Absolut Zero

Sensory overload.

So I'm a newbie chiongster. I haven't clubbed properly since Eden in J2, and that's eons ago
and in a small place really crowded and with bad drinks. Eden isn't even here anymore.

Enter Uchicago with Absolute Zero, and suddenly there's a reason for me to step foot into zouk with loads of people i know. Was it an excuse to get people together for a party? maybe. But anyway i had fun and got to see zouk for the first time. =) Abs 0 itself was a little tame, but that's probably due more to the general relusiveness of the audience than anything on the part of the organisers and performers, who were pretty pumped up:


obviously the audience didn't have enough semi-crazed weasels like these:



Although the audience DID have plenty of old friends of mine... ran into the 2L bunch (where
else do you find 2 people calmly sitting at a table discussing the techniques of the DJ in
technical lingo while downing tequillas while bass beats palpitations into their hearts (all
your bass are belong to us)? Among the other distinguished guests were my JC class, the MAS
bunch, edwin kek, chris, david liu, lihao, kenneth et al...so much so that by the end of the
night, i was convinced that the only thing worse than my memory for faces was my capacity for
faking smalltalk. When this slightly familiar stranger starts staring at you like you're trying
to steal his girlfriend and you stare back and try and place his face and he eventually waves
and says hi, how have you been? and your mind is whirring faster than an overclocked P4 and you
STILL can't remember where he's from..... that's the time when you say:

"crowded tonight, isn't it?"
"yea, yea. where are you now?"
"oh, 41. Where are you?"
"School of combat engineers.... yingchiat's there too."
"oh yea he's an officer there, right?"
"yea... have you heard from cheknam?"
----KACHING!!!! and it all slots into place and you remember who the heck he is----
"no, haven't talked to him since sec 4 (just like you.)"

Which works slightly better than
"hi, haven't seen you in a long time!"
(oh shit who's this guy damnit why's it so dark in here)"hi, yea, you too! how're you?" (ohshit

who is this guy)
"great, blabla-bam-bam-guitar-hits"
"huh? yea! um... it seems like half of RJ is here tonight..."
"......."
"um yea i'll catch up with you a little later? my friend over there's waiting for me...."

and then slightly later
"hi, do you remember who i am?"
"uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......... um....... honestly...... no."
"not even a guess?"
"uhh......" (damnit why's he look so familiar)
"david lah!"
"oh, hi! yea...." (who?)
"how's joel?" (OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.)
etc.

embarrassment.

only it didn't matter after a while when everyone started having some drinks and became fully
crazed weasels on the dancefloor. It's really cool when tonnes of dry-iced smoke blast at you
and you can't see anything except white, can't feel anything except wind in your hair, can't
hear anything except bloody loud bass....sorta like being sprayed with a CO2 fire extinguisher
with ppl shouting at the same time. hmm.

But i've finally decided that ppl dance only if they:

1. are deaf
2. have consumed more than 100ml of alcohol in the past 1 hour, and
3. have managed to keep alcohol inside of body

And of course if you hang around friends with free drink coupons in zouk all 3 conditions are
inevitably met. hic!

photos courtesy of official photographer: