Behold, I draw again

draw.jpg

This is what I always drew in high school when our art teacher said “bebas” during art class. Bebas
= free, which indicates the topic of the day was to draw anything you
want. As you can see, I’m not very gifted in the arts, so inevitably,
I’ll hand up this picture. It was always drawn this way too, a house, a
sun in the top right hand corner, a pond with a duck inside (complete
with lines depicting the movement of the duck), a tree on the left side
of the house and several clumps of grass at the bottom left hand corner
to fill up the blank space. It feels good to render my favorite piece
of art once more. πŸ™‚

Kinder Surprise

kinder1.jpg

What exactly is the surprise that lurks within a Kinder Surprise?
Like me, most, if not all of you have asked yourselves the very same
question at some point in your lives. Unable to let this pressing
question go unanswered, I picked up one of these when I went grocery
shopping a couple of days ago.

kinder2.jpg

I tore the packaging off the chocolate egg and bit the top part off.
Inside laid this small capsule that looks deliciously compact, and
inside the capsule were various bits and pieces and an instruction
sheet. Assembling the toy was a fairly easy process, and the end result
is this:

kinder3.jpg

A dog with only two legs and an unfortunately long neck.

Out with the old, in with the new

27febcss.jpg

I changed the Cascading Style Sheet because I was caught in a wave
of dysphoria while looking at the old one. The spice extends life. The
spice expands consciousness. This new one looks cleaner, nicer. I am
afraid of Track #6. The “All hail The Creator” one. The Creator cometh!
Whose pupils are dilated? Is it yours? It’s gotta be yours, coz it’s
not mine! The little fan sits on the little bed and spins its little
blades. Flange flange flange. Nevermind, lah. Ting ting ting, bells a
ringin’. Hlp, I’m drownd. That was from Bag of Bones. One two, buckle
my shoe, three four, shut the door, five six, pick up sticks, seven
eight, lay them straight. London bridge is falling down falling down
falling down. London bridge is falling down. My fair lady. Please
define. You better do it soon, because the stick is very angry. hahaha
Erm…yes.

A haiku:
Rice is long and grain
The small grains are sun and soft
Bring me to a boil

Mindfuck! Newspower! Your store with more! Oh, so much more, baby.
Needful things, you see. Flange flange flange. Paleolithic 35,000,
Neolithic 25,000, Mesolithic 15,000, Besi & Gangsa 2,500. Will I
live to see tomorrow? One two, buckle my shoe, three four, touch the
floor, five six, eat up sticks, seven eight, mash them straight. London
bridge is falling down falling down falling down and London bridge is
falling down my fair laydee. And this is me going Goooooooooood
Mooooooooooorrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiinnnnggggggggggggg
Melbourne!

The lid of a rice cooker is his hat. Please don’t take it away. It
needs the hat to shade himself against the sun. Why is a passport a
passport? Hmm…something to think about eh? Or not. I don’t give a fuck
either way. If you want, think about it. If you don’t want, fuck off,
no one is pointing a gun to your head and forcing you to do anything.
Just remember Bi-Lo, where there is extra value for YOU! Yes, you heard
me right! Extra value, just for YOU!

I’m going to throw up. Delirium, schizophrenia with a unique 3D
shape. Urg. Knock knock knock says ICQ. Three times lucky, says OCD, my
friend Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Whoever he is. Quick review, I
feel a need to write. The smallest things are significant. And the
fnords are everywhere, don’t you think otherwise. London bridge is
falling down, falling down, falling down.

Everytime I go to the toilet I feel an urge to puke. 755-25-25 Pizza
Hut Delivery! PLUR. Peace Love Unity Respect. An overturned saucepan
with boiling hot margarine on the floor. Floosh floosh floosh. Intense.
Saucers. Not the flying kind. It’s so powerful. Oh my God, It’s really
so powerful. What a powerful mindfuck! It’s a Teacher! Man, it’s so
crazy over here. So crazy…

I see! No really, I see!!!

If I’m not making sense, it’s because I’m not making sense.

HEROIN

Disclaimer: This is a post by veritas [mailto:].

heroin.jpg
A off-white solid chunk of heroin in foil.

