101. Kickstart Fitness + The 4th String Ensemble

Personal/Ideals

This post is supposed to be written a few weeks ago or so in the month of January. But it's mid-February already. Doesn't matter so much. But the feel is lost a little. Mundane.

So there are ambitions there are dreams there are daydreams there are goals and targets. We all have one or more. I have all but I am flexible about how I achieve. With bad discipline and irregular consistency. Wise man says, "you can't go far like that". But I want to enjoy as much living in my own most interesting ways. Successful people might say, "you ain't enjoying like that because you ain't achieving - you're just playing around - no commitment".

I was plain and goalless. I only breathed and functioned like fated. I realised fate is just a word to convince the unfortunate that someone out there caused the unfortunate. It's still a practical word but I rather not live on that. I stood up and grabbed my own puppet strings and orchestrate me myself.

But this current living ~ the 21st century modern civilisation on Earth is fast and competitive. I just started to like a couple of things/activities and it seems that the best thing for me to do now is enjoy the passion, support and take them as hobbies only. I succumbed to a lot of these lost dreams.

I would also say to myself that it's never too late to start. Yes it's never too late to start and be good in it but never in the top level. Cos like I said this current world is fast and competitive. At my age, I'm no more of that productivity/standard-be-able-to-achieve level of performance.

Cos I just started liking them it's like new found passion. But yes, it's never too late to take them up and for practise. But not of competition level anymore. I will leave that to my dreams or start my children young on them great activities. I don't want them to be idle like how I used to be some 5-10 years ago. I don't blame my parents. Parents are not to be blamed. The best thing for them to do is exposure and encouragement and that's only if they are aware of it. They are not wrong at all. The negative part is when they force, that is when they are overzealous in seeing their kids doing what they want to see the kids doing. Thumbs down.

But thumbs up for my parents for the average living (in malay, we call it kesederhanaan) I was brought up in. I get to explore by myself albeit a little too late or slow for myself. But I enjoy it nevertheless. I think having fun is the most important factor no matter what people say. It's a personal level. But let there be some knowledge and genuine passion. Not as a means.

What I meant, I really love:
1. Football / Sports
2. Playing music

I am very interested in:
3. Mixed martial arts

I am keen on/I can do it:
4. Bodybuilding - fitness

But I ain't like competing in no.4 - but Arnold is really bizarre.

Marathon is the new entry in to the category of no. 1. These are all really motivation-based activities.


Usually these activities are not to be done alone because results are vital and it's natural to compare either to a standard or your partner only we see and encourage improvements.

So yes, I will expose my future children to sports. It's a must... it's healthy and always good. Music, it's healthy and always good - certain music must not apply. Martial arts, always healthy and good. Bodybuilding, it's up to him/her after I show him/her my body lol gyahahaha.

This is the self-recorded and self-standard physical status record.

Height: 164 cm
Weight: 55 kg
Chest: 34 inches
Biceps: 11.5 inches
Thighs: N/A (nah don't really train on this - only running and simple weight curls)

Run
Distance: 5 km
Time: 29 minutes
Average speed: 10.2 km/h

Presses (for chest) - 10kg each arm
Curls (for biceps) - 7.5kg each arm
Push-ups (flat) - 21 times

(As of starting of the year - January/February 2011)

I did 1.5km runs too. The best I did during school days was about 9-10minutes. A recent record during the training for marathon I did about 8 minutes. And the most recent which was a few days ago I did ..the handphone application screwed up.

fakaladingdong it was about 7-8 minutes already after a distance of 1.4km so I pushed faster to get a better time. I swear to whatever freaking god out there I ran 300 metres already the distance still shows 1.4 and it's past 10 minutes.

I believe the application lags sometimes in the update of number. It might update when the distance becomes 1.6 or so in line with the time recorded. It's just that I want the time particularly for 1.5km it disappointed me.

This was probably my best record so far http://youareinmydream.blogspot.com/2010/11/98-progress-run-3-rekindled.html

My 2 hours and 58 minutes in my first 21km marathon is satisfactory but I am very disappointed that I took a freaking 1 hour 20 minutes for the 9.3km mark. Shame wei..own training record was so good at about 30-40 minutes for 6-7 km. It's like another 3km took another 40 minutes.

Ok end of fitness. Next up, my guitar.

I left my guitar at home since going down to KL so I've not played it for 4 weeks. But I found guitars everywhere in almost every crew room at my workplace. So, I get to play a bit of acoustic.

