Other Half.

It's simple,
It's confusing,
It's painful,
It's a blessing.

There is a reason why people call their partners - their other half.
I didn't believe it, because it sounds stupid.
It's cliche.
But I'm the fool.

Probably the biggest fool in the world,
For not understanding something simple.
Always complicating things,
Always trying to understand.

I take one step at a time,
And I made it through.
And as many steps I can take,
One day, I'd fall.

But that's what the other half is for.
They listen to us when we're in need.
It's like God answering our prayers,
Only in person.

Like the long road I had to walk,
You came with a car.
Why didn't I think of that?
Because I never had my other half.

Let's dance under the moonlight,
With the sand in between our toes.
Swaying with the tempo of the waves,
Sweet, innocent love - on the beach.

Even though that I was alright without you,
But I had no heart.
I knew no pain, no love, no emotions,
I only knew life.

I spoke to life,
And life gave you to me.
I forgot how was it like to look someone in the eye,
I forgot that I was just human.

So, what's this rubbish about the other half?
Cliche? Cheesey?
I'm not me,
When I ain't got her.

And when I ain't got her,
Nobody's gettin' me.
I'm only half a human,
But she makes me one.












She's the other half.
The other half of me.
Her love is simple, but tough.
...










And my heart and love belongs to Rainnie Chee.

You Know It When..

When it's one of those days, an you know things are going to be wrong, but you still tell yourself, "nahhh. That's never going to happen" and all that

Like, seriously.

I have to stop thinking so bloody much and get my priorities all sorted out again!

What the hell is wrong with me?!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cold
Lying in my bed
Staring into darkness

Lost
I hear footsteps overhead
And my thoughts return
Again

Like a child who's run away
And won't be coming back
Time keeps passing by
As night turns into day

I'm so far away
And so alone
I need to see your face
To keep me sane
To make me whole

Try to stay alive
Until I hear your voice
I'm gonna lose my mind
Someone tell me why
I chose this life
This superficial lie
Constant compromise
Endless sacrifice

Pain
It saddens me to know
The helplessness you feel
Your light
Shines on my soul
While a thousand candles
Burn

Outside this barren room
The rain is pouring down
The emptiness inside
Is growing deeper still

You're so far away
And so alone
You long for love's embrace
To keep you sane
To make you whole

Try to stay alive
Until I hear your voice
I'm gonna lose my mind

Someone tell me why
I chose this life
This superficial lie
Constant compromise
Endless sacrifice

Moments wasted
Isolated
Time escaping
Endless sacrifice

Moments wasted
Isolated
Time escaping
Endless sacrifice

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

Moments wasted
Isolated
Time escaping
Endless sacrifice

The Quest for Tone VII.

Okay. So I went a bit overboard and blew about $100 more than I expected, even after the purchase of my upcoming figure(s) and game(s).

I wanted to get a pair of studio monitors, ranging from a 30 - 70 watt that works for mixing purposes, but the cheapest one that suits my taste and likings costs a hefty $500.

That is the standard price that people have to pay for tone. So I decided to take up an old friend's advice - Freddie Kam.

"You don't need studio monitors if you're under budget. Just save up for a good pair of headphones and you'll be working in no time. Plus studio monitors - good ones - would cost quite a lot."

He was right. Because the $500 ones I was looking at were the base models.

Hence, I went off to djwarehouse.com.au, and searched for the headphones that I saw in JB Hi-Fi, and they were about $50 cheaper - comes inclusive with postage.

And they came pretty quick. I was not around to pick it up, and like every other Apple products that I missed out, I had to go to the TNT Depot and pick it up (which I completely do not mind driving for).


And here we goooo.. !





I'm a sucker for in-ear headphones because it isolates noise from the outside. I just found out that my Nokia E71, (which I got on the same day as my iPhone as well) rings pretty loudly.

But when I put these babies on, I didn't even bloody hear my phones ringing. All of them. And some people know that my ringtones are pretty darn annoying.

So, it's a Sennheiser. To me, I think this is probably one of the best value for money-based headphones. Only at $140, and it delivers pretty crisp tone for monitoring purposes. It's a studio-based headphone, so you don't expect much from the low frequencies. BUT, it DOES pick up bass frequencies, it's just that it doesn't pick up as much as what you get from subwoofers.

