07 - I Like Your New Stuff Better Than Your Old Stuff

Hi, I'm back. And with photos. LOTS of photos that I cannot be bothered to upload on another website - ask me if you want to see them. And if you do see them, please don't comment on the photography. I've never been good at taking criticism, more so when it's due. But in saying that, I don't really see the point of experiencing sights behind a lens. If I really wanted a 'perfect' shot I'd walk to a souvenir store, pick up a postcard and that should feed their family for a day. Stories too will not be re-told - this blog is for things that I will most likely forget, and nobody ever forgets their holidays. So, what's this all about? Well, nothing much, really. I had an epic wall of text ready to be transferred to this blog, but I've decided against a public declaration. Lofty goals have been set and the wheels are in motion. The inner circle already know, and they're the only people that need to know.

Oh, the drama!

World Inc. (HDR)

A hardly natural cycle has taken me to this place, though strangely inviting, I am not moved. It's concrete arm leads me to a promise of heaven, even lending stepping stones and a hand to guide me to my ascent, but I am still not moved. Instincts alert me to be wary of inauspicious windows locked by bent steel. Yet the voices around me have led me to this place, as the voices around them had done so in the past.

From the ground, all that can be seen are ominous clouds and a behemoth made to trap and exhaust life until the days end. And come tomorrow, expect nothing less, or more. After all, one cannot expect different results from the same behaviour.

So today, you'll find I've left, following in the footsteps of the Man who is chasing a shooting star. The world looks so surreal when captured in such stark contrast.

Mother (read between the lines)

Prior to this post, I couldn't think of anything more impersonal and insincere than borrowed work - but once again I believe I was wrong.

...at the same time God, who is airborne and appears against ovoid drapery, is contrasted with earthbound Adam, lying on a stable triangle of barren ground.

The inspiration for Michelangelo's treatment of the subject may come from a medieval hymn called Veni, Creator Spiritus, which asks the 'finger of the paternal right hand' (digitus paternae dexterae) to give the faithful speech, love and strength.

Adam's index finger, the most famous in Western art alongside God's, is in fact not the work of Michelangelo. It was damaged beyond repair by a crack that appeared in the ceiling in the mid-16th century and was repainted by a papal restorer.

(Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V from Wikipedia - The Creation of Adam)

Excel

As you can see from the above graph, there is not much to report to my shareholders other than it is business as usual. Below is a brief overview.

The past Financial Year saw incredible losses in Sleep, offset by an increase in Traffic and Reading. The record hours of Work for minimal pay has again appeared as a major force in the Projectamor Portfolio. It is an integral component of most Portfolios, and it will come under review this year. We aim to make this component more efficient. Most alarming, however, is the rise of Boredom - though only constituting 5% of the Portfolio, it is highly volatile and is forecasted to rise in a winter of discontent.

Joy, representing 2% of the total Portfolio, came in fits and spurts in the past Financial Year. This can be attributed to the acquisition of The Strokes (fuck yeah!) tickets, WoW milestones and the World Cup. This sector, however, is likely to diminish to almost nothing as the one-off events pass. Projectamor does aim to invest more research and activity into this sector, and it is a major focus point for this year.

All in all, a rather solid, if uneventful, year for the Projectamor Portfolio as it hopes to reach a respectable result come maturity.

And Around

Listening To: Josh Rouse - And Around

I can identify the lowest point, I can identify the points when it looked like the episode was over but I've never been able to pin-point exactly how and when it started, and I don't know if it will ever end. I've tried pegging it to different measures - how much I weigh, how many activities I'm involved in, how many close friends come to my aid, the Dow, the ratings of the Opposition Leader on a two party-preferred vote - but I can't seem to find anything else quite so unstable and incomplete. I'll have to look into quicksand.

I've turned to History for answers, but all it tells me is that I've moved around a lot before and that I wish for nothing more than to establish. I've turned to Geography and connected all the dots of all the places I have been to and have lived in before, and when connected it took a lot of imagination and rotation to forcedly see anything. It was a pattern of a serial criminal or an obscure constellation. But then again, aren't they all? Check out Caelum if you don't believe me. How the fuck is that a chisel?. I've turned to English and Literature, and all I found were circles in plot holes, revolutions, seasonal changes and protagonists returning home. A shape that is impossible to draw freehand.

Maybe my view is askew, that shapes and patterns and cycles etc will always behave their way, and that I shouldn't be using such fickle things as measure. But they change, and that's all I really want to do.

August 2001 - June 2006

For everything, I thank you.

I hope you find all that you are looking for.

