Some of my friends have recently started new, private blogs, hiding away their true thoughts behind secret URLs. Miso even told me she now had 5 or 6 “other blogs”. What is happening to this world? Blogs are proliferating faster than nuclear weapons. So decadent are we, that one blog is no longer enough! Nooo, each writer feels s(he) must have a herd of blogs, incessantly breeding and overpopulating the fragile ecosystem that is the World Wide Web... We live in dire times. The blogs which originally inspired me to start my own have become thinner, and less juicy - weakened by the parasitic influence of their unseen spawnlings. This attack of the clones is causing a disturbance in the force. I demand a return to the salad days of free-range, vine-ripened blogs with taste and sophistication! Not these vague, unsatisfying table scraps I see being cast wily-nily into the dust.

For me, blogging is for ordering and rationalising thoughts to a level beyond conversations, daydreams, or self-conscious notebook jottings. The presence of a readership gives you discipline to rework and refine, to explore idle thoughts rather than discarding them distractedly.

Without readers, what is the imperative to blog? Self-understanding, no doubt. Cathartic gut-spilling. Exorcism of inner demons. But in that case why not just use a notebook? Pasting privates on the internet is a business, not a creative outlet. Do these people not realise that the shadowy stakeholders behind blogger.com may one day wield untold power to blackmail and extort people all around the world? Each private revelation you publish may one day be used to cut you down, in a very public fashion. Keep it in your notebook I say!

Yet I wonder what they write in their secret blogs. I want to see these unspoken, hidden thoughts. I am titillated by the uncensored, because this is where you find the most original, sincere and honest thoughts. I remember in Naked Lunch, Bill calls upon his fellow writers not to edit and rewrite, but to preserve the raw beauty of these first thoughts, the unstifled, confronting outpouring of prose that flows from an uninhibited mind.

But if the uncensored is more true, then porn says more about human desire than poetry. And pooetry therefore, constitutes a form of self-censorship - a frustated and pathetically decorative dance around some unspoken burning issue. Interesting indeed, nereisees. But do you want all your friends to be reading such dirty intellectualisms? A wanker indeed, you will become. Hmm. Perhaps I should start a secret blog of own, to store such controversial belchings… No! Resist, I must. Beware the lure of the dark side, young padawans! Stray not from the truths that scrutiny brings.

I hear dead people.

Trawling through my mp3 collection I realise that I get some sort of macabre kick out of listening to dead artists.

Bob Marley, Minnie Riperton, Bessie Smith, Tupac, John Lennon.

I used to think it was life’s goal to build a legacy – to leave the world an improved place. Maybe this is why their voices comfort me. Listening to dead people inspires wonderment, gladness, self-awareness. Through recordings, a life can be smudged in time, leaving an imprint outside of one’s lifetime. The voice of the dead, like the homevideos of strangers, transport you into the warm depths of memory, to a time before your life, to a time after their death.

Listening to their songs helps me see my own life as a story. Will I too, smudge a little in passing?

I rediscovered the mp3 last night. It's been awhile. In my Napster days, I went a little crazy, and downloaded 2.4 gigs of music over my 56k modem. But post-Napster, they sat forgotten on my hard drive, waiting for my ears to return.

What treasure! Plugging my chunky headphones into my Mac yesterday changed my listening habits instantly. Suddenly, every song was clarified anew, from nice, textured imperfections, to annoying pops and gurgles. So I fired up Limewire to try and find better versions of my favourite songs... only to find, new ones. Like India Arie's Acoustic Soul. That's what I love about mp3's... discovering obscure artists and songs that heighten my perception of the world.

Somehow I doubt India Arie's motown masterpiece will remain obscure for long, but without the mp3 I would never have stumbled upon the mysterious soundscapes of Nobukazu Takemura and Takako Minekawa, or the relaxing electro lounge of Yoshinori Sunahara and Nomiya Maki. Nor would I be grooving to french hiphop of IAM, the latin reggae of Los Cafres, or the intelligent words of Talib Kweli. These exotic musicians have educated me and made me stronger. They have given me a burning torch with which to keep Britney and Westlife monsters at bay. Burn Britney Burn!

I dance around my room in tribute to the great gods of mp3. It's time to stop consuming and start listening. I'm tempted to namethrow a number of other aural luminaries but its dinner time so I won't. You can go discover your own guides. Fuck Pepsi! We are the download generation!

I believe in astrology, as a way of classifying personalities honed over the centuries, and at the very least, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reading about what you're meant to be like, guides you in a certain direction. Whilst some rebel, the majority conform to the traits of their class.

Perhaps this is why I now find so much truth in my Taurus/Snake profile.