Heroin. The name alone invokes fear in the hearts of man. Okay,
maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you’ve gotta admit, this drug sure
has a bad name. πŸ™‚ There is a particular ‘S’ suburb here that’s known
for having dealers of heroin on the streets. I went to check the place
out at the beginning of the week. There are several dodgy looking
people around the main street, and after standing in front of the
central part, I noticed several guys who seem to be a permanent fixture
of the place. One of the guys were obviously nodding out, stumbling
around with a vacant stare and all that. I went up to one of them and
stuck up this conversation:

Me: Hello, are you from around here?
Dealer: Yeah, what’s up?
Me: I hear you can get stuff here.
Dealer: (cautiously) What kind of stuff?
Me: Drugs.
Dealer: What do you want?
Me: What do you have?
Dealer: I only have heroin, you know, smack.
Me: Okay, how much are they?
Dealer: How much do you want?
Me: I only want a small amount.
Dealer: I have A$50 caps.
Me: Sure, I’ll have one of those. I hear there’s a lot of cops around here too, should we go somewhere else?
Dealer: Yeah, you gotta be careful around here, there’s heaps of
cops in this area. I’m scared man, you don’t look like the type that
buys smack.
Me: Well, I’m just experimenting. I’m a student, actually.
Dealer: Okay, walk with me.
(We walk into a shopping center)
(He seems to chew on something for a bit and inconspicuously slips something out of his mouth and hands it to me)
Dealer: Here you go.
(I hand him a A$50 bill)
Dealer: Is this your first time doing smack?
Me: Yeah. I was planning to just snort it.
Dealer: It works better if you smoke it. Just burn it on a foil and smoke it with a straw or something.
Me: Yeah. I know that method too.
Dealer: Okay, take it easy man.

h_cap.jpg
The bag of heroin, look at the detail in the knot. Very nicely wrapped.

After that exchange, I left with a small package wrapped in balloon
that just came out of someone’s mouth. I heard that dealers of heroin
do that here, so that if they’re arrested by the police, they just need
to swallow the balloon packages and they can just throw up or wait for
it to come out on the other end. Thinking about that disturbed me
somewhat, and I proceeded to walk into a restaurant to wash my hands.

h_capsz.jpg
Size comparison – pictured with an A$2 coin.

Upon reaching home, I inspected the package I had just got. It’s a
nicely wrapped bag that’s slightly smaller than the diameter of a
pencil. It’s very, very small indeed. The outer layer of the bag is a
balloon that’s been wrapped and knotted very tightly. I couldn’t undo
the knot so I just snipped it off with a pair of scissors. Inside the
bag was a small piece of heroin wrapped in aluminum foil. Professional
gift wrappers would be proud of the finesse going into the packaging of
heroin. πŸ™‚

h_open.jpg
The heroin is wrapped in a small piece of aluminum foil and put into the balloon.

Anyway, the heroin came in an off-white solid chuck, which was quite
hard to break up. I used a spoon to split it in half and made it into
powder by running the back of the spoon repeatedly over that chunk.
Sources say that the cap contains approximately 50 mg of heroin. I was
surprised at the small amount contained in the cap, until I learnt that
heroin is active at very small amounts. Usually first time users do
about ΒΌ of the bag if they’re injecting, but since I won’t be using
that method of administration, I decided to insufflate (snort) Β½ of the
bag and leave the other Β½ for smoking in two days time.

h_foilsz.jpg
The solid chunk of heroin in the aluminum foil.

h_rock.jpg
The off-white solid piece of heroin next to A$2 coin.

Heroin – Insufflated – 25 mg (approximately)

h_pwdr.jpg
The line of heroin after I powdered it with a spoon.

10:10 pm
burned a fair bit going up the nose.decided to snort half of that
amount to be safe. yeah its definately burning a fair bit when i
snorted it.

10:13 pm
just tasted the drip. bitter.

10.14 pm
yeah…i feel warm. then again its summer. hahaha πŸ™‚

10:16 pm
shit…that just like snuck up on me. i didn’t even notice it until
now. hehehe yeah, its euphoric πŸ™‚ i’m feeling sedated, very nice. gonna
snort the other half in 3 minutes unless something happens.

10:17 pm
this is going to sound cliche, but it feels good just to sit here.i
even forgot to turn on my fan and summer here is hot.now that i think
about forgetting to turn on the fan, i’m not even bothering to turn it
on. you know wat i mean?

10:20 pm
very noticable effects already, but i’m going to snort the other half anyway.

10:20 pm
okay, maybe that was a bad idea coz i’m still peaking right now…but whats done is done.

10:23 pm
yeah its very noticable now. i feel like the world is muffled…everything seems so far away.

10:27 pm
very prone to zoning out. just sat there looking at my hand and that just feels nice.

10:32 pm
everything feels so surreal. so surreal.

10:34 pm
i get that numb feeling. my face is numb and so are my fingers. everything has a slow quality to it. slow. tingly.

