you order your meal. 🙂

Interesting fact: The counter was staffed by a Caucasian female. Not something you see every day in Asian restaurants.

Pill: @ (brownish white with blackish brown specks)

March 14, 2003 by HB

Pill Name: @ (ats), dot coms
Pill Color: Brownish white with blackish brown specks
Content: MDMA (tested)
Availability: Melbourne
Circa: March 2003

@ – Front (digicam macro mode)

This is my first time taking Ecstasy (MDMA) at home. I’ve always
only taken it during raves. I wanted to see what Ecstasy feels like
after you’ve just got off a dexamphetamine run and is coming down like
a ton of bricks, tired as fuck, depressed and hungry from not having
any solid food in 52 hours. Ecstasy is a very mood dependant drug when
compared to other drugs. My serotonin and dopamine levels are probably
running on near empty after my dex run so I wanted to see if I would
still roll after taking a pill.

I didn’t get much sleep, but managed to knock myself out with 3 mg
of clonazepam and a couple of bowls of weed last night. I haven’t slept
for 48 hours before that. The last time I took Ecstasy was in October 2002
[monash.edu.au]. Now that’s a war story to tell the grandkids. 😉 I
overdid it back then, especially with the meth. 🙂 With hindsight, the
cannabis I thought was laced with PCP was probably just a strong strain
after all. And all the pills were probably MDMA. MDMA gets converted
into MDA so hallucinations are possible if you take a lot. The amount
meth I consumed that time made me paranoid as hell and all strung out.

@ – Back (digicam macro mode)

Anyway, I ate half and snorted the other half. The brownish white @
tasted like pepper! I wonder if pepper is one of the things they used
as a binder or a cut. Speculating whether the black specks are pepper.
🙂 I felt apprehensive about snorting the other half after that. I did
insufflate the other half 5 minutes later anyway. It didn’t burn going
up, but after a couple of minutes…whoa! It felt like my sinuses were on
fire! It felt very uncomfortable for several minutes.

I didn’t roll at all, but my pupils were hugely dilated. No loved up
feelings, instead I felt irritable, depressed and tired. Running on
empty I guess. Very sleepy too. It was extremely dsyphoric during the
come up. Well, I’m going to smoke a couple of bowls of cannabis now and
eat something and get some sleep. Really, really depressed right now.
The @s are psychoactive, I feel some MDMA type effects but I’m just too
tired to roll I guess.

That was what I wrote until nearly 15 minutes later when the oral
dose kicked in. =D Still tired as fuck but more alert up now, cold
clammy hands pupils obscenely dilated, totally scattered. I am rolling
hard now, getting visual distortions from my prodigiously sized pupils,
and feeling good, but still very tired and hungry and there’s this
nagging feeling that I just want it to end and get some sleep. This is
a good MDMA pill if otherwise, but I’m just too tired and not in the
mood.

Lesson learnt: Don’t roll when you’re running on empty.

@ – Front (scanned)

Fuck, now I gotta deal with the horrible E-pression tomorrow. I
didn’t even get much out of the pill due to being tired. I’m so
scattered right now. Going to post it anyway, although I don’t make
sense to myself too. lalala

Okay, I’m rolling really hard now and feeling great but I’m still
tired. My jaws are permanently clenched! Hehehe! Man, I’ll be feeling
super now if I wasn’t tired. Should have eaten before I dropped the
pill. The lesson still applies thought. 🙂 Feeling very loved up now!
What a wasted pill! I would have felt wonderful if I wasn’t hungry and
tired. I want to go out now, but I’m still too hungry and tired. And I
can’t eat. Yuck! Appetite suppressed. Thought of eating…ugh…blurry
vision…

My jaws are clenching so hard. I feel like throwing up. Hehehe Not
sleepy anymore, but tired and hungry. Hai…trying not to throw up.
Nausea. Music euphoria. Very loved up. I’m tired because I haven’t
eaten in days and I can’t eat now coz my appetite is suppressed. Heh!
My hands cold. My hands clammy. My feet cold. My feet clammy. 🙂 If
only I wasn’t so tired, I’ll be out the door and off to a rave in
second!

