'Cause you said, said he was the one
Baby yes you said, said you were in love












Back to basics: Step 1
Arthur
JJC
Outgrowing 17
Dreamer
Poet
Lover
Atheist
Left-Handed Saggitarian

My passions: Step 2
Food
Company
Writing
Movies
Music
Debates


What i am: Step 3
Strengths:
Confident
Sensitive
Eloquent


Weaknesses:
Paranoid
Unorganized
Careless

Dreams of a globetrotter wannabe: Step 4
Paris
Shanghai
London
Gold Coast
Japan(Tokyo)
Rome
Taiwan
Hong Kong
New York
San Francisco
South Korea

Wishlist
My own domain
Scholarship
To publish a book

Want to know more about me?

Read my blog and you would start discovering fragments of me

P.S. All the works here posted belong to me unless stated otherwise. If you want to post them elsewhere, please seek prior permission from me before doing so. Thanks.

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Icon: reruntherace

June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 November 2008 December 2008

Singapore's First Ever Toy and Comic Convention
Sunday, June 29, 2008, 10:11 PM

Hey everybody. I haven't been posting lately because i have been quite busy with exams and all but most of them are over now. The last one standing is my piano exams. I was down on Saturday at Suntec City for the Toys and Comics Convention and here's what you have missed out if you missed it,that is.


Toys and Comic convention? Haven't heard about it before? No worries. It's something new and it's the first one ever in Singapore. It was held on the 28th and 29th of June at Suntec City's Convention Centre.




Housed within the convention hall are booths for your favourite comics and figurines. Some of the booths there include Gloomy the naughty grizzly, Monsterism Island, DEVILROBOTS and many others. There was a booth from NUS Comics too. Most notably, there was a booth by Hasbro featuring Starwars. They had the entire collection of Starwars figures featured there, i think. They were even classified according to the years etc etc. I didn't know there was so many star wars figurines!!! I was never a Star Wars fan anyway. Never ever watched any of their movies or anything related to them but i am pretty sure if you are a Star Wars fan, you sure did miss out a lot. On the downside, entry into the Star Wars booth was regulated i.e. there was a guard out there who was basically in charge of crowd control, allowing only a certain number of people in the booth at any time.





Aren't these photo frames so nice? They cost $20 each. (Ugh!)




Looks intimidating for a toy bear


Something to reassure you that the Chinese culture thrives on


Recognise any of these? V for Vandetta!!!




This picture is just cute. Plain cute.




Tofu!


The Death Note Series










There was also a section where there were people dressed up in various costumes and characters for phototaking purposes. You could take a photo with your favourite comics character. Mine wasn't there. :(.


What's toys without Lego? Lego was there with some rather amazing displays which definitely took a lot of work to build given how intricately designed they were, albeit the fact they were just blocks for kids to play with in general.




There was this section where there were doll figurines on display and they cost a bomb. I saw one that cost $725. *Gasps* Some of them are really pretty though and they don't emit the creepy aura that some dolls give off.





This is one of my favourite.








Another one of my favourite


Simply beauty.



There were a couple of booths selling T-shirts with prints of some of the characters they designed themselves. These were the booths that were the most crowded. I only managed to peek at some of the T-shirts but they were mostly for females if i was not mistaken.


Oh ya. Did i say i saw a Macdonalds booth there? Macdonalds had a booth there. No. They didn't display their collection of toys for the kid's meal. They had a booth there for getting to know more information about setting up a party for your kid at Macdonalds. It's just so out of place. Macdonalds seems to want a pie of everything huh? *Shrugs shoulders*


Apart from all the figurines, there were the comics and animation stalls. Some of them offered animation courses. On that note, the School Of Robotics was there too though i didn't really check out what they were doing there. I am done and over with Robotics.


Something drawn by a famous cartoonist(Can't remember who)[It's not very clear because of the lighting]



Some booths sold some magazines with works of their designed characters in fine coloured print. I must say that some of them were rather impressive and i felt rather compelled to buy them. But in the end, i figured that i would probably have no good use for them so i left it back at the stall. There's an english comics for the Three Kingdoms and it looked quite interesting. For those of us who love Chinese history, it might be worth a read.


Nitendo had a huge booth there too for people to try out Nitendo DS and Wii. It was one of the most cluttered booths as well. Not very surprising though. They had a couple of games on demo that you could try too. Timezone had a booth that allowed people to play DDR(I'm not sure if it's free and for what purpose) and a couple of machines that you would find at a typical arcade.


If you love Magic The Gathering, you would have loved the Wizards of the coast booth right beside the Stars Wars one. It featured their cards and all. Reminds me of my obsession with card games in the past. But that's all history. I spent a bomb on cards. :(. I think they are still somewhere in my house. Haa!!!


I bought two postcards($1 each) and a sticker($2) from DEVILROBOTS which came with a complimentary posters. I was rather tempted to buy some of the figurines but i don't have any display cupboards so they would probably go to waste. I curbed the desire!!! =P.


Cute postcards




Sticker


Complimentary poster



It's a rather small convention, i would say, as compared to most other conventions but this is the first of it's kind in Singapore. Some of the booths that i thought should be there weren't there, for example Marvel Comics. But all in all, it's still a good headstart.

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I LOVE MY APPLE!
Saturday, June 28, 2008, 1:11 PM

Going on a shopping trip? Taking a long train journey? Embarking on a long distance run? Here, let me tell you why you should buy an iPod shuffle based on my own experience with the product itself.

Most of us can't do without our MP3 players these days whereever we go because we just love music! Myself included. iPod shuffle boasts a 1 GB - 2 GB memory allowing you to store between 240 to 500 songs depending on the memory size of your iPod shuffle. You don't have to worry about repeating the songs on your iPod Shuffle on the train anymore because there's more than enough songs to keep you crooning to your favourite tunes on the train. I personally find 240 to 500 songs more than sufficient for an average person. In fact, usually i don't end up using up all of my memory unless the songs uploaded are of very high quality. You don't have to worry about the battery running low all the time as well with iPod shuffle's 12 hour battery life.




Going on a long journey? Can't charge your MP3 player because you don't have a computer at home or outside of home? That's nothing to fret about with iPod shuffle. You can purchase the Apple USB Power Adapter for just $55.00 and you are well on your way to charging your iPod Shuffle on the road. No need to worry about packing your bag with an extra MP3 player or other forms of entertainment. That's because now you have your IPOD SHUFFLE. All you need is to plug the adapter into the power socket. It's just that easy. This is perfect when you travel. I personally experienced my battery running flat when i was using some other brands of mp3 in the past but after i switched to iPod Shuffle, nothing more to worry about.



Bored of listening to the same old songs? Are you someone who loves surprises? iPod shuffle is the perfect mp3 for you. It allows you to play your songs randomly with the shuffle function and the autofill function on iTunes. You can alternate between playing your songs according to the order you uploaded it in and shuffling the songs with a simple slide. You never know what's the next song coming up, always giving you a surprise. It's just as exciting as opening a present every few minutes as the song fades away and the next one comes on. Convenient and user-friendly.



This is the perfect gift for your parents or friends who may not be tech-saavy because navigation with the iPod shuffle is made easy. Now your parents wouldn't have to worry about how to turn off the iPod shuffle or how to shuffle the songs because it's just all about sliding.



Going shopping? Can't bring a MP3 player because your favourite dress dosen't go well with a bag? Going running? Don't like the feeling of something heavy and bulky slapping against your thighs with each step forward on the track? No worries. All you need is your iPod shuffle which you can easily clip on to your pockets or store in your handphone pouch. That's just how small iPod shuffle is. Portability is the word. iPod shuffle's small size, measuring only 41.2 X 27.3 X 10.53 mm, allows it to be brought to almost anywhere and fits almost any occassion perfectly. This is something that i really really love about the iPod when i don't want to bring my bag and have to start thinking whether i want to bring my mp3. But with iPod shuffle, i just have to place my ipod shuffle into my pocket and not worry about bringing a bag just for an mp3 player.



