เดวิดแอชบี (หมูแดง)

If you always want to have the last word in your life as a couple, a breaking off will be inevitable.

Is this reading accusing me of being argumentative? Perhaps.

This will not be the right moment to launch a business or to envisage a professional reorientation; continue patiently to tread your road.

So, I guess I'll stay in Thailand.

Refrain from fats and sweets.

What, no comfort food on payday?

Try to improve your lodging for this will have a positive influence on your morale.

Translation "Clean up your room it's a bloody mess!"

Beware of euphoria so that you won't spend the money you will not have earned.

Funny, this morning I was going to go out and buy some cigars to make me feel better.

My Tarot card today says I need guidance or advice to get with the program.
The Hierophant is the protector of culture and traditions. Conventional by nature, he is a staunch defender of the beliefs a group embraces. He represents a spiritual guide and teacher and is someone to go to for guidance and advice. Never one to question authority, he thrives on structure and values and lives a life of conformity.

Wish I could hang out and chat with my dad for a few hours instead:

Once again, I am unable to carry out my exercises due to a constriction in my chest and stomach.
Yet again, I'll try to get onto them tomorrow, given the same amount of relief I had yesterday.

I watched the late night movie last night as I'm prone to do after a late night at work.
This time it was A Good Year starring yet another kiwi, Russell Crowe.
The movie beat the crap out of Via Sattelite, though I still felt it was somewhat lacking. Perhaps in the characters. I just couldn't bring myself to fully like any of them. I find Ridley Scott's work a little hit and miss and this is sorta borderline. Also Crowe's acting wasn't that great. His accent wasn't very convincing. He still sounds like a kiwi to me.

I went to Nobi's tonight. Good food at great prices. Once again, I had my usual Currywurst & fries.
After that I went grocery shopping and bought OHMIGOD... health food. Lot's of nuts, meusli, milk and wheat crackers.
What is the world coming to?

I finished the other 30 reps of my exercises and added 50 more of two other exercises to bring up my target of 250 for the day.
I hope I can continue this tomorrow and get back with the program, so to speak.

I just did 20 bench pressses, 20 sit ups and 20 leg extensions, so I'm back in the game.
I'll try to do this again a couple of times today.
A couple of people have told me to push through the pain barrier and I believe they're right.
I'll do as much as I can, but I still have vivid memories (sometimes nightmares) of naval crew deliberately torturing me and breaking my body.
I'm not keen to revisit those experiences just yet.
Soon I will be stronger than I've ever been and then it will be time to exercise those demons, so to speak, haha.

I'm in a very good mood today.
Someone called me for a few hours this morning and now I have a big smile on my dial.

I'll try to do a few more exercises today, but it still feels like someone beat me up with a baseball bat.

My body is very sore today.
I can't even lift the bar off the rack, so I might have to give the exercises a miss until my muscles stop screaming.
Damn. I was really getting into it, too.
I knew this would happen. I thought I'd just have to cut back a little, rather than stop.

Payday today. Woohoo!

Well.
I did it.
I made it through my exercises.
It wasn't easy, but I pushed myself to do them all before going to bed.
I'm almost certainly going to feel like shit tomorrow, but it'll be worth it.
I managed 250 reps for today. I'm just looking to repeat that for the next 2 weeks, then I guess I'll add more weights.
Right now for the presses, I'm using 10kg + the bar for a total of 17kg.
My legs are a hell of a lot stronger from my life of riding around on bikes, but I'm still only using 20kg for now, though I may add another 5kg to that next week.
This is the most exercise I've done since leaving the Navy 5 years ago.

I've started listening to the complete studio recordings of Alice Cooper. He's one of the rock artists Rida doesn't mind listening to.
I started in 1969 with Pretties For You and now I'm typing to the sounds of 1970's Easy Action. Neither of them sold terribly well and I can kinda see why: they're an odd blend of The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

Life is very good right now.

I'm sure I'm gonna be a great boyfriend for Rida when she gets back.
I just got this feeling like everything's gonna come together for us.

I'm sticking to my NY revolutions.
Just gotta play guitar more & put more hours into preparing my English lessons.

Here's my new boy-toy man-toy:



10 reps x 5 sets x 5 exercises = a kick-ass body + more energy, hopefully.