@ – Back (scanned)

Oh my God, such a body high right now. I sound so cliché but
touching feels wonderful. Next time I’m only going to eat Es coz
snorting just makes me feel the speedy parts without the good parts. I
want to talk more but I should stop before I make more of a fool out of
myself. 😉

P/S – This is not usually my report style but I’m still peaking now
and my scattered-ness can be pretty apparent. 🙂 I could have waited
till tomorrow and edited it a bit but I don’t care, coz I’m happy now
and I WANT to post it. So there! 🙂
Peaking…so…hard…wow…if…only….I…wasn’t…so…tired…and…hungry…this…would…be…heaven…

Lesson #2 would be DON’T TAKE E AT HOME! What a waste, going to a
rave would be so good right now. I think Lesson #2 supercedes Lesson #1
coz I’m feeling great now even though I’m running on empty. Haha!

Oh, I have a theory. When you don’t eat for a long time, instead of
absorbing any stuff you eat faster, it actually slows down the
absorption time because the interstines have slowed down their process
coz you dodn’t eat for too long. That’s my theory anyway about why it
hit me so late.

I’m not even tired or hungry anymore! Hah! Such a body high, touch
feels so good. Ignore the earlier Mr. Sour Puss paragraphs, I’m feeling
absolutely great right now! 🙂 Ignore Mr. Sour Puss. Or taunt him! Mr.
Sour Puss, nyeh nyeh. I’m Mr. Happy right now! :)Okay, I’m not going to
write anymore, don’t want to waste the roll WRITING! I can’t even see
clearly anyway. 🙂

-veritas (Mr. E-tard)
March 2003

If only I had something better than words to tell you how wonderful I’m feeling right now…

Question:How are you feeling?
Answer:I’m SUPER! Thanks for asking! (sung to the Big Gay ‘Al theme song in South Park)

Mummified possum

March 14, 2003 by HB

Look at this picture of a dead possum! It was left out for so long it looks slightly mummified.

Saw it today while using a shortcut back to halls. It’s a rarely
traveled path so it’s no wonder it’s been unnoticed for so long. I’m
gonna make this Picture of the Day. 🙂

Well, I finally sorted out all my subjects today. Today is the last
day to add subjects and 5 pm is the cut off time. I got an email from
the GSC2714 Alcohol and Drug Use
[monash.edu.au] lecturer at around 4 pm that said I could enroll in the
subject even if I didn’t do the co-requisite. I did a first year
Psychology subject back in Inti College, Kuching and he accepted that
as a pre-requisite.

In a last minute decision, I dropped one of my CSSE subjects and
took this one. I already had more than enough 3rd year CSSE subjects to
meet the requirements and already had enough for two specializations,
so I’m taking an interesting subject for a change this semester. I’ve
previously only taken subjects from the CSSE (Computer Science and
Software Engineering) faculty.

We actually have several free electives where we can take subjects
from other faculties, but I’ve never exercised that option until now. I
also found out that we need 36 points of second year subjects and I
only had 30 before this semester. I had always taken 3rd year subjects
and logically that should be alright, since 3rd year subjects are
harder. But there is a quota of 2nd year subjects which I haven’t
fulfilled, so that’s why I’m taking some 2nd year subjects in my final
semester. A bit weird eh, but I’ve already done more than enough 3rd
year CSSE subjects.

