Just to mention, i've set myself up a little story-hub, which is Monochrome Smogs under my Links list at the side.

Finally decided that i might as well let my works see the light of readership rather than stay molding in my laptop drivers.

I intend to post my stories elsewhere as well, namely www.great-writing.com.uk, but for majority and less appropriate stuff i'll dump it at Monochrome Smogs.

Feel free to drop in, and leave a comment or 2. You don't know how much it means to this fella here.

Goodnight people.

How do you like my new background?

Let me add first, though, that this is not my intended background image. I wanted something radically fascinating yet simple upon a canvas of black, but due to the severe lack of grasp in HTML handling the best I could do is fix up my Death Note wallpaper. It looks well enough for me, so I guess I’ll have it up for sometime.

I guess it’s pretty weird to put up a post regarding the change after weeks of having it up, but I was succumbed to the exasperating haul of the inevitable coming of days, and those days happen to be the Chinese New Year.

I’ll get this down and straight; I don’t enjoy CNY. I used to, but in the recent years of increased fatigue, I generally prefer my holidays locked up at home with as many sleep as I want and as many hours I can get on movies, books and my PS2. Going around visiting relatives and strangers, and being visited in return doesn’t count down as comforting and relaxing on my book. Sure, there is the oh joyful gladness of receiving them red packets of money, which on fortunate times are brimmed with generosity and on usual times are dripping in cold touches of misers extraordinaire… well, they hardly add up to provide me a blissful and well memorable holiday of doing nothing and absolutely nothing.

(I understand that on those days of nothing and absolutely nothing, I tend to rouse up a cascade of “OMG I’m bored to death” topics and complain).

So, CNY. The big, ever populating C, going through their own N Y with crimson glory and insurmountable wishes of wealth and health (wealth always come first). I used to love CNY. I liked the fact that I’m getting new clothes, which will be the topic of a few talks amongst my relatives. I liked going on visits, meeting cousins and collecting ang pows. And then I enjoyed being visited, thrust with more ang pows and chilling with more cousins. Nowadays, things have changed.

For one; purchasing new clothes has become quite a drag for me, and I have developed a certain lack of interest in it (and it often reflects to me my ever increasing weight and waistline). For two; hanging out with cousins isn’t as fun as it used to. Back in the younger days we just hitch up anything fun and played till we’re bored (which never usually occur), laugh and eat. Now, with most of us all grown up, our communication kinda dropped (most times just spent sitting in silence under the banter of the adult chatter… which is the opposite of what it used to be) and playing something seems horrendously childish now. No, we just sit, chat if it’s good and stay silent for the rest of the day. Unless you’re someone like my bro, who can crop up any conversation with anyone, and the way I see it he’s something of a rare breed (too thick in the face, see, and they don’t market them like him no more… ouch kor just kidding… don’t bust my nuts…)

Anyway, CNY just don’t symbolise that, of course. There’s the spring cleaning, which ate up enough days just managing the un-necessities (dad’s fish tanks and stuff). There’s the decoration; hitching up the same old lantern and pineapple and perverted-looking boy holding up a gold bar. There’s the food (the best part of CNY), and this year I’m the har pheng cook (look! Perfectly flat har pheng with the perfect tan). Dad took a change in the snacks line-up by filling jars with sour stuff pregnant ladies adore, and the kuaci took a severe downfall this year with only one jar. The rest is standard pineapple tarts, chilli snacks, dragon meat, kuih kapit (or carpet, variations depending on grandma’s preference in the name) and them white biscuits shaped like animals… I forgot what they call them (this year, I found one shaped like a battleship. Or a very headless owl).

As usual; first day, head down to PJ and visit aunt and uncle, and during then dropping by dad’s aunt and uncle’s (in which brother gets set up with a distant female cousin… very humorous, and very unsuccessful to begin with). After that, back to Kajang and to grandma’s for dinner.