My thinnest string snapped and broke just after 3 days I resumed playing (got it back down here at KL after the cny fest). Got whipped while I was tuning it. Duno why maybe that part which broke was corroded thin already or just weakened by extensive bend of the part of the string.

And since I don't used to change one string only at a time I decided to change the first 3 strings instead of changing all of them since my 4th, 5th and 6th strings are still in a very good condition and I like em gauges 30 44 and 52.

So, I got this...

Dunlop Med/Heavy - Gauges 11 14 17 28 38 50

It's the first time my 1st 3 thin strings increase in gauge. I had been using 10 13 17. So I combine them old GHS Boomers GBTNT 30 44 52 and Dunlop 11 14 17 and give it a reality check.

Result:
I love it.

A broader and slightly mellow tone is produced. This in my opinion is the result of a complete heavier range of string gauge. Standard range is 10 13 17 26 36 46 I think which is quite thin compared to the ones I am using.

The mellowness is ideal as I love to have lower muddy tones in my playing, be it upbeat or dark songs. Especially metal or metal-based style of songs I like to play them in more crunchy and juicy tone. So in my opinion I can get that sound with heavier gauges.

Cos my Tele tone is already naturally thin, I get these thicker strings to beef it up. It works, at least to my ears and heart haha.

I mentioned slightly mellow because I still feel that it's quite bright which is not bad because it still sounds great in any kind of songs I try to play.

So, that's all about my 4th purchase of strings set.

100. New Year Review (pig-o-1-1)

Ideals/Personal

There goes.

People grow old and older. Most friends of mine of who are of my age are hitting 21 this year. I just hit 2o years old 4 months ago anyway.

When you were young, you just grow and learn. Whatever happened seemed to be like yesterday's wrongdoings and lessons learnt. When you have matured whatever happened seemed like regrets and "I wish I could turn back time" scenarios. But whatever happens it's only for this life.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one but I reckon, most people if not every body feels similarly the way I thought I feel. We keep learning and we keep updating (according to our environment or adapting to worldly living trend) how we feel and that's how people change and grow more mature or to understand living towards betterment.

Life is an overrated word. Really.

It's a battle of HP and MP with a limit break. You hit when it's your turn.

If you're expecting me to review on my life events and activities like I used to then you are slightly not accurately correct. I have too much to write about myself for a self-obsessed ordinary lad. So I'm dedicating this review as a review of my blog. Should I include the exclamation mark? Like, "I'm dedicating this review to my blog!". Then ^.^ then XP and ;D

Life was good. "And it will always be good" till it ends one fine day. For those living in fear under a collapsed roof, hiding from militants, suffering from suicide bombers, starving without food for your baby, oppressed by your drunk father... I express my sympathy. If there only exist Superman or Batman superheroes alike and many of them in "clones" everybody can say "life IS good".

So, plainly as I am and was I was a carefree young teenager who worked 26 days just to feel a little better as a person who wants to work hard and earn money for himself. He joins his two close friends to Botanical Gardens there almost everyday for fun and fitness. In April, there was this Hikathon in Penang hills and also the establishing of this blog.

He likes to dream and he always do. Critical acclaim for daydreaming - No-ball Lifetime award. So he named the url with the statement "you-are-in-my-dream". It's definitely a statement. Anyways, it applies to almost everyone because somewhat I dream at some point of everyone whom I met or knew some point. Ah of course if that's that simple I can even name it I-like-your-body like wouh, beautiful ladies and sexy. But no. Understood. At least for my crushes/infatuations who walked in reality.

So as expected from me in the earlier days circa 2005 - 2009 I sound gloomy and dark in most of writings. I didn't have to post how sad I was or how angry I was with anything. I just have all the time in the world to write about the world from the sightglass of my eyes and the unfiltered audio line-in of my ears. Then I don't use my mouth to express so much. Unbrushed contaminants might spoil communication. So I write (read: type).

It's easy, I have compiled before to the sidebar of this blog. It's categorized under Philociples. And those Brain-screws are my favourite posts. They make no sense at all if I don't talk to you before about whatsoever keywords contained there. Even sometimes when I reread it it doesn't make any sense anymore. Changes.

The lowest selection is a collection of an old blog. Yes blogging from me started way back in 2004/2005. But it was dull. Thinking back my life back in those years were really dull. I find no interest in recollecting them or to treasure anything. Bad.

After that was an onset of silent emotional setbacks. It goes like this..my physical puberty was at about the age of 12 and then mentally at about 16. oops.

Flashforward please.

