Fear

... I feel it completely and utterly... At 3am today, I heard a loud BANG. I got up, and peeked outside my bedroom door. Darkness... And silence... So I went to the toilet (I have an ensuite) and went back to bed. A few minutes later, there was another loud BANG. I froze in bed. Next, I heard B's screams rip through the night. I was absolutely terrified. What's happening? What should I do? Should I call the police? Where's my phone? Where's my phone? What's happening?

B's screams stop.

I throw clothes on and get to the living room. B tells me there was someone in our house. The balcony door is open. The dining chair is toppled over. The intruder long gone. Nothing stolen, B must've walked in just as he entered the apartment.

I feel fear. I couldn't sleep after the cops left. I spent the day in a daze, forever wishing I had turned on the light to scare the intruder away. I'm glad B screamed, and deliriously happy that the intruder ran away. It could've been a lot worse. But it's horrifying hearing a friend scream like that.

It's not going to be an easy sleep tonight either :(

All I want for Christmas, is a baseball bat and some razor wire. On the other hand, peace and good will would be nice too.

Insanity

I know I talk about airport security a fair bit, but it really affects me. I really enjoy travelling, but airports are becoming a horrendous ordeal. As a traveller, all I want to do is get on the plane, but it's soo hard these days. If you're a light traveller, you were basically punished, because you were forced to check in luggage unless you intended to buy toothpaste at every destination. I just gave up and chewed gum :P

These days, you're allowed to bring on a little plastic baggie of liquids. All liquids must be in 100ml (max) containers. You'd think this would make life easier. It didn't. I happen to be lucky enough to be travelling when the rule first came in. I thought I was well prepared. I didn't even have any luggage. Just a handbag with a spare tshirt. I had my boarding pass pre-printed out. All that was required, was for me to turn up and get through the security check. The new liquid allowance rule, made lines for security 50 times longer. The line started from the security gate, cut through the concourse, went outside the airport, went through a marquee (setup for "passenger comfort"), looped back along the airport outside wall, and back into the airport again.

Outside Heathrow Terminal 4:

Why? Because now every single 100ml bottle of shampoo, toothpaste, whatever, was getting closely scrutinised by security guards.

This isn't the insanity part. The insanity part comes in when the public turns vicious and starts throwing people off flights. Granted, this happened in the US, but it woudn't suprise me if it started to happen here. Six Muslim men, who looked of Middle-Eastern descent, were escorted off a plane for praying. Ffs!!! Passengers became paranoid about the men speaking in Arabic. One passed a note to a flight attendant. It's not the first time something like this has happened. It's just the latest. The worst case I came across is the story of Raed Jarrar, who got pulled aside for wearing a shirt with Arabic script on the front. He wasn't allowed on the flight until he changed his shirt. Where are his rights as a human being?

It makes me wonder, what is the point of airport security? You go through metal detectors. Your baggage gets restricted and scrutinised. There's a war on liquids. Everytime I pass a checkpoint, I get felt up by the security lady. Seriously, I haven't been felt up like this in a long time. My bra gets lifted. My ankles get rubbed. My crotch was patted down. To what end? All it does is scare passengers even more. The approach taken by airport security is that something bad will happen to you. A bomb will go off. It's just a question of when. Whatever rules are in place, aren't preventative, they're just fear inducing. Why wouldn't a suicide terrorist just check in luggage these days instead of building one onboard? To my knowledge checked in luggage doesn't get scanned.

To me, what makes it worse, is the complete lack of care by airport security staff regarding how frustrated passengers feel. What I overheard was along the lines of, "I don't care if you don't listen to me. I'm not the one that's going to miss a flight. It doesn't affect me." Why wouldn't me and the 1000s of other passengers feel more pissed off at this attitude?

Schlocky horror goodness

The Barbican held a special event last weekend. It screened the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a live "soundtrack" performance by Puerto Muerto. Did the live performance add anything to the movie? Mmm, nope. Not really. They did a couple of songs that went well with the movie in the background, but that was it. The rest were just "space fillers" for moments of nothingness in the movie. Keep in mind that TCM already _has_ a soundtrack (cue screams and screechy horror noises), and when there's no music, it's probably done intentionally to add to the tension. So the addition of Puerto Muerto's tracks actually ruined parts of the movie for me. I'm not sure what Puerto Muerto were trying to achieve, and at times, it made the movie seem more like a video clip. I thought a soundtrack was meant to enhance the movie, not the other way around *shrug* My only complaint would be the stinky guy who sat next to me... Urggh... How can people smell so bad?

I don't really know how I got into horror movies. I suspect it has something to do with putting on a brave face infront of my brothers when we watched horror movies some 20 years ago. I think my fave these days, has to be House of 1000 Corpses by Rob Zombie. Inspired of course, by TCM :) It has the nutso freakish characters from the 70s, modernised and even more insane. Definitely worth a watch.

Reenie Only @ Armin Only

I remember the first time I saw Armin van Buuren play. It was a Godskitchen event. It was at Gas 4 years ago. It was the October long weekend. It was the first time B met C, and C wore sheep pants to impress us ;) I think the night ended with C and I sitting on the floor downing tequila shots!

