Away in a Manger

Class outing (if it can even be considered one) last friday was fantastic though only Gretchen, Melissa, Keith, Shi Xian, Shi Ming and Lionel turned up.

Watched Alvin and the Chipmunks at GV Marina and chilled out outside the Esplanade facing Singapore River (Damn clouds blocked the stars! Dumb lights spoilt the coastal view!) Haha. Actually, I was plannin' to chill out at Harry's and watch Paul Ponnudurai perform but since we haven't eaten dinner, we had to da bao Macs and we sat by the steps along the river to makan.

We chilled til ten before twelve before deciding to head home. Rushed to City Hall MRT with SX and Gretcheo but SX had to cab home after that cause he missed the last EW train. Greatchen ust missed her last 265 at AMK mrt and cabbed home for $5... (rather than walking 10 mins right? Dark, dangerous and ulu... Haha)

Wished we had more class outings like that next time...



Last weekend was insane intensive singing for me. Choir practise for midnight mass paid off in the end though. I personally felt that CD Choir sang reeaaallllyyyyy well last night. Maybe its because everyone was happy after Christmas eve dinner... Buuttt, we kinda sucked this morning cause everyone was half-dead after singing midnight mass and partyin the night away. So through this intensive practise, I found ou that my highest non-falsetto note is a mid F# while my lowest note was a low low G (though it sounded robotically techoish past B). I also found out that there're three different verisons of Away in a Manger! How interesting! Met Sylvester today at Gretchen's block. Saved on stamp cost! And Mr Leong also popped out of nowhere while we were chilling out downstairs (like wtf?!). Talk about Small City County Island Singapore!

-Benja



Away in a manger, No crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus Laid down His sweet head

The stars in the bright sky Looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus Asleep on the hay

The cattle are lowing The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus No crying He makes

I love Thee, Lord Jesus Look down from the sky
And stay by my side, 'Til morning is nigh.

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever And love me I pray

Bless all the dear children In Thy tender care
And take us to heaven To live with Thee there

Life In The Fast Lane

Got a job at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies through my cousin. Work's quite cool at the Human Resource department/ Employee Relations. Its like welfare stuff. I think although I've got no real past work experiences, everything I've learnt as head of class welfare and as CJGE president's useful now.

Working hours are Mon to Fri 8am to 5:30pm. Not enough time to enjoy myself like almost everyone else I know. Not enough time to practise guitar, jam, play computer games. Since my pay's coming in only on the 28th, I'mma borrow a million dollars from Brandon first for the City Music sale and Dream Theater's Concert in January. I'll pay back in instalment with 0% interest! Haha.



Life in the fast lane
Surely make you lose your mind
Life in the fast lane
Life in the fast lane
Everything all the time
Life in the fast lane

Post Prom Party

27th November 2007

Jammed for 5 hours straight from 11am to 4pm. Brilliant. Please remind me never to that again before a performance cause it really drains energy like a running tap (as well as money from me wallet).

Sound check was at 5.30pm at Dxo. The sound men were exceptionally friendly (well at least to me) and they put in more effort than I'd expected. After all that crap, Brandon, James, Sean and I walked from Esplanade to Lau Pasak to stone for 4 hours while the rest went to enjoy their $80 prom (in which I heard the food... Well, lets just say, $80 can buy 32 plates of chicken rice, as Hock Lu would put it).



So, Instant Biscuit's début performance at CJ's ppp @ Dxo wasn't as good as expected but yet it was... Hard to explain. Everything sounded good during the sound check but it was more than a tad different during the real performance (for the worse of course).



People kept saying I sang well, but I'm not sure if that's an accurate assessment of my actual singing cause as can be seen from these videos, I kinda sucked badly...

A Hard Day's Night

Okay, so A levels are over. Not as bad as it initially seemed (or maybe I'm too noob to know something is wrong)

Anyway, today's class outing to East Coast was freaking insane. For starters, an attendance of 16/25 wasn't that bad.

We first invaded VJ territory at Parkway Parade. Had breakfast (or was it branch?) at Macs (should have gone straight to Marine Cove's Macs). And then we headed to... ...Marine Cove -_-"

Mark drove his car so the girls get to slack while the guys had to walk (cept Sean =_=). Rented bikes for $3.50/hour and the plan was to cycle all the way to the Esplanade but guess what... There was 2km of park that was under renovation and it blocked out path to the city (i swear they started working on this place two freaking years ago).