Second Day, i.e D-Day, where we get visited, and everyone’s up early to prepare for the feast (dad’s excellent chicken rice). Being maid-less this year around, we’ve reduced our guests to relatives only; friends and acquaintances are happily forgotten and left brooding in their loss. Food is only chicken rice, chicken and veges with complimentary soup. No chicken feet, friend ma yau fish in soy sauce, dark soy sauce chicken, curry rendang chicken and whatever dad would often throw in. Workload and hectic-ness down from insanity to considerably comfortable. Ang pow haul down 50%, though… but still, can’t complain.

I broke new ground this year by tackling the task of de-seeding the chillies without any form of skin protection whatsoever, which resulted in several hours of immense agony and some tears (yes, I shamefully admit… then I’ll just leave you to imagine the pain). My hand was throbbing, stabbing, burning and numbing. Good combo of pain. In the end mom had to take to me to the clinic because it burned so badly. It took 2 layers of different creams to soothe the pain; something salt, a bucket of water, a running tap and ice could not.

Past day 2 and the rest of CNY settles down to a calmly descend of tasks and troubles. Things would’ve been great if my copy of Rogue Galaxy (I’m in Malaysia, so you know what sort of copy I own) wouldn’t load any further down Chapter 7.

The time being, the best thing to do is just nothing. And nothing gets boring after a while…

Goodnight people.

It rained tonight.

There was a definite absence of rain these few days; our laundry have managed to escape the violent tumbling of our dryer, instead finding themselves swaying complacently under the scorching sun (which, literally speaking, did prove rather scorching if you happen to be mowing the lawn at 3 p.m.), and I haven’t remembered taking an initiative to water the plants since a long, long time. I’ve also noticed that the tall plastic rubbish bin (not unlike the ones you can find at the back of malls and restaurants) which serves as a makeshift water tank – for convenience of washing the kennels – does seem lose a foot of water or more every now and then.

Anyway, it rained, and it’s still raining as I type this, the droplets of water hitting the roof of the kennels in noisy clatters. Strangely enough, the house felt warmer than usual, and the wind generated from my stand-fan isn’t as pleasantly refreshing as I would’ve hoped. Lanna made several barks, accompanied by Max’s whines. I didn’t let them out today, much to distracted by The Simpsons in the evening, so I guess they would be a tad dissatisfied today. I’ll see if I can let them out tomorrow… that is, if dad doesn’t pile me with chores to detoxify the house before Chinese New Year.

Mom’s laughter filled the hall, travelling past the door and into my room. Brother was laughing as well. It’s been a long while since I sat myself down amongst them, watching as the latest Chinese drama unfold in its typical fashion. I wondered when I started feeling less interested with such Chinese serials, which, if you have Astro, airs every weekday evening at 8.30 to 10.30. I forgot when I discovered that during these sessions I would less likely find myself interrupted halfway through writing, or while using the internet.

Now, of course, I have my own room, which means my privacy isn’t trespassed as easily as walking past the dining hall, and finally procuring a modem router means I get to access the internet from the comforting confines of my room. Brother don’t need to tell me to “fuck off” from his PC, and I wouldn’t be derived from my online conversations with friends. I could hitch a poster up now; I’ve had the Fullmetal Alchemist poster that Michelle gave me a year ago (or maybe 2) cellotaped to the wall. There’re still a couple of hindrances that isn’t allowing me to stick up more, but I’ll get them figured out soon enough. So far, my room is perfect. Just perfect.

I apologise if my entries have been more or less a cumbrance, or an annoyance, to read lately. Pei Ling pointed out that I’ve been starting my posts ‘Story-like’. I myself also realised that after my recent Gaiman novels, I’ve been writing and typing like these lately. It’ll be hard to explain without conviction and honesty… and I still don’t think that I can say for sure, despite being myself and understanding myself to the extent of self-consciousness. But I figured now, perhaps… I’m a storyteller.

