The radio, a decade ago

Slightly less than a decade for some of these songs but they definitely brought a wrinkly smile to my weathered, weary face when I heard them on YouTube again. It was during my early Secondary School days when I haven't discovered p2p music downloading yet and the only music I got was from the radio. Like many psychological experiments have proven, you tend to be happier with what you have when there isn't much choice in the first place.


Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life

I think it's apt that I start the list with one of the most defining pop songs released in the 90's. Also known as the "Doo-doo-doo doo-doo-dooooo-doo song" to me, I only discovered that the song is about meth addiction a couple of years ago. "...B-b-but it's such a happy tune!", I thought, and hence began the transformation into the old, jaded, cranky bastard I am today.


Chumbawamba - Tubthumping

Prior to this one mainstream hit of theirs, Chumbawamba was actually an anarcho-punk band playing very...different music. I heard this all the way back on FIFA 98 (Also had Reel Big Fish on it) and I knew it as the "I GET KNOCKED DOWN I GET UP AGAIN AGAFJSGPIJSPGJDPFGJPD" song.


Dexter Freebish - Leaving Town

One-hit wonder as fuck but at least this was, and still is, a very good song. This was actually the song that made me post this entry because I had the sudden urge to listen to it again. Watch out for unbuttoned shirts layered over t-shirts and the random wearing of sunglasses.


Jimmy Eat World - The Middle

Jimmy Eat World is the only band that I still listen to on a regular basis but I believe this was the song that brought them mainstream fame and screaming alternative girls that the greasy, floppy-haired angst-ridden fatso of a singer would never otherwise be able to get. Also, Jimmy Eat World is abbreviated as JEW.


The Wallflowers - One Headlight

More than anything else, this band was well-known for having Bob Dylan's son on the vocals. They also wrote a song for Godzilla: The Movie's soundtrack but like I said earlier, The Wallflowers are better known for having Bob Dylan's son in it.


Evan And Jaron - Crazy For This Girl

This song will always remind me of my first crush in 1999 or 2000 and on who? I don't even remember now. This is Evan and Jaron's only hit song, "The Distance" has one of the worst choruses ever.


Collective Soul - The World I Know

One of those uplifting, "Hey fuck this, life is beautiful" kind of songs, the video reflects just that. Ignore the singing hobo and you actually have a beautifully-shot video with a nice little story behind it. I remember watching a video montage of various human sufferings (Wars, famine, floods and shit) with this song layered over people crying and wailing and it was a perfect fit. Can anyone find it on YouTube?


Semisonic - Closing Time

Apparently, this song is about abortion. Not sure how true that is but I always imagine a bar closing quietly, like how the lyrics describe. The abortion thing probably spawned from one of the bored retards at SongMeanings.net.


Spin Doctors - Two Princes

I never expected the band, especially the singer, to look like that. I've always thought the band would look more...juvenile and teenager-like. Seriously, the lead singer looks like the hippie nutfuck Michael Caine played in Children of Men, which is a great movie by the way. Mostly because of that one scene, watch it and you'll know which one scene I'm talking about.


Len - Steal My Sunshine

Probably the ugliest people to ever appear on a music video, they nevertheless managed to produce the perfect summer song, which means it's perfect for every single day in Singapore hurhur.


OMC - How Bizarre

I'm not trying to do a "Ugly people in one-hit wonder bands" theme here but forward the video to 0:37 and witness the Pacific Islander hotness. Pat Tanaka also makes a intensely-charismatic cameo appearance in the video, sitting in the backseat of the car. What does he do in the band? We'll never know.


In all seriousness, I kind of miss the feeling of anticipating any of these songs to come on the radio while I'm doing my homework or when I'm about to fall asleep at 11 p.m. But of course, Nickelback came and made it alright for mainstream rock music to suck donkey balls. I fucking hate Nickelback.

The Money Cult

For some reason, I was reminded of how an ex-classmate tried to recruit me into a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) company. If you've somehow been unexposed to this evil, MLM basically works by you getting recruited as a "Marketing Executive/Sales Executive/Idiot" by someone else and he/she gets a good cut of your profits which come from selling generic-quality utensils or health products. You don't earn much by merely selling those and that's why you should recruit more Sales Executives under you so they can do the work for you, giving you a cut of their profits. It's capitalism boiled down to its simplest form and coated in self-help motivational babble jargon and put in a faux-corporate environment.