So for plan B, we decided to cycle the other way to Changi Airport.. Me, Jackie and Shi Ming made it only halfway when it started pouring all of a sudden. But crappy weather wasn't enough to deter us! We had to cycle back anyway because it was already half the time left since we left the bike shop. Getting soaked in the rain + pedaling like a siao kia + ass & balls getting squashed by bike seat isn't something we experience everyday so I guess it was sort of fun (not that I'm a maso).

Well since Mel was under the weather (literally and figuratively =) we decided to chill out at her house of the rest of the day. Here's the crazy part. What do you do when you have one car and 11 people going to the same destination with no other convenient mode of transport nearby?

You mash them up in the car of course! Haha 11 of us squeezed into Marks MPV (designed for 5 people). Two in front (obviously), SIX in the back and three in the BOOT! WTF?!?! I could feel the brakes failing at times cause of the overloaded car (by more than 2×) especially on the wet road. But we make it to Mel's house in one piece thanks to Marks proness in driving.

Ordered Pizza along the way (which was our... ...err, liner or dunch what every you call it). Played pool, some crazy Nitendo Wii games and I slept on the sofa/bed/couch everywhere.

We went to Newton hawker centre for dipper/supner and it started pouring again after that. Sucky weather didn't spoil our day though cuz it was a infreakingsane day!




It's been a hard day's night, and I been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you I'll find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright
You know I feel alright!
You know I feel alright!

wakemeup

wake up ben, 51 days to A's

maybe if u stopped all the jammin' and dota-in', u may still get some As for A's

bah!

time check

Hmm, 24th august... maybe i should start studying.

time is running out. but hey, 66 days to 1st A paper, 86 days to last A paper.

66 days is too short, 86 days is too long. anyway, if As was tmr, i think i would get something like, SESES or close. totally unprepared.

Baybeats 2007

Well, the last day of baybeats ain't as hiong as the 1st two days... Too bad i could only "secretly" make it for today's sets with Hock Lu, Amelia and Suba.

The Firefight were cool but the wireless system they were using sucked... Anyway, chiong studies!! no life for the next 3 months =(

Thunder

Rock For Wayne @ The Pavillion - 23rd June 2007

Oh man, that has to be the greatest insanest gig of the year once again! Haha made tones of new friends... But still not comparable to the amount of girls Brandon and Marcus was able hit on :p

Line-up in order of appearence:

The Fire Fight
Humpback Oak
Great Spy Experiment
A Vacant Affair
Force Vomit
West Grand Bolevard
Caracal
Electrico
Astroninja All-Stars

It was a boring and cold crowd before AVA's set, and by the expression on HockLu's face! wahha he was super pissed he thought he wasted $10 or sumthing... and so was Fam... Haha in the end i'm sure they thought the experience was worth $50 or sumthing...

The moshing was totally insane... and the body surfing was well, haha, every miniute there were girls asking Brandon to lift them up, that bloody chick magnet (must be his damn hair! WTH am i doing in JC!?). I just rode oh his fame and "helped" ;) Felt a bit sad for those who lost stuff in that gigantic mosh pit though, luckily, I've learnt my lesson from the DragonForce concert earlier this month with my moshed camera. Thats why no body surfing for me, aww...

Marcus body surfed like, about 5 times!? and brandon surfed twice, both times with his shoe flying out halfway. Poor faces of the people infront who most probably didn't know what the hell hit them...

Whew it was a super tiring day. 1 day like this = 1 month's worth of excercise + a bit more. Bad idea to do one months of excercise in a day because neck ache, back pain and legs ta boleh tahan... And the throat, lol bad voice for choir this morning.

Met me buddies Mella, Sarah, Cedric, Ronald (Wayne's proest student), FengHeng and Miguel...

Took a break halfway during Force Vomit's set and hanged out around Leonard Soosay's mixing station. Was watching closely what he did and all.. Kinda interesting actually. The lightings were done very professionally too

After that, without proper dinner and with a gallon or water/coke in our stomachs, we just went in and hell broke loose (my neck, ouch). A lot of people left by that time, dunno for what reason, they fuckin' hell dunno what they bloody missed bodoh! As many have said, "The show AIN't over til it's fuckin' over!!!"