My final subject list:

CSE3151 COMMUNICATION NETWORK PERFORMANCE
CSE2030 WEB INTERFACE TECHNOLOGY
ELC1000 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE FUNDAMENTALS
GSC2714 ALCOHOL AND DRUG USE

This should be an easy semester for me. I’ll be pretty comfortable
with CSE3151 and CSE2030 from the subject description. I’m also taking
a first year subject from the Electronic Commerce faculty as an
elective coz I figured it’ll be easy and it’s somewhat related to my
degree anyway. And finally, GSC3714 Alcohol and Drug Use, a Behavioral
Science faculty subject and something I’m personally interested in, so
this should be fun. They even have an agency visit to a related
organization planned, which we’re supposed to write up and give a
presentation on.

I also managed to allocate all my classes to Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday so I have an extra long weekend. Heh! 🙂 Well, I also paid all
my bills and sorted out some stuff today so everything is ready for the
new semester. Did you know I couldn’t make outgoing calls on my cell
phone yesterday because I forgot to pay the bill? It just slipped my
mind and I only paid it today and got it unbarred again.

Paid my course fees and halls rent too, so everything is settled.
Phew. Had to run around a bit today. Since there is a limit of EFTPOS
transactions here, I had to withdraw A$3,500 from the bank earlier in
the day to pay for everything. They didn’t have A$100 notes so it was
all in A$50 notes. I couldn’t even fit that pile in my wallet! I tried,
but my wallet wouldn’t fold after that. I had to carry it around like a
stack of letters.

Anyway, there seems to be a lot of competing calling cards nowadays.
The prices for calls to Malaysia have all dropped down to several cents
compared to 20c when I just came here. There were heaps advertising
4.9c, 3.9c, 3c and such. I saw a new card called Australian Express
which stated 3c to Malaysia. Usually, the quality of the connection for
the low cost ones are terrible, so I just got an A$5 one to test it out.

I found out that it was made by the same company as Planet Telecom Australia
[sixthseal.com], which I mentioned in that post as having an absolutely
terrible connection. The dial in numbers for Australian Express were
the same as Planet Telecom Australia so I wasn’t expecting much. I was
pleasantly surprised that the connection quality has improved. However,
they have an absolutely appalling connection fee/flagfall/watever. I
called back home to discuss my subjects with my dad and got my mom and
I called my dad’s cell and talked for probably all of 15 minutes and
that was the end of the card.

Granted, it was only a A$5 one, and calls to cell phones are charged
a higher rate, but that means their connection fee is really, really
high. It said I had 96 minutes when I called my home phone (there’s
something wrong with their math here somewhere, that’s not 3c per
minute) and 63 minutes when I called my dad’s cell, so I reckon the
connection fee (the fee that’s charged each time you use it) is A$1+.
That’s a ridiculous amount, so I don’t think this card is worth it
unless you buy higher denominations and plan to talk for a long time.

Almost heaven, West Virginia

March 13, 2003 by HB

Good news! I have wonderful news! The issue with my CSE3153 Network
Administration subject, which marks were withheld because my
assignments were somehow lost, has been resolved! I resubmitted the
assignments (which was why I was up all night yesterday) and have
gotten word that I’ll get a Credit for the subject! I did correctly
predict my expected marks [sixthseal.com] after all. Wonderful news by itself, but wait…when it rains, it pours! =D

Remember that I failed my summer semester subject? The BUS3650
Business Applications of Neural Networks one? Yeah, I got a 45, which
is a Fail. I’ve been talking to my course coordinator, Sylvia Tucker
who has been extremely helpful and I ended up getting a Near Pass. A
Near Pass is considered a pass and counts towards the credit points so
that’s good news indeed! I don’t have to re-take any subjects and I’m
taking a normal workload this semester. Many thanks to Sylvia and also
my lecturer Kate Smith for making this happen. Anyone notice the
abundance of hyperbolic adjectives in this post? It’s because I’m
absolutely st0ked! =D

Life is peachy…

Yeah, I bought a nectarine at Coles before I came back just to add
that “Life is peachy” sentence and a peach picture in the post. It cost
me 81 cents if you’re interested to know. I was anticipating that
things will resolve itself this way, and it sure did! 🙂 Ah…the 81
cents wasn’t spent in vain. 😉

Anyway, I didn’t get any sleep last night, but I’m still alright. I
actually spent more time doing other things than my assignment last
night. I spent 2 hours at McDonalds with my buddies and ended up
surfing a whole lotta blogs and making comments here and there. I only
rallied up and started working seriously at 3 am. Heh! It’s all good,
everything is resolved now and I can finally get into my last semester.