But that's the main point that everybody gets wrong. Tone isn't all about screeching guitars or heavy thumping bass. It really depends where you're at. And for studios, I think you're better off with a biased-free tone setting.

The frequency response graph for this headphones is definitely > 0dB .. It doesn't even touch the negative side of the dB, so that explains why you are not able to get any power bass responses.

But to shut you from whining, I could hear Victor Wooten scratching and stopping his strings with his index finger in "The Lesson".

I nearly cried.











This baby is bloody beautiful.











And all the pictures above are taken with the iPhone 4's camera! Not bad with lots of lights around, and the front camera runs on a VGA resolution, but it looks better than my 6151 - which is a bloody ass old school 1.3mp camera. lol.

My God, the pictures are clear. lol

iPhone 4

The hype's over.

I received it this morning during work, and I'm still in the process of getting it up and read for the next step; Which is to switch to a postpaid line.

At the rate that I am using this phone, I think it's not worth it to stick with my current prepaid plan and go with postpaid anyway.

Will see how things go.

Plus better benefits lies in the iPhone BYO plans.











I'll probably write a review about it when I use it for a couple of days. Haven't really tried out the battery yet (obviously)

The Quest for Tone VI.

I went down to McCann's Music Centre again. This is where I am doing the deals for my upcoming the guitar, if you don't know already, and alongside with supported pedals.

I texted the dealer, and he sent me an email (which I was unable to access because I was at work), and he stated that my Jim Dunlop BG-95 had already arrived.

I didn't really bother, but things are quickly falling into place.

And I really didn't bother. But when he took the pedal out of the box and showed it to me, we were both in awe. Along with the other kids around in the music store. We were amazed at the design. It's strong metal casted, rubber grip for the shoes' soles, and Buddy Guy's signature polka dots.

And yes, the rest of the store were going, "What the hell? A pedal with polka dots?"

It is dead weird, I have to admit. But I don't think I've seen anybody with this pedal.











All being picked up next week. This is going to be my first fully-analogue setup after 8 years.











This is like a dream come true.

The Quest for Tone V.

I never had a plastic card to swipe over counters, but apparently, even kids have those cards here in Australia.

They're not credit cards, but full-fledged debit cards that can be used internationally (hence, my eBay spree) compared to Malaysia.

And even if I had a debit card in Malaysia, I wouldn't have enough money to even purchase anything.

Anyway, as a musician, I just got discovered here in Hobart, Tasmania! All I did was played the guitar several times until I managed to get Fly Me To The Moon by Paul Gilbert right, and my housemates received a mail. On a Saturday (where postal services are usually closed), sent to "The Guitarist" in my house.

Isn't that awesome?

I opened it up, and read that it was a letter stating that my neighbour does not mind me playing the guitar in the day, but it is fairly unreasonable to play the guitar at 3am in the morning.

I have got to love and hate acoustic guitars.

Hence, I decided to get something - which I've been considering due to the fact that studio monitors are not cheap. The M-Audio Studiophile AV30, I just found out, are multimedia speakers.

In other words, a branded Altec Lansing, without the big ass subwoofers.

Although at $135, I am still considering to get one of those babies - until I saw these.

Click!

Mm-hmm.

Proper headphones for proper music listening pleasure.

Plus these are really comfortable to wear, and to record with.











.. Or play the Strat for a couple of hours. Or days. Or weeks. Or months.

Next in Line.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

What a bloody beautiful thing.

Huimidity

I guess I'm not that patient anymore.

I really hate waiting. I want to see what are the efforts I've put in to attain then rewards I've longed for.

Sigh

I'm just fucked up in so many ways.

In Tears.

People who are brought down to a level where they are in tears are only meant for the weak.

But let's have a look at the typical competition between the strong, and the weak.

The rabbit vs the tortoise in a race.

The rabbit was a bit too overconfident and the tortoise won because the rabbit took a nap.

It doesn't really matter who's better, or who's not. If the rabbit wasn't to be such of an idiot to take a nap, he would've won by metres ahead.

My case is simple. I never liked being around my family. Like friends, we only meet up once in a while, and that's good enough for me to start swearing against them because of their stupidity at times.

Of course, that's not a good thing because they were the one who groomed us.

But even if you have a dog, and you beat the shit out of it everytime, it'll run away from "home" one day.











What hurts us only makes us stronger, yes?











