62. Satisfaction + Sound Check

Personal/Ideals/Review

This is called a 2 in 1 posting. So everything's fine up till today. So far so good...

Huh...Arsenal lost to Manchester United 0-1. I was so tensed during the whole match..plus shivers sent by the midnight wind. Next leg, May 5th. Will Gunners step up?

So, it's good. I've been a good boy recently. heh it sure does feel good when you managed to complete tasks either at home or school. Accomplishments do always come with a reward, the most basic being satisfaction. ooh.. I will dedicate this time to some of my new daily activities. With added spice..

ya noe, i feel accomplished/great doing..
-wake up early (sleep earlier)
-jogged the neighbourhood
-have a hearty breakfast (nutritional)
-start efficiently on revision/study
-walked out to stock up on home food
-cook meals
-clear up the heap of laundry
-ironing
-cleaning the toilet (at least it's sparkling to my short-sightedness)
-have satisfactory fulfilling dinner while enjoying cuci mata
-abstain from regular self-entertainment
-play the guitar for at least 2 hours....huh
-found many good rock/metal classics
-read news and articles regularly (Yahoo! and theStar Online)
-etc

ah...that's not all. I also derive satisfaction from discovering new knowledge. When you're curious over a particular subject you go on to research and cross-referring until you achieve a self-understanding with it.

But I continue to fail in performing these simple objectives:
-clearing up the email inbox
-start reading my books (apart from studies)
-.....

Nothing much anyway..after this week there will be 3 study weeks left. A week of study leave will follow. Then some serious groin-massaging 7-subject busting exam.

Time for a review moment. This is the headphone I use everyday for orgasms through listening. No..don't get it the wrong way.heh

Altec Lansing AHS502i

My brother bought it for me some 2-3 years ago at around RM50. I think the price is still around there. Good reasonable price for a great handphone, but not top-notch of course.

Pros:
-Great surround
-Strong bass
-Clear and crisp treble, with good mid-range quality
-External noise-cancelling design
-Cool looks with a cool microphone

Cons:
-Bass overriding overall tone (overcome by adjusting equalizer through music player)
-Distortion at certain frequency and especially with too full sounding recordings (natural)
-Not so resistant to wear and age-foam pad gets its cover all cracked and torn after prolonged idling and dust accumulation (basically it needs care and maintenance)
-Definite shape of ear cups so they just press on your ears until it hurts and soars

It works well for me so far, in playing Ace Combat Zero where you get to hear the high definitions of the sonic booms, missile launchings and explosions plus wreckages airborne. Also, you get to experience almost real radio communication within the cockpit, "Bogey, two. Strike at will. Copy" or "I'm hit! I'm hit!".

And of course, essentially great for rock and metal music where clarity and feel are not compromised. You get the left and right or centre sounds accordingly. For movies, thumbs up as even someone talking behind the first-person is channelled accordingly so you feel too as if the person is talking behind you.

But note this, it's not top-notch product and it does not guarantee every fat high hopes of delivery of a good sound system. At my level of wealth and expertise, this headphone certainly satisfies me.

I will be saving up for either the next PC fair or a visit to Lowyat to get a 2.1 speaker sound system. I can't live on with headphones(deaf) and I can't bear with bassless missing midrange sound offered by laptop built-in speakers. heh.

As for The Rose (again), I stripped it again. Raunchy and bold looks.
Really considering fixing a humbucker to the neck pickup.

And thanks to Chong Yen's football blog post, I brought myself into the football wild scene again. Partly for the sake of competing against Hooi the MU supporter. Cheers.

61. Viva la Vida JS+VH+RHCP

Ideals

Woops. The title is meant to attract attention from Coldplay fans and people..heh. Nothing about them anyway except that... they won that song in the Grammy's. And that song was sued by Joe Satriani for plagiarism on his If I Could Fly. I didn't notice as a listener to Joe. And because I wasn't listening to Coldplay (I used to 6 years ago). The copyright infringement suit was filed last December. I read it firsthand in The Star newspaper. wooo...

Check out youtube for experts showcasing the similarity in their tunes. Who knows..either Coldplay really stole his work or probably Coldplay just hit a similar tune with one of the million compositions in the world.

wouh, this looks familiar. nono no plagiarism, just inspiration. Hmm....I wonder..HAHAH for those who noticed, nvm..

Do check out too his JS series electric guitars from Ibanez and his Peavey amps...my personal favourite sound and style.

So, what is it about JS+VH+RHCP?
Yeah, that's right. As I know, they are Chickenfoot. Tentatively named so before their official release.

This is what you will get from the Otherside from each of the members.
JS = Joe Satriani
VH = Van Halen (they are two members from Van Halen)
RHCP = Chad Smith the drummer from Red Hot Chili Peppers

I get a tinge of funk. Why not add Buckethead or Tom Morello(Audioslave) for that sense of music. And Tom Morello kicks anti-rock dance clubbers asses nicely. If you would, check out his Rage Against The Machine songs or maybe even his current work you wil experience dj-ing or scratching of the loops sounds being made by playing a guitar. heh.