Have the same iPod shuffle as your friends? Don't know which one belongs to you? You can personalise your iPod shuffle when you purchase it from the Apple Store directly which allows you to engrave on the back of your iPod shuffle. Now, you don't have to worry about which one belongs to you anymore. One of a kind personalisation. This is tested and proven when me and one of my friends met up and we couldn't figure out which one was ours, so we had to play the songs to figure out which of the iPod belongs to which one of us because i don't have the engraved version. But with engraving services, that's all gonna be history.


What's more? iPod comes in 5 colours.



Grey for the neutral one sitting in between the angel and devil.



Turquoise for those who are versatile and clear-minded like water.



Green for the environment and zen.



Purple for the royalty in us.



Red for the hot and sexy socialite.



Do you happen to like the colour Red? Or are you an active AIDS activist who wants to put an end to the suffering of AIDS patients? You bet! You are in luck because when you purchase a PRODUCT (RED) Special Edition iPod Shuffle[Red in colour], Apple will contribute a portion of the money to the Global Fund for fighting AIDS/HIV in Africa. Think about it. It's killing two birds with one stone. Getting your favourite iPod shuffle and helping to support a cause. For every iPod shuffle PRODUCT (RED) Special Edition iPod Shuffle you buy, you are contributing to the purchasing and distribution of anti-AIDS medication in Africa. Do your part as a global citizen yet satisfy your inner desires.

Where else can you find a better deal? Nowhere but at Apple! What are you waiting for? Want to know more or are you already raring to snatch the iPod off the shelves? Log on to http://store.apple.com/sg/ and order your iPod shuffle and get it shipped to you within 24 hours without any shipping fees!

Note: The pictures posted in this post do not belong to me and were taken from "http://store.apple.com/sg/"

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Macdonalds killing more trees?
Friday, June 27, 2008, 11:09 PM

I am sure that most of us would have noticed that Macdonalds has changed the system in which they serve their customers. Instead of getting the customer to wait, they get the customer to move to the next lane with a receipt and wait for their order. I don’t know if you realise but more often than not, you don't have to wait very long to get your order placed on your tray. This is seen as being much more efficient compared to where the staff can only serve one customer per lane and has to wait till the customer gets his or her order most of the time. Sure, I do understand where Macdonalds is coming from.

But you do realise that the printing of the receipt is redundant, don't you? It just serves as a form of identification of the customers so that the staff knows who the order belongs to. This is redundant in my opinion. Are the staff at Macdonalds so inefficient and so scatter-brained that they really can't remember who ordered what? If it was during a peak period, perhaps it is justifiable to print those receipts but what about the non-peak period? Macdonalds isn't always having a full house. I am pretty sure everybody's aware of that.

Even if the Macdonalds staff is truly scatter-brained, it is still not justifiable to print these receipts. How so? Let's first assume that the Macdonalds staff is truly scatter-brained and can't remember who ordered what. For example, there are 5 customers on the next lane waiting for their orders to be served. If let's say burger A is ready and the staff dosen't know if the burger belongs to customer 1,2,3,4 or 5 and askes the customers who ordered burger A. Do you really think that the customers would start fighting and said i ordered it? The likelihood of such a scenario occurring is arguably almost out of the world. Most of us are rationale and wouldn't go around snatching others' orders which we probably wouldn't even feel like eating in the first place which explains why we didn't order it.

There's also the napkins which you can help yourself to at the self-service counter which are made of recycled paper. I am pretty sure that the step taken to switch to napkins made from recycled materials was a step by the corporation to reduce the number of trees it has to cut down and i applaud that move. Applaudable as it is, there are some inherent flaws with that. The first one being, the receipts printed would proabably reduce the number of trees that these recycled papers can help to save or even more than offset the number of trees saved and ends up resulting in more trees cut. What's more, the very nature that the napkins are self-service makes them subjectable to abuse. Not all of us are as environmentally friendly as we think we are and thus the abuse. To say that everybody is aware about protecting the environment is clearly a fallacious statement. In the case that it's not, we would proabably not even have to promote the campaign where we get Singaporeans to bring their own plastic bags or recyclable or environmentally friendly bag to the supermarket. The fact remains as it is. Most of us are not doing our part, small and insignificant as it is, to protect the environment. I've seen people pulling out dozens of napkins when they really don't need that much.

