IndieVerse - When Mainstream Music Disappoints

Hey everyone, I'm no longer active on this blog.
Please visit my new Wordpress music site: http://indieverse.emasters.info/

It's a blog to promote and share indie/alternative music.
Thanks for all your continued support

-Mark-

ASEAN Age-Group Championship 2010

I know this is terribly overdue. I have no excuses

Last holiday, I represented Malaysia for the ASEAN Games held in Subic Bay, Philippines. I've never played chess overseas before, so this was a new experience for me

I'm not really interested in talking about the tournament, considering how badly I did. Played 27 rounds in 3 different time controls over 10 days. And I had to go for the National Championships back in Malaysia a day later. I was so damn tired.

Btw, you can view the full results here:
Final ranking crosstable after 9 rounds

Anyway, this post will be more about:

-The culture shock after meeting the people there
-All the cool and interesting people I met while I was there
-Insights into the daily lives of people living in foreign nations

and how I spent my last night partying :)

As you can see from the picture above, I met some new friends on the plane. Gotta love AirAsia. XD

It was a rather boring 4 hour flight, with a near death experience towards the end when the plane suddenly dived towards land. After touching down at Clark International Airport, we had to travel another hour by...(what's a cross between a bus and a van?).

Anyway, we arrived at the Subic Bay Travellers Hotel, which although rather small, was immaculately clean and well maintained by a dedicated staff. I've never seen a more hospitable group of people in my life.

So it seems that the people of Philippines are really friendly. From the players to the girls selling souvenirs. For some reason, I kept speaking to them in Bahasa Melayu, which they don't understand at all. XD

Can't really blame me, they really do look like Malays. Most of them even pretended to understand what I was talking about. I guess they were trying to be polite. LOL.

Btw, Filipinos speak Tagalog and around 90% of them understand English. That's what one of their coaches told me.

I remember this time at Clark International: I bought a hotdog from a shop outside the airport. Then I asked the cashier for a plastic bag. And he looked at me as if I insulted his ancestors or something. I asked again, and he called his manager to deal with me. I told her I wanted a plastic bag, and she turned and shouted at the cashier "Plastimo!"

After 5 minutes, I got my plastic bag.

Anyway, while having dinner one evening, I had an interesting conversation with one of the Filipino players. I asked him about the Abu Sayyaf situation (a terrorist organization operating in the Philippines). He told me that he hasn't heard much about them recently. Which is a good thing.

Then some Singaporeans joined our table(or did I join THEIR table...can't remember) and started asking questions about Filipino maids and how they affect the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the Philippines. I didn't really understand what was going on after that. But the Filipino player looked slightly offended

That night, I also watch Spongebob Squarepants which had been translated into Tagalog. XD

*To be continued*

Insane

Have you ever had this feeling...that you shouldn't feel a certain way, but you can't help but feel it anyway? And that feeling consumes you, obliterating the senses, and you find yourself unable to recall even a single happy memory.

Well, I've been going through that recently. Long story that you really, really don't wanna hear.
But anyway, thanks to a friend, I think I'm able to move past it and go forward. But it's hard...so, so hard

"What my mind commands, my heart cannot obey"

-Mark-

Crows and Ashes

Actually I got nothing much to blog about.
These past few days have been poorly spent playing chess, Left4Dead, studying and texting.

Speaking of Left4Dead (awesome game btw), there's been a sudden craze for zombie survival-horror games. You know what I think? Gamers today want the feeling of killing innocent civilians in games, but without all the guilt attached to it. So zombies are a perfect solution. I mean, they're already (un)dead right? And they're after your brains, so killing them should be okay, yes?

The world today promotes a sick culture. The act of killing, causing mortal injury and taking lives have become such a normality. You see it in games, on the TV and in the news. Society tells you that sex is bad, sex is immoral, sex is unnatural. But not killing, killing is okay. Killing is normal. Death is normal

I mean, a few years ago I saw this video on my friend's handphone. A group of terrorists shot a tourist in the head, then decapitated him and display his head to the camera.

My first reaction was: Oh okay...I've seen all this before.

It wasn't until I went home that I realised that I actually saw a REAL man murdered in cold blood and felt nothing. I was sickened with myself.

Even yesterday, a group of my classmates were laughing at a picture in a newspaper of a man with a funny expression on his face. When I saw that picture, I was shocked. The man was carrying a dead child in his arms who had been killed in a suicide bombing. Nobody actually noticed this. Even worse, nobody cared.

The youth of today have been desensitized to the horrors that the world has to offer us. Every tragedy we see is just another game, another movie. The value of human life has been cheapened.

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions...a statistic
-Joseph Stalin-

This is one of Stalin's most infamous quotes during the era of communism. But these days, even the death of a single individual has become insignificant.

So can we really say that society has progressed forward?
Cause it doesn't seem that way anymore

-Mark-

Mark the Rockstar

I've been wanting to learn how to play the guitar for some time now.
It only just occured to me 5 minutes ago THAT I ACTUALLY HAVE A GUITAR.

A baby guitar actually...that my parents bought for me when I was still an infant.
So I got it out of the storeroom, cleaned it and got my dad to tune it

Then I self-taught myself how to play the cheap version of
"Smoke on the water".

Been doing it ever since. XD
-Mark-

Rhetoric is a Bloodsport

I feel so disappointed.
I was the 3rd speaker for my school's Rotary Debate team...

and we lost

The motion was: This house believes that If only one language existed the world would be a better place.

My team was the Opposing team.
I've highlighted the words that made refuting this motion so damn difficult in red.

Any ideas?
Anyway, I still felt that I spoke well.
The audience in general liked my speech.

The judges however...did not
-Mark-

And I quote:

                           Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was the man who single-handedly liberated India from the the British Empire. And he achieved all this without the use of violence. Here are some of his quotes:

1) Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

2) I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.

3) I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent

4) Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

5) The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

6) Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

7) What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

-Mark-