Have fun, breathers.

ah yeah, I came across this...probably Joe's inspiration according to rumours. Check out Cat Stevens' song as it is in this particular blog.

[The word Otherside drew inspiration from the song title "Otherside" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.]
[Pictures from googling]

60. Mega Kill

cool title for the 60th post heh...

This is an audiophile-esque favorita. No it's not, anymore.

[This Twin Tower photo has replaced a supposedly to-be-mine speaker system T.T]

Oh I'm disappointed by the PC fair at KLCC this time...the speakers and ladies are not enough. Especially the speakers..so I did n0t make it to get one system back.

Just a refresher... After 4 months my Tele is still is in one piece condition.

And look at the wire, that's so great a sight to behold. Imagine like in the studio, you have all your cables tripping each other haha.

[Twin Tower photo was unedited.]

And parking, the most expensive I've encountered in my life..haah RM11...Mega Kill!

59. Nothingness + Re: Buckethead & J-Rock

Ideals/Stress-talk

Here it is...

The best medium to suck this post up with is the Watchmen OST song by Philip Glass Ensemble (in filefactory)..load it!

By the way, I was somewhat involved in the Earth Hour event. Indirectly. Thanks to Jonathan who was in great support of the lights-off campaign, he persistently switched off everyone's lights. haha good one. And yeah I have a little wrong concept of the Earth Hour...I respect it for the aim to open up politician eyes. Remember people, remember Earth...I do have my share of love for Earth.

Meanwhile, I was preaching through the sms emitting radio waves and heat through the atmosphere to Hooi on the end of human inhabitancy on Earth. Cracked mind.

Re: Hooi

[A blog post I found which is dedicated to Buckethead too, http://musicmetalandstage.blogspot.com/]

And...this link here...a respect and dedication to the guitar and the mask.

So, there's Buckethead. If you're a childhood guitar fan, he's your masked hero swinging an axe which he used to "lick" and "chop" and produce extra-terrestrial melodies as such we used to enjoy during the times teachers and fathers use canes while we watch...Power Rangers.
The first original theme song that goes "Go! Go! Power Rangers!" was indeed written(should be) and performed by Buckethead. Now tell me who didn't listen to him... I did, most of us did. heh LTMAC

- - - - - - - - - - -

My main point gets its enunciation here. A statement based on what Hooi has written, that is most of us we try to mine for the answers to life, find the meaning of life and try to make life as worthwhile as possible. But as a complement, why not try look into Buckethead's picture or rather his face...??..I mean his masked face. Let's use him as an example and slowly digress the attention into something which I had in mind to write on some time ago.

The plain emotionless mask. What can we tell from looking at it. I reckon we as humans do always have a lot to say as some being judgemental when we come across to look at somebody's face. Bloody. Smiley. Angry. Flawless. Or be it arrogant. We could describe them in relativity. But how about like Buckethead's? What do we have in mind? It could be anything, you know. That's my point, there's a whole lot of life and mystery behind and in the mask. Visually emotionless, reality-wise undefined. Maybe there's no English word I have learnt to give it a description.

It's hard to define something that is showing nothing. Of course the simplest way is to say it's nothing. Now we will head to the source that prompted us to describe it as "nothing". There's What, Why, Who, Where, Where and How. I'm addding into this hole-ly sheet of concept the word "Nothing" as an interrogative subject.

But think deeper and unconventionally. Make yourself stupid for awhile and clear some brain space for some out-of-the-world deliberation. Not to the extent you lose your sanity...I'm afraid I will someday and be declared, "seorang yang tidak sempurna akal" and lose my voting legal right.heh.

Alright, let me refine my purpose of topic here. In short without any further thinking I'd say, nothingness in life. I'm going to hell-relate everything I thought of and wanted to write in here. Cos' it's going to drift away from my mind soon again if I leave this unanswered unquestionable questions unattended.

Just look at this. I always have something in my mind when I look at it. Questions kept creeping in for answers. Answers begging for definition. Definitions insisting on relativity. Relativity is relatively nothing if there is only emptiness and nothingness.

[A jester-like blood-thirsty-looking face...is it a funny jester? or is it a scary violent guy?]

So I feel nothingness and emptiness in it. But how do we recognize that void as nothing and empty.

And so sprung up a new wondering in the mind. Actually my mind. I kept thinking from time to time when I have nothingness in my mind before I lapse into dreamworld. What is there outside this world. And I mean this universe. Beyond the perceived dark black wall which is decorated with beautiful yet sad(because stars die too) lights.