A good current of chance generally protects me - I practically always find aid or friendship which will help me out of difficulties. The generosity of friends and family have opened many doors for me, and pushed me further than I would have gone on my own. Perhaps this is why I can't live alone - relationships with others occupy a preponderant place in my existence. I used to be an eternalist, I wanted to give my life to art, to smudge myself as far as possible into the future. But friends and lovers have given more happiness than the greatest of artworks. So I don't care so much about posterity these days. Happiness is far more important. I think the meaning of life is to gain the love and respect of those you love and respect. Who cares about what the others think? It's sounds so simple, it's wanky - when I don't live for art, I live for love.

But under my merry and carefree appearance are hidden powerful interior contradictions and tenacious secret anguishes. I am dreamy yet cynical, an existential eternalist, a romantic realist, a creative soul torn between desires for art and freedom on one hand, and wealth and respect on the other. I need certain material ease so as to feel reassured. So I fritter my days away selling shit to good people, and counting my dollars as a measure of progress, when really, what I am measuring is the infinite sadness of INERTIA. The great comedian, Bill Hicks, once said that people who work in advertising should kill themselves - "They're fucking us and they're fucking themselves." It's so true! Everyday I walk a little bit further away from my dreams. I tell myself that time is on my side, that the dollars earnt can buy my way back to the crossroads. Bobby McFerrin's barbershop hit plays over and over in my head.

That's the problem with contradictions - each desire provides a very good excuse not to give in to the other. If you're not careful, you end up exactly where you started, which is nowhere. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. In which case why bother living at all? My Ah-ma read my palm a few years ago, and was much saddened by the frenetic lines scored across my young hand. "This one will lead an unnecessarily complicated life," she said, "Because he will always take the most difficult path to where he wants to go."

Danger referred me to a horoscope website. Decided to cut and paste this for future analysis.

Snake/Taurus

You possess much charm and power to please; it's indeed very difficult for anyone to vie with you on this score. There also exists in your comportment a kind of funniness which makes of you a very engaging personality. You couldn't live alone — relationships with others occupy a preponderant place in your existence, be it about love, marriage, familial or professional relations.

But under your merry and carefree appearance are hidden powerful interior contradictions and tenacious secret anguishes. You've an interest in exorcising these from your youngest years, above all with the help of a psychologist or psychiatrist, so that you can extricate yourself from this marasmus sufficiently early and live a well-bloomed and happy life.

You're very much gifted for all kinds of things. Professional success comes along easily, above all in all that concerns the arts, show business, fashion, and commerce of luxury. A good current of chance generally protects you in difficult moments — you'll practically always find aid or friendship which will help you out of difficulties. You need certain material ease so as to feel reassured.

Very romantic and sensual, you accumulate successes with the other sex - one can by no means resist you. When you don't live for art, you live for love. But you are not of a basically faithful nature; and yet, it's only in a stable union that you'll find your happiness.

Have you ever done a google search on your own name? I was amused to find out how many fragments of my past have been dutifully cached on the net, filed away for posterity - the photos submitted to youth websites, and long forgotten music and movie reviews written for obscure magazines. I've even been quoted in articles written by strangers, making statements I have no recollection of.

Nereis, a Sydney filmmaker, thinks that many Asian films now reflect the distinct characteristics within displaced cultures. Worldwide migration has produced a diaspora where Asian “micro-cinemas” are forming in new countries, producing yet another outlook on Asian culture. Australia is experiencing the birth of such a micro-cinema, as Asian Australian filmmakers are more interested in exploring their identity. Nereis believes, “Asian Australians are finally allowed to be proud of being Asian, and that’s reflected in the films they make.”

How strange, to imagine all those unknown eyes, forever peering into my past, holding me accountable for things I wrote in different frames of mind, in different times and different places. I guess that's one of the risks of writing. Whilst you may have many faces and many voices, the snail trail of glistening words you leave behind tell a singular story - a monolithic body of evidence, like the carbon-frozen statue of Hans Solo in Empires Strike Back.

On the other hand, it's nice to know that by the time my soul parts company with this body, I will have left a virtual impression of myself on this world wide web - just a few mysterious traces, like the tea leaves that cling to the sides of the cup, the downy feathers that fall from migrating birds.

In a way, the internet is immortalising me and my previous and parallel lives, including the evil deeds being committed in my own name. For example, did you know I have a doppelganger out there, masquerading as the Assistant Director of Sports Excellence in Singapore? And that in a past life, I attended the Morton Elementary School in Ohio, Class of 1922. My photo is still there, I'm standing in the front row, bottom right.