I love you, I miss you and you will forever be in my heart.

M

Nothing To Say

I found this .gif lying around My Documents, but I can't remember where I'd sourced it from. It was my wallpaper once upon a time, when optimism was my flavour of the month. But its flavour, and the month, has long passed. A lot can be learnt about a man from his desktop.

Winter is well on its way. I know this for a fact because I'm wearing more than one layer of clothing now. The heater has been wheeled out and it has won the battle for power point priority (alliteration, fool!) against my twenty-year-old TV. In case you missed it, it was a rather one-sided affair, with no real highlight to speak of.

There are a few of you out there who I would like to catch up with - you know who you are! And yes, I have lost your number/email address. So if you have something to say, would like to discuss the weather or even analyse the meaning of a man's desktop, call me. Call me now!

Yadda Yadda Yadda

A week or two ago I walked out of MetLife for the last time, leaving parting words with workmates via a hastily, and poorly written, email. Colleagues would be too friendly a word - I never really did like any of them, but I'm too polite to tell them. Oh, except for M - but I guess that was because she is beautiful and genuinely nice, a rare combination in the nine to five farce.

So now I lose track of days very easily, except for Tuesdays. The movies are cheap on Tuesday's, and it's fast becoming one of my favourite days. Now Tuesday's the day by which all other days are marked against in my calendar. I've come to realise that without a nine to five, Friday just doesn't have the same meaning as it used to. Friday is just a day when I stay at home to avoid excessive crowds, drinking overpriced drinks in dim and poor lighting. Monday just doesn't feel the same either, but Sunday morning is still lazy and I still manage to wake up early on Saturday.

Whilst in search for a local library, I was hit by the ambiguity of a sign outside a building nearby my house - Women's Library - All Welcome. I made a tentative attempt to find out if they really meant the All Welcome part, but quickly turned away when I noticed that the foyer was filled with women, and not a man in sight. I went back a day later when they posted another sign - Second-Hand Books $2 - but retreated once again after finding that there were no male authors in the entire collection being sold, plenty of women in the foyer and not a man in sight. How sexist.

I haven't been so confused by a sign since that time I came across an intersection with four Stop signs.

Disabled

For my efforts in attempting physical activity over the weekend, I have been rewarded with two fractured bones in my right foot. So I'm limping, bed-ridden and struggling to make the early-morning, or middle-of-the-night, toilet dash.

It's not a pretty sight, so no pictures will accompany this update.

On the bright side, I have an excuse to purchase my very first cane!

Update

Well, it's been confirmed - it's actually not fractured bones, but Gout.

Yep, a form of arthritis, generally found amongst men in their forties with elevated levels of uric acid.

I've been told to watch my diet, especially my intake of meat, and to stay away from alcohol, nuts and certain seafoods.

Worst.

Possible outcome.

Ever.

What's Doing

Every morning I'm finding more and more hair on my pillow, and I'm starting to get very scared of the inevitable - I'm going bald. A few weeks ago I thought I had hope, after finding a strand of pure white hair, but I've been told since that it's no guarantee - that you can go bald and have white hair. I've hit jackpot, the best of both worlds, so it seems.

So before I let it go completely I am making a serious attempt to grow it. I want to savour the duty of having to shampoo and condition, to brush it aside when I'm engrossed in a novel, to run my fingers through it when it touches my eyes, to have the summer breeze pass through it when I'm waiting for a bus.

Right now it's looking like a badly cut mop, with an excessively long rat's tail - in other words, not pretty. But fuck it, it's there. And I'm happy to hear people tell me I need a haircut, and actually mean it.

In other news I have discovered the joy of listening to ambient albums. Prior to Brian Eno's - Music For Airports, I had always thought of ambient music as songs that didn't have words - and then I realised that that's actually classified as instrumental.

I wrote a love/goodbye/thank you letter to Blizzard a fortnight ago regarding WoW. I was going to post it here, but posting such a letter about a video-game, on a blog, would be just too much geek-loving from me, so I've decided against it. I will however leave a screenshot of me, my Felsteed and my Imp riding out to a Durotar sunset in memory of my WoW days.

For the Horde!

Sans

MEMORY CARD ERROR - CANNOT READ

I circled two blocks in a figure eight (or an infinite?) pattern for twenty minutes instead of taking the card down to the camera store, too scared to have a professional tell me that my memories were well and truly gone. I felt like a new card was no consolation and that it was just a waste of time and paper to fill out a warranty form for something invaluable.

So the remaining days of my trip to New York are in the drafts section of my blog, and it will remain there to gather cyber-dust and to be forgotten. I don't really feel like back-tracking anyway - the moment has come and gone, and I've lost my faith in memory.