10:40 pm
its very different to a stimulant high. i’m just feeling so safe and
contented, its a cliche but its true. it feels the way it does when
you’re young and you’ve just woke up from a good night’s sleep and the
warm sun is shining in and today’s a holiday and you don’t have to do
anything, you just lay in bed and read and its comfortable. that made
me smile. πŸ™‚

10:44 pm
this just feels so good. it’s not like other drugs, its not the
ecstatic happiness of MDMA (feels like you’re about to go on a really
good vacation you’re really looking forward to), it’s not like
stimulants where you go “fuck i can take on the world!!!”, this is like
a comfortable, very comfortable feeling that you lose as soon as you go
into puberty. its an innocent sort of comfortable where the best thing
is that you’re feeling comfortable and safe and warm in your house. and
that’s all that matters, nothing can hurt you. its the feeling of
picnics and reading books and eating cheese cake and nice weather and
mom taking care of you when you’re sick and i’ve got it! its the
feeling of being a kid, where there are no real problems, only little
ones, and you don’t need to do anything, you just hang around and feel
comfortable and they’re parents there to take care of you. damn, thats
what it feels like. return to childhood.
its the feeling of waking up on a saturday morning to the smell of
french toast and you just lie around in bed waiting for your mom to
call you down to eat breakfast and you’ve had a great nites sleep and
the only thing you want to do is read a good book, a safe book where
there are no great problems and everything turns out to be okay in the
end. jesus, you just don’t get this feeling anymore after you grow up.
no wonder people get addicted to this shit. it’s really comfortable.

10:56 pm
my lips feel numb and my tongue feels swollen and it’s a little hard to
breath but it’s all good. damn, it’s all good. this is not the Oh my
fucking god, this is great when you take stimulants but the yeah…this
is real good of downers.

11:05 pm
feeling drowsy now.my eyelids keep going to half mast. heh.

11:12 pm
ugh…nausea. gonna lie down and read a book until i sleep. bye.

Afterthoughts: There was no withdrawals or crash to speak of,
but I did have this godawful nausea, dizziness and major stomach
churning at the end. It didn’t make me itch though. It felt very nice
and comfortable, but it’s not something I would do often. I’ve probably
said this before, I prefer hallucinogens and stimulants. It was a very
nice experience though. The feeling heroin gives is hard to describe,
but the best adjective would be comfortable. Very, very comfortable.

Heroin – Smoked “Chasing the Dragon” – 25 mg (approximately)

h_smoke.jpg
Paraphernalia – a hollow tube from a Bic pen, aluminum foil with powdered heroin, lighter.

9:02 pm
that warm feeling pretty much came instantenously πŸ™‚ when i burned the
stuff, it smoked a whole lot and i couldn’t get everything thru the
tube (wat a waste) so i started to breath with my nose as well and held
the smoke in for about 2 minutes. i felt The Blanket right about then.
πŸ™‚ i did get a whole lotta foil smoke though. interestingly, the heroin
turned into a liquid when flame was applied under the foil and started
to turn into a mini liquid river which ran down the line of the foil.
part of it turned into a black gunk and part of it turned into a
yellowish stain after all of it has been burnt. yeah i feel numb now. πŸ™‚

9:12 pm
yeah the feeling is the same as insufflating, but i think i got higher
when i snorted it though. perhaps i didn’t get all the smoke when it
started to smoke violently. it does feel nice, but not as intense as
insufflating.

9:21 pm
ah, i’m feeling it now. comformtable. πŸ™‚ made me smile again. heh. what
a late rally, i thought it’s supposed to be near instantanous for
smoking.

9:37 pm
had fun zoning out. don’t feel like staring at the screen though, gonna lie down and read a book. πŸ™‚

9:44 pm
i just had this bright idea to mix a couple of shots of my cannabis
infused grain alcohol into a beer and take a valium. i am aware of the
potential risks but this is such a small amount it doesn’t matter
anyway. cheers! πŸ™‚

10:00 pm
mmm…i’m feeling very chill now. πŸ™‚ yeah this is good. in fact i can’t be bothered writig, i’m gonna watch a movie.

10:06 pm
don’t mean to sound retarded, but this feels really good actually.

h_aftsm.jpg
What the foil looks like after smoking – yellow stain where it evaporated from a liquid and a black stain to the side.

Afterthoughts: Heroin is rather overrated in my opinion. It
certainly feels nice, but it’s not the best drug in the world, not by a
long shot. The media makes it seem like such a hardcore drug that you
can’t help but feel let down by the experience. It is however a very
illegal drug due to the problems surrounding its use and the potential
for addiction. Perhaps I just don’t have the type of personality that
appreciates heroin’s effects. I still prefer hallucinogens and
stimulants. πŸ™‚ It is a very nice feeling though, just not something
I’ll do very often. Interestingly, I got higher when I insufflated than
when I smoked heroin.