Anyway, those montage and clips shown were really touching. And Wayne's parents rocked man! "kudos to Sabrina and all the organizers for getting all the great bands under one roof man!!! one hella of a night!" -Zel

Super stuff, i've got some footage and pics, but they're quality ain't that great... only captured the starting bands just before dusk cuz the crowd went too crazy after that, didn't want to risk my moshed camera being moshed again... i'll upload them to youtube once i'm done editin' them... and i'll put up some pictures after i'm done processing them... in the mean time, please visit: http://www.soft.com.sg/web/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=34073 for more pictures!



When you walked away
Nothing Left to say
Never thought the end would be so near

So runaway and hide
The pain you feel inside
Who ever thought the price would be so dear? And you say!

Baby, please believe me
Oh please believe me,
When I say that I'll see you again
But now you have to go and I want you to know
This is goodbye, this is goodbye

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, fare thee well
Say goodbye

Everyone you met
All the ones you had
Will never be the same without you now

So fuck all the cliches! We'll say them anyway
There'll never be a day we won't believe
And you say

Baby, please believe me
Oh please believe me,
When I say that I'll see you again
But now you have to go and I want you to know
This is goodbye, this is goodbye

Don't let the words you say slip away
Don't let the words you say fade away

The Metal

Well, studying's a bitch and i haven't started on anything much... Time to study... Yeah... Right...

You can't kill the metal
The metal will live on
Punk-Rock tried to kill the metal
But they failed, as they were smite to the ground
New-wave tried to kill the metal
But they failed, as they were stricken down to the ground
Grunge tried to kill the metal Ha,hahahahaha
They failed, as they were thrown to the ground
Aargh! yeah!

No-one can destroy the metal
The metal will strike you down with a vicious blow
We are the vanquished foes of the metal
We tried to win for why we do not know

New-wave tried to destroy the metal, but the metal had its way
Grunge then tried to dethrone the metal, but metal was in the way
Punk-rock tried to destroy the metal, but metal was much too strong
Techno tried to defile the metal, but techno was proven wrong
Yea!

Metal!
It comes from hell!

Food for Thought

If up is down, does it mean that down is up?


Lame? Well, you're just lazy... to think...

In Memoriam

Rest In Peace, Wayne "Thunder" Seah

This is no doupt a very great loss to the local music scene... Wayne "Thunder" Seah, drummer of The Suns (formally The Boredphucks), has passed away peacefully in his sleep...

Can't imagine, 29 years old, totally fine one day, gone the next... He was a fine drummer/producer and contributed much to the local music scene, helped budding musicians in many ways... Guess God loves him too much...

"for those of you who know wayne thunder or has crossed paths with him and was touched by his dedication to music and friends... wayne thunder seah passed away last night in his sleep... there will be a service for him at st' joseph's church on upper bukit timah at 8pm. please come if you can make it."-bklk

http://www.waynethunder.com

Rest In Peace, Wayne "Thunder" Seah

Tribute

I think i better stop blogging so damn often, or at least blog stuff which are politically correct... Damn mother stalkers on the net...

Anyway, when feeling down, its good to think happy thoughts... Dug this up from a year ago:


SAJC ictalent - The Lings (CJC)

Tried to edit and enhance the video and audio but failed cuz the original quality was really fucked beyond salvation... Just like my academic results if i don't start studying soon...


And we played the first thing that came to our heads,
Just so happened to be,
The Best Song in the World,
it was The Best Song in the World.

Look into my eyes and it's easy to see
One and one make two,
two and one make three,
It was destiny.

Endless Sacrifice

Silver for SYF! Hooray! though, its way off the ensemble's target of GwH (-_-")... I thought we played quite well actually... will upload the illegal footage at a later date... time to catch up with my studies.


Over the distance
We try to make sense
Of surviving together
While living apart

Striving for balance
We rise to the challenge
Of staying connected
In spite of circumstance

All you've forsaken
And all that you've done
So that I could live out
This undying dream

Won't be forgotten
Or taken for granted
I'll always remember
Your endless sacrifice

Moments wasted
Isolated
Time escaping
Endless sacrifice

Lines In The Sand

As expected, ptm was crap...

SYF's 5 days away. Somehow i'm not feeling stressed about SYF though... Anyway, got an octave pedal today but have no time to try it out extensively yet...

Tragic reflex, shattered calm
Static progress, senses gone
Numb awareness, final psalm

A birthday on Good Friday

A birthday on Good Friday. Can't celebrate..

Childhood´s End

From promo's AABDE to CT's DSSSF... Totally fucked...