Well, I'm going to try to keep my posting regular again.
This ties in with the thing I said about living a life that's worth photographing.
I need to live a life worth blogging about, too.
Well, two days without Morrowind and the pressures of withdrawal don't seem to be crushing my soul just yet.
I really gotta kick some lazy habits. Everyone's been trying to tell me for so long.
I have been super busy though, so I'm gonna lean on that cruch just a little while longer.
That reminds me. I worked from 9:00 - 5:30 today and I've gotta go out and DJ again from about 8:00 - midnight, then do it all over again tomorrow.
Ahh... the life of a celebrity. No rest for the wicked & all that. At least I have Monday for sleep...I can keep my New Years resolutions to the 6 days of my working week.
Even gods take a day off once a week afterall.

p.s. Via Sattelite is the lamest fu*king excuse for a movie I've seen this year.

I wanna get physical
Let's get into physical
Let me hear your body talk

The fitness equipment has been purchased and I now await delivery.
Look forward to becoming buff & all that.
Looking at trading in my beer keg for a 6-pack, oh yeah.

Pfff... hahahahaha

I'm gonna post this all stealth-like & see if anyone out there still gives a damn.

Anyway, I'm feeling radical today. No, really. Literally radical. I'm talking lifestyle changes & shit.
So here are my New Years Resolutions for 2008, made all the more radical because I almost never make any:

Get fit: I'm buying a weight bench tomorrow, so I'm serious. When she comes back, I want to be able to lift Rida up without straining. She deserves that. I wanna surprise her by actually keeping my word.

Keep my job: I can't believe how long I've held this position... like nearly 3 years? I didn't think it was possible to stay in the same job that long. Especially in a foreign country.

Marry Rida: She's coming back from USA in two months and if I don't get with the program, I know she'll be on the first plane back there with no ifs or buts.

Upskill: Quit fooling myself and actually train myself to be a better teacher, not just average-but-entertaining.

Eat healthier food: It goes hand-in-hand with weight training, don't it?

Play guitar more: Inversely, stop using my XBOX so much. I'm wasting away so much free time right now.

Take more photos: Rida bought me a camera for a reason.

Live a more interesting life: And thus, take more photos.

I was going to add Keep up-to-date with current affairs, but I still don't care what goes on in the world, really, so I'll leave that until next year.

In the meantime, here's the latest photo of yours truly, with new facial contour (I shaved off the goatee today).

From the North
And the East
The West
& the South

I sent an e-mail to my old colleague who now manages another branch of the school I work for out in the country.
I asked him how everything's going and does he have any work for me at his branch.
This was on Sunday and by Monday morning, he'd replied with great enthusiasm that he was desperate for me to join him up north because he only has 4 teachers and one of them's leaving in two weeks! [about a week from today]
After exchanging a few more e-mails, it appeared that I really didn't want any more of this city and a change of scenery is just what I need to give me a new lease on life, so...

I'm moving to Udon Thani, which is said to be fairly laid back, quiet and clean. My fiancee's hometown is in this province. Though I've never actually been there myself, both my sister and my mother have. It's kinda near Laos, so it's a good spot for tourists to park up for a couple of days before or after Vientiane.

Wow, I just realized my district has a wiki site. Amazing. Here it is, if you wanna see where I live for about the next 2 months.

It's interesting now, though. I thought people at work weren't supposed to find out about it until everything was finalized, but now everyone is in the loop, so there's no turning back. iacta alea est

Hey all,

I actually did write a post abou a week ago which for one reason or other didn't end up on the journal.
Not sure really, but anyway it went like this:

Have been arsing around trying to get photos and video off my new camera without much success.
Will post again once I've got it all under control.

Anyway, needless to say I haven't got it all sorted yet, but I noticed that my journal didn't get updated, so I've thrown in this retrospective entry just for the sake of putting it in.

Did that come across as pretentious? I don't know.

Anyway... Stand by for the news.

Been watching the Old Grey Whistle Test on DVD and really digging some of the old bands I hadn't heard before like Focus and The Edgar Winter Group.
I've been reading the Andy Summers biography "One Train Later" and am amazed at how much history he had in music prior to joining The Police.
Added a few new userpics.
My sister finally got Skype after nagging her for like a year.
She did it in about 5 minutes and was surprised at how easy it is. We could have saved a bunch in toll calls if she'd just done it when I told her about it. Anyway, s'pose I shouldn't complain. My mother still can't e-mail her grocery list yet.

I hate Bangkok.
Thank god for Burger King shakes, Baskin Robbins and amateur TV on Myspace to keep me sane... and fat.



Only 5 and a half months until I hit Illinois. Yay.

Just woke up and found this guy featured on Myspace... for good reason.