I guess I wasn't an idiot by paying off AUD$ 987 for my pedals. Definitely worth it. Waiting for the guitar to pop by so I can pay all of that stuff off as well.

The Quest for Tone IV

+ Good news.

I always planned to get one pedal at a time.

And worse comes to worse, I would've made the Blues Driver the last thing that I would purchase.

Instead, the bill amounted to AUD$ 926.

I can pay for that amount though. Only in a given period of time. One step at a time I guess.

And no news about the guitar yet, but they ARE expecting the stock to come by pretty soon.

I'm just being optimistic, but for the love of that thing, I would wait.











I could've gotten the iPhone 4 32GBs with that amount of money lol

900th Post

I was about to post up that I was rather confused about to bring my Ibanez JEM JR down to Hobart by the end of this year.

Apparently, my parents won't ship it over because frieght is too bloody expensive.

I don't blame them. I blame Malaysia's weak currency.

Things are cheap there for foreigners, but it's not cheap for locals. And that's a bloody fact which I truly hate.

Anyways, since it IS the 900th post, I guess I won't be confused much. I'll just figure out what the hell am I supposed to do to ensure that my guitar arrives here safely via flight.











Boy is my brother going to be unhappy about this issue. lol

Here's A Deal.

Work hard, play hard.

This is just a personal reminder to keep up with my progress in studies (as I put in 0% effort last semester), and all bad things will come to an end pretty soon.

With my plans, as you know, to purchase the iMac, will take me quite a bit, and I can assure you that half a year is going to pass by as soon as it can. Hopefully, not too soon. Heh

But whatever it is, I need to constantly remind myself that adaptation is the key. Nothing is impossible, even if it were to be a musician and a person involved in the finance field.

One way or the other, we're all bright people.











So don't give up. The best is yet to come.

The Quest or Tone III.

Last night, as I was looking around for M-Audio items, I realized that I never gotten the Line 6 TonePort UX1, which is a very powerful audio interface with .. I forgot what plugin was that for the effete rack an all.

I was looking at that, or something that supports RCA outputs. I found out that most of the monitors which was in my range has RCA outputs, so that's a killer for me.

But I can assure you that the sound quality is just bloody awesome. Heh.

Anyways, new list:

M-Audio Studiophile A20 or A30
M-Audio FastTrack / Line 6 TonePort A30
M-Audio Oxygen v.3 49

Hmmmm..

That all should cost about 500++..











I just checked again that the TonePort is .. unavailable. But mysteriously, they share the same products in black (literally instead of the signature POD red.) which are now known as POD Studio UX1, UX2, UX8 and KB37.

I guess I was a bigger idiot. After all, the TonePort was released years back. Lol.

Getting Somewhat.. Old.

Is this a good or a bad thing if I were to remember the times that I once had, and attempted to try and achieve whatever it is to achieve it, but end up.. Being tired.

I think age is catching up.

The scariest bit is that, now it's August, and I really think that time's running out for everything that I've ever planned for.

Whatever.

I'm spoilt for choices again.

iMac, 27inch, i5 or i7.. that is the question.

I know I'm going for the deadly 2x4GB RAM which costs $560. Way to go.

Making Up My Mind.

And so I decided on the 27 inch iMac.

Here's what I'm looking at.

i5 Quad-Core processor, 2x4GB RAM, 1TB SATA HDD 7200rpm, and the graphic card.

Mmm mmm.. Next year's going to be a fresh start for me :)

The Quest for Tone II.

Now, when I was in Malaysia, I always went something like, "Yup, I'm saving up for a guitar". Or a car. Or a prostitute.

I never saved up for dinner, and I had good meals (overpriced at times too).

So what's the difference with me being in Australia?

I walk the talk.

I present to you, the first part on my somewhat magical quest for tone: The Roland CUBE 30X


Yes, this is the preparation stage. I want that day when I get my Fender Stratocaster to be THE day where I just sit down, plug my guitar in, and start playing for the next 5 months non stop.

And in other words, I do not have a guitar to try it on, sadly. But I had a run of this thing at the shop, and it sounds superb on a single-coil guitar!

There is a smaller version of this thing, that I've played on before. It passed my expectations, and it was bloody loud for a 15 watt amp. This is a 10-inch speaker loaded with 30 watts, that has more effects to mess around with, a foot-switch selector, auxilary in (No idea why the hell that thing is there), and well, Roland owns BOSS, so the effects they had on the amp was pretty..Interesting.


