My mp3 folder that I offhandedly titled "Chill" has 147 random songs I thought just fit that word. I have Stan Getz, The Roots, Air (French Band), Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bjork, Faithless/Dido, Les Nubians, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Everything But the Girl, Chet Baker, Morcheeba, DJ dB, Nat King Cole, St. Germain, Looper, Elle Fitzgerald, just to name a few.

I’m winamping it on ’shuffle’ and ‘cross-fade’ (if anything, the only reason to download winamp3) modes now. And in some weird wonderful way, even as smoooooth Stan Getz fades into head-boppin’ The Roots, they all still blend beautifully together, as if they belonged to the same genre. How lovely.

My mp3 files are clogging up memory space on my nearly 3 year-old (but oh-so-reliable) Acer laptop. Help! I know I need to get rid of some of them. But everytime I scroll through my mp3 files, I just can’t bear to get rid of any. Sure, I can burn them on a cd, but I want all of them accessibly there anytime I want them. If I feel like the Beatles, or Linkin Park, or Paul Van Dyk, or The Roots, or Natelie Merchant, or cheesy Disney/Broadway sing-a-long songs, or Sasha & Digweed, or Michael Jackson, or Underworld, I want to just scroll down my playlist and click, no no none of that extra step of digging up a cd first (which cd? this one? that one? where is that song? this one? that one?…btw, I do have enough songs to fill up a few cds), and waiting for it to load up. It sounds unreasonable, but that extra minute would just kill the experience. I’m a child of instant gratification.

But my greediness knows no bounds. I keep stuffing ‘em in, pretending to be oblivious to how chocked my poor ol’ laptop is. Not only songs (Tall Paul’s being sucked into my world now), but whole 90 minute DJ sets (Tiesto, Tiesto, anything Tiesto), and friggin’ whole albums (recently the ‘8 Mile’ soundtrack. Don’t. Laugh. I liked that movie ok?), and I’m starting to Musicmatch-convert whole cds into folders of mp3s (recent one Woob’s Emit: 0094. aweeeeesome shit) so I can have them just right there, accessible, convenient, instantaneously when I want them. Lord help me! Technology’s too sinfully gloriously wonderful. It’s making my life so…easy! I feel guilty. Should I spank myself to atone for all my accessible pleasures? Although that could be a sin in itself as well.

Finally put that li’ll comment ditty for my log. Now you can click on ‘comment’ at the end of every entry and comment. May I comment that although I expect next to nil comments frequently (I’ll be fine…I’ll be fine…), I look forward to hearing your comments. Even if you don’t have a comment, a "Hi, but I don’t have a comment" would be just as lovely. When you type a word, for example "comment", many times, it starts to look really weird and ceases to be what the simple word "comment" used to be in your mind’s eye.

Every Tuesday, Berkeley’s ‘Daily Cal’ runs a sex column, that has apparently been a source of much controversy, and has "titillated, disgusted, and intrigued". They flatter themselves. The column pretends to be an educational medium pretending to be shocking. ‘Sex on Tuesday’ is uninformative and unentertaining. There is thus no more justification for it to continue being the useless perpetuator of triteness that it is.

First: Well, anything that begins with a vapid implication of that ‘female empowerment’ thing ("In this enlightened age of women’s rights, let us not ignore the sexual forefront of this movement, where more equality actually exists than some people realize".") would get into my bad books right away.
Second: Nothing that has been written a normal college student with normal levels of exposure to popular media and human interaction would not have already heard/read/experienced. Ok, that might be a little harsh. After all, the newspaper is one medium of information transfer…
Third: But the information is lumped with myths–common myths over-exposed by popular magazines (hey, I read them too…hell! I subscribe to (too many of) them!) that should be read as entertainment not source of facts–presented as facts. The inaccuracy and untruths are misleading. (My lack of specificity is deliberate).
Fourth: Worst of all, the information is presented as a pathetic part of that ‘world of feelgood’ genre that has been exploding.
"There’s no recipe for what good sex or a good orgasm is supposed to be like. Keeping an open mind and allowing for the possibility of an unconventional experience will help your confidence and your sexual expression".
How completely useless were those 2 sentences? Toss ‘em out with the letters, words, passages of ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’, the Body Shop website (whose insipidity is wonderfully exposed by eyespy), Dr Phil, and ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’.
Fifth: Which is a derivation of all of the above…this is just weak, boring, uninspired writing. Period.

