Yesterday I’ve written about keeping a positive attitude but even with that, depression is inevitable. With me, it lasts for 2-3 days and it’s usually because of one or a combination of these things:

• the natural mood cycle that everyone goes through
• alcohol and caffeine withdrawals
• using Ecstasy

The first step towards dealing with my depression stems from understanding its two groups of factors: physiological and psychological. The physiological factors are easily dealt with. Eat happy foods, sleep well and exercise. Cutting back on the alcohol and caffeine are also obvious remedies and so is not overindulging on the happy drug (you get high, you must come down). Though with these things, as with everything, sometimes that’s easier said than done. But hey, knowing is half the battle right?

The psychological factors are a different ballgame. Some people can get into a spiral of depression that is hard to get out of. That is, you think of one bad thing and then you start thinking of another and so on. With me, going into a spiral is how I deal with the onset of depression. I’m not recommending that you try it because it’s possibly the worst idea depending on your psychological make-up.

But here’s how it works for me …

I analyse what is it that’s getting me down and I think of something worse. You know how they say, “Hey, it can’t possibly get worse right?” Well, I imagine it getting worse. I think of what’s worse than what’s bugging me now, and then what’s worse than that. Eventually, short of me dying, I’ve exhausted all the bad stuff that can possibly go wrong. By the time I get to that point, that original problem doesn’t seem too bad anymore. It’s not possible.

And then I wind myself back by looking at the bright side of each one of those terrible things that I’ve imagined. The bright sides of those things can be fantastic and nonsensical, and they don’t have to make sense but doing this exercise forces your mind into a different place: a place of being positive, which goes back to what I’ve been saying all along.

The following thoughts were prompted by a story in the news today.

Muelmar Magallanes braved rampaging floods in a Manila riverside village to save more than 30 people, but ended up sacrificing his life in a last trip to rescue a baby girl and her mother who were being swept away on a polystyrene box.

Flood hero ‘gave his life for my baby’ | Sydney Morning Herald

One cannot help but feel small when confronted by Muelmar’s bravery and nobility. But that is also a good thing because hopefully any petty problems that you think you have should also pale in comparison to what less fortunate people are going through or have lost, and also to the selflessness of people like Muelmar everywhere.

There are people who don’t like watching or reading the news because it depresses them. Everyday, there are people who lose their lives or have tragedies befall upon them through war, crime, accidents and disasters, both man-made and natural, or they suffer due to disease or economic misfortune. Surely, none of that can be uplifting to one’s moods, right?

For me though, knowing about all the bad stuff in the world makes me thankful and grateful for everything that I’ve got. It also helps me in not losing track of what’s really important in life. Knowing what people go without on a daily basis, if they are lucky to survive everyday, it would be pretty obscene for me to complain about not having a warm female body to sleep next to. Though that’s exactly what’s been bothering me the past few weeks, if you’ve noticed.

So I hope you will agree with me when I say: no matter how down we get, our lives are actually very good in comparison. So stop dwelling on the negative, and choose to stay positive instead, and don’t take things for granted. I know I’ve said all of this before but it bears repeating. And don’t worry if it feels hard to stay positive at first, because even for a generally happy person like me it does take effort.

fookin … try to imagine that in a Sith Afrikan accent!

The core concept of the movie is this: instead of wondering what aliens might do to us if they ever visit our planet, think about what we would do to them. As has been common throughout human history and currently, what we would do to them are not very pleasant things indeed. What also happens in the movie is how one person’s world crumbles when everything that he holds true about himself, his job and what he believes to be just, falls apart in a dramatic fashion.

I went into the movie knowing just the above and I was totally blown away by it. I knew nothing about the specific plot lines or special effects. I won’t link to any trailers because after watching the movie, I feel that they give away some important plot points. It’s better if you went into it like I did and just get taken along for the ride. But I will link to this propaganda-ish clip done in the context of the movie’s world to give you a feel of it.

If you like a gritty sci-fi action movie where the effects are there to tell an amazing and thought-provoking story and are not the main attraction, then you’d love it. Having said that, the effects are sooo cool!

Watch it watch it watch it!

Is apartheid acceptable — for giant bugs? – Beyond the Multiplex – Salon.com

Over the years Perth has been lucky enough to have been graced with some big names in the dance music world: Armin van Buuren on multiple occasions, Daft Punk, Paul van Dyk and the yearly Godskitchen events.

