The Gnomes Made Me Do It!

We miss you drummer girl!

Hoity Toity. Spot of Tea Daaaaahling?

On Saturday our favorite couple as featured above took us to the Doggy Run at West Coast Park. It is pure dog heaven and I am sure many dogs there find their happy place (like how drummer boy spazes and goes to his happy place when he eats bread) over and over again amidst the butt sniffing and slobbering. It's a size of 3 football fields, all nicely enclosed with double doors where pooches can roam freeeee. There is one at East Coast park too apparently.


Japanese Starlet- Check out the eyes lah dey. So big! Edwin and Jen's Brighton just loves her.


The Monstaaars!- According to Jen, these are called Labradoodles, and no it doesn't mean Labrador Poodle cross :p They are huge and the owner keeps his house perpetually air conditioned for these much loved canines.


Doting Parents- Japanese Starlet's parents, from Japan, duh!

Posted by sideshowjo at 3:46 pm | Permalink | Comments

I first tasted the Guanaja chocolate cake from Rive Gauche when we celebrated Drummer girl's birthday 3 months ago. The different textures that make up the 8 layer cake (Yes I counted!) fused so well together that upon consumption, rolls off your tongue like velvet straight into the esophagus hitting each taste bud, like a pin ball machine. Smooth, rich, elegant. Guanaja is now a personal favorite (Though my brother says that the Chocolate Praline from the Regent is the only chocolate cake people should ever eat, after spending 5 months prior to his birthday going on a chocolate cake tasting spree with his foodie friends). So when dad and I celebrated mom's birthday on Saturday, I knew I had to get it for the foggies.

They loved it but we couldn't finish, so we gave some to the servers at the resturant and brought back the remainder. Well, Guanaja has been sitting in the fridge since Saturday and I've had 1 small slice since then. Last night I snuck to the fridge for some orange juice, saw that there was a good sized slice left and made a mental note to eat it all for tea today.

Well, I've just come from the kitchen and I didn't eat any chocolate cake. My maid has this nasty habit of not wanting to be the last person to finish anything in this house so she'll eat her fill and leave a pathetic and ridiculously small portion behind just for the sake of it. Be it the last cashew nut in the jar, the last TABLESPOON PORTION! of milk in the carton, the last HALF A SLICE of chesse damnit. She left a insanely small half a cm thick slice of the cake in the fridge. I took one look at it and threw it away. It's infuriating. She should have just eaten the whole thing really! I dislike it when she does things like that.

Back to those left over 40% less fat blue potato chips

Posted by sideshowjo at 3:28 pm | Permalink | Comments

JUNE 2005. Pact to go back to school overseas together.
FEBRUARY 2006. 2 out of 3 have fulfilled pact.

On Saturday, I had a nice heart to heart talk with the parents. It felt good to just lay all the cards on the table and speak freely. I'm not going to reveal much but I just want to say it really makes a difference when you have a strong support network at home and among friends. People do make a difference, and if there's anything in life you should invest in, invest in building lasting personal relationships, well, and houses and all those other grown up things too.

I feel so much better. I now know why I've been so miserable these past 3 months. Well, driftwood has finally found land and construction is underway. I may have broken my pact location wise, but girls, remember to catch crabs and should you both need a recipe for black pepper crabs, I know of someone who will definately be able give it to you *snigger*


Because I love them so.

Posted by sideshowjo at 3:05 pm | Permalink | Comments

"The other night I took an eighty-year-old taxidermied monkey, set it on fire in the pool and filmed it from beneath with an underwater camera," says Marilyn Manson, sitting in his home in Los Angeles. "It was beautiful, like the Titanic, the Hindenburg and King Kong all mixed into one."
Source (http://www.manson-world.net/us/news.php)

I still can't figure out how to get into his revamped website. But then again, maybe we aren't supposed to be able to get in at all. Hidden messages? He has linked it to the official website of the collection of 4 short films he is currently filming. PHANTASMAGORIA: The Visions Of Lewis Carroll. Manson will be playing Mr Carroll and a feature film will follow shortly after. Manson will also be releasing a book with all his watercolour paintings.This is why I have to be very rich so I can own his paintings.
Remember to crank up your volume! MARILYN MANSON.COM

If you can figure out how to bloody get in, I will be very grateful and buy you prata with egg.

This reminds me alot of the official website for (Remember to crank up your volume!)DONNIE DARKO. A personal favorite for a very long time. You've probably seen it before as it's quite old but for those of you that want the passwords to proceed on to the next level, just mail me.

Posted by sideshowjo at 12:54 pm | Permalink | Comments

I just have to say this Pam Cracks me up

Josephine says: (12:13:33 AM)
eh. at least you are living the dream can!