I've started packing my things, getting ready to move into a cozy, ground floor studio, set back from the lively street that I am on now. The fact that it's too small to house guests doesn't really bother me, because I know I operate best on a one-on-one basis. Or a one-on-none.

The windows are boarded with a plastic white sheet and the floor is of a faux-wood material. I was told that the white screens were installed to ensure my privacy from the prying eyes of other tenants and a dull red brick wall, but all I see is a flimsy security device that is begging to be tested.

The process of moving is nothing new to me, but this time I'm trying to change by purging myself of what I now see as unnecessary baggage. I'm throwing away fancy twenty-first birthday invitations. I'm throwing away receipts of presents that I'd purchased with effort and thought. I'm throwing away pens that no longer work. I'm throwing away my silky, white shirt.

It doesn't fit like it used to, anyway.

Just So You Know

I write this as Mariah is telling me repeatedly that we belong together. It's still my current, guilty pleasure, and now that I've had a few months to accept the fact that I really, really like this song, I am comfortable to publicly confess my love. So there it is.

I just thought it would be better that you hear it from my blog, rather than a third party.

Home, Sick

I've been sick for the past few days with a minor cold/cough. It all started two days ago when my parents and I hopped on a hop-on, hop-off tour around New York City. You know those double-decker tourist buses with an open top? Well, we happened to hop on board the minute it began to rain. I felt betrayed by Mr G, the local weatherman, who had been pretty accurate up until that moment. Light snow my ass.

Being the stubborn bastard that I am I stuck with the tour and wore a FDNY hat so that I wouldn't get so wet; and so that I could look the tourist part - complete with my I<3NY shirt and camera.

So for two days I was bed ridden, reduced to watching TV, which progressively got better as the night turned into early morning - double episodes of shows such as That 70's Show, Will and Grace, Frasier and South Park on non-cable TV. I was in sitcom heaven.

And of course this led me to the arms of my darling Pizza. Keeping in mind that American sizes are fucking ridiculous, I emphasised the word 'medium' in my order. What they gave me was something that took up as much space as a spare tyre, only a lot more tasty. Note: when ordering here, list EVERY topping that you want, because apparently a 'super supreme' here is just cheese if you don't specify the ingredients.

But when all was consumed and the infomercials started to run, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about home, and my room and people and stuff and it kept me awake for too long. I wanted to call someone to see how things were, what's been happening, but I already knew what they'd say. Still I wanted to hear it repeated for reassurance, for affirmation that what I believe and know to be true, is true.

So, with my full recovery I celebrated by dedicating Today as a salute to indulgence:

* TV
* Lots of Coffee
* Dinner out at Times Square
* New CD's
* New books
* New camera
* Dessert with every meal
* Cabs instead of walking/subway
* Generous tips

And if you were here with me, it would have been perfect.

The Fat Cat

We dined around Chelsea last night in a gay Italian restaurant, surrounded by gay couples and served by gay waiters. It was quite funny because the only woman there happened to be beautiful and dining alone. So far, from my experiences, New York food is definitely better than many other places I've been to - even a humble pizza slice from their smallest joint is terrific.

Greenwich Village is very very cool. We passed through lots of pubs and clubs, most notably the Blue Note which is the perennial jazz club in NY (or is it the Half Note? I can never remember). We ended up in a place nearby called The Fat Cat - billiards, ping-pong, chess, Scrabble and live jazz all in an intimate basement.

On our way home we passed through Washington Park. Apparently there is an annual gathering here to celebrate weed. The park is fenced off and people are legally allowed to smoke as much as they want, as long as they stay within the park confines. After I heard this story we walked through the arch and our party was greeted by a man...

Good evening people
Hello
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you too!
You want some ganja?

So it seems that the story checks out, and my guide wasn't bullshitting me after all.

In other news, my planned whirlwind visit to Canada has been shelved due to travel time and cost. It's a pity, because I was really looking forward to doing something active in this vacation, apart from all the walking. I guess me and excercise just weren't meant to be.

Happy New Year

Apparently they've added an extra second to time to compensate for Earth rotating at a slower pace. Cool.

I went to Times Square last night, hoping to catch a glimpse of a ball that would drop 2005 into 2006. As we marched up 8th Avenue we were constantly being pushed further and further uptown by Police officers due to traffic restrictions, eventually finding an in-road on 57th. And that's where it pretty much ended. I was amidst a sea of people (they estimated that over 1 million were there) and I just happened to be on the wrong side of the building. Even though there were big screens everywhere, it felt like a waste of time and I didn't want to spend another four hours waiting in the crowd with nothing to look at but the people around me and a Sean John billboard of P Diddy raising his right fist.

