I knew your mom before she knew how to rock

I went to an Offspring concert in Melbourne in 2001. I knew it was before my blog started coz I didn’t have a digicam and got a disposable camera just for that. I also remember someone from #Sibu (the IRC channel on DALnet) who happened to be in Melbourne at the time asking if she could come with me.

Your Mom

Now, this girl would claim later to be very much of a punk rocker. As Fat Mike put it, she should have been on the cover of Drunk & Disorderly (or Maximum Rock’n’Roll). But she wasn’t always like that. Back when she just arrived in Melbourne, she was a timid little country mouse, afraid of everything in the city.

OMG are you sure it’s going to be safe?
Yes, I told your mom. It’s a concert, FFS!

What if they are racists?
I’ve lived in Christchurch, New Zealand when I was 15 and can attest that Melbourne is way more cosmopolitan and there’s not much in the way of racism – I can go to raves and doofs and frequently I am the only Asian there but it’s always fine.

Oh fuck, there’s skinheads over there!
No, they’re just punk rock enthusiasts, I assured her.

I don’t wanna be in the mosh pit!
Now this, this statement really tested my chivalry. There are limits to what I would do for someone I barely know and have just met for the first time in person. This was pushing it, especially since I feel no particular fondness or even the slightest bit of affection/attraction for her. I told your mom I’ll be happy to get her a ticket to the seated area but personally, I am going into the mosh pit.

Oh, please don’t leave me!
It’ll be fine, I told your mom. It’s a regulated concert, not some underground event and I would have said its fine even if it’s the latter. Melbourne is a very safe city compared to most other cities its size.

I’m scared!
Keep in mind that I was not out to fuck your mother. I had no such designs on her fa plus sized ass. I couldn’t have done it even if I wanted to, swear to God, I am not your dad. My first experience with full penetrative sex to completion was at 25 due to a fear phobia of HIV.

Nooooo, you said you’ll come with me…
This is something I did do but in all fairness I did tell your mom that we’ll be having MOSH PIT TICKETS and we’ll be going into the mosh pit. I never knew your mom would turn up in heels (!!!). She didn’t even know what a mosh pit was back then, even though I had patiently explained via IRC and ICQ and told her not to wear anything that can’t be spilled on/torn/ripped the fuck apart.

…and in the end, being the nice guy that I am, I ended up going on the Rod Laver Arena stadium seats instead so we could be seated together. Our seats happened to be just overlooking the mosh pit, with a 2 meter or so drop down via a metal bannister. I could see a few people slipping down into the pit and getting chased by security so I thought I’ll wait till the concert starts.

The opening band (Bodyjar/28 Days) came on and more people jumped down to the mosh pit. Some managed to run/crowd surf *deep* into the mass before security managed to reach them and thus got away, while others were snagged by the long arm of the law mall cop right before they could reach the haven of jumping bodies.

I was one of the latter. I told your mom that I’m going in (Nooooo don’t leave me aloneeeeee she wailed, to no avail, coz the Offspring was on and I was really caught up in the moment) and jumped. I saw the security opposite me say something into a radio and two security beefcakes ran up from behind me – they were previously obscured by the wall so I didn’t know they were there.

I tried to leg it, running as fast as I can to reach the mass of sweaty bodies. One of the security dudes caught my arm and just before he could apply pressure, I flicked it out of his reach.

I saw a few moshers at the pit fringes looking at me and shouting encouragement, hands held out, waiting to pull me in, to where the security can’t reach me…

Offspring Concert 2001

I reached out, my left hand almost connecting with a sympathetic fellow-concert goer, who dragged me into the protective custody of her bosom, wedging me between her sweaty melons and her friend in front while I tried to weasel my way further into the crowd…

…before two tree trunk sized arms grabbed me from behind and forcibly hauled me off my feet and dragged me to the fire exit.

I was given a stern talking to (Do that again and you’ll be out of the stadium) before I was let back to my stadium seating.