Josephine says: (12:13:47 AM)
you get to make student films, shoot, direct, edit.

Pam H says: (12:13:51 AM)
my ambition was only to serve tom cruise tea and rub oil on vin diesel's head...

Posted by sideshowjo at 12:26 am | Permalink | Comments

Everyone's been so supportive and have been asking how the interview went. Thank you.
It's midnight again and time for ninja snacking.
The kitchen is devoid of any food and I'm sick of eating pineapple tarts for the 5th night in a row.
We've also run out of orange juice.
I have resorted to looking into my mother's secret hiding place, in the cabinate under the stove, where she stashes away packets of snacks.
Tonight's gastronomical teaser is BLUE POTATO chips.
40% Less fat makes Auntie Lucy a happy lady.
They are absolutely repulsive.
I keep tasting iodine as I bite down into the purple cardboard pieces.
Disgusting.

Posted by sideshowjo at 12:27 am | Permalink | Comments

Sometime in 2001, I discovered my love for things dark and depraved and I owe this, in part, to the accidental discovery of our uni's anatomy museum. Some afternoons were spent eagerly and illegally bringing in friends to marvel at the wonders of pickled human goodness. Jars and jars of defenestrated remains from accidents, cross sections of head, toso, genitalia, plasticized network of arteries, veins, capillaries, brain, bones. I loved the anatomy musem. So imagine my delight, when on the first day of our Neuroscience lab, as we were all gathered round one of those post mortem metal trollys with 4 covered buckets surrounding the cold steel, our professor picked up a bucket and out poured the pickled upper torso of an elderly white male. We had a generous serving of brain and torsos that afternoon and got down and dirty picking up the organs to study the structural miracle of the human brain.

What followed was a insatiable curiosity for cringe worthy art, articles and films. I was drawn to old black and white medical photos as there were plenty that hung along the corridoors of the Anderson Stewart building. Our professors back in the 1960s with the rest of their team, nurses in white. I also loved the look of 18th and 19th century surgical tools and the open surgeries that often took place with doctors looking on. Hail the freak show! welcome to the circus! People were still in the preliminary stages of understanding the human body and doctors could get away with performing crude frontal labotomies on patients they deemed 'unsound of mind'.

This interest also fuelled the shift in my taste of music and the revelation of Marilyn Manson and his theatrics. I read his autobiography in 2003 and was hooked. The genius. I searched for his music videos and went to his concert in Late 2003. Hoorah the epoch of new auditory and visual discovery! My favorite Marilyn Manson music video is The Beautiful People.


The lady who directed this is FLORIA SIGISMONDI. She is a visual virtuoso. She also directed the music video of a band that has defied mainstream and is, quite simply, in a class of their own. SIGUR ROS. Sigur Ros's ( ) album saw me through many melancholic nights on the veranda of our apartment in Brisbane, it is achingly beautiful, haunting, sad, fraught with emotion, and in the words of Mof "Makes you wanna slit your wrists and die".

Sigur Ros ( )



Because I love you all so much, here is the MTV of track 1, Untitled, off Sigur Ros's ( ) album. Directed by Floria Sigismondi
SIGUR ROS ( )

Enjoy

Posted by sideshowjo at 3:16 pm | Permalink | Comments

Newsflash
Finally an interview on Monday and I want to thank people
1. Mof, Shif, Pam, Ed, Mama Hen, for their love and encouragement
2. Sonny for insisting that I be a pest and call up the organization to chase them
3. Edwin for reminding me that I should do a bit of reading up and which areas to focus on

Anyway, the woman bloody called me at 9.30 this evening, whilst I was in the midst of playing 'Slamwich' and this could mean 1 of 3 things
a) Senior Clinical Researchers have no life and spend their fridays in the office
b) Work is all consuming and she had brought the resumes home with her as bedtime reading
c) She has no life and is probably going to be MY BOSS which is now setting off alarm bells in my head

I'm just glad that the gears are kicking in. I have to resume nerd mode and be scientific once again on monday. Time to dig up the old lab books and read through protocals to refresh memory. I can't wait to be a legal drug pusher.

Posted by sideshowjo at 1:04 am | Permalink | Comments

It's midnight and mother is asleep.
This means I can creep out into the living room and stuff my face with pineapple tarts and take some into the room with me to munch and read books.
It also means that I can drink orange juice straight from the carton.
It's an inexplicable joy this drinking of juice from the carton, I LOVE IT!
Of course I'm not inconsiderate, and passed my hao gong ming with flying colours thank you very much, the carton of orange jucie is all mine, it's got no added sugar you see.
Since it is MY carton of orange juice, technically I CAN drink straight out of it if I wanted to.
But I am living under her roof, so it'll be juice in cup by day and ninja juice carton drinker by night.

I like midnights

Posted by sideshowjo at 11:54 pm | Permalink | Comments

My father became a catholic because he loves my mother, and I would like to think that he actually believes in God. Hmm... I am quite sure he does. But I also think my mother aka dragon queen probably pushed him in that direction.

When my brother and I were alot younger, we would, as a family go for mass on Sunday morings. On the occassions that my parents didn't come, we would cross over to Thomson Plaza for cotton candy or ice cream instead of sitting though mass. I remember one time when we both had an awful fight over cotton candy and my brother ran off. I was so worried I had lost him, and thought that God must've been punishing naughty little children that didn't go to mass.

Today we have a family party at home. Aunties Singing Karaoke *shudder* and little nephew and nice tykes running around. Dragon queen has made it a point to remind my dad and I that we are to go to church, without her. So, I found myself feeling like a 10 year old again when my dad whispered in my ear:

"Shall we skip mass and go for a drink?"

Posted by sideshowjo at 2:37 pm | Permalink | Comments

Afternoon Banter
Over lunch and ice cream today, we caught up and it seemed as if we never parted at all

Gatsby, Mama Hen and Babe

Posted by sideshowjo at 5:34 pm | Permalink | Comments

WINEY WINGEY AND FULL OF SELF PITY. Spare yourselves the read
I am feeling damn depressed.
The anxiety of being unemployed has passed and now it's just despair and endlessness. There doesn't seem to be an end to this wait, this pointless, languid, useless existance. Even the organization I wrote to to offer my hours as a volunteer while I wait this out has not replied. Geez. This isn't good for one's morale and self esteem. I'm not typically a constant homebody. It's not like I don't like being at home, I'd rather be in bed reading or surfing the net than at a club with thumping tunes. It's staying at home with no purpose, I'm not unwinding after a hard days work, it's not my sanctuary anymore, it's my prison. I'm reminded that I've been left behind while the rest of the world continues, while people rush for meetings, get excited about projects, run on adrenaline, bitch about bosses, the whole corporate shingding. Or perhaps others are going away to pursue their dreams, to further their studies, to pave the way for their sucesses. I've canned my dreams about doing medicine, of ever going to Med school, my ship has sailed, and it's just to Fucken bad for little old Jo that she didn't do the whole CARPE DIEM TO THE MAX and work her sorry butt off. It's just TOO BAD JO! So I got accepted for BSc Human Bio, so what? They can't tell me how many exemptions until I get to Australia? What the hell is that? I can't spend another 3 years in University pursuing another degree just to get into Med school. I simply can't. This is it. I have to go out and make decent money, support myself and climb up the ladder. How can I when no one's even willing to give me that chance to take my first few baby steps. Maybe I should just sell out and go back into Communications, I mean, I've got a year of experience. Why do I have to choose something so specialized? Why can't I just be good at marketing, or sales (No offence to all my marketing and sales friends, you guys have the talent)? Why do I have to want to be in an industry that would acutally make a fucken difference. Why should I bloody care? I'm 26 and I'm stuck in a rut. Things need to get a move on, I can't play this waiting game any longer.

Posted by sideshowjo at 11:30 pm | Permalink | Comments

Once again, those old childhood feelings and memories have come back to haunt. I've long given up on having best friends having been hurt by placing too much emotions and trust in them, thinking they would withstand the test of time. Friendship to me has always been a very transitional thing, never long term, always fleeting and brief. It is not easy to sustain a long term friendship and it takes work from both parties, one can't just sit back and expect the other to call, write, e-mail, sms, provide updates and not expect you to give him/her anything in return. I guess I became very jaded after old secondary school friends drifted, and the 2 years in England where I made friends with some wonderful girls only to have to say our painful goodbyes and never see each other again. Australia was refreshing, keeping close those who are still in Singapore (though not for long! :P) and making effort to keep in touch with our favourite Malaysian girl. I've always been picky with who I like to hang out with on a regular basis, and when I do find those few, I give it my best, but I know that there's that 20% ,that by conditioning, I have held back so that in case the shit hits the fan, I would be able to shrug it off, pat them on the back and say 'Thanks for the memories'. I'm not sure if this is the best way, but it's the only way I know, but I suppose it will change over time. With everyone coming and going, starting lives elsewhere, experiencing new things and significant milestones without you, it's hard to be everybody's best friend. I am just glad that we still meet for coffee, even if it's only for those 2 short hours, and during that time, its as if nothing else matters.

Posted by sideshowjo at 12:37 pm | Permalink | Comments