Macdonalds has done it's part to try to protect the environment by switching to recycled paper(although whether it's because of a lower cost albeit unlikely or because of the true desire to save the environment remains unbeknownst to me) Perhaps Macdonalds should take yet another step and only print those receipts when necessary because i am sure not all of us need the receipts and also because it is not of much practical use as we eventually chuck them into the bins. It's not that i am trying to fault Macdonalds. It's ultimately still a commericial firm and being that, it's profit driven, accountable to it's shareholders and does it actions based on whatever that's best to the company. As much as Macdonalds can try to play a part, perhaps we should start playing our part by saying no to the receipts and taking only what we need.

We need to save the environment for our future generations and something closer to our heart, reduce the effects of global warming. I am sure I don't have to preach about global warming given that it's a rather popular topic in recent years and can be easily researched on on the Internet. Eitherway, we should be more conscious of our actions and the impact on the environment.

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The mental hospital
Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 10:51 PM

This is a really funny story that i found in one of my emails when i was looking through my inbox. It's kind of short but kinda funny in it's own special way.


Jim and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled Jim out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.


When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged; since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of another patient, I have concluded that your act displays a sound mind. The bad news is, Jim, the patient you saved, hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.' Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?

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Spectacular tricks to teach your body
Saturday, June 21, 2008, 1:31 PM

Here's a rather interesting email that i received from my friend not too long ago. I like to post interesting emails on my blogs rather than forward them to people because it seems that through posting them on my blog, i can reach a wider audience.

Anyway, i will not testify to the usefulness of the following tricks. Whether it works or not, i don't know but either way, it still makes an interesting read

1.) If you've got an itch in your throat, scratch your ear. When the nerves in the ear get stimulated, they create a reflex in the throat that causes a muscle spasm, which cures the itch.

2.) Having trouble hearing someone at a party or on the phone? Use your right ear. Its better at picking up rapid speech. But, the left is better at picking up music tones

3.) If you need to relieve yourself BADLY, but you're not anywhere near a bathroom, fantasizes about RELATIONS. That preoccupies your brain and distracts it

4.) Next time the doctor's going to give you an injection, COUGH as the needle is going in. The cough raises the level of pressure in your spinal canal, which limits the pain sensation as it tries to travel to your brain.

5.) Clear a stuffed nose or relieve sinus pressure by pushing your tongue against the roof of your mouth.then pressing a finger between your eyebrows. Repeat that for 20 seconds.it causes the vomer bone to rock, which loosens your congestion and clears you up.

6.) If you ate a big meal and you're feeling full as you go to sleep, lay on your left side. That'll keep you from suffering from acid reflux. It keeps your stomach lower than your esophagus, which will help keep stomach acid from sliding up your throat.

7.) You can stop a toothache by rubbing ice on the back of your hand, on the webbed area between your thumb and index finger. The nerve pathways there stimulate a part of the brain that blocks pain signals from your mouth.

8.) If you get all messed up on liquor, and the room starts spinning, put your hand on something stable. The reason: Alcohol dilutes the blood in the part of your ear called the cupula, which regulates balance. Putting your hand on something stable gives your brain another reference point, which will help make the world stop spinning.

9.) Stop a nose bleed by putting some cotton on your upper gums.right behind the small dent below your nose.and press against it hard. Most of the bleeding comes from the cartilage wall that divides the nose, so pressing there helps get it to stop.

10.) Nervous? Slow your heart rate down by blowing on your thumb. The vagus nerve controls your heart rate, and you can calm it down by breathing.

11.) Need to breathe underwater for a while??? Instead of taking a huge breath, HYPERVENTILATE before you go under, by taking a bunch of short breaths. That'll trick your brain into thinking it has more oxygen, and buy you about 10 extra seconds.

12.) You can prevent BRAIN FREEZE by pressing your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much surface area as possible. Brain freeze happens because the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, so your brain thinks your whole body is cold. It compensates by overheating.which causes your head to hurt. By warming up the roof of your mouth, you'll chill your brain and feel better.