But the one act who has never performed here before is Dutch DJ Tiesto. So you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that he will be coming here for 2 nights in February 2010. Squeee! And hence the reason for this truck-load of Youtube clips below.

To give you an idea what got me hooked onto his sound a few years back, here’s his collaboration with American DJ BT, “Love Comes Again”.

His awesome banger “Traffic”.

And his interpretation of “Adagio for Strings”.

These days he’s exploring the sounds beyond trance and venturing into more housey beats, like this remix of Calvin Harris’ “I’m Not Alone”.

And this thumping remix of Tegan & Sara’s “Back In Your Head”.

And a remix of Bloc Party’s “One More Chance”.

I’ve heard two of his newer songs that will be on his latest album “Kaleidoscope” called “Feel It In My Bones” with Tegan & Sara, and “I’ll Be Here” with Sneaky Sound System which are a bit too mellow for me to dance to. Nonetheless, I hope they only serve as a precursor to the truly rocking stuff later in the night. Can’t wait!

Which is why I took tomorrow off so I can jump online and get the tix at 7am sharp! Hahah! Woohoo!

The funds have been transferred to the settlement agent and I’m now a proud owner of a plot of dirt! Well technically, the bank owns the land because they are holding on to the title of the land, but yay me!

This journey started back in October 2008 and as you’d know, I’m not planning to build a house on it because I can’t afford it right now.

I’ve learnt some valuable lessons about the process. Firstly, all the agents involved from the real-estate agent, the mortgage broker, to the settlement agent (the one that collects the money for the real-estate agent) – why is there a need for such an agent?! – will assume that you know what you are doing. They will advise you to a certain extent but you are expected to know more, especially the things that are deemed common-sense to them. That is, they will assume that you do this on a daily basis.

So my advice is to be a total pain in the ass and ask as many questions that you can possibly think of, and call and email them frequently as long as it’s business hours. I wasn’t a pain in the ass and as a result, I was unnecessarily stressed out a lot rushing to meet this deadline and that filling out forms and transferring money between banks and accounts.

Second, any time there’s money involved between people, you are going to have a lot of arguments. In my case, it was with my parents. They chipped in for the deposit for the land so it is expected that they be anxious that I don’t fuck it up and thus causing them to lose the deposit or having to pay additional fees.

A lot of arguments were had about why am I not chasing up after such and such, when I didn’t even know what “such and such” was and why were they important. Argh! On many of these occasions, I was so tempted to yell out, “Buying this piece of land was YOUR idea!” But I just bit my tongue, sucked it up and stormed off. Hah!

I’m very glad that it is now over. But the next phase of stress begins: I better not get fired.

John Hughes’ movies were a big part of my teenage years. Through fantasy and a keen sense of what teenagers go through, they offered a sense of hope and optimism that the ordeals of life and love is not as bad as one would think. And most of all they were funny.

Among movies like Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and Home Alone, my favourite John Hughes movies were Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science and Uncle Buck. Even those of his movies which were not predominantly about the tortured lives of teenagers like National Lampoon’s Vacation and Planes, Trains and Automobiles were great.

If I have to pick my favourite lines from a John Hughes movie, they would all be from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off:

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
Don’t worry about it, I don’t even have a piece of shit. I have to envy yours.
Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

And then there were the theme songs. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off had that infectious tune by Yello called “Oh Yeah” which was used in a lot of other movies, but I thought that it fit this movie the best.

Uncle Buck had Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing”.

Weird Science had … “Weird Science” by Oingo Boingo.

And fittingly to end this post, Simple Mind’s “Don’t You Forget About Me” from The Breakfast Club.

Thanks John! I could not have imagined my 80s without your movies.

I had to go and tempt fate today …

First half of the working day was great. I was breezing through my work, getting things done and answering and solving most of the problems presented to me. I stepped out for lunch and the sun was shining on a perfect Western Australian winter day: not too hot, not too cold, just very nice.

There I was chowing down on my favourite burger, a Double Bacon Deluxe, sitting by the window watching the crowd walking by. On the stroll back to the office, I lost count of the number of pretty girls that I walked past.

I was thinking to myself, “It can’t get any better than this. Man, I really really love Perth.” And I was smiling all the way back.

When I got back into the office, I immediately updated my Facebook status:

So in love with Perth some days that it’s unnatural.

Then I got a call from a customer who swore at me. Figures.