I just came back from the annual Fete de la Musique at Santichaiprakarn Park on the riverside at Bangkok. It would have been out of this world, if it hadn't rained. As it stands, it was brilliant.

Firstly, I got to see Slur play again. I heard their song "Not So Sure" once on someone else's Myspace and I thought they were catchy, but I forgot about them. I loved them the first time I saw them at Lat Prao MRT station a few weeks back. They're Thai indie... but in a good way. There are so many crap bands in Thailand, but these guys could really play well and their songs didn't sound all the same. The guitarist was a great showman. I think this is the first all Thai band I stood up for and said "these guys aren't totally shite". They remind me a bit of Psychedelic Furs... but with a trumpeter.
More info can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/slurslurslur

Next up was some run-of-the-mill Thai band who seemed really out of place with the classy acts surrounding them. Their gimmick was a chick named Siriporn Something-or-other hwo had a few tatoos and a very tight halter top. She seemed like a Prima Donna with an overly choreographed routine catered for Thai tastes with quarter of an hour of stupid banter in between songs. She blew us away by showing us she could hold a note for 10 seconds. *SHOCK*. I wasn't interested, so I went off to check on Gene. He said he was given the worng information (as usual) and they were gonna be playing much later, so I went for a walk while I waited for Futon to start.
On my walk I passed Oh and Simon, so I quickly said hi to them. A man with a cart of sticky-rice-and-mango was just about to pack up for the night, so I helped him out with one last sale for the day. I've become rather partial to this Thai dessert. It's brilliant in it's simplicity. The one major difference between this and all other Thai dishes being that they don't put any chili in this one. Of course I'm sure they would be happy to oblige you if your heart desired it, however.

The aforementioned snorefest finally cleared off stage just as I was finishing my snack, so I took up a good position front and centre for what I thought would be Futon. It turned out to be a 7-pieceband however. They are known as the Srirajah Rockers. I didn't hold out much expectation for them to be honest. I've seen Thai bands attempt to venture out of the carefully manufacured moulds they are used to over here. The results are usually hideously awful.
These boys are into Reggae and Dub. I'm more than a little surprised to say they were great. Inspiring even. Good little AV show in the background, too. African and Caribbean motifs projected while the band plays genuine Reggae with both English and Thai lyrics. I thought I'd seen it all, but I find that I'm wrong.
More info at: http://www.myspace.com/srirajahrocker

When they cleared off, Futon came on to great applause. Could this year be the year they break out of the underground in Asia? They're doing alright in Europe, but noone wants to touch them in Asia. Not mainstream enough. Too edgy. Well hopefully the concerts take hold of enough new fans to keep them going until the next album. We'll see.
Brilliant as usual. BEE was soaked to the bone. I think he was perhaps rained on, but certainly also sweated a bucket. Wished again I had taken m camera with me. Plenty of photo op's. Anyway, it may have gotten damaged in all my exercise I got, jumping and screaming like a teenage girl as per my prefered mode of concertgoing.

Had a chat with Simon after the show. He confirmed two things for me:
(a) He still thinks Brett's new album is shite
(b) He says there's a rumour Brett would be playing with Futon in Bangkok. To this he says it wouldn't happen at this stage because he wouldn't sell enough tickets to even support Futon. This is a good sign for Futon of course.
He also joked about employing a rent-a-crowd to tell him how wonderful the show went. I told him he didn't need to waste the money when there was a real fan standing in front of him telling him how great it was. It was a very touching moment. You had to be there.

Sorry if there are spelling nistakes in this entry. I just had a bottle of beer to unwind and now I'm feeling too relaxed.
Must sleep
now-----------

Yay, my office chair arrived today!
Posture should be better now... maybe?
Rida's desk is still incredible small, but it'll do until we get back to NZ.

Futon is playing a free concert in a park in the city tonight.
This will be a bitch to get to (and back), but I feel it's my duty to go.
I was hoping to take my new camera to make my own little recording, but it's raining and I don't wanna get it wet.

Still a couple of hours before I have to leave the house... the weather may clear up, yet.
But what's that outside? More rain? Alas.

Just saw Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.
To be honest, I didn't have high hopes for it, mainly because Jessica Alba's hair isn't as good and her make-up is terrible in this one.
But all in all, it was kinda average. Maybe a bit better than Hulk, lets say.
After that I had Baskin Robbins, bought a gas-lift office chair and a down pillow. Ahh the decadence of living in Bangkok, eh? Hahahahaha.