Random Playlist Song: Robert Shaw Chorale - Beethoven - Hallelujah from 'Christ on the Mount of Olives'
The version with piano accompaniment could never stand up to that with an orchestra
***
I got a plug from an unlikely source:
"I would like to say something again about Depression.
Well Depression is caused by being too bored, with nothing to do, then one uses all the spare time one has to brood over oneself until the person becomes too bored and if this is prolonged, the person will fall into depression.
Well everyone can be very bored in one time or another in their lives. Homosexuals imitate the lifestyles of gals to spend time away, and heterosexuals mingle around gals to also spend time away. Gals certainly do know how to spend their time well. Everyone can learn a thing or two from them. :D
To get rid of depression, let's study the gals...
http://sky.prohosting.com/gssq/writings/girl.htm"
Thank you for the tipoff.
Since I was there, I got to read the following: "Gals are horrible! I prefer guys, guys so sweet, so demure, so well-behaved, so learned, so nice, so handsome. Gals ah, especially from gals school one ah, terrible ah machiam like animals sia!!!! wah lau cannot make it!!! I want to be with my guy guy buddy buddy from my same boy school wan, same class wan, always together wan, always play play together like buddy buddy..."
It's beginning to look like a joke again.
***
Some joker left on my Phlog:
"Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
wrote Jesus Christ @ 17:38:59, Friday, July 16, 2004"
Wth?!
***
A kindred soul (since he hates seeing stirrups when they aren't supposed to be there) has written a King Arthur review. I like his wit. Maybe I should have been more hardworking in writing my review.
"We learn in voiceover that the Sarmatians were a fierce and warlike tribe in central Asia who fought against the rising Roman tide. Wait a minute. What the hell does this have to do with King Arthur? We learn that the Sarmatians were beaten by the Romans, all but a handful of "knights", and that thereafter they provided their sons as "knights" for the Roman armies. Interesting, because a 30-second Google run turns up the inconvenient fact that the Sarmatians were never, in fact, conquered by the Romans, and their cultural influence extended to medieval Europe. [...]
The Bishop's party is being attacked by these sort of Pictish-looking folks, whom the scripwriters have chosen to call "Woads", on account of that's what they use as war-paint. Anyway, the Bishop, having cleverly made himself less of a target by disguising himself as a plumed, red-cloaked officer on a tall horse at the front of the column, and leaving a hapless assistant to be shot through a tiny chink in the armored carriage, survives the ambush. Not from any actions of his couple dozen guards, who upon being attacked mill about in a visually interesting but undisciplined style which allows them to be shot in the back and/or swarmed by skinny naked abos, instead of, say, forming a line with shields and swords pointed toward the enemy. No, the knights thunder in to the rescue... They come galloping in, firing arrows into the forest at enemies they can't see, dismount, and begin milling about in the same picturesque fashion as their hapless co-beligerants before them. [...]
We see that the Saxons have been buying crossbows, no doubt from some time-travelling Venetians or something. The Saxons are so intimidated by six guys and Kiera's scowling that they bunch up into a shield wall in the middle of the ice. So Kiera can fire arrows into their midst without worrying much about aiming. [...]
So, we finally get to the big climactic fight. Let's examine the order of battle. On the one side we've got a couple thousand burly Saxon carls, in mail and leather armor, armed with broadswords, battle axes and large round shields. On the other, we have several hundred scrawny and undernourished but well-painted forest children, armed at best with kitchen knives stolen from the Saxons. Some of them do have bows, though. Plus six knights on horseback and one screeching teenage girl in (finally!) the traditional Scottish boiled-leather bikini. Oh, and a couple of catapults capable of hurling Greek Fire over long distances. PLUS A FRIGGING TWENTY-FOOT WALL THAT DIVIDES THE COUNTRY IN HALF. [...]
Do the knights continue their successful tactics from a moment before, harrassing the flanks of the enemy, or wait in reserve to mount a charge against weak points in the enemy line? Of course not. They dismount and die gloriously, most of them. And the ones that didn't deserved to, the stupid gits. I think the Britons won, but by no fault of their own.
I think there was also a scene where Arthur and Kiera get married, but by this time I was being carried struggling out of the building by several security guards, feebly shouting lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so I'm sorry to report total ignorance on the style of her wedding dress. But if it wasn't the boiled-leather bikini I wouldn't be interested anyway."
***
"Senders email: urjunior@hotmail.com
Message:
haha hey brother. this is ur RV junior. Was a sec 1 when u were sec 4. hmmm seems to me that u are quite a free person man. hmmm... well... i actually wanted to say u haf no life, but i guess this is how u wanna live it anyway.
haha jus telling u, there is nothing called MODERN MUSIC. is either R&B, pop, rock, etc. each genre has it's own style and techniques and yeah, looks out for different things. in the old baroque days, i reckon that debussy pieces will be branded as outragous, or perhaps even offensive. Which btw, beethoven was blasted for his symphony no. 5 to be too "radical" during his time. yupz
anyway, is it me or do u haf hell load of time? to u noe, like write all these stuffs out. haha well u suppose for normal people, they won't even care abt these stuffs and jus shrug it aside. i mean, yeah i dun like most gals antics and there are so many things in the world that i disagree on or hate. but heck. i dun think abt them, or perhaps, shld i say they dun impact me so much till i can write so much abt them.
haha yeah i noe my english sucks, so dun make comments on it. find urself doing sth more useful please. haha.
hmmm somehow i think u are quite a social inapt rite. haha dun think u haf many friends. hmmm think people like u are like jus fragments of society that refuse to conform and yet make noise abt it. well... no man is an island. hope u are happy with wadever u are doing. perhaps u can do with less sulking and channel ur energy towards more positive areas.
yupz yupz. really hope that u will haf a happy life ahead. thats the most impt thing.
p.s. i dun noe if u are reading this crap. dun even noe if u update this web anymore. it's been a long while huh.
haha if u do, jus treat it as a junior u do not know saying hi
well... deep down inside, i think u are a jerk, but heck
haha, we live our lives differently, luckily our lives don't cross anymore huh. i think u would hate my guts and i DO hate urs hahahahahahaha. yupz yupz
but still, yeah, like i said, hope u are happy with who u are. BYE
ur junior"
Wow. I got this flame about 12 hours after unveiling for my modern music page. I knew a flame would come soon, but I didn't expect it to come *this* soon (about 12 hours after I unveiled it).
Anyhow, I would send him a reply, but he didn't leave a return address (no, I don't think urjunior@hotmail.com works), so I will have to post my reply here:
"Yes, I suppose I do have a lot of time. Or rather, I try to make time for my ranting and various projects and pursuits. I don't think I have as many friends as most people, but I'm happy with those I do have, so there. I conform as I see fit, or in extremis, but I do not see how either this or voicing out my opinions is a bad thing. After all, you're making noise about my making noise, aren't you? As for the impression you seem to have of me as a sulking malcontent - I don't know where you got that bit from :) And if you'd read the "news" section on my index page, you would know that - yes - I do still update my homepage.
I hope you have a happy life too. Peace."
And I've also update the rubric on my modern music page:
"Unlike most people my age, or indeed my age group, I am not into modern music. I use the term "modern music" liberally - besides mainstream pop music, it also has under its aegis such genres as rock, heavy metal, Euro-trash, trance, dance, grunge, soul, punk, techno R&B, reggae, alternative or even new age and gospel.
I do not dislike these divers genres, which I lump under the category of "modern music", by virtue of their being new, popular or accessible, nor to set me apart from the hoi polloi, but simply because I dislike them, improbable as that might sound. I do not consider myself one of the cognoscenti - I hate opera, detest buckets of paint splashed on canvas (generally, Impressionist art and its successors) and am riled by most modern theatre (pretentious and inaccessible). I am not even a great fan of widely acclaimed 20th century composers of classical music like Bartok, Rachmaninoff, Prokofieff and Shostakovich and indeed dislike most of their works; I just genuinely dislike modern music, but for an odd song here and there. My usual criteria for judging how pleasing music (and indeed, all forms of art) is not how far it shatters conventions, break conventions or shocks people, but simply how much aesthetic value it has."
***
Jiekai on China's protests over Lee Hsien Loong's "private trip" to Taiwan:
"Basically I think we should tell the Mainlanders to fuck off. We've already
done our bit to recognise them as the One True Receiver Of The
Heavenly...er....People's Mandate To Rule The Middle Kingdom...er....Republic by not really letting the uh....breakaway rebel province of Taiwan have an embassy here, just a "representative office". That's what the government should tell them. ( Of course the clever folk the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wouldn't put these points in such harsh terms, but hey, that's what diplomatic verbiage is for =) )
There's really compelling reason for us to give these opportunistic bastards any face by grovelling and apologising simply because LHL caused *gasp*, a "great offence" by visiting Taiwan. Why should we give in? We're a sovereign state. If we give in on this point today, it won't be long before these vicious Communists demand that we stop doing military training in Taiwan.
It's disheartening to note that the government of the People's Republic is hardly less corrupt than its predecessors. It's sadder to understand that when it comes to championing freedom, democracy and truth, China's leaders are about the same level as most of the infamous despots, kings and emperors that China has had the misfortune to call its rulers through the millennia. It's disgraceful that the Chinese government continues to call for aggression against a free people when it denies these rights and freedoms to its own people. And it's utterly outrageous that the Chinese government should attempt to bully my country into submission simply because it doesn't agree with our foreign policy.
And no, I'm not going to apologise for causing any offence, especially to citizens of the People's Republic. Please don't reply by sending me nonsense like " You're an enemy of the Chinese race because you oppose a Unified China blah blah blah". Of course I oppose a unified China- if you discount the military threat that Taiwan faces (mostly the fault of the PRC government), I'd rather take my chances with Chen Shui Bian than with a bunch of unelected and utterly unaccountable cadres in Beijing. And yes, you can quote me on everything I've said."
***
Seen on Who lives near you?
"who i want to meet
no one. im wary of meeting people online. shoo shoo shoo all you people. shoo. just leave me be and let me be a voyeur. -breaks out into evil laughter-"
Mirth overtakes me. Someone is so
