In Continuum.

Barney the Dinosaur

Everybody loves Barney the Dinosaur,at least the children at my age.Everybody loved the purple dinosaur,with a permanent smile on it's face and singing without moving it's mouth,always of rainbows and butterflies.Kids loved him,but i loathed that dinosaur,i hated him.Don't get me wrong,i love dinosaurs.I loved dinosaurs with a burning passion,knowing all the names and memorizing all the spellings.Hell,i was doing better at learning the spelling of "Sugiyamasaurus",than say the spelling of "Congratulation".I had more dinosaurs action figure than any living child back when i was a kid myself,so dont even doubt my love for those giant lizards.

What made me hate Barney really was this incident that happened on one of my shopping trips to Yohan,or better known as Thomson Shopping Centre nowadays,when a whole row of Barneys started singing at the same time,for a reason i am still unaware of.The point is,i remember freaking out in that toy section and swore never to visit it,or touch any Barney related merchandises.As i grew up,the fear of it was of course diminished,but i still hated Barney the Dinosaur as much as say,the Teletubbies.Okay,maybe not ever half as bad,but to be in the same league as those dildo wearing aliens is not something anybody should be very proud of.Anyway,that hatred sort of followed me through my life,but was drastically changed when i got into Secondary School and met my friend Barnabas.

I remember Barnabas as the bald guy at the back of the class.He never spoke up in class very often,but usually just hanging around friends in a corner,talking softly.But because my good friend Samuel sat right in front of him,i hung around his table a lot.He always kept to himself,and talks when talked to.He was never classified under any ordinary category,a class of his own.His talents were only revealed to me later on in my friendship with him,which came as a surprise to me of course.With his quiet nature it was hard to imagine him being a hard rocking guitarist,but he is and a really good one at that.

So we got to know each other better,and his hair grew longer and longer.I remember being overwhelmed by his knowledge on guitars,and of course his heroes and influences.He loves Yngwie Malmsteen,and i remember him showing me a video of him at his warehouse-like home.I blogged about it in my old blog,and how his then crazy brother had a stitch in his stomach because we found a strand of hair on the floor that mightve belonged to Barnabas' armpits.

Barbabas is a man with a whole lot of talents.His musical talents is beyond words,and the only way i can give it justice is to tell you guys how many instruments he knows how to play.Let's see now: Guitar,Electric Guitar,Piano,Keyboards,Drums,Harmonica,Trumpet...and perhaps a little bit of violin.Yeah,you get the point.He can probably tell you a whole history off electric guitars given the brand.He's like a living encyclopedia of music,really amazing person.The only downside though,is that he can never sing properly.If one day he decides to be at some random MRT station to play a roadside gig with a opened guitar case before him,people will probably pay him not because his guitaring skills are good but because his singing sucks,and that people pays him for him to stop singing.It is quite bad,but then again he is taking lessons to improve it.

He has a talent that nobody knows as well.And that is,to read handwritings.There was this once when he visited Samuel's class in my school to get something from him.But he ended up getting the handwriting of all the girls from class just to read their personalities.He's capable of that,telling you about how sexually deprived you are,or how determined you are in a relationship simply by looking at the curves and the hooks in the way you write certain letters or sentences.It is amazing,and i remember writing some random passages for him almost five years ago.

So this entry is a little tribute to my great friend Barney,or Barnabas.The anagram of his name is actually "Grab Banana",and the only two chinese words he knows are his own name.But then again,that is not going to prevent him from attaining the "Mr. Nice Guy" status.Because he truly is,and to all the single-ladies out there,Barney is the man you should be looking for.

PS. He is not purple.