‘Sex on Tuesdays’ has had various writers. I’ve read 2 (including current one) in my 2 1/2 years of Berkeley, and both were/are guilty of points 1-through-5. Berkeley can and should do better.

We need less bullshit in our writing, in our culture, in our media. We need more exposures, of myths, of self-deception. At the root of it is pure sensibility. Insipid individuals will be the believers and perpetuators of bullshit. People who don’t take that find glorious salvation in people who don’t take that and are brilliant enough to bestow us with alternatives. You already get that in every wonderful classic novelist (Tolstoy! George Eliot! but of course!). But popular culture is (thank god!) filled with ‘em too. Dave Eggers, for one, pounds this point over and over in ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ (would love to put up examples, but don’t have book with me right now) Dr Drew & Adam Carolla whose radio show Loveline is a great disseminator of information, while constantly exposing bullshit (love the way Adam goes "Come onnnnnnn…"), while being wildly funny and popular. See, it can be done.

ooohh…*rubbing hands in glee*. I’ve found the 3rd remix version of ‘Silence’ (Sarah MacLachlan). Had the Tiesto and Delirium versions. Now I kazaaed a fucky "Delirium Breakbeat" version. And I realized that I had 2 versions of Everything But The Girl’s ‘Before Today’: one from dB’s ‘The Secret Art of Science’, and the other from The Saint soundtrack. And they both sound so lovely. And, and, and, I discovered that Tiesto made a remix of ‘The Space Between’ by Dave Matthews (whom I love). How interesting is that? I never thought that song could be remixed. Dave Matthews as far from techno as I’d imagine. But it actually sounds good. That’s the cute thing about the dance music genre. You get all these different versions of same songs that people just have fun with. Yay.

Do yourself a favor:
Download this song called ‘Battleship Grey’ by DJ Tiesto (even if you don’t like ‘techno’ in general (why on earth, I wouldn’t know), you’ll like this very mild form. Really. It’s a pretty ballad.)
Turn off all the lights in your room.
Turn on your coool red lava lamp (if you don’t have one, you’re so not cool), or ok, light a candle
Play the song. Loud.
Close your eyes.
Concentrate on every layer of sound that you hear.
Enjoy the goosebumps.

Your life will feel just that much more beautiful, even perfect, if only for that five minutes.

Oh, I’m thinking of adding one of those comment boxes that pops out from a link at the end of every entry. Does anyone know how I can add one? Any help would be appreciated. Please email me.

Enough (for now) with dead foreign writers writing with scary but beautiful precision what I feel.

How about a fellow Singaporean from my junior college (that’s high school to you Americans) who is my age writing with scary but beautiful precision what I feel? Eyespy has been a consistent hub of brilliant shit ("an elegant oxymoron" he says) that’s been such a joy to read. I just had to post a comment on this entry.

Then I just realized that there are people I know from Raffles Junior College (my high school) that are reading this. And that scares me. Because they scared me then with their astounding intellect that I could never quite catch up to. "I tail the intelligent and gather the flakes of brilliance that they carelessly shed like autumn leaves." (Eyespy) That’s how I got my As in the GCEs. Je suis a fraud. That feeling of utter mediocrity returns. Be forgiving, you fucking brilliant people.

Frivolity will make me feel better: I got a haircut today! After a year of letting it grow into a long hay-y mess. And it fuckin’ rocks! It took my hairstylist 3 hours (she had tiny fingers. Really.), just to cut it. There were no treatments, no perms or whatever weird shit chicks do. Just snipping hair. 3 hours. Everytime I looked up, she’d be snipping off 1/8 of an inch off 2 strands of hair with this look of intense concentration. I got a little worried. She was a student, that’s why the cut cost only 15 bucks. But the result was awesome. It’s shoulder length (my longest old hair could reach my waist), layered like crazy so I get awesome volume that I lurve, parting’s move to the left so it looks funky. I’ve never loved my haircut so much before. I’ll put a picture up. I’m never letting my hair grow out into a horror-zone of split ends again. I feel happy and vain now. Ooohhh…let these people be smart and clever. At least I have a cute haircut. Frivolity will make me feel better.