2008
So yeah, when I started this (dot)blogspot writing it was mostly activities filled posts. Positive negative it depended. I'm recommending this read BOOBy Trap.

I checked back. I had some internal mental/emotional torture back then expressed in words. Haha glad those days were over - told you, the puberty of mental was late. Yer can see no sadness in me cos I'm really never sad. Common term is insane. I might be done with Schizophrenia. Maybe not the more I think of it I might as well become one with it.

And then the start of tertiary education for most of us. So as some weird random posts. It feels funny when I browse through my old posts. I write stuffs which are really crazy as in get-f-off crazy. Not funny crazy or crazy crazy. I think this review is not going anywhere other than drifting into analysing how stupid crazy I sounded like.

This is for my love for earthly revolution Pangea and Global Peace.

And I think I write most of my best brain-screw "theses" around that time. With derivations from movies such as Dark Knight, James Bond and Watchmen later.

99 posts are a lot to look through. I'm lost in my own review.

2009 and 2010
I admit mostly were activities. Because activities make blogs active. Because lately I don't have much to ramble on openly. The length to scroll for the list of year 2008 posts is like almost 1 foot. Year 2009 about 6inches plus. Year 2010 no need to scroll at all. That explains.

Blogging is like sports and bodybuilding. It's motivation-based. If you happen to have no one at all to read then I think it's really useless to write. But it's a modern world. We use blog as like some kind diary yeah journal. So if no one reads, who actually cares. Unless you're earning as a blogger you need traffic. As for me, close friends and random visitors do read/check/take a look from time to time so I'm glad I'm not alone. God is watching. I should add XD 0.0 :S

I think the year 2009 passed quite fast. I mean it's year 2011 already and I still talking about 2 years ago. A bit vague.

Well, in 2009 I have already moved in to a rented house so there goes. Additional freedom to transport, food and et cetera infrastructure that is available. So I settled down. In the sense of activities. Cos you know you're going to be staying here longer than it was in hostel. I started doing some music stuffs.

Not exactly making music but yeah doing something with music. I record a little and mix a little. And experiment with certain songs. Filefactory used to host a media player - widget which I regularly uploaded songs into it. And then I did uploaded some of my mixing record work. It takes patience and the want to make the records sound clear and nice (smooth). And also for me, the basic ability to track the parts for editting..and..and..and..motivation to work further on them.

As you can see there's one file in the filefactory but downloading it is not possible according to friends who tried. That's just an improvisation of guitar lead over a drum track. These are the likes of posts which I get very technical only existent after year 2009: Snakey demo - Sound Techie and many more others ..some about my guitar etc fun.

I find that the posts in year 2010 were mostly random and out of the blue. If I watched football and felt like talk about it then you get football post. Or music.

A LOT on sports and fitness towards the end. Ended nicely with my marathon result.

My preview for the future.
1. fitness records and reviews
2. music recordings and mixes
3. issues regarding earth and the government of gods
4. feelings

Feelings, the last thing I would want to talk about. And you don't do that often do you. Ain't so emotional in open. I may as well cry to myself or to mummy.

Because we have Facebook. It's more updating and it refreshes instantly. In a minute you're sad then the next you're happy after receiving a hug from a friend or your mama just called saying "don't worry". In blog case, you ain't wana spam your blog up to 1000 posts just for a collection "XD" "T.T" ";D" or "oOo" duno. this is still cooler \m/ it's even more cool in Yahoo! Chat. Ask Jon or Hooi. Signatory of "rock kapakkk" when the emoticon shouts.

I don't expect this long actually. It somehow has to be this long. It's natural.

So. The flowchart or graph will show a trend of increasing happiness through out my blog posts. And then stagnant and steady. That's a good sign. Maybe when I break up with a gf or divorce in the further future I might write a sad post like "I'm the bitch".

So long so forth I wish you Happy New Year and happy new day for everyday you live you first wake up and realise that you're still breathing. That's more significant. So you won't regret the day the moment you lost something. You won't want to say I want to turn back time or I hate my life. I can hate my height (lol) but I don't because I am happy for what I am, have become and can change.

Coming up next: New Year Fitness Report/Record, Symphony of Destruction and many more.

.

The title of this post is a "if you know the poetic value term", it's meant for hokkien speaking people to translate that one word then he/she will know whatever I meant to put it as. I mean the 'pig' word only.

Bless you.

Pearl Jam - Even Flow

Gladly listened in B fm 89.9 and identified through wsas91a.com radio.


[FFVII battle screenshot given by my brother.]

99. So, I Ran

Personal

I'm 20. And I ran my first marathon in my life. I mean, half marathon hah.

