phobia 2

watched 'phobia 2' for my platoon cohesion today.

now, hold your horses (what a saying), treasure this moment. never will that sentence, in its entirety, be uttered ever again. i hope.

let me explain the two key subjects of the sentence.

'phobia 2' refers to an anthology of five thai short films of the horror genre. this is genre that i fail to understand. it's a movie designed to get hearts racing and to shock the viewer, which is unpleasant enough to sit through, but what i cannot stand is the scare tactics employed by every horror film i know (admittedly few). horror films simply cannot get past the cliched screeching soundtracks and dead people's faces slamming against windows and popping up behind the victim etc, just like how reality shows cannot do without 'knockout' stages and personal interviews with contestants for them to reveal how afraid they are of being the ones chosen to pack their bags for home. then again the last of the five short films was at least original and a bag of laughs to watch.

'platoon cohesion' refers to a social event where a bunch of army guys get a chance to dress up in civilian clothes and pick something civilian to do as a group, once every month. in short, an excuse.

i do have a fear though. which i've revealed twice recently, once for an interview, once, over a siglap chicken rice dinner.

i have a genuine fear of being holed up in an office room cubicle from 8 to 5, typing away at a computer screen, doing paperwork, wearing an itch-inducing office shirt and uncomfortable leather shoes, getting caught in the evening traffic jam, coming home stressed, exhausted but restless. this is why i'm in no hurry to get a degree and start working.

that imagery is more scary to me than any horror film.


which is why a bus ride through shenton way in the evening scares me to no end.

the little kid who's pretty good at guitar.

After all the jacks are in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street
Footsteps dressed in red
And the wind whispers mary
A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces of yesterdays life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind, it cries mary

fun fact

for the movie 'the boat that rocked',

"The ship used for filming was the MV Timor Challenger, and much filming, both day and night scenes, was done in Portland Harbour (venue for the 2012 Olympics sailing) near Weymouth. "


where i've just been sailing the last couple of weeks.

we should have that thing as our race committee boat. with loudspeakers blaring chill-out tunes over the racecourse.

movies about music

i've watched a couple of them recently.

1. the soloist

so so. story was interesting but in the end wasn't really engaging. acting was pretty great. cello/violin playing was quite exquisite but 1 dimensional and not particularly rewarding.

2. almost famous

i've shared a curious relationship with one of my sergeants who has just ord-ed this past week. we both listened to some similar stuff, and talked about music often. i still remember a morning after a restless ops vl night in the vehicle in the deserted changi airshow area, he was playing reckoner and house of cards off his phone, and my morning didn't feel so fucking horrible anymore. heh. thanks 3sg suhardi and happy ord.

so anyway on my last tuesday in camp before leaving for weymouth here, he'd brought 'almost famous' for us to watch. or for me, re-watch. but i remember having liked it, and in particular i remember the kid's sister's quote, something about listening to rock n roll records with the light's off and a candle burning.

rewatching i realised that the sister was actually zooey deschanel. and i spotted the reference to pink floyd when the 'dark side of the moon' cover appeared momentarily on the windscreen of penny's car. heh.

i like the movie. the music's cool. the quotes are cool.

william: I'm glad you were home.
lester: I'm always home. I'm uncool.
w: Me too!
l: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool.

penny: I always tell the girls, never take it seriously, if ya never take it seriosuly, ya never get hurt, ya never get hurt, ya always have fun, and if you ever get lonely, just go to the record store and visit your friends.

[Finally getting his interview with Russell Hammond]
william: So Russell... what do you love about music?
russell: To begin with, everything.

anita: It's unfair that we can't listen to our music!
elaine: That's because it's music about drugs and promiscuous sex.
a: Simon and Garfunkel is poetry!
e: Yes it's poetry. It's poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex. Honey, they're on pot.

and that quote i was talking about.

Listen to Tommy with a candle burning, and you'll see your entire future. -anita miller

3. the boat that rocked

damn cool movie la. and damn cool music. referred to jimi hendrix as 'this little kid who's pretty good at guitar'.

patrick watson is playing live at the esplanade 19 january!

ok i'll get off the internet now and hope that someone will let me into the house cuz it's getting late.

colin went to the laser worlds

hurricane bill went to the laser worlds.




brett went to the laser masters worlds.


colin is going to weymouth for skandia sail for gold.

ok this is getting ridiculous, this is starting to look like some facebook notification page where everyone speaks in the third person.

chase butterflies.

go barefoot.
nap often.
ignore all but your favourite people.

-a cat.

i've got a scrabble word checker named after me.

sort of. and it's now in the sidebar. hehe.

this saturday i'll be at marina square with my mate bob dylan for my first ever scrabble tournament. hope we don't get slaughtered too badly. 25 minutes to play 12 words means about 2 minutes a turn, which is really different to what we've been doing, taking 10 minutes or so trying to find 7, 8 letter words and constantly referring to my outdated scrabble dictionary. wow how are we going to survive without it! i can't even remember all the 2 letter words. aa ab ad ae ag ah ai al am an ar as at aw ax ay aargh.

holy crap i just typed aargh into the word checker and it's a word. holy crap.

who knows. i might have undiscovered potential in this sport. yeah scrabble should be an olympic sport.


now you know how i'll be spending my time while waiting for hours for my turn to shoot some figure 11 targets tomorrow. sian. it's good to have bob dylan with me. he can play his anti-war songs to the tune of exploding gunpowder in the backdrop. heh. if only. cuz i've yet to actually hear the dude sing yet.