Post, in which you’ll find nothing. But nothing is something sometimes.

Erm.

(I’m supposed to try to work, but for the whole night I’ve been pestered by a series of calls for help that every time I settled down to start a sentence, I get blasted off as though the chair is made with a catapulting mechanism. And now when I can finally get to work, I couldn’t. Bloody. Think.)

Hmm.

It’s one of those nights, where I feel the half of my brain missing, and the other half clinging on rusted hinges that will break anytime. And when it does break everything goes rumbly-tumbly; those would signify a good couple of hours staring at a spiralling world. But that probably wouldn’t happen. Not tonight, anyway, but half of my brain is missing anyhow, and as much as it seems like a wimpy-ass excuse not to do my work, I can’t get it started.

It’s one of those nights where I hate myself; curse you, brain!

(Warranty does not cover loss or theft, and therefore I cannot request for a new half.)

But as I’ve come to learn myself over the years of unrequited acts of dimming down, half a brain is more than sufficient to write a blog post filled with utter nonsense. It just takes away a bulk of my vocabulary, which is already limited in the first place. I have no idea what a nonagenarian is now, and a synonym for Idiot? Thesaurus, please?

The good thing about writing with the free reign of making up nonsense, and the unabashed act of actually posting it up (at one point of being a writer, amateur or aspiring or whatnot, is that you’ll eventually learn to be very stubborn with your work and wouldn’t try to care too much, but still require that priceless feedback) is that I can cook up something anytime. And as it is on par with any form of nonsensicality, it doesn’t even need to make sense.

For example, I can write something like this;

I’m a watermelon. A cannibalistic one. Most watermelons, or even fruits to be general, do not understand the requisite importance of cannibalism. In this world, we’re all parasites. I don’t care if the scientists categorise us as something else, but in truth, we’re all leeches that stick to one another and suck each other dry. We eat each other in order to survive. It’s a fruit-eat-fruit world, and when you think of it that way, if you consider that as truth, as much as it is one to me, you’ll see that the literal interpretation of that phrase would serve to your best benefit. Therefore, do not judge me. I cannibalise to survive. I deserve that right to live.

Now, allow me to digest. The last dude had a lot of seeds.

And as you may observe now, I post it up shamelessly. Inevitably someone will call me an idiot and say “This is the suck”. But I will relish in the fact that I get a feedback of a sort, and knowing the own nature of my work, and what it is meant to be (utter nonsense, or nonsense passing of as something with more intellectual value), I would even be happy that my nonsense is good nonsense, since it sucked, and by heavens that’s the right way things go, isn’t it?

(Dear God, what I writing now?)

Simply put; nonsense, in some ways, is essence.

(Therefore, you will come to understand that this entire post, down to the very last pixel generated by the initial act of me tapping on the keyboard, is complete nonsense. And by Styx and Valhalla, get the hell out of here!)

La li lu le loo. La li lu le loo. La li lu le loo…

(It’s ironic when a self-proclaimed holiday starts with you having a the-world’s-a-swirl headache, which pretty much renders you a groaning, moaning zombie, but it is slavery when an actual holiday begin with chores and moves into chores and almost, quite almost, ends with chores.)

Insensate

Perhaps it’s due to the headache, or the subsequent stretch of wooziness, but I’m in such an insensate state today that everything I did practically ended up with a good nag from the dad or a disdainful omg-what’re-you-thinking sigh from the brother. And like walking with a girlfriend in the annual mega-sale, it piles high and heavy and eventually it falls, and the nags and sighs come in tirades.

I’m so blur today I didn’t know what to do with a packet of coffee I was supposed to make for the dad. I stood there wondering why I had the packet in hand and why I would think of drinking coffee, when I realised that the dad wanted a glass of it, iced. Then I almost forgot the ice.

I smacked my forehead so many times now it’s actually red.


Lux Aeterna



Or its re-arranged number by the people who did it for the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer track (re-titled as Requiem for the Tower). Composed by Clint Mansell for the movie Requiem of a Dream.

You’ll agree that it makes everything epic. You will.



The Dark Knight

Hmm.

I don’t know how to put it.

Like Batman Begins before it, I can never understand why I find it so awesome.

It’s awesome.

It’s a good example of how to have a lot in a movie but not make it clogged up or dumb down.

It’s a class of it own.

I’m not going to attempt to review it, because I know I can’t.