Here're some rockafella vids anyway:

CJC Rockafella III - Teacher's Band



CJC Rockafella III - Jasdeep (1)



CJC Rockafella III - Jasdeep (2)




I'd sail across the ocean, I'd walk a hundred miles
If I could make it to the end, oh just to see a smile
You see it in their faces, the sadness in their tears
The desperation and the anger, madness and the fear

Rockafella III

Rockafella III was cool.. did some weird stuff like playing guitar with my mouth (which screwed the solo) and swining my guitar by her neck... ouch... the rst of the bands were awesome to the core... this year's intake, whoa... many insane retardedly skillful and talented bands...

had a great time, but my back and neck aches now due to too-vigourous-head-banging.. so i'mma just go bathe and sleep...

will upload a huge load of footage soon...


Baby on your own you take a conscious step
Do you wanna give it up?
But all I want is for you to SHINE
Shine down on me
Shine on this life that's burning out

A Change of Seasons

So Beez ain't working at G77 any more. Crap.. looks like that'll mean i'm not gonna step into the shop as often...

Common tests starts tomorrow! Shiok! Gonna really jam pack my days with last minute studying!

Oh yes, nearly forgot... Jasdeep got into Rockafella so get a ticket!


I'm sick of all
You hypocrites
Holding me at bay
And I don't need
Your sympathy
To get me through the day

Silent Jealousy

Chinese new year was great! And for the record, a $100 ang bao! Whoa, i've never seen that big orange note in an ang bao for the past 10 years!

I wanted to watch Ghost Rider with my cousins, but made the mistake of NOT booking for tickets on the 2nd day of cny.. So there u go, no tics when we reached Vivo... but chillin' out in that cosy pizza cafe was just as great. Kyna treated every1 to a 20" pizza... yeah A 20-INCH PIZZA!!! Thats like, a pizza half a metre wide... 60 bucks. gg.

Too busy during the long break with n0 work done. ZERO. Haha, common tests're just around the corner, i think i better focus a lil' more. I just love exam periods cuz everyone gets to dismiss like around 11 or somethin'. I think i still owe a lot of people homework... Especially my secondary school teachers... A ton of 2 years over-dued HW! That has gotta rock.

I HAVE TO CANCEL MY GUITAR LESSON THIS SATURDAY FOR GP REMEDIAL! ARGH!


I didn't know what to do
I couldn't say anything
When consciousness returned
Everything had been washed away
by the tide of time

Kurenai

I hate carrying my 10KG amp to school... it's freaking tiring when i have to lift it up, walk down 8 floors, walk across the carpark, J across the main road, walk 200m to the mrt station, whip out my wallet while still carrying amp and bag, tap card, take the escalator onto the plat forma level, get into crowded train, place amp and floor and block everyone's way, carry amp out of train, walk to bus stop, u get the idea.

carrying back is even worse... the reverse of the above process after a tiring day... Rockafella audtions are over and i didn't quite had fun... cables died on me, wah pedal died on me... suay to the core. felt so dead i was practically stoning on stage while performing... what an eyesore i must have been...

i wanna do cover of songs from the likes of iron maiden, x japan, etc but can't find any vox who can do that.. and no... girls won't do :X

tmr's my dad's bday. bdae lunch ftw!


When I had looked at
the shadows on the wall
I started running into the night
to find the truth in me

Stress

Jammed a lot this week with my two bands... Rockafella auditions next tuesday! 6 out of 20 will go in! what are the odds...

Still got many things to do, like doing the midi file of the 2 syf pieces, trying to submit some hw that's long due as usual etc.

Ah, stress... That dreaded thing... Its no fun being class welfare head, guitar ensemble president, church prayer group leader (though i'm not doing much there... yet), being in two bands and being a jc student at the same time...

But then again, not that i'm masochistic or wad, i like stress... It seems to put me on hyper mode and it does at times, make me work on an efficiency ×5 or more my usual self... haha so, stress? yeah wadever... bring it on.

Busy Week

Wednesday - Guitar practise as usual. the number of j1s has been reduced as expected but nevertheless, still quite high. Went to the GENUS concert at NUS with Ms Teh, Regina, Cherlie, Linda, You Liang, Wee Meng and some seniors to watch them perform SYF pieces of various schools. They weren't very tight when they played ours. wasted... Reached home at 2230. No time to do HW (not that i do them even if i had anyway).

Thursday - Phy SPA test was bullshit... Helped shamir from student council to get quotation for renting of equipments for Rockafella III 2007 from Luther Musicworks. What a headache.