It should be noted that the mosh pit tickets are the same prices as the stadium seating, this wasn’t an issue of money but a fire code violation. You can’t have too many people in the mosh pit area in case there was a fire – the amount of people need to be able to be evacuated safely by the existing fire exits, which is also why there’s a queue into popular clubs – something which is foreign here in Malaysia, so I feel like I have to explain.

…and when I re-appeared next to your mom she was so relieved. She thought that I was kicked out and was about to walk out to find me coz she didn’t dare be in the arena alone. In the 2 minutes or so that I was gone, she had a mild panic attack, an existentialism crisis, and did some hand-wringing to boot.

Next time I saw your mom was 5 years later when I started working and in the ensuring time, she had re-invented herself as some kind of rock goddess, the person the song Punk Guy by NOFX was talking about (except she was a girl) and every time she said something, I’ll think back to that day in Melbourne when I first (and last) met her and just had to laugh.

LOL

I am still in Melbourne!

stillmelb.jpg

I didn’t miss my flight or anything, I just rescheduled it to
tomorrow. Unfortunately, all the outbound flights tomorrow and the day
after are fully booked. I’m confirmed for a flight out of Melbourne on
Sunday the latest and I’m on the waiting list for Saturday, so we’ll
see how that goes tomorrow. Well, the reason I rescheduled it is
because I needed to get this letter from my faculty to testify that
I’ve graduated, so I won’t have to pay back the surcharge (it’s
complicated to explain). The surcharge is A$957 so I decided to get the
statement tomorrow and avoid the surcharge. MAS is great anyway, they
were more than happy to switch me around, with no “late notice” charges
too – everything is free. Fly Malaysian Airlines. πŸ˜‰

CSE2030 Postmortem

caul_gf1.jpg
CSE2030 @ Caulfield Racecourse Ground Level

Right. This happened two days ago (Tuesday) but I was so busy with
all the stuff that I couldn’t find the time to post until today. My
apologies for the lack of posts lately, I’m heading back to Malaysia
soon…it’s quite sad really. That is, if I had time to be sad, and I
don’t. πŸ™‚ I have to run out again to get all other things settled
before I fly back. Oh, about the exam, I think I did pretty well. Most
of the questions were based on the past year exams, but unfortunately I
didn’t have enough time to complete it. There was a 5 mark question
that I didn’t have time to finish at the end. Oh well, other than that,
everything went smoothly.

Expected Grade: Distinction

caul_gf2.jpg
I couldn’t get the exposure settings right, but the window wall looks out into the racecourse. πŸ™‚

CSE3151 Postmortem

racel2.jpg
CSE3151 @ Caulfield Racecourse Level 2

I did not have enough time to complete the paper. I could not
remember a lot of things (damn *mumble*, always messing with my memory)
too. Here’s hoping that:

Expected Grade: Pass

racel2ed.jpg
Candidates may now leave the room QUIETLY.

racel2vw.jpg
It has a nice view of the racecourse. Too bad we weren’t facing that
direction. Ground Floor exams face that direction, but not Level 2, for
reasons unknown.

sixthseal.com just got re-reviewed by The Weblog Review [theweblogreview.com]. Thanks obz!
[dyndns.org] I was given 4.5/5 this time. I got a 2.5 in the first
review. I was still using the old layout then. It looks like this:

1bdayomp.jpg

Here’s the review:

This is a re-review of sixthseal.com

It started with:
“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a
great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and
the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth,
even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a
mighty wind.
Revelation 6:12-17″ …I knew it was going to be a trip. And oh what a trip Sixth Seal is.

What a crazy read Sixth Seal is. The writers complete candor makes
for a engrossing yet disturbing read. The blog consists of entries from
hbpoh and veritas (a.k.a. Mr. Foaf) and the content from both is VERY
different. All of veritas’ entries reveal his strong drug
experimentation, of which he gives great detail. He talks about
various drugs in his ‘trip reports’. They are very disconcerting but it
does make for great reading. It was like reading ‘trainspotting’.
Unbelievable stuff!