Not a good one, I’d say; if you’ve been reading this pathetic blog you should know how well I fare in the world of storytelling. But I’ve been thinking back… and to really think of it, the best things I’ve ever done is to sit and cook up a story for English and B.M homework, then letting the teacher correct me and, in some instances, compliment me. I would feel the pride and drive and inspiration, and would write for more days to come until I hit the brick wall of creative block. My greatest pleasure is to find myself – in the words of Stephen King – ‘fall into the hole’ that appears on every parchment, paper or screen, and just write myself until my arse numbs or my head ached.

Yeah, I would say that I love to tell stories. And everyone tells a story, no? They live a story, think of other stories and collide with others. While conversing with your family over the dinner table, you inevitably tell stories about the day at college, or how a bitch the class moron can be, etc. How often do you regard a journal entry as a chapter in your life? Songs, music, the back of your DVD cover… stories are just everywhere, and it’s just how you want to tell it and what you want to tell.

Me, I make up stories, though in my regret I never seem to get them down on paper, or typed into the laptop, or even related to a friend. At most, I like to tell friends about the stories I have in mind, but it would seem like I’m too conceited and selfish by forcing it on them (and bore the hell out of them, until they froth and go into cardiac arrests). I’ve also developed a persistent fear of putting my stories into words, because I didn’t want to ruin them by writing badly and heaven knows that I always write worse than I hoped I can.

I’m learning… learning to tell stories, and by heaven’s grace; by luck; by destiny or fate or everything else… I can continue, and always, become a storyteller.

Goodnight people.

Occasionally, I find that sleeping and waking early can be rather cool. If you know me enough, or by chance I’ve mentioned it sometime someplace, you should know that I’m one of those who preferred staying up past midnight and more yonder. Not that I’m one of the nocturnal type (like Amanda, and most of you out there); by golly, I handle sleep deprivation horrendously (short a few hours and I trudge around like a zombiefied penguin with a migraine). But the time after the stroke of 12 and into the depths of night opens up to additional and potentially great enjoyments (most call this’ nightlife’), and I daresay you know it, perhaps more than I do, so you should understand my reasons perfectly.

But anyhow, I slept a great deal earlier than usual; 11 p.m. or less, due to reducing my sleeping hours so that I get to wake and study for my advertising paper, and found myself freshly awake at 8.30 in the morning. I laid idle for a while, saw my brother out of the house, went out to buy breakfast and ate watching Austin Powers (International Man of Mystery)… and say, it’s only 11 in the morning! So I powered up the Ps2 for a few games of PES6 and Disgaea: Cursed Memories, hid in bro’s room to watch anime on Youtube and ate left-over porridge while reading The Order of the Phoenix (4^th read-through). And it was only 3 p.m. after I decided I’ve had enough of Potter for the afternoon.

Normally (on uneventful days like this) I’d wake up at noon, do something a bit and eat, and after that it’s already 4 in the evening and dad’s home with chores and un-necessities dumped at me with as little mercy as possible. And dad being home means no PS2, no hiding-in-room-doing-God-knows-what (because inevitably I would be summoned out, either to do stuff or just so to check that I’ve not died rotting in the room) and no freedom on the TV, so the little time I get to do something fun in a day is as short as recess in high school.

Today, I’ve learned that whenever a friend returns a book I lent out, I should do well by opening it when I reach home. You’ll never know what souvenirs that friend might slip into the pages of that book, be it a tear in a page, a smudge of dahl at page 54, multiple dog-ears and a hollowed-out section made to hide in a packet of weed. In my case, however, it was a Thank You note for lending the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. So instead of reading that note and say “hey, there’s no need for a thank you note, really. A cup of bubble milk tea, or a movie at KLCC or a gargantuan combo set at McD’s would do fine”, I must’ve looked like an arrogant git who didn’t care less whether or not a friend had sincerely left a note in his novel to thank him for providing a good read. Good going.

Sorry mon ami Amanda, for taking so darn long to reply that thank you note of yours. And really, there’s no need for a note. Bubble tea will do fine xD

Goodnight to you ;)

And goodnight people.