Have a look at the dials!


Now you see, the last part for the distortion bit it called the Dyna-amp. All you need to do is to flick 0.5 gain on that, and flick your pickup selector to a single-coil pickup. Produce as low output as you can on the pick, and you'll play clean. Jam as hard as you can on the strings, and it'll be all distorted.











But I can't give a full review of this amp. Because I don't have a guitar.











.. Yet.

Unbelivable.

Some people have the oddest attitudes. Also, not forgetting that they lost their basic sense of who they really are, sadly.

I met this musician a long time ago who was spoilt for choices on what he wanted to do next in his life. He got a scholarship and I told him that if he had the chance to do so, he'd better go for it, regardless of the expenses and all.

Apparently, he made it through, and I was somewhat happy to arch him graduate, although we lost contact for quite a bit. But now, thanks to sites like FaceTube and Twitter, we can't say that we lost contact at all with whoever it is we want to try and lose contact at all.

Oh wait, there's an effective way. Buy a HP laptop, and just let the motherboard explode on you 4 times when you expect it to run for years.

So, what caused this issue of mine? I was happy, but not happy to see him at his current state. If he thinks he's a better musicians by stating comments that he has studied and settled several songs of a certain musician, that's great.

But saying that he "sucks", now where's the respect of musicianship in him?

Sure, Slash can say that because.. Well, he's Slash.

We all know the likes of Guthrie Govan and Steve Vai would gladly eat Slash up for breakfast, but no. They decide to tidy him instead.

Now, if you were to say that you have an issue with someone, that's fine. But publicly declaring that he is not up to your standards and whatever it is, that's just plain arrogance.

Look at John Mayer. He IS a good guitarist and a musician due to his multi-talent stint going on. And he once played side by side with Eric Clapton, which is his biggest dream, and guess what?

He out performed Eric Clapton.

But, he wouldn't have out performed Eric Clapton, if there were to be no Eric Clapton.

His main source of inspiration comes FROM Eric Clapton.

Like the snot that his royal highness, Jimi Hendrix, inspired the thousands, if not, millions, of guitarists out there in the world today.

The simple fact is this: if he has a fan base, the commandment of music states that thou shall not say he sucks.

They may suck to you, but why don't you say something like, he doesn't suit your expectations?

And if you're learning his songs and if you dare to say something like that, then DON'T learn his songs. And if you say that your education institute forced you to, then you should've given up your scholarship.

I don't think that there is a 101 class of teaching you to criticize a musician in a very unprofessional way.

Even I grew out of the stage saying that commercialized bands suck. I can't even say that my interest doesn't lie in them, and yes, I admit that I do like to kick back and listen to The Bee Gees.

So if you're reading this, there is no intention of putting you to shame, or making you feel bad, or saying that you, in your own words, "suck". You have my respect, only when you buck up that attitude of yours first. Take this as a light message, as you never know what your attitude might get you into a "sucky" situation. :)

Penning Some Thoughts.

Now, I just had a look at the beautiful iMacs they had on the Apple store. My word, I had done my research and the i7 core was bloody insane.

And yes, I came back to that dilemma where I am not sure if I should be going for the i5, or the i7, and also, if i should be going for the normal iMac without the quad-core, or the one with the quad core.

Great, huh.

I have completely no idea what to pick, and I just worked my financing scheme, if I work hard enough, I'm able to get this iMac in just 3 months time, but that's when you'll probably see me dead or something. Hopefully all goes well by then.

My hours were shortened, so its hard to say that I am earning a good amount of cash.

Plus I have a big sum to pay off the guitar too, so that's something to not look forward to.

So, I've got 3 to 5 months to think about the iMac.

More importantly, I got that amount of time to reconsider what specs it should be loaded with.

Why are you 4GB RAM chips so darn expensive?!

Oh Dear.

As much as I wanted the i7 intel quad core processor on the planned iMac at I was planning to get, I had a look at the iMac at would be somewhat optimal for my usage.

I spoke to a guy in JB who had vast knowledge in this, and I was happy that I opened up. The i7 is simple. It's that powerful that it will begin to lag only if I were to have 5 applications running side by side, and they all be rendering movies.

Yes, rendering movies.