Dave Egger’s ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. I found a (what I believe to be) rare edition of the book that includes 50 glorious extra pages of an afterword by Eggers. I read that, and the first few chapters and I’m hooked once again.

Now, I hardly re-read novels. Some I pick up again and again to read passages I loved and marked out (multiple pick-up novels include The Mill on the Floss (Eliot), Emma (Austen), Microserfs (Douglas Coupland; don’t ask me why), Fever Pitch (Nick Hornby; his best, and he never topped that thereafter sadly. Refer to last paragraph.), Anna Karenina (Tolstoy; new multiple pick-up novel that I foresee will be picked-up over and over)). But I hardly ever re-read the whole thing (unless I did it for a class). For the mistaken belief that there’s just so much awesome shit out there for me to read, I can’t ‘waste time’ re-reading one that I’ve already read.

Stupid belief, really. I remember re-reading my favorite Enid Blyton books over and over and over and over again when I was a kid, before I fell into that intellectual greediness of wanting to read as many books as possible. Oh my god! Those boarding school series: Malory Towers and St. Claire’s. If you thought Harry Potter was fun (I thought so too), these are the originals. And Noddy! And the Faraway Tree! And the Naughtiest Girl! And that chair with magic wings! Oh wow! I’m experiencing an intense wave of nostalgia. That was my Childhood right there. That’s what it was all about. Then puberty saw an onslaught of Judy Blume books: Fudge (oh that crazy kid!), Are You There God, It’s Me, Margeret (classic scene of teenage girls at a slumber party doing an arm-swing exercise, chanting "I must, I must, I must increase my bust!" ahahahahhahaha!!!! That still cracks me up!), Forever (which is your kid’s first graphic-detail glimpse into *gasp*…s-e-x. And pre-marital too. *gasp*.)

God, I fell into that nostalgic zone right there, thinking about all my wonderful childhood books. I still have them back in Singapore. I want them with me forever.

But back to my main point, I think Dave Eggers is just wonderful. I think his office is based in San Francisco. Maybe I’ll become his stalker. He’s got an unassuming cute factor going on too, no?

I’m afraid to read his 2nd novel "You Shall Know Our Velocity". I fear disappointment. I read the first chapter at the bookstore last week. And stopped. Not that it was bad. It just wasn’t…that…good. I didn’t want to read on for fear of confirming that disappointment. Nick Hornby (who caused Kelly-Hornby love with his ‘High Fidelity’ and ‘Fever Pitch’) did that with his piece of shit novel ‘How to be Good’. Douglas Coupland (who induced Kelly-Coupland obsession with ‘Microserfs’ and ‘Generation X’) killed it with pretty much any of his other novels. Zadie Smith (who created Kelly-Smith awe with ‘White Teeth’) failed miserably in ‘Autograph Man’. I really should just be happy in that illusion that Eggers is perfect.

I think my Friday sucked all the excitement out from my Saturday.

I went to my first studio-viewing session. Ended up chatting with super nice Cal student part-timing at the realty office who showed me a studio right in the heart of Berkeley (Shattuck/University). Honestly, for $875/mth, I wasn’t too impressed at all. He ended up convincing me that Jimmie’s room for $480 was steal. And it is. I called Jimmie to ask if the room was already taken. Twas not. I’d probably have to overlap my rents for March but really, $480 is a freakin’ steal for a place on Fulton/Oxford. Guess I’ve found my new home. One burden off my mind.

Found out that I won 4 (of the "100 to be won") tickets to Telepopmusik’s gig (those ‘Breathe’ people in the Mitsubishi ad) at Ruby Skye. Schemey bait-and-lure scheme! Douglas and I took a cab down to Ruby Skye (my first time in an SF taxi, I realized!! Whoohoo!) to meet up with Ian, Clarice and Yingping. I guess all 100 free tickets holders were there. And there was no line for the paying people. So the people wayyyy at the back of the "winners" line (that went round the block) would have had to pay to get in on time to watch the concert, and since they were already dressed and there…oh, those shrewd club promoters. We were ahead in line, so after 1/2 hour, we got in fine (yay). Angela McCluskey is just one of those awesome natural performers. The moment she stood on stage, she just shined. She worked the crowd, boy oh boy she did…for 1/2 hour, when their gig was over and the house DJs spun. It was weird, when I later thought about it. They headlined the night, and they played for 1/2 (3 songs!) of the 6 hours that the club was open.