Well, there’s another thing, I also received word from my IE client
Jason Ceddia that we’re passing the subject for sure, although the
grade is still unknown. Rains. Pours. =D Anyway, tell you about my
day…went to uni early in the morning to print out my stuff and
discovered that my account was locked because there is one unpaid
subject. I have paid for the whole year last June but I didn’t know IE
was considered as two subjects, so I have to pay for an extra subject.

Anyway, that’s okay, gonna pay everything tomorrow so my account
will be unlocked again. Good thing my halls net access is still online.
Well, since I couldn’t use the computers in uni to print out my stuff,
I went to see Ashley (my IE supervisor) and he kindly allowed me to use
his computer and his staff printer to print out my stuff. It has just
been a good day for me, everything is falling into place nicely. 🙂

Yeah, anyway, I can take an elective from any faculty this semester.
I’ve done most of my 3rd year CSSE (Computer Science and Software
Engineering) electives so I’ve got some free electives stashed away. I
was very, very interested to take this:

BNS3052 Drugs, brain and altered awareness [monash.edu.au]

An excerpt:

Clinical, prescribed and recreational drugs are discussed in
regard to their modes of action on brain cells, the regions of brain
targeted and their effects on cognition and behavior.

What an interesting elective to take! It’s from the Faculty of
Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and I would have really enjoyed
doing this subject. I mean really enjoyed it, instead of thinking of it
as uni work, I’ll be willing to spend heaps of personal free time on
it. I reckon I would do well in it too…;)

Well, too bad it’s only offered in the second semester, and it’s the
first semester now. 🙁 Too bad, that would have been a very interesting
subject to take. Another interesting one is:

CGP1004 Alcohol and drugs [monash.edu.au]

An excerpt:

Management of withdrawal and brief and long term management
strategies are discussed in relation to alcohol, nicotine,
benzodiazpine, opiates, stimulants, cannabis and other drugs.

They misspelled benzodiazepine. It has an ‘e’. Don’t mean to be the
Spelling Nazi, but this is pretty basic to get wrong. This subject
sounds slightly anti-drug compared to the previous one, which sounded
neutral and more interested in research than moral issues. Oh well,
it’s a second semester subject as well, so there’s no point drooling
over this. I can’t take it coz it’s the first semester now! I would
have loved to take the first one though, I would have enjoyed working
on that one indeed! I’ll be interested to do some research (in the name
of science of course, what were you thinking?) on whether high doses of
methamphetamine actually causes the irreversible degeneration of
dopamine receptors and dopamine transporter loss. 😉

Ah yes…I lost my train of thought.

Project A.N.T.S. Part I

March 13, 2003 by HB

What happens when you leave a pile of eaten drumsticks for 5 minutes in autumn?

Almost heaven, West Virginia…

Someone tell me to finish my assignment already, I’m doing everything except that!

Don’t wake me from this dream…

March 13, 2003 by HB

My pupils dilate when I see you
A glimpse of your white skin
You smell so good, you taste so pleasant
There is no happiness like mine

Being with you makes me feel like God
Blasphemy, you give me so much pleasure
I want to be with you every second of the day
There is none other like you

I lick your skin, I eat you out
I savor the smell of your presence
Fill my nostrils with your essence
I want to make love to you

Fleeting, like a feather in a breeze
Leaving, after a scant few hours with me
Fickle, you leave me wanting
My pupils constrict, I feel like shit

Dexamphetamine, my love
Don’t ever leave me
Speak my name…
I want you here with me…

Don’t wake me from this dream…(A chemical love story)
– veritas March 2003