So I went back to Chelsea to spend another New Year's Eve with my family and I couldn't have been happier.

I think that I've reached a stage in my life where I just want to be alone, or with family and friends. Spending time with strangers and meeting new people and whatnot almost seems like a waste of time. I have everything that I need, I've seen enough of the world to get the general gist of it and I'm lucky to have had more than enough of everything.

You can only fit so many people in your mobile phonebook, and even if mine only had ten spaces, I'd be completely fine.

New Year's Resolution - to always remember that time is invaluable.

The Christmas Tree lights are at the front of Macy's on Broadway.

The scary looking church is actually a night club. I think it's called Avalon.

Happy New Year all.

The Latin Room

I've decided not to write about the plunger incident - a paragraph about clearing a toilet blockage is just too low, even for me.

The past two days has been spent running back and forth between New York and New Jersey, on the 167 that runs down Teaneck and eventually through Bergenfield, where a lot of Filipinos live. Preparations were in place for a semi-reunion for the rest of my mother's clan who couldn't attend the 2004 bash in Davao. All I can say is that there were a lot of people, a lot of good food and a lot of dancing.

I kept to myself, having never met any of these family members before, and left my interaction to a bare minimum - introductions, blessings, greetings, followed by a quick checklist:

* I'm 25
* I was last in Philippines in May 05
* Yes, life is so sweet there
* I work for MetLife
* I have a girlfriend
* No, we're not getting married any time soon
* I don't dance
* I don't sing very well
* I'm not really Filipino. Ha ha ha.

Despite spending the hours necking Corona's and watching everybody else have a good time, I too had a good time. I guess it's just infectious being in a room full of strangers dancing under a red-neon sign.

I woke up this morning to find snow falling outside my apartment window, and it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a long, long time.

Ground Zero

So I took a cab Downtown to Ground Zero the other day and the driver instantly got into a monologue, reflecting on 9/11...

Man that day was crazy, you know? I was in Queens and you just see people crying down the street, you know? We just rushed to the nearest TV trying to find out what's going on, then you just see the smoke come across the river and you know shit was going down. It's strange not to see them there any more, you know? Like the city sky line is just, it's just empty...

In the middle of the Financial District of the world there is a huge block fenced off, empty. It felt really strange being there on a beautiful holiday day - I have never been so close to such a tragic site. I walked around the empty block, trying to imagine the day as best as I could remember it from satellite images, piecing together the smoke, and the people, and the falling debris and the general chaos. It was the first time my stupid I'm-holidaying-in-New-York smile was wiped off.

I crossed the road to St Paul's Chapel, which should mean a lot to American history buffs and little to everybody else. I went there for a better vantage point to take photos from, but got sidetracked reading headstones and other items. The Bell of Hope, that was given to the USA by England after September 11, also lies here.

The walk up Broadway was beautiful - I passed through the tail-end of the Financial District and into the streets that turned the neighbourhood into SoHo. This has to be the fucking coolest neighbourhood I've ever walked through - not because of the designer stores and fancy restaurants, but because of the people - it felt like a fucking parade for the next two years' winter haute couture. And unlike Sydney's equivalent of Bondi and Paddington, these people were actually cool - no condescending looks, no stupid gym junkie walking, just a let it be mentality.

As I took in the sights I felt something brush my man-bag. I turned around to find a beautiful girl who blushed when I caught her. She apologised, smiled, looked all embarrassed, and just ran down the street. I didn't know what to think at first, so I checked my bag, found nothing had been stolen and sat down at a nearby cafe to stop and scold myself for the close encounter. And for not asking for her number.

On the taxi ride home I told my driver what happened...

Damn man, did you get her number?
Hhahaha, nah, she was running pretty fast...
That's the problem you know, these girls be working out and shit. Maybe she just wanted to give you a hand-job.
She needn't apologise for that
Hahha, I'll say. So hey have you checked out the Red Light district?

What is it with taxi drivers trying to pimp red-light areas anyway?

I just wanted to get back to my apartment to check out the city lights for another night.

Real Versus Ideal

These were his exact words as he tried to explain the situation to her. I'm not too sure what this meant to her, or if she even accepted his offer, but I knew exactly what he's talking about.

Landing in JFK on Christmas Day, after leaving Charles-Kingsford on Christmas Day, was strange. It didn't snow when I walked out with my suitcases, which was disappointing because I had an image of white flakes slapping my smiling face awake whilst I tried to light my first cigarette in New Yawk, New Yawk.

I got to meet T's boyfriend on the drive to Gramercy Park and I was relieved to find a cool and nice guy. I felt quite sorry for him when my parents, especially my Mum, decided to play good cop, bad cop with an hour-long interrogation at Red Lobster in Times Square. My Mum and Dad can be very intimidating people for their size.

The neighbourhood here is beautiful - the trees have shed their leaves for winter and the streets are swept clean by a cool breeze. On the face of every building there is a zig-zag of firestairs that run between floors and windows, and on the rooftops of these apartments old chimneys and ventilation exhausts are reaching to the sky. The people here keep to themselves, huddled in warm coats and gloves with coffee in hand and listening to their ipod. Flip-phones are definitely the flavour here, connected to a bluetooth earpiece, and they walk the streets talking to themselves.

I spent the afternoon on foot, passing through Chinatown, Soho and parts of Little Italy. Although each area had their distinct flavour, I found that for every two or three blocks, there is a park, usually on the corner of a block, or occupying a block itself. I spent time in Stuyvesant Park, watching a Father teach his Daughter how to ride a bike, squirrels eat nuts from a homeless man and a Jewish couple laughing about a text message. I thought that it would be much grittier or tougher around here, but it's not like I'm in the middle of Queens.

They absolutely love dogs around here, and I've seen all kinds with all types of different owners. Even at 1AM I came across at least five people walking their dog. I'm told that the most popular breed at the moment is a puggle - a cross between a pug and a beagle.

The Tyra Banks show is doing a special episode regarding breasts, so I can't think right now.

Coming Soon - M in Soho, Big Yellow Taxis, Ground Zero, The Plunger and my brush with a beautiful pickpocket.

Stay Tuned.

High

Last night I went for a drive with H and we were going down to our local dealer for stock. All of a sudden I was in High School all over again. But this time it wasn't for us - it was for his cousin who is here with twelve other friends on their Schoolies vacation. After the initial call for a twenty, she called back and asked if she could cancel the call because everybody in her group were too scared to hold on to it for the night. Amateurs.

Well, the more I think about it, the more cute it is. You know, like these reluctant rebels are a twelve hour drive away from home and celebrating their freedom and making the transition from teens to adults and all that shit but they are still worried that their parents will be there with their watchful eyes and shaking their head disapprovingly at their daughter's first cone.

Whilst enjoying my flat white and an article on junkies, and their stories in the wake of Katrina, I listened in to the headhunter sitting nearby. He had a smart suit and worn shoes and an open list of phone numbers with neat notes scribbled around each name. One by one he'd give his spiel and one by one he'd cross the names with disdain and frustration, knowing that the commission is still a long way away and Christmas is only two weeks away.

As this was happening in the background I read the story of Moe, who was shooting-up at the time of the hurricane, unaware that the world was literally spinning, and that it wasn't just induced by the injection. The most striking details were associated with his withdrawal symptoms as there was a four day drought for his next dose.

It's not that hard to sympathise, I guess. Nobody likes to wait too long to be happy.

Priceless Things

I'm trying to backtrack on what has made me a faithful believer in fate and the signs along the way that are pointing towards the 'right' direction. I don't know what it is that got me here, but I'm starting to realise now that it has made me really susceptible to suggestions from any stimuli. And it has also aided in helping me become more 'introspective' (read: selfish).

I watched Shopgirl tonight and was very impressed. I love these caustic romantic movies because they just seem so real to me - like Lost In Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Punch Drunk Love. Why they seem real to me is another matter altogether, and I'm planning to save that rant for my future psychiatrist or good friend.

Anyway.

I guess the scene that really hit home was Mirabelle's decision on whether or not to postpone due payments to pain.

And, that's all I have to say about that.

I watched Citizen Kane the other night, too, feeling guilty and rather ashamed that I hadn't seen what many critics dub as the 'Best Movie of All Time'. I wasn't that impressed, to be honest, but was quite pleased to finally understand all the references I have encountered. It's a wonderful thing when light is shed on uncertain areas.

If you're interested, my Rosebud is Aboy.

Impressed by a website on case modifications, I spent the weekend tinkering with my computer. I decided to go for a geek chic case, complete with blue LED's and a lot of fans. I love the lightsabre blue glow that now emanates from the case, it gives it an aura. And aura's are cool. I wish I had an aura radiating from me - magnetic and vibrant. Is it because all the people I admire, and am impressed by, have it?

Another item to add to my wish list of things that money can't buy.