It was a great night of sober substance-free (for me!) dancing though. I’ve discovered that house music just doesn’t do it for me as much as trance. Never really did differentiate them till last night where there was a significant switch in genre, and I just smiled and nodded "yep, this is it, this is what I love." Trance puts this silly grin on my face and makes me do stupid things with my body, trying hard to grab at and embrace and cuddle every single layer of sound.

Weird shit started to happen after 2am. Ruby Skye turned into some kinda swingers club. Sleazy Exhibitionist Couple started to literally rub up to Other Sleazy Exhibitionist Couple. Suddenly, the 2 chicks were fondling and fingering each other right in the middle of the dance floor with their 2 (really unattractive even in dim club lights that are supposed to make people look better) men sandwiching them. Interesting to later observe whose hands reach over where and whose hands try to push whose hands away behind whose back. On seperate occasions, there were other girls were blatantly coming on to guys who already had dance partners. It was a what-the-fuck-is-going-on-in-here moment. Those girls probably had really fucked up childhoods. Thank god for the vast normal majority that stuck to the regular fun dance-ass-off routine.

Post-clubbing was spent on Douglas’ roof-top playing with super strong torchlights and shining it down on 330am club-goers/leavers. I love the city. There’s never silence. When you stand on a roof-top at Harrison/11th Street, you hear the occasional sirens, the muffled beats of DNA Lounge next door, that hum from cars swooshing on the highway near you, Costco’s here, Best Buy’s there, Bank of America glows in the distance, we catch a glimpse of the gold of the civic center building, the Transamerica building tip peaks out, the Bay Bridge stretches out, post-club people talking, laughing, walking, club flyers stuck on cars and littered across the grimey street. I love the city, dirt, noise and all.

430am, I could barely keep my eyes open. Sugar-rush from orange/banana snacks crashed me on the couch while Douglas jammed on his keyboard. I was groggily stirred by this whisper "Kelly’s asleep on the couch" with techno music humming in the background. The whisper repeated over and over. I was in that trippy half-asleep zone. "Wha…?" While I was asleep on the couch, Douglas’ random jam session evolved into a song called "Kelly’s asleep on the couch", which he recorded down and was repeating on the computer as I finally woke up, which he later burned into an audio cd. What a freak! How fuckin’ cool is that? I made a clip of it here. It goes on for almost 6 minutes. Trippy shit! I love technology!

Saturday afternoon was just deliciously hot…>70F weather, cloudless sky…I couldn’t stay in. Felt like an energizer bunny. Ran out to the gym. Tried out on the Precor Elliptical trainer for the first time. It was weird. It went on this semi-circle which is supposed to "stimulate natural movement", but I felt like I was going to be thrown off a horse. I felt as stupid as I’ve always thought people looked prancing on that thing. But boy was it a tough workout. Maybe I’ll try it again. Splish-splash in the pool after that. Glorrrrious water under warm sun after a good sweat. Hit 50 laps. Didn’t feel like stopping. But sun was setting. Brrr…

I’m returning to my natural state of nerd-hood and staying in, curled up with Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ tonight…

This is how weekends are meant to be spent.

Uh oh…I find myself falling into another obsession. I picked up George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’, read the prelude, and now I’m hooked. Classics never fail. And now, I’m gonna spend everyday neglecting what I’m supposed to do for school to read that bloody novel. Damn you, genius writers! Thank you, genius writers!

Of course, it was Mr Purvis and his literature classes on Eliot’s ‘The Mill on the Floss’ that sparked that consciousness that awoke and thereafter will never cease to fascinate nor frustrate me.

Speaking of frustration, I’ve to move out of my lovely abode (damn you, Jane!)…I will thus be burdened for the next month or so with constant cost-benefit analyses: my own room is a minimum must. Now, do I even want to share a place? I’m dying for my own place…a studio, a one bedroom, my own room, my own kitchen, my own bathroom…MY OWN PLACE…ohhh…just the thought of it…glorious narcissistic selfish solitude…you can strut around butt-naked all day…it’s gonna cost me about 200 bucks more per month. But droooollll…p-r-i-v-a-c-y…how much is it worth? sighhhh…