Caution:
Heroin is very illegal in most (all?) countries.
Heroin is physically and psychologically addictive.
While it may not be the demon drug the media and government makes it
out to be, it is easy to get into trouble in a very short time if you
do it often. Be careful and respect heroin.

Where there is smoke

melbsmog.jpg

Melbourne is covered with smoke again from the bushfires. The
visibility today is worse than the smog from a couple of days back
though. To top it of, it was pushing 40 degrees today and I was down
with heat exhaustion again. Come to think of it, it seems that I’ve
been very prone to heat exhaustion ever since I was young. It always
goes away after a packet of those ‘Chi Kit’ Teck Aun pills (or as I
like to call it, Poh Chi Kit pills :)) though, so all is good.
Wonderful stuff, those. Miraculous, even.

Anyway, about my mid-term exam, I didn’t do really well. I was
expecting a different question for the second part and yeah…It’s too
hot to write today.

That’s the view of the pond behind my hall if you’re wondering.

Perceptrons, my dear Watson

<p>I’ll be having my mid semester exam for BUS3650 – Business
Applications of Neural Networks (my summer subject) tomorrow. I was
chagrined to find out that the subject requires a rather extensive
knowledge of equations and other math type stuff. I overcompensated by
raiding the library and checking out a stack of books related to neural
networks. I only need one though; the book that was written by my
lecturer, but having all those books does give one a certain sense of
security during the preparation phase. :)</p>

<p><img alt=”neuralbk.jpg” src=”http://www.sixthseal.com/archive/January2003/neuralbk.jpg” border=”0″ height=”188″ width=”250″></p>

<p>Hmm…why do all library books have this st and greasy feel to their covers?</p>

PICTURE.COM

picture.jpg

I just received a letter from The International Library of Photography
[picture.com] today. I had submitted a photo a couple of months ago
after being told about this contest by Daniel (I owe you dinner buddy).
Well, what do you know, they told me they’re going to publish my photo
in their upcoming anthology “Forever in a Moment” and they’ve
automatically entered me into the semi-finalists of the People category
in the International Open Amateur Photography Contest.

Unfortunately, I still have to buy the book (well I don’t have to, my photo will be included into the book regardless of whether I buy it or not, but I’ll want
to), albeit at the “contributor’s special pre-publication price” which
is still US $69.95. Apparently the regular price is US $89.95. It’s one
of those coffee table books, thus the price. It’s still very pricey
though, I’ve personally never paid A$140 or RM 265.81 for a
non-academic book before. I guess there is a first time for everything.

Oh well, at least they said “your photograph was selected for
publication because of its unique perspective and your artistic vision”.

Yes, I am easy to please. =D

It is now my duty to completely drain you

I missed my supervisor meeting today. It was all good though,
because the supervisor wasn’t there too, due to some miscommunication
regarding the meeting. The only guy that turned up was one of my group
mates, the other one was sick. Heh.

Anyway, the reason I missed the meeting was due to the strange phenomenon where a USB cell phone charger will drain
the battery instead of charging it when the computer is off. How
interesting, I’ve only see this once, I haven’t replicated it, so I
don’t know if it works all the time or under certain circumstances only.

Well, I did set my alarm clock (I use my cell phone as my alarm)
before I went to sleep last night, but neglected to pull out the USB
charger (which connects to the USB port). When I woke up, the cell
phone battery was completely drained and I couldn’t even turn it on
until I recharged it. Strange huh?

Anyway, no harm done, we’ve rescheduled the meeting to Thursday instead.

Oh, I overheard two people conversing in Heng Hua while I was
walking from the Clayton train station today. I’m Heng Hua and I’ve
never heard that language used much over here.

Spin!

sunair.jpg

My small but trusty SunAir dual speed personal fan is losing the
battle against the 35 degree heat today. I was woken up in the morning
by the MRS staff who wanted to change the fire evacuation procedures
map at the back of every resident’s door. They blacked out some stuff
with a felt tip pen and stuck some new stickers and then were off. I
could not go back to sleep though, courtesy of the extreme heat that
was apparent even in the morning.

Anyway, I watched Amelie
[amelie-lefilm.com] today. I’ve seen it around the network but I didn’t
bother to watch it because I didn’t think I would enjoy it. I’m glad I
gave it a chance because it’s a very sweet and endearing movie. Very
nice indeed.

I’m very scattered today.