i can't get over the girl i like, so get up and make me a cup of tea

i know.

i'll say, "hullo, i don't know what to say, so i asked dylan, and he said to say something normal, like HAVE A BLESSED WEEK TOO, and i was like that's so lame, i should say something interesting, so yeah, i just don't want it to be awkward."

how did some guy in the recital studio audience come up with the perfect title for this post?

cat power and patrick watson and juno and all these thoughts that have been swirling about in my head.

i was blown away by patrick watson's gig tonight. awesome. i don't possess enough superlatives. i can, however, try to describe it.

first time i've heard a gig at the recital studio, it was sublime. delicate, intimate, beautiful, hushed, haunting, heavenly, utterly mesmerising story telling at times... then descending into chaos, crashing, devastating.

sweet ballads interspersed with wacky sounds (e-bowing a cymbal, a musical saw, a vocoder, a megaphone, loops, cowbells... the banjo seemed perfectly ordinary in comparison). 

outstanding musicianship all round, on piano, percussion, bass and lead guitar. the guitarist didn't have me convinced at first but then he started using the whammy bar and jamming and i was awestruck. 

and then they performed an impromptu song using lyrics thrown in by the audience, 'who's line is it anyway' style, sang an extended 'man under the sea', signed my shirt and left me a happy fanboy sad that kwong ming didn't make it yet glad to have shufen to share my joy with instead.

cat power put on an impressive performance in their own right, and i still can't believe they managed to sell out the esplanade concert hall so easily. chan marshall has a voice unlike any other i've heard, enchanting in its own way. she has her own eccentric, idiosyncratic style of delivery, her meandering vocals matching her feline postures as she limbered across the stage. 

her blues band was solid as well. restrained and minimal when called for, letting chan take centrestage, full of oomph when their turn came to bring the house down. thoroughly enjoyable.

next week we are gonna do something stupid and sail juno 20+km down to nongsa point in batam and race the singapore straits regatta with a hastily pieced together crew ill-prepared for 20 knots of monsoon breeze. sounds like good fun already.

last week i did something stupid and stayed behind to try my luck. awkward is a wonderful word to describe how it went. if the reward i get for my efforts is a lovely smile and a twinkle of the eye, well... it could have been better, but i think i can live with that.

it was amazingly easy to organise a surprise 21st birthday for my best bud over the weekend. a few messages exchanged, an event page put up on facebook, and several invites later everything is more or less settled. disconcertingly simple.

one flew over the cuckoo's nest

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,

Apple seed and apple thorn,

Wire, briar, limber lock,

Three geese in a flock,

One flew East

One flew West

And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

 

unacceptable: coming into the last downwind of the day in 9th place, pretty good shape, capsizing 200m out from the bottom mark, capsizing whilst gybing trying to get back to the mark, capsizing while gybing round the mark because i didn't commit fully. 13 boats, countless boatlengths, and ultimately a wasted race.

 

somehow, in the heat of the moment, i was raging and screaming, but an hour later i mellowed. people come by and ask 'so how'd you go' and i can't put on my 'pissed off' facade forever, so i smile weakly and converse. which sort of cheered me up. even when i want to be angry at myself.

 

lastly i feel daunted by how far i have to go. how many more hours i need in a decent weight of breeze. i sailed more than a hundred days in 2009 - imagine how many days i have to go out there and suffer the pain through the wind and waves before i can be competitive. 

 

it's more my downwind that needs work than my upwind, i feel. i can sort of see the way forward for my upwind speed - get heavier, stronger, fitter, coordinate weight, sheet and steering through the waves. that i can picture, that i can comprehend. downwind i feel so out of sorts, dictated by my overloaded rig, unsteady, rolling uncontrollably. i can't really see what it is that i should be doing differently. that scares me.

 

one time too many - phoenix.

gravity

according to xkcd, you could escape Deimos' gravity with a bike and a ramp.

imagine having a device that captures smell, in a way that cameras take pictures. or a camera that captures smell and adds it to the scene.

i've been playing scrabble against the computer, and scored three successive bingos (playing all seven tiles in a turn) in a game last night. READERS, CAMEOING and THISTLE. particularly happy with the last one. and i still lost by one point...

as for the sailing. the key word is,

patience.

teenage kicks

i was in the right place and time to snap a shot of this girl walking pass some scribbling on the floor of one of king's cross' back roads. teenage kicks.

Teenage dreams so hard to beat

Every time she walks down the street

Another girl in the neighbourhood

Wish she was mine, she looks so good

I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight

Get teenage kicks right through the night

I'm gonna call her on the telephone

Have her over cos I'm all alone

I need excitement oh I need it bad

And its the best, I've ever had

I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight

Get teenage kicks right through the night

'teenage kicks' was one of dj john peel's favourite songs - so much so that the only words he wanted on his tombstone, aside from his name, was the opening line from the song, 'teenage dreams, so hard to beat'.

taking the plunge.

on monday night i'll head to sydney for a long training stint. sail sydney regatta is 5-8 december. over to melbourne where i'll be doing sail melbourne, 14-19 december. back to singapore for christmas, before leaving for adelaide for the laser nationals, 27th december till 4th january.

sail melbourne's the critical isaf grade 1 event in which i can qualify for the snoc's olympic pathway programme by finishing in the top 10. it's a big ask, but it'd be great if i can make my mark at that event.

hmm when's chinese new year? ah, february 14. then i'm supposed to move into shalom college on the 21st with my mate kwong. doing nanotechnology at the university of new south wales. sail in sydney harbour. all very exciting.

this must be the first time i've revealed so much about my life on the internet!

so - set up an aussie phone line, a bank account, settle student visa, consider a car, get a bike, get a sweet guitar, get a sweet boat, get a sweet suite,

get a life.

nah i didn't mean to end on a note like that. sure i'll be missing home and people and food. but i'm longing for a different experience, and the time is about right.

hello, starting block. good to see you.

oh, f*** me.

65daysofstatic in singapore.

i'll be in sydney.

that just beggars belief.