Friday - Econs test. with 2 lectures and 2 hours of study, gg. Guitar practise without Balraj. Hock Lu conducted and he was pissed that andrew wasn't serious during the whole Kiko practise. Kiko still sucks with serious timing problems and dynamics non-exsistent. No dinner outing with guitar memebers today, how sad.

Saturday - No lesson with Beez cause was too tired. Had lunch with Cherlie, Hock Lu, Charmaine and Linda. Guitar practise with GENUS at NUS. Jia Le didn't come as he was suppose to... He's dead meat... Went down to Luther Musicworks with Hock Lu after that to speak to Luther personally over the Rockafella III equipment rental. Its really crazy with a budget so tight. A lot of compromise had to be made. Yao Zong from FSV is also trying to get a deal on the otherside and so we'll just have to wait for the other quotation to come in before we decide on which to get.

Busy week now, busy week ahead

4 birthdays in a week...

what a hectic week... with 4 people's bdays (keith, mel, shiming, sarah)... crazy loads of party and lots of runnin about...

i'm totally broke now after blowing all my cash on presents... :(

totally blew my maths and chem tests on monday too... + i had been having 5 hours of sleep for the past 8 days...

on the lighter note, jammin session last saturday after shiming's bdae party with john delvin, ircahn and sheer was the shiznit! though the jamming session today was crap with CGCFAD tuning...

this evening's talk with bro paul was redundant... caused me to reached home at 10pm. there's still econs test this friday and i've only been to two econs lect from the start of the year! gl to me...

Left Right?

Jammed with amanda yesterday with guitar ensem band. Her vocals are great... and i bet she can play the guitar better than me... left handed ala jimi summore! haha.. too bad she can't commit due to busy schedule though... now i'm looking for a vox again... if cannot then no choice... i've gotta sing...

wtf? me? sing? retated!

ok anyway, today ms teh did some test with us to find out whether we were right-brainers or left-brainers... right : arty; left: sciencey...

guess what... my right brain pwns my left... wonder wtf i'm doing in a science class for the past 5 years... haha must be my Hyper-Threading technology brain... multi-tasking and all...

then again, HT-tech is outdated... now there's like dual core.. and quad core... too little RAM make my brain hang all the time... its interesting how i digress.. now back to me singing.. huh? me? sing? retaded!!

School work vs Guitar

6th day of school and feeling the heat. Gutiar vs school work is cool... My inbuilt Hyper-Threading technology allows me to study while i play the guitar!!! lol... ok no... so today's practise was quite cool... a lot of things settled and many new systems in place :)

then there's this: http://schools.moe.edu.sg/ijc/supernova.htm

some "1st" inter-school rock competition... wtf?! wasn't the 1st one last year (maybe there were more... they all just claim to be "1st") at SAJC?!

haha time to ask my bandmates if they wanna join... three bands.. i wonder if i can perform for three bands? that'll be like guitar guitar guitar guitar vs sch wk...

To Do List: get my creative zen fixed at marina sq, math hol hw, nyaa 10k reports, guitar club junior orientation, jamming with 3 bands, tab out 2 syf pieces.

i think i'll be quite busy this coming two weeks.

CCA Bazaar 2007

ah crap. guitar club's performance during yesterday's cca bazaar was screwed again. only 26 signed up because we didn't really go around jioing people. i hope they're the commited people who'd stay on in guitar club.

anyway... i've finally cleared 50% of my room! haha i've completed impossible feat halfway... just need the other half to be cleared and i've done the impossible! feels good to throw away all my o level notes and some retarde a level notes away...

so... i've not completed my NEMO and langkawi 4k words/ea report... i'm gonna be so screwed if i don't send them to mr. tan tmr... ms teh also wants something like that so i guess i'll just send her the whole thing... i actually spent 3 hours writing a 3k worded letter abou guitar club to her instead of doing the reports... haha so wadever...

apart from that, i've got my holiday homework! haha mrs ang maths holiday homework by monday and i've yet to start on a single question... gj to me!

this year is going to be a fun year with so much stuff to plan and do... jammings, gigs, performances, more performances and not forgetting... a levels. fun as hell

Jolly happy merry not-so-new year

yes its the 2nd... nothing happend the past 2 boring days...

anyway, one of my new year's resolution: to clock at least 365 hours of electric guitar practise this year (most probably gonna hit 1000hours but nvm)

so have a blessed and wonderful 2007! we'll soon see what this year brings...