More often than that, these "Marketing Companies" (which they are sometimes called, to reduce the dodginess) require new recruits to spend a couple of hundred bucks on training seminars, tapes and videos and this actually earns the companies quite a bit of money because through insistent bugging, psychological pressuring or just plain naivety, new recruits end up spending the couple of hundred of dollars on the training material even though many of them do not continue past this stage.

If you do end up continuing past this first filter, designed probably to weed out the unenthusiastic, skeptical and lazy (Doesn't matter, they've paid for the bullshit already), you will find yourself using every single social situation as a sales pitch to your friends, relatives or strangers.

If you managed to live with the fact that all your friends now avoid you like the motherfucking plague for a few years, you'll probably find yourself earning enough to eat alone at posh restaurants rather often. However, and hopefully, you'll realise that you'll never earn as much as the top executive who drives a Mercedes (Choice of car for the noveau riche) because you're not at the very top. All you've been doing for the last three years was to work for his S-Class, his quarterly European travels, his gawdy-but-Goddamn-look-at-the-logo Ralph Lauren Polo shirt and his penthouse suite on the East Coast. You realise this and hopefully, you go into depression after being enlightened on how silly and futile the entire idea is and hopefully, you commit suicide by sinking yourself down in your condominium swimming pool.

Fuck you, do you have any idea how much you've just scarred the five-year-old boy who unknowingly jumped in for his morning swim? Fuck you and your wrinkly, bloated corpse, do you have any idea how much of a PR nightmare it is for the condo?

The best part of my visit to the company was when three other Junior Executives in G2000 suits and ties that were too big for their tiny heads and eyes, introduced a more senior executive into the meeting room so he could brief me on the company's function.

"Alright, Arthur, we are going to invite James in, so he can communicate to you on our company. He's a very friendly and charismatic guy, you'll enjoy hearing him speak."

In comes this gawky-looking 24-year-old who probably, no, definitely spent a good part of his life being the nice guy who has always finished last. His perfectly-ironed shirt was tucked in too high, his spectacles expensive but totally unsuitable for his scrawny facial frame. He beams at me and says hi, his breath smelling like cheap mint and reaches out for a handshake. I stick my hand out and he grabs it and attempts to break my forearm by forcing a violent up-and-down jerk.

Wow, he is not charismatic at all.

The junior executives loved him though, laughing at every punchline during the presentation. I smiled, for courtesy's sake but it was clear that I wasn't enjoying it. My "friend" (the one who brought me there) kept looking over to see if I'm buying it and obviously, I wasn't. She needed to bring in the big guns if she wanted her first car by the first quarter.

I was then introduced to another guy, this one a lot more comfortable and natural than James and he even showed some half-joking cynicism at the Calcium tablets that he sells. It took me five minutes of conversation before I remembered that he works for the company as well and he wants me to join, he wants my money.

"Arthur, I was from a rich family so I have always been labeled a rich boy and I don't like that. I want to be rich because of my own efforts, you know?"

He wants your money.

"When I saw this opportunity, I grabbed it because I want to be somebody, you know? Being from a rich family is nice but what did I do to achieve that?"

He wants your money, he wants you to sell those fucking Calcium tablets.

"I know you feel the same, you look like the kind who wants to go out there and create a name for yourself, I can just tell. As a friend, I would advice you to do this, start early and you won't have to worry about it later."

He wants your money, he doesn't give a shit about what you want or how you think. Run out of this office, it will be your best decision all day.

How did I get involved in all these anyway? It all started with an old classmate wanting to "catch up" and after asking some questions about what I did in Poly, she invited me to her office because they were interested in hiring "marketing talents". Basically, I had no idea I was going to an MLM company's office. After the visit, I told her firmly that I wasn't interested and she got the not-so-subtle hint and stopped talking to me after that. Biggest relief ever and no, she wasn't hot so it wasn't a huge loss.

The entire thing happened over two years ago and I got reminded of it this morning, really weird. I think it's my mind nudging me in the shoulder, going "Hey, remember how dumb you were?". Never again, my mind, never again.

Hype hype hype hype

As the coolest and indiest fucker on this over-commercialised planet (fuck the system lol), it's only natural that I resist all forms of fads and hype. For example, I still don't "get" donuts because really, guys, they're just donuts, they've always been there. Of course, I enjoy eating a few now and then but I don't feel the need to blog about how I travelled overseas and DUNKIN' DONUTS DUNKIN' DONUTS DUNKIN' DONUTS FUCKIN' DONUTS URHRHGGGGGHHHHHHHHH I'M CUMMING URRGGHHH.

The worst fad that has hit Singaporean youths lately has to be skinny jeans. Never has one single piece of clothing been able to separate the utterly style-less from the others like skinny jeans. I've found myself afraid to go to Orchard Road because of kids in skinny jeans and the worst are jeans that are divided down the middle with one colour (most probably red) and another (always black) on the other. I honestly hope the Taiwanese don't hear of the music genre they call "Emo", oh God please don't.

That being said, I own two pairs of skinny jeans which cost $560 in retail pricing. But it's okay, I was there before the trendwhore kids hopped onto the 38-year-old-prostitute-like bandwagon which looked pretty damn good before but is now an overexposed and sagging hag because of the number of people who have gone on her. Creating analogies like a hero, Goddamn.

Don't worry, I haven't gone crazy from getting scammed yet. That was just the blogging equivalent of Craig Nichols going crazy on national TV. It's okay! He's an Autistic!

That brings me to my main point (The music, not the Autism) of fads and hype, I wasn't kidding when I wrote about resisting hype because that's just what I've been doing since my Secondary School days when I felt the need to be different. I was never one of the popular kids so I refused to consume what they consumed but like I said, Secondary School days.

Hence, I missed out on the entire Garage/Indie Rock thing which was ENORMOUS from 2000 to 2003. I heard The Strokes on Internet radio and dismissed them because, shit, their name is everywhere and if they're popular now, I mustn't listen to them.

What a mistake.

I got the band's entire discography and I can't believe what I've been missing out on. The third album was a mediocre effort but if your band's portfolio consists of "Hard to Explain", "Last Nite", "12-51" and "Someday", you probably won't give a shit about some pseudo-indie dickhead's opinions anyway. Same thing with other bands such as Hot Hot Heat, Bloc Party and The Arctic Monkeys. The latter two made good music but God, there was way too much hype.

So, am I a pretentious faggot for listening to music that's only past its prime so I won't look like a trendwhoring faggot instead? Well, maybe but I should upload the glossy and extremely 2.0-ish logos that I've been creating lately and you all can e-lynch me for being an e-hypocrite.

What am I listening to now? I'm so indie that I'm listening to The Ultimate Motown Hits Collection now. Beat that, you electro-listening, threadless-wearing hipster dicks.

Webcomics

Ahh, webcomics, perfectly designed to distract you for that five minutes after you're done reading your bookmarked blogs and before you search for that new Emma Watson Playboy shoot. As expected, there are tons of webcomics out there that make Garfield look like comedy genius in comparison but here I am, with the best.

Wondermark



Wondermark's gimmick is basically the usage of vintage illustrations but it works so well and in fact, I can't imagine the execution being any better. Also, the actual content is excellent, ranging from observational humour to social commentary to pure slapstick silliness.





It has the great archive to trawl through but some strips might be a little hard to grasp so don't feel dumb if you don't get the humour, dumbass.

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Explosm

It's very hit-or-miss and the site is laden with ads for online t-shirt stores and other nonsense but I thought the latest comic was pretty funny.



Even though some of his strips have painfully-contrived set-ups and he relies too much on running gags, I can see some of you liking Explosm the most because you're all dumbasses. But seriously, you'll like this if you enjoy stuff like The Family Guy.

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Morning Glory



The most legendary webcomic ever, Jesus will hate you for laughing at it. Seriously, you can spend 40 years of life dedicating yourself to helping blind retarded AIDS victims deep in Africa but one chuckle at this and you're still going straight to hell.

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And, an honourable mention for Questionable Content, which has more snarky hipster-ish dialogue than Garden State and Juno combined together but start reading from the very first strip and I dare you not to feel a connection to the characters. You will also go blind because the time I read through the entire archive, it took me five hours.

That's all I've got. Seriously, the Morning Glory comics are not work-safe at all.

Premier League Champions

That's right, that's a capital C on "Champions", because it's a proper title and it belongs to Manchester United. The best part was Bolton's 92nd minute equaliser against Chelsea, which means that "The Blues" didn't even manage to win their last match which could have won them the league HAHAHAHAHAHAAH. NINETY-SECOND MINUTE HAHAHAHAHAHA. When the camera panned onto the Chelsea fans looking all upset and shocked, I started laughing and twenty minutes now, I'm still beaming.

Prior to this, I've always thought of schadenfreude as a one of those foreign words that morons use to sound smart but now, I'm fully understanding its meaning. HAHAAHHAH CHELSEA 1, BOLTON 1.

What's sweeter was the conversation with Jules, an ardent Chelsea fan who would suck off the entire first, reserve and youth team if presented the chance. After laughing in her face for the first five minutes, we moved onto other topics (which she was only too happy to) and she mentioned how her hair is coming off while she was combing it.

Jules: Oh my God, I'm losing so much hair.
Me: YOU LOST THE LEAGUE AS WELL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Edit: And it continues,

Me: ...HAHAHAHA okay okay okay, let's talk about something else. How was your mahjong game?
Jules: (Relieved) Not so good, I lost ten dolla-
Me: NOT THE ONLY THING YOU LOST TODAY HAHAHAHAHAH.

How it feels to get Jew'd

I was browsing this buy/sell forum a couple of weeks ago and I saw a thread with someone selling three "Brand New 32G iPod Touch"s at 400 USD each. I don't need a new iPod as my old one is still functioning nicely but the Government just returned me some money which means nothing until I exchange it something more material. Even if I don't use the iPod Touch, I should be able to sell it for a little profit, which then be again exchanged for more material.


The seller did the old "Username in product shot" thing and look at that, pretty damn legit, isn't it? It also helped that another poster gave her positive feedback on an iPod which he bought from her previously. "Free bump! I bought a used ipod touch from Sekundes and I thought the unit was in better condition than originally described. Good deal."

Couple that with the fact that the forum required a registration fee of $10 and on top of that, you had to be registered for at least seven months before you can post in that buy/sell sub-forum, I was feeling pretty safe about the deal. I've done almost 20 transactions there, both selling and buying, and not once have I encountered any problem.

I complete the PayPal transaction, like I've done so many times before so again, I felt very safe throughout the entire process. And of course, I receive the confirmation email from the seller.



The e-mail title was such because I was using vPost's mailing address so I won't have to pay out of my ass just for shipping. "Heh heh", I thought to myself, "I'm saving money."

A few days passed and I wanted to know if my package has been shipped out so I e-mailed her, but no reply. I waited for a couple more days before trying to contact her again but still, nothing from Lisa Tsibur. I then checked the thread in the forum and apparently, another guy who purchased an iPod from her hasn't received anything in the form of an iPod or a reply. He lives in California and if the deal was legit, he would and should have received his purchase a long time ago.

It was only then when I started to feel uncomfortable so I went through the details of that transaction, the thread on the forum and the one and only e-mail she sent. And it was only then, that I realised that the names used for her e-mail and paypal account were different. Scroll up to the previous image and take a look for yourself. But hey, maybe a friend and her are sharing a paypal account, which is fairly normal.


But I take a look at the forum thread again and saw this post. Apparently, this poster "Dinara", is Elizabeth Woody as well.

Since she was nice enough to post her e-mail address, the Californian guy is in the midst of trying to get her school's authority to kick her door down and then arrest her for online fraud while she wails and kicks, going "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I WILL SHIP THE IPODS I'M SORRY" Okay no, that's probably not going to happen, I'll be happy enough to get my fucking money back.

But this whole ordeal wasn't just anger and regret. I did a search for "Tsibur" and well, it's a Jewish surname. Nothing like a little stereotype-reaffirming joke to make me almost forget about getting cheated.