Half marathon is 21km.

It's from Queensbay until some distance pass the midspan of bridge and then u-turn back up to some distance near E-Gate. From there straight up to the place where the run started as finishing line.

Gruesome. Grueling. Groovy. G...on the spot.

Pushing my own limits. Abusing my own feet as I pushed my soul harder. Never had this tough and long run before in my life. It was so mental. I had my heart doing most of the work by thinking of the support that I've had. emotional haha. I told my legs, "hold on don't give up you can do it". Sorry feet. It was a torture and nightmare.

I totally underestimated the route on the map and the distance in number.

It was endless as I saw the sea of heads and double the number, of legs heading towards blurry. It was so far that the cold, breezy and misty air had made a wall of clouding the vision of the journey. And then it rained god-like heavy.

I'm not sure if anyone caught me gulping the rainwater to drink. I think I was looking like goldfishes gasping for air. The rain played a very friendly role in cooling down tremendously my body to the point I didn't have to to keep going to the water station for hydration. Besides that, it's to be blamed for drenching my whole body. I threw away my socks halfway. It was a bad load soaking up so much water and kept getting rolled under my feet.

Push and push.

This is it.



It was uploaded into the Penang Bridge International Marathon website.

I edited just for my part. Courtesy of PBIM.

Ah Hooi's 2nd time running this big event and he did it in 2 hours and 41 minutes time. Kudos. We survived too.

More trainings on the way.


This is a picture of me with the finisher's medal.

X

Nope, haven't uploaded.

98. Progress Run 3 ~Rekindled

Personal

References
Run 1 (30th October) - http://youareinmydream.blogspot.com/2010/10/96-progress-run.html
Run 2 (14 October) - http://youareinmydream.blogspot.com/2010/11/97-progress-run-2-fail.html

Exercise Report/Summary

Day: Wednesday
Date: 17th November 2010
Time: 1900 hours
Weather: Cool and breezy
Temperature: n/a
Terrain: Tarred road

Location: Nilai
Traffic: Rare
Start: Behind Block D
Course: Back and forth a single straight road between Block D and E
Finish: Behind Block D

Start time: ~1900 hours
Finish time: ~1940 hours

Distance*: 6.3 km
Time*: 37.22.64 mins
Average speed*: 10.1 km/h
Maximum speed*: 16.8 km/h

[*recorded by my phone Fitness application]

Remarks:
1. The run started in the evening where the sun was setting. After the first 15 minutes the lamp posts became the only source of light for the road.
2. Road is wet after a course of drizzle an hour before.
3. The course is level; no uphills or downhills. Only back and forth a road of about 150m in length.
4. The wind is breezy and cool for most of the time which helped in cooling and providing positive airflow for breathing.
5. Pre-exercise diet: Water and half piece of bun from Cinnabon
6. Post-exercise diet: Some kolo mee from Kuching and less than 100ml of Soya milk. Dinner: Neslo and sandwich set (egg+meat+cheese+sausage+fries)

Comments:

This is the coolest ever run besides the events that I have participated in my life. Especially falling upset towards my previous training 4 days ago.

I beat the Run 2's 2.9km in ~16 minutes (ahead by ~3minutes) and at least pushed further to beat Run 1's 5.7km in ~33 minutes (1 minute difference).

But I still can't believe it how good in form I was despite having improperly hydrated in the first run record because it was in the morning I'd not taken much food for energy, the course is hilly and traffic was mild. And that time the sun was rising. This latest run I had was absolutely on straight and level terrain and there is no heat from the sun at all. It was rather boring and there was no variation. The only motivation I had was to kept looking at my stopwatch.

If it was in the morning, I believe I would have continued on the exercise at least until 10-12 km. As my breathing and energy level were in a very good form. Hydration was adequate from the drinking in the day. Food consumption was complete. I was just not motivated to keep running until 8 o'clock at night. It was a run in blindness. Only dim lamp posts and occasional passing-by cars' headlights glaring.

Note: These run progresses are for tests of performance only. Not graded for any use or competition. The Penang Bridge Marathon which I will be participating is 21km in distance to run for my half-marathon category which I selected. Satch blesses I will complete the run gracefully. Earning a podium position is not much of concern but it is the motivation, spirit and faith in finishing well the course and enjoying it as well. A 3 and a half hours limit will be a test to earning a finisher's medal. A 20th place would secure a Bronze medal. bzzt.

Get ready.

Theme song: Megadeth - High Speed Dirt and Hangar 18