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Fade to Black - intro + outro

Decided to make one more guitar video before flying off. This one's Fade to Black by Metallica, a song about, in the band's words, "letting go of your gear and moving on". Metallica's guitarist Kirk Hammett on the song:
"We had been in Denmark for five or six months, and I was getting really homesick. We were also having problems with our management. Since it was a somber song, and we were all bummed out anyway, I thought of very depressing things while I did the solo - and it really helped."
I hope I'll be able to use my homesickness to similar effect.

OSC guys' night out

Watching football in a pub is very different from watching in a coffee shop which is in turn very different from watching at home. At home you get no atmosphere and emotions are kept bottled up. At the coffeeshop you get commentary and match analysis in Hokkien but you must take care not to be overly expressive lest you offend the bookies and disturb the neighbourhood. In a pub you can do pretty much anything you like.

We (Nik, Xueli, Hendrick, Sng, Jx, Joel, Sookiat, Mark) gathered at Brewerkz to basically have dinner and catch Liverpool vs Man Utd. I don't know if you could say Liverpool fans are more loyal/flashier but there were certainly more Liverpool jerseys in all the pubs I passed by.

Things didn't start out well at all, as Berbatov made his first contribution to the team by crossing for Tevez to score within the first 3 min. To concede one so early against the champions of Europe and at home ground - I thought it was going to be a long 90 min. But Liverpool played much better than the last time, making positive movements up front and creating chances. I ordered herb garlic fries to go with the match, since things looked promising. Man Utd scored again, this time in their own net, thanks to a fatal miscommunication between Van der Saar and Brown. From the second half on, Liverpool dominated, and Joel became increasingly frustrated (and entertaining to watch). Eventually, the United defence let in a goal similar to their own, courtesy of Babel. Things were even sweeter when Vidic got sent off after a second yellow.

Liverpool faithfuls have waited too long for this victory. But it's probably that which made this one particularly sweet.

Big D's Grill

It seems that quality Western food stalls seem to be drawn to the coffeeshop downstairs. The latest tenant thereis Big D's Grill, which is run by a former chef and owner of a restaurant along Purvis Strt.

It seems that every new stall outdoes the last one in terms of quality of food being offered. This one boasts wagyu and kobe beef and kurobuta pork. But I decided to go for the Beer Battered Snapper (fish&chips) and Crabmeat Linguini and Bonet for dessert.

The good thing about the beer battered snapper was that...it was snapper not dory. I know everyone claims to use pacific dory or something which isnt the same as the cheap ones in the supermarkets, but they still inevitably pack this fishy smell. Well this one doesnt, and instead packs lots of bite and freshness in every bite. The batter was similar to the kind used by Lim Kee (Orchard) fried banana fritters, ie very very crispy and light. My only complaint is that the batter could have been saltier. THe fries are self-cut and come in thick slices of (gasp) real potato!

Now for the crabmeat linguini, which I ordered for my mum. It reminded me of a similar dish served at Marmalade Pantry. The pasta was nicely al dente and packed full of flavour. The chef insists on keeping the sauce thick and doing everything slowly so that the pasta absorbs the flavour.

And lastly, the Bonet for dessert. It's this Italian chocolate pudding topped with a slice of solid caramel (?!) and sliced strawberries. The presentation is great and tastes even better..every spoonful melts in your mouth and goes nicely with the caramel and strawberry. For me it induced one of those Mud Ooze (the quality of which has decined DRASTICALLY since) moments of silence.

This stall is definitely intent on serving quality food -only problem is coffee shop fare tends to survive on volume and quality is almost always compomised when there is high demand. I'll be keeping an eye on how this one turns out! Will be back next week for the pork loin.

OIC Portrait Day Sep 08

I particularly liked how Drewscape introduced this month's Portrait Day:
"Get ready for another round of portrait day where you get to hone your illustration kung-fu skills under pressure and for real paying customers. Happening at Red Dot museum and part of MAAD, Customers will sit for 15mins while everyone draws the same person. The customers then gets to choose their most liked drawings. Every of your drawing that gets chosen, you get $8. There will be a booth fee of $80 that will be split among all who attend."

That about summed up the entire day. Anne dropped by with her mum and uh...aunt? and turned out to be my one and only paying customer for the day T_T Didn't help that I was getting neckaches the whole day! Oh well at least she ensured that so far, I've sold at least one drawing every Portrait Day.

There was this girl from NTU however who came along to get my contact so that she could interview me for some feature somewhere on young artists!

Went for a zhi char dinner that night with the OIC peeps somewhere in Chinatown, then went with Caleb to meet Bella, who happened to pon Portrait Day due to one of her many arty jobs.

It would be my last portrait day until at least next summer, maybe August. Must hone my illustration kung-fu skills in London!

When logic isnt logical

When you rationalize, emotions are thrown out the window, right?
Wrong.

There is this thing called "backwards rationalisation", which is essentially a more impressive-sounding name for Making Excuses For Ourselves. I mentioned this to a friend last night, but only fleetingly, so I thought I'd offer a better explanation.

Backwards rationalisation basically involves making up reasons to rationalise for yourself why you did a particular action - an action that we would otherwise regret. An example is when a customer buys something he doesn't need. At the time of the transaction, he is so emotionally attached to the product, swayed by the words and vivid imagery conjured up by the salesman; but after the sale has been made he experiences buyer's remorse. Since he can't possibly ask for a refund, he might as well rationalise the purchase, just so he might feel better about his own judgment.

It is essentially a cognitive mechanism designed to defend our own identities. Humans all like to be in control, or like to think they're in control. We jab at buttons even after jabbing buttons clearly doesn't get a response. Which is why, when we've done something that runs contrary to our belief systems, we tend to twist the facts such that reality is once again congruent with our ideologies. Failing to do so would result in some killer cognitive dissonance, with our own sanity at stake.

It can be seen as a good or bad thing. I personally believe that it's a darned useful tool when you need to escape the truth for a while to consolidate your sanity. The danger is in not knowing what your mind is hiding from yourself, and remaining oblivious to the truth.

Nightclubs

Clubs have this effect of transforming people. The thumping music, the lights, and most of all, the alcohol - all of these elements hijack your senses in a typical night out at the club. Some people remain remarkably congruent with their usual selves; but most people I've observed will either teeter on the edge of their sanity or become a different person altogether. You step into a club, you step into a different world - a world where everything is fast-paced, dynamic, and driven by alcohol. A world where you are prone to doing stupid things and stupid things happen to you.

For this reason, the club and the reality outside are often best kept separate from each other. It's safest to go in there, let whatever will be be and then come out of it pretending nothing happened. Complications happen when your reality is brought into the club. And thus you get all these stories of people kissing and insisting they were drunk, otherwise innocent people allegedly trying to grind their friends etc.

Which was the case the other night at UK Bound. It's so interesting to watch people take on different personas and abuse their liquid courage. And as onlookers we have to feel embarrassed for them, cos they obviously can't do it themselves.

Nightclubs are all about hooking up. Nobody actually goes there "just to dance" or "enjoy the music", and anyone who claims they do is either making excuses or isn't too sure why they're there either. Which is why, kids, you don't bring friends into a nightclub unless you plan on hooking up with them. Or if you have to, at least try not to make an ass of yourself.