Hbpoh is a more typical blogger. With entries about: restaurants,
wrestling, trips, vacations, depression, Monash University Clayton
Campus, Melbourne, school , SexPo, bills, urinal photos, tennis
anyone?, Explosive Diarrhea, Magnum Ice Cream bars and of course his
girlfriend. I really enjoyed his writing. He documents his events well
with photos, some are rewarding, some disgusting, some artsy…photos say
so much. A Funny entry was entitled “Proof that candy bananas are
evil”. Want to know why? Read the blog. πŸ˜›

My favourite quote:
“Unix is the only thing I know of that can reduce a grown man to tears. Manly tears, that is…”

The author also experiments with substances:
“I was in the mood for some weed so I decided to sample some
Australian hydroponically grown cannabis sativa to determine the THC
concentrations present in a typical gram bag. All for the furtherment
of science of course. I’m selfless that way. *preens*”

Veritas on Heroin:
“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” .

This blog is an experience. Never before have I felt such a deep
impact from reading a blog. If a blog is meant to share an experience
then Sixth Seal delivers.
This site was reviewed on 2003-06-19 by obz.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
obz felt that deserved a rating of 4.5.

The bad

I had an interview worth 30% of the course marks, which I just had
to miss…by 35 minutes. That’s late, considering we’re allocated 30
minutes each for the interview. I don’t understand why I had to wait 45
minutes for the 630 Huntingdale bus on a weekday. Lunch hour is no
excuse, the connection to the train didn’t go well and I only turned up
for my 12:30 pm interview at 1:05 pm. The tutor was kind enough to
reschedule it to next Monday, so that’s one good thing at least.
Anyway, I wanted to write more but I’m just coming down like a ton of
bricks right now, so here’s a picture I took today:

ctwodogs.jpg

This scene entertained me for 15 minutes…I was waiting at the
Caulfield train station and the Pakenham/Cranbourne/Frankston line is
also used by the V/Line trains to Sale. Sale is a town which is quite
far away from Melbourne and there seems to be some kind of dog
competition going on because I saw three people with dogs in those
portable kennels. I liked the interaction between the black one and the
brown one. The black dog (being physically larger) feels he is the
dominant one and wants to make it known by making a loud “woof” when he
saw the brown dog. I like the brown one, it looks worried. πŸ™‚

ELC1000 Postmortem

bdrempty.jpg
ELC1000 @ Blue Diamond Room

Notice the empty room? I was one of the last ones out. The examiner
looked at me with a puzzled smile when I took this photo. I told her
this is my last semester and she went “Ah…I see”. The exam was great,
but I didn’t have enough time to write, I left one question
half-answered. It was an easy paper though, I should be able to do well
and in this site’s tradition:

Expected Grade: Distinction

Do you notice that exam halls in winter (or autumn rather) tend to
be filled with sneezes? The weather factor together with the closed
windows seems to exacerbate this even further. I’m just sitting there,
thinking hard when *sneeze*!

That’s cool man, so you’re having a cold. I feel sorry for you.
*sneeze* Okay, the cold is infectious. *sneeze* *sneeze* Very
infectious. *sneeze* (beside me) *sneeze* (the girl in front) *sneeze*
*sneeze* (somewhere behind) *sneeze*

………………..

It’s very hard to concentrate when the whole room’s a-sneezing.

I’ll be writing furiously, when I suddenly think of another
important point and put that in my memory cache (so I can write it down
when I’m done with this sentence), when out of nowhere – *SNEEZE*! Nope, lost it. Curses.

Poor AlCee
[tripod.com] had the same problem today but it was with whispering
instead of sneezing. I reckon that’s even worse as whispering has a
certain tone to it that just totally messes up your concentration. I just thought of something. ELC rhymes with AlCee.

bdrcaul.jpg
The Blue Diamond Room @ Caulfield Racecourse. This is the last time I
sat for an exam in this room. My apologies for the out of focus photo.
I had set the custom mode to optimize for close-ups and accidentally
used that instead of auto.