Armin, fireworks, lasers and dancers who looked like hookers:

This year, I saw Armin play at Armin Only, in Ahoy, Rotterdam. Just me, solo, front row, and I was in Armin heaven. It was brilliant! From start, to finish, I was listening to Armin play for about 7 hours. My legs gave out at the 4th hour and I couldn't dance anymore. Sitting down at the back of the dancefloor alone is a bad idea though. There are a loooot of crazy concerned Dutch people out there :) "Are you okay? Is everything alright? It's a party! You can't sit down! Don't you like to party?" Errr, I must be getting old.

Armin hid behind a screen for an hour. This is his "I am Jesus" pose:

Listening to Armin use to be a part of my everyday work routine. Plug in, block out everything but the music, forget how sucky the project is, and just focus on getting the job done. To hear Armin play all the tunes that made me happy and forget everything that sucked... It was worth dealing with insane airport security and travelling to Holland for. For the life of me though, I couldn't get a clear pic of Armin :P

Woo, laser lights...

Armin's been a DJ for 10 years, and I hope he's got at least another 10 more in him. It's really a tough call between him and Paul van Dyk as to who's my fave DJ. Both brilliant, PvD is perhaps more consistent with his sets, but Armin when he gets it right, it's unbeatable. More blurry Armin pix available on my flickr set.

Ula and Wilco, I did miss you... I was at a loss as to what to do once the shops closed in Amsterdam! Haha :)

Homo-Monument?

Wicky, perhaps you can explain this one *lol* Found on the streets of Amsterdam:

Pushca - Chasing the Dragon

It's like a club stole my blog theme! So what exactly does "being Oriental" mean to Rondoners? Err, from what I saw that night, it means putting chopsticks in your hair and waving a fan!! It's an odd experience being one of the few *real* Orientals at an Oriental themed party. Who were the other real Orientals? My flatmates! *lol*

Everyone wants to be Oriental:

Rondon isn't a racist city. It's just... a tad insensitive to other cultures. I guess it's hard for people to look beyond stereotypes, and keep in mind this _is_ a theme party. So paddy field hats, cheong sams, kimonos, badly drawn moustaches and konichiwas are all to be expected. To be honest, I did feel offended that my culture was being taken the piss out of. But *shrug* like I said, it's a theme party. There was no way I was going to bother lecturing Poms that night that it took more than chopstick skillz to be Oriental (yup, someone did stop by to show me his 1337 skillz).

And if you take note from this picture (nsfw), nipple tassles are apparently all the rage with Orientals :P

Bar Italia

After a D&M with the Italian porter at my apartment early one Sunday morning, I asked him where to go for the "good stuff" in Rondon. You will not believe how hard it is to find good coffee here. I was directed to this place, Bar Italia in Soho:

So while everyone else was still in bed recovering from Pushca, I headed out for a morning espresso. Then it hit me, I've been here before. This place was one of my first experiences of Rondon about 5 years ago :) My brother bought me my very first machiatto from here :) Smooth, strong, espresso. Good stuff...

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Turning 28 made my stomach churn. Literally. Painfully. Multiple times... It was a great night :) Thank you to my wonderful flatmates who threw me a surprise Belvedere themed party. Thank you to all the guests who showed up, and I'm sorry for leaving the scene soo early. You try keeping down spicy korean instant noodles, beer, 5 cocktails (4 of which were doubles), and vodka shots :P I'm glad I didn't find any mystery vomit in _my_ room! *Look at T* Hahaha!

Start of the night, still on my feet:

Getting that lovey dovey feeling:

Hrm, I think that was my last cocktail:

PS: The new haircut is a Vidal Sassoon job :) And congrats to the newly weds, Mrs & Mr MacGregor!

Never thought I'd say this

But I miss blogging! A backlog is building up. Tidy and Extreme Euphoria, being ORIENTAL at Pushca, spending the entire night listening to Armin play a 9 hour set... Rah... Need my laptop back!

Laksa squirts

OMG. Rondoners, DO NOT go to Melati for a laksa. It's sooo oily, and my stomach paid for it. Avoid it at all cost. I wasn't the only one suffering from last night's dinner. One nameless friend was late for work this morning because of the same problem *grin*

No laptop, no blogging

On hiatus till I get my laptop back. It's just not the same when I have to hijack B's Vaio to blog :P My lappy's in the Apple Store, with the "geniuses", getting a new battery, logic board and power pack. Considering I've only had the MBP for about 6 months, that's a lot of repairs. Did I mention that I've been trying to get an appointment with the "geniuses" at tech support for THREE WEEKS? Everyday, I've been logging on to their website to try and book an appointment, always failing. I finally had to pay 79 quid to become a Procare Member which allows me to rock up without an appointment. Good un Apple. I could rant all day about Apple's crappy support. "Come back tomorrow at 10am and we'll try and book you an appointment," Apple support tells me. What, I don't have a job? How do they think I afforded their expensive laptop? Baaah... Not to mention my battery was on the recall list. I swear I checked it and it wasn't on the list (Apple guy, "Well the numbers haven't changed!").

My advice, don't buy first gen Apple products. The amount of effort you have to go through to get support from Apple is ridiculous. First they make it impossible to get an appointment without coughing up hard earnt squiddies. Then they'll make it seem like it's _your_ fault that things break down on a 6 month old laptop. Uh huh... Apple, you can be such a goat fcker.