TRY THINK! Try imagine what am I trying to ask about. Keep religion aside for the moment. Let's talk science..have I not search up the materials? No, ok I heard about all those superstring theory and 6-dimensional spaces and interactions. I've yet to read on that Elegant Universe (Brian Greene) book. ok then let's go beyond and way out of the state of science. Are we in a box or some polygonal container? Move on to something religion...so God created it, and then what's outside the "sandbox of castles and kingdoms of our world"? Heaven? Hell? Afterworld?

How about our conscience behind our existence? Take this life you're currently living right now. Is it the first installment of your soul or your soul have been travelling from body to bodies ever since God breathed lives into this world? Do you have memories or feelings from your past body or life? Then I wonder where will I head to after this life, if it's not Heaven/Hell/Nirvana/Suffering/somewhere eternal. That's the nothingness I can't manage to fathom any greater depths. Imagine being not alive. But not anywhere related to God or this Earth. Being nothing as named in English as "nothing". Scientifically, being not any matter at all.

[This guy an exception is a little bit different...dota players will know wat]

It's crazy. Or rather I'm insane. But I persist, I'm fanatical about the out of the mind. It's ok if you tell me I'm coming back as something biotic. Hmm..what if it's abiotic. For an example, reincarnation as a stone or the tiny silicone sand of a microchip -if you're talking about matters available/created currently in this life-. How about being plants, vegetables or trees? heh

This is a little different from what I'm expecting...an excerpt from The Great Compassion Mantra of Buddhism.
"..in emptiness there is no form, feeling, cognition, formation or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch or dharmas; no field of the eyes, up to and including no field of mind-consciousness; and no ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death or ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulating,no extinction, no way and no understanding and no attaining. Because nothing is attained, the Bodhisattva, through reliance on Prajna Paramita, is unimpeded in his mind. Because there is no impediment, he is not afraid, and he leaves distorted dream thinking far behind. Ultimately Nirvana!"
(I have no intention wherein I reproduce this text to promote or allegedly misleading people)

A concept of life strongly debriefed and that I refer to as a measure of our existence. Maybe I'm afraid of afterlife, that's it.

Anyone having any opinion or advice or answer(be it vague/self-ideal/religion/science/psychiatric or anyhow..)..as long as you have something to divulge or any form of enlightenment. Do post them comments or reach me through my email address(either known or by request).fuh..tiring I've been trying to imagine. I like to but it's just super unnatural.

- - - - - - - - -

Re: Cheng Yee
Words don't come easily. That's why J-Rock or the darker tones with emotions are conceived to help us feel and realise that we have a heart. @#$%^&* That's how YW and I got the hell out of headbanging way back in 2007, the year Despa, Diru and etc flooded into me. haha
As we all know, we Chinese people just can't try to follow in their footsteps to look like one of them...that's just plain lala with laughable hairstyles. Try-hards ya noe.. or self-proclaims. I respect a lot of the fans I know here...you guys don't at all try to look bullpoop..real faithful fan be j-pop or j-rock. Salute!

And let's be clear with the terms Rockstar and Rocker. A completely out of genre topic comparison is in Lindsay Lohan or...Amy Winehouse?? I'm not sure..they just got into bigger headlines with bigger heads as more money are channelled into them. So same goes to Rocker and Rockstar. The difference is in the attitude and style of expression. Synonymously, a Rocker may be as stone-cold as rocks..and add the star into it, you get something bright and shining with bling-blings and fame. Well, stars do lose their energy someday and die into a supernova.

It's all nevertheless a cycle..you see...in life. Before the end, it's just the matter of which path you take. And earning different karmas. Basic: Energy. To live. And die. Transform. hmm...

-- -- -- --

[]As a note, I write all these opinions and concepts that were under the name Stressm out of interest, curiosity and disability to understand as well as accept the available conventional resources in this world. I do not do extensive research as I did not wish to prove something new or something wrong. In the hands of all Gods and researchers and readers, I do not mean rebel or mislead. For some it MIGHT be blasphemy and heresy, these two condemnations are to my opinion an idealistic conformation to rejection. Forgive and salvage.

At the same time, I would love to compile all my maybe-delusional writings and write a thesis become a PhD...niceee but I would not like to see myself in such field and I am not going to find myself capable of devouring degree and masters in the future...an opposition to most of my family relatives who believe in, "read until there's no more books to read-get to as high a degree possible into knowledge".

Cheers. Live life first. We'll see what's up for us after life.
..well..Ministry of Sound/Euphoria here I come try this night..tagging with Jason and Mou Jian \m/,

[Buckethead photo taken from homegrownmusic.net. Power Ranger picture taken from comicsuperhero-wallpaper.blogspot.com. James #4 Root jester mask replica picture taken from..some store selling it. J-rock photos taken from Last.fm. Faceless Void picture taken from googling(online-station.net).]

[Good listen! Watchmen OST song-->]