13.) If your hand falls asleep, rock your head from side to side. That'll wake your hand or arm up in less than a minute. Your hand falls asleep because of the nerves in your neck compressing,so loosening your neck is the cure. If your foot falls asleep, that's governed by nerves lower in the body, so you need to stand up and walk around.

14.) Finally, this one's totally USELESS, but a nice trick. Have someone stick their arm out to the side, straight, palm down. Press down on his wrist with two fingers. He'll resist, and his arm will stay horizontal. Then, have him put his foot on a surface that's half an inch off the ground, like a stack of magazines, and do the trick again. Because his spine position is thrown off, his arm will fall right to his side, no matter how much he tries to resist.

15.) Got the hiccups? Press thumb and second finger over your eyebrows until the hiccups are over - usually shortly.

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Sure? Zuunbo? Yes.
Friday, June 20, 2008, 5:24 PM

Tired of searching through long list of sellers on online shopping websites? Tired of comparing prices across the various shopping websites to see which one offers you the best prices?

Zuunbo is your solution. It is one of the more promising online shopping portals in Singapore. Set up by 3 students, Zuunbo offers it's product for sale at prices you will never find in the retail stores. Like most other online shopping portals, Zuunbo requires you to sign up for an account with them before you can start purchasing the goods on sale. Do note that there is a limited number of that product sold each day, so grab it while you can. I find the concept relatively easy to understand and rather well-explained on the website. The website is kept relatively simple which makes navigation and access to the various pages relatively easy. This aids in the shopping experience, making it easy unlike shopping at certain places where it can be difficult to locate certain shops or figure out where to find what.

Not only does Zuunbo offer low prices, the very concept behind Zuunbo as an online retail portal is a unique one. Zuunbo offers only one product for sale each day and they come in limited numbers. The product on sale is changed at midnight everyday but you will never know what is going to be on sale tomorrow, to keep the shoppers in suspense and raise the excitment level. The products on sale include electronics and accessories which you can buy for your home or even as a gift for a friend.

Have you been wondering what Zuunbo means just like me when i first came to know about it? Zuunbo is Hokkien for "Sure or not?" and is used to express shock or disbelief at the astonishingly low prices that Zuunbo offers. It's a rather innovative name, in my opinion.

It will take about 7 days for your good to be shipped after you make your order. Still hesitating? Go visit http://www.zuunbo.com/ for more information.

Just ordered your product? Bought something from Zuunbo? Perhaps you can share with me and any reader here about your shopping experience at Zuunbo and what you have bought. :D

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Love in autumn
Thursday, June 19, 2008, 2:47 PM

For love is beautiful,
it will wither.
Wither it will,
falling petals gently embrace the wind.

On the bed of winter's frost,
it lies undisturbed.
In spring's river,
carried across the greatest seas.
For summer will come,
love will seed.
Autumn's prelude.
When love blossoms,
rain faintly comes to life,
for heaven knows it will wither once more.

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The Camera Paradox
Tuesday, June 17, 2008, 6:09 PM

When we think camera, the first thing that comes to mind for most of us would be the quality of the image which is in turn inevitably intertwined with the number of image sensor elements of the digital camera i.e. megapixels.

It seems that those who aren't particularly well acquainted in the area of photography would always source for cameras with a high megapixel count when they go shopping for cameras. It is true that the higher the megapixel is, the clearer and the better will be the quality of your images. But it seems that the "megapixel chase" has gone too far today. Apart from the technical parts of the camera, what is more important in affecting the quality of the picture is the technique of the photographer. If one is sloppy and not well-acquainted with the art of photography, the photo would probably turn out equally bad whether you have a 3.2 megapix camera or 7.2 megapix camera. That's the reason why photography societies still exists in some schools. As much as technology can help to improve the photos, the most important factor in determining the outcome of the photo is YOU. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars trying to make up for our lousy techniques through upgrading our digital cameras, we should invest this money into a short photography course to equip us with the necessary skills to last us for a life time. Have we become so lazy now that we choose the shorter route out as usual and employ technology (which does fail at times) to make up for our shortfalls?