Situation normal, all fucked up…

Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. It would be my final
semester here too, if I don’t fail anything. *crosses fingers* Anyway,
just some updates since I haven’t been posting much – the final exam of
GCS2714 Alcohol and Drug Use went okay, some bits were easy, some were
hard. The last few days (weeks?) have been crazy, my organs took quite
a pummeling…I know my kidneys are not happy with the amount of
processing they had to do. Oh, I had a really interesting sleep
deprivation hallucination today too. I was coding, when those squiggly
RGB protoplasm started to fill my vision (like I was looking through
swirling red green blue “organic eyeshades”). I blinked, and in that
split second (it felt like minutes), I was transported to a bizarre
world with lots of horrible screaming and an ultra bright strobe light
that made everything blinding white and flickering. The strange thing
is, it couldn’t have been more than a second, but it felt like minutes!
It gave me a start, that’s for sure. πŸ™‚ Classic! It’s worthy of a
“hallucination” label instead of visual distortion because of the
auditory hallucinations and sensory (spatial) confusion. Anyway, I’m
too tired now, but here’s some pictures of food I got over the last few
days but didn’t get around to eating yet…will eat them all tonight, and
a nice big meal as well (all the better for a lacerating GI tract to
absorb of course). It would be good to have an alternative energy
source, ketone bodies just doesn’t measure up. πŸ˜‰ I will post again
tomorrow if all that doesn’t give me reactive hypoglycemia like the
doctor said it would.

mixnewcb.jpg
Cadbury’s Picnic Rocky Road, Snickers Hazelnut, Snickers Cruncher and
Twix (King Size). Twix rocks. Stoner’s choice. πŸ˜‰ “Tune out big time!”

twixwhit.jpg
It comes in a white chocolate version too.

gat_bega.jpg
I only saw this today…third in the series of Smith’s Great Australian
Tastes. This one is Bega’s Strong & Bitey Aged Vintage cheese. It
would go well with my meal later. πŸ™‚ The first two are here: Heinz Big Red Tomato Sauce & Meat Pie and Ham and Keen’s Mustard [sixthseal.com].

kitkash.jpg
No, there isn’t.

Public service announcement: Grain alcohol/pure spirit (95% alcohol or 190 proof) + lacerating stomach = fiery, terrible retribution from the pits of hell.

Photo gallery is up

I’ve finally put up the photos section
[sixthseal.com]. It’s a bit sparse at the moment, but everything in
there is new. Well, not new as in recent…it’s just the first time it
has appeared on the site. πŸ™‚ The pictures are a mix of (personal)
digital photos and scans of film photos. The quality of the scans are
somewhat dismal – I’ve either messed up the scanner’s settings (it
looks like perpetual twilight) or I’m having visual disturbances from
sleep deprivation. The photos are currently categorized in reverse
chronological order under “Monash College 2000”, “Girlfriend, Sibu
2001”, “CPL Pacific 2001”, “Photos 2002” and just so there’s something
representing this year, “Recent”. Two of the recent photos are really
recent too – one taken yesterday (curry) and the other taken within the
week (campus).

I’ll post more photos in a couple of days. I have assignments due later and an exam tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I’ll rather be asleep

I’ve been up for three days and my body is saying no. Today would be
the day I came the closest to having a heart attack. I wish I’m
exaggerating, the damned chest pains and headache would go away then.
No food + no sleep + stimulants (caffeine, I always feel the need to
reiterate myself) = heart working overtime. No water (stupid me) = not
pissing for the whole night. Drank a bit before I went to class, was
feeling terrible before then…hypertension, the kind that makes your
head pound and makes those veins on the side visible, with tactile
rhythmic pumping too. I don’t know what I’m saying. I had to walk as
slow as a slug to not overexcite my overworked heart and yet I still
feel constant chest pain, breathlessness and that damned pounding and
random tingliness and pain in the extremities. Okay, enough of the
feeling sorry for myself bit, I’m going to sleep…sedate me, trusty
thingies.

dogcute.jpg

Of course by thingies I mean food…it makes you sleepy when you
haven’t had any in a while. Anyway, here’s a photo I took while on the
way back today…was feeling like absolute fucking shit, but that dog is
so adorable I had to take a photo. His head is too big for his body and
so is his tongue! πŸ™‚

Thanks for commenting everyone, I’ll reply when I wake up. I am
going to sleep now, before that vein makes good on its promise to give
me a stroke.

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