Now when he mentioned that, what bloody cocks' nation am I going to do with an iMac that does movie rendering, whenever I DON'T do rendering at all? I wanted to do movie editting, but it's far more complicated compared to sound engineering.

Plus if I were to be working on Reason (again), I have absolutely no reason for me to run on that much power.

It's like fitting a compatible Ferrari engine into a Fiat Panda.

The issue is still money, and for me to plan, that'll take quite a bit. But if I were to go for the i5 instead of the i7, it'll be hell cheaper too.

And the differences of the RAM. I think I might need to pay a bigger price for the 2x4GB RAM instead of the 4x2GB RAM, only for sheer convenience.

Shipping this monster back to Malaysia is the least of my worries.

But should I stick with something that lasts up to 7 years, or up to a few years?







Boy, this is harder than deciding what guitar I want to get.

Slight Change of Plans.

I know, I know. I've been doing a lot of shopping lately. The guitar deposit, the amp deposit, the figures - Big Boss Jungle Fatigue model and Resident Evil 5's Chris Redfield.

Oh, and the gorgeous (smart, but stupid) iPhone 4.

Smart but stupid? Why? I love Macs and I am using an iPad like nobody's business at the moment, but the fact lies that Apple made an engineering genius design for the iPhone 4's antenna.

If you are one of those thousand people who are sick and tired of the whole death grip issues, and the antennagate problem, you can gladly leave this site and not learn about what people did not criticize about.

The position OF the antenna.

For years, all phone manufactures have been putting their "weak spots" at the place where nobody would touch them. The back. And more specifically, the back area, opposite of the highest point of the display unit, which is the screen.

And out of nowhere, Apple became a genius by putting the antenna at a place where everybody else's hands are going to be at.

The signal is strong, just that with human contact, it gets weaker. My remedy is, get a cover, OR don't you even dare touch or cover the antenna.

That settles it all. I mean, nobody manufactures a car with the wheels on top of the roof. Why? Because the wheels are supposed to drive the car and it's supposed to be.. Well, at the bottom.

So what if nobody's perfect?

Anyways, to the next point.

If you remember the plan for myself, I say that I will be getting the Nikon D300S which has downgraded to the D90, which costs at $1499 that includes a $200 cash back.

So what is this all about? Another plan that is going to suffer from an unusual downgrade?

Did I order an iPhone 3GS instead of the 4? Wait a minute, I cant do that. I already paid for it. But unlike the iPad, I didn't see a reason for it to be at a maxed out capacity like my 64GB wifi iPad. Like the same reason I don't see a reason why I should stuff in a 3G sim card and go online everywhere, when I can't - until I take a seat, or a crap on the toilet bowl in my university.

There is a slight change of plans. I have decided to give up on the dreams of owning a MacBook Pro. The 17inch, i7 intel processor with 8GBs of DDR3 RAM, with 500GB SATA @ 7200rpm. I have been eyeing on that machine for months now, and today's the day I decided to give up.

Which means one thing. I am going back to the operating system (Microsoft Windows) that I have heavily criticized since the breakdown of my HP on the 22nd June 2010.

.. So, is it a Dell? An Acer? A HP? An Asus? A Toshiba?

Neither. Over my dead body I'll go for another Microshit OS.

I decided to go for an iMac.

Yes yes, I know, I know. It's a desktop Mac. It's not even mobile anymore, but I usually leave my laptop or netbook at home now, and I just use my iPad wherever I do. And because I HAVE a netbook, I can bring that one out instead and use that to download my microshit applications..

Wait, its called PROGRAMMES. Applications are for Macs.

More over, it's $500 cheaper, with the specs all maxed out.

The question now lies if it were to be the 21.5 inch, or 27 inch.

I asked my brother, who surprisingly gave a bias-free advice about the Macs, although he has completely no idea how it'd turn out, but I needed his knowledge on the hardware that they fitted onto Macs.

I'm desperate for the i7 processors, but that's only available at the highest end for the iMac. Sadly.

The reason why I decided to change is that the MacBook Pro supports up to 1440*900 resolution, and if I were to work on my brother's pictures, boy, is that going to piss me off big time, because of the bloody resolution.

The iMac starts on 1080p onwards, and lots of other things.

Of course, the 27 inch one has a higher resolution.

The price tag is a bit hefty, but hell, it's 500$ cheaper compared to the MacBook Pro.








So, I'd say it's a win win situation :)