Even if we choose to employ technology, not all our problems would be resolved. To truly make a real difference to your photo, you would have to at least triple or quadruple the number of megapixels. Anything less than that, the photo would probably look the same. The question then comes, why do we still purchase a camera with megapixels higher than our current one when it dosen't make a real difference? This can be partially attributed to ignorance about how a difference in megapixels makes a difference to our photos. We simply assume that increasing our megapixel would improve our picture quality, which is something we start pondering about when we look at our photos which, at times, don't turn out so well after all.

There are also the measurebators, a lingo used by photographers to describe people who like the group described above, think that higher "specs" equates to better photos and thus go chasing after the numbers as the megapixel count continues to shoot upwards. Measurebators go around comparing the prices of their cameras and specs which seems to be the category that some of us happen to fall under, knowingly or not.

For those who fall under this category unknowingly, they belong to the category described in the previous paragraph i.e. people who are unaware about how differences in the components of camera affect the photo. However, feigning ignorance in the 21st century dosen't seem like a very plausible excuse for getting caught up in the number chase. As much as we have the technology to make up for our shortfalls, we can also tap into this technology to open the doors that were once closed to us. With Internet and the library so accessible for us as transport infrastructure improves, ignorance is just an excuse, a ludicrous one in fact. It's time we open up the internet explorer and google for photography tips.

There are also those who fall under the second category, those who knowingly join the chase, albeit uncommon, relative to the first. These are the people who faithfully believe that their worldy possession, money, can purchase anything and all else is subordinate to money. I find it silly to compare the monetary value of cameras for the sake of flaunting wealth. Why not flash your bankbooks to each other instead? That would probably be a better way to compare your wealth without having to have the numbers in the bank book falling drastically.

That aside, having a camera with higher megapixels does come with it's own implications. For those of us who are more tech saavy, the story does not end after taking the photo and developing it, that's if you develop your photos. After countless repeats of snapping shutters, we plug in our USB cable into the computer and start uploading our photos. That's when the problem comes in. Do you find yourself starting to resize your photos so that they can fit both in dimension and size to the website that you may want to upload your photo to? It is a known fact that many websites out there put a limit on the size of the photos you can upload to their website and in fact the cap is usually rather low. When you start resizing your photos, the photo quality drops correspondingly as well. Is there then any point in having a photo with extremely high quality? The answer is no, particularly for those of us who love to cam whore because we usually the photos taken at our camwhore parties. The difference in a photo taken with a high megapixel camera and low megapixel camera only becomes blatantly obvious when you develop it and print it out (particularly if the photo is literally large) This is the case too for those of us who want to share our photos with friends. The problem isn't too big when it is one or two photo. When the photos amount to 50, 100 or even more, it is impossible to send all these photos in one zip file. Why? Because the file size is too big even after compressing it via zipping. The solution? To reduce the photo quality.

To prove my point, i did a little experiment with the two cameras i own. One of them is a 7.2 megapixel camera and the other is a 3.2 megapixel camera. The 7.2 megapixel camera's photo file size was on average 2-3MB and the 3.2 megapixel camera's file size was 400-800KB. The difference in file size is stark and shocking isn't it? Don't believe me? Try it out yourself.


This post was inspired by my friend, Marilyn, who recently purchased a new 10.1 megapixel digital camera which got me thinking about cameras. Thanks Marilyn.

"I bought a new digital camera." says Arthur

"How many megapixels does the digital camera possess?" askes friend

"It's more than that." says Arthur

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For freedom is a crime
4:35 PM

For freedom is a crime

Pride trampled,
Dignity crumbled.
Like thieves cornered,
Desperate and hungry.
For freedom is a crime,
don a suit of celebration and mime.
For mimes are dumb,
We are left with naught.

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My baby post
Monday, June 16, 2008, 12:39 PM

Hi everyone! This is my first post here on this blog. This is the second blog i own currently and was set up to voice out my thoughts as compared to the first which encompasses more or less my personal life.

Here's a little information about myself. My name's Arthur and I am turning 18 this year. I love to write, be it poem, fanfictions or short stories. One of my dreams is to publish my own novel one day. But for now, it seems quite distant for a dream.

The subsequent posts here would largely be about my thoughts and my literary works.

P.S. I think a lot. I think that's why i have some silver strands of hair hidden amidst the black ones.