Untitled.

I realised that the titles of my blog post are quite meaningless, because I tend to choose a title, and then make a post, forgetting that I had a title at the top of the post. So, there you go. Untitled post. So I'm free to talk about what I want, without thinking of following a thread. (You have been warned.)

If you're wondering where on earth I am (literally), I'm actually at home in Jakarta. Home sweet home. The unfortunate thing is that I'm still kind of jet-lagged. Sleeping 2-5am, waking up 12noon-ish. It's slowly moving back to a normal 12mn-9am sleep cycle, but till then, I'm staying off caffeine.

Been trying to study for the AS (plus a few A2) papers in January. I have to confess - I feel that studying in December is like child-labour - it's unethical, because it robs the person of the freedom to enjoy, relax, and celebrate the festive season (and gain weight). But that's my opinion. Must. Study. Psychology. I mean, I'm not too worried about Maths and Econs, and I just need to read up a bit more of the Accounting theory and stuff, but Psychology is a lot harder to study for. Tons of different theories, explanations, approaches, models, treatments, etc. intertwined with hundreds of researchers' names to remember. But since I got myself into this mess (nobody forced me to take Psychology. Just me and my ego.), I have to face the music like a man.

Oh, I've been thinking of embarking on a multimedia project soon. Much like my 'O' Level Art Coursework - a video, coupled with an original audio track, depicting a certain theme/story. At the moment, I need a theme to work on, so that I know what to work towards. So far, I have 2 on my mind - the urban/city life, or the earphones/speakers/mp3 player. The former, because I just want to try making stock-like video. The latter, because I think many of us listen to music on our commute to school/work, and sometimes, you see people behaving in a way that shows they're rocking to the music, but suppressing it really well. And I thought I can use my video to show an amplification (heh. no pun intended) of this perhaps-innate response to Lady Gaga. Of course, this is a spare-time-only project, because I really shouldn't be doing this when I have exams to prepare for. It's just that I've been having itchy fingers lately, if you know what I mean.

Gosh, I really want a 7D and a video-friendly ballhead (Reccos, anyone?).

Anyway, speaking of video, I was watching this HD short-film that I downloaded from the BBC iPlayer some time ago. Hooked my Mac up to my 720p TV, and gosh, did it look good. The story was good, too. Entitled "Pop Art" by Amanda Boyle, it's about this strange friendship between Toby, a kid who's lost him mum and Arthur, a new classmate who's born with a 'genetic disorder that causes him to be born a balloon' (hence the title, I guess). It's an odd story, yes, but I think it's a bit of a reflection of how people sometimes let their negative emotions overcome them. If you're geeky enough to know how to set up a proxy or search on Youtube, do try to watch it. It's a heart-warming clip, IMO. http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p004x9xt

But if you have no idea how to set up a proxy (it's alright. me neither.) then you can have this as a consolation prize. If you're a fan of The Bugle - Audio Newspaper for the Visual World podcast, then you should listen to "Andy Zaltsman's History of the Third Millenium", a comedic view of the past decade. It's on the iPlayer, but because it's audio-only (radio broadcast), it's available for streaming worldwide, as with most other BBC Radio programmes. Other programmes I recommend - The Now Show [also available in podcast form worldwide]. But please, don't let these links be your only source of news. You'll sound really weird in conversations about the latest news.

By the way, for people who often look at my Last.fm scrobble charts, there's been a slight glitch with the Last.fm Scrobbler App on my Mac, so I had to uninstall it and use a different scrobbler, which seems to also have its own share of bugs. Seems like upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and then from iTunes 8 to 9, added with the zero-response from the Last.fm coders, might have led to me being unable to submit about half of my scrobbles. So, fingers crossed, let's hope things work with this new 3rd-party scrobbler. If you were reading this paragraph and scratching your head, head over to www.last.fm and use the Last.fm service.

Ok, got to sleep now. Post ends here.