I just know that I sat through the 2 hours and a half run time glued, interested, kept guessing and at the end of it, impressed and wowed.

Despite all the hype I got, I’m still amazed. It’s a truly awesome movie.

(Right, I’ve repeated ‘awesome’ so many times now I figure I’ll stop and leave this section of the post alone).


There was once…

Upon a time when a fight among friends was resolved by simply dragging oneself to face each other and saying sorry. Hands will be shaken and smiles will be exchanged and the next second it was as though nothing ever happened, and the end of school will be accompanied by hands on each other’s shoulder, with jokes and laughs and the packet of sweets from the roadside peddler.

That was once upon a time, and as it goes, today is a different matter. Today things are overcomplicated and no one would leave enough room for pride and ego and recklessness to move aside from judgement. Today, we always justify the grim state of things with it’s complicated.

I won’t deny that it is. What I’m just trying to point out is that we forgot how easy it used to to come face to face and settle things, and how tumultuously horrid the thought of not apologising used to sound; as though the grimmest state of things is an apology not said.

Once upon a time, things were simple.

Never forget that.

Tis the Season of Durian.

The house just managed to rid of the lingering, omniscient scent; the fridge, however, will take another few days, provided the dad didn’t buy any more (but he announced to me, after the 5th purchase, quite about durian 12-15, that he already had enough and anymore would breach the wall of safe and comfortable consumption). No more durians, but I guess I can say happily that I’ve just eaten my fair share for this season.


Now, for the next, and the next, and the next till the side of death.


(For the record, I like durians.)


* * *


I like opening durians too, but I suck in it.


I’d get one or two open but my speed will eventually force my dad to sigh and snatch the knife away, with which he will proceed to use and open durians at a pace that would rival the peddlers with their machetes. My brother fared better; he managed 5 before dad took over. My mom, she just stands and eat and screams if there’re worms.


Durians are a family thing. We’d sit around the porch, open them up, eat a few and dump the rest into a Tupperware (to be stored in the freezer, making them ice-cream like). We’d comment on the taste, sample some to the dogs and scare my mother with faux worm-alert. It’s been like this for 20 years.


Back then, when we were still living in PJ, things were a little more merrier. Since we lived together with an uncle and his family, we always had a wicker basket of durians (or multiple, almost tearing plastic bags); everyone will be at the porch eating as much as they can and wash it down with mangosteens. Sometimes we drink salt water from the skins, but I don’t remember what it’s for. The kids will stamp cockroaches when we’re not eating, and I remember a lot of talk. Sometimes other relatives will join us. It’d almost feel like a party.


Now the durians are less, but in Chinese new year, the frozen durians are still relative favourites.

* * *

All the world’s a stage.





This is my first full-length flash animation. I’ve been dabbling with flash for a year and only managed two test animations, all of them incomplete and utterly stoic.

It was for my group’s Culture and Communication presentation on Monday, the topic being Shakespeare’s quote All the World’s a Stage and the Men and Women merely players.

Animation is rough and patchy, and I butchered the music. But I didn’t want it to stay in my hard disc after a mere 30 second appearance in front of an audience, so I posted it up.

Music: Cherry Sky, by Sotte Bosse.
Done in: 9 hours (435 frames)

Done with a mouse and a lot of passion for nonsense.

Mild Surprises.


I think my biggest delight this week so far is the discovering of a rather obscure and utterly refreshing band/artist known as Sotte Bosse. She’s/they’re Japanese, and is/are unknown enough that the fine act of Googling yielded little information; as you can probably tell by now, I don’t even know if she/they is/are a band/artist. But the music is done - quoting someone from Youtube - in a bossa nova style approach, quite rightly Jazz with a mix of light samba. And maybe because I was not partial towards bossa nova type of songs before I picked up a slow but growing liking towards Jazz which is why I’m so darned addicted to them now.


She’s/They’re simple, sigh-to-the-spring sweet, like a day out by the hillside staring out at daisy plains and listening to the wind.


Note, though, they she/they does/do cover songs; whether entirely or just mostly I don’t quite know, but from what I found, I learned they did the cover for Yamazaki Masayoshi’s One More Time, One More Chance (incidentally, I actually posted Bosse Sotte’s cover some months ago, which should be about the 5CM/S anime movie), SMAP’s Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana (and made it sound nicer) and some Fish Leong song which I recognised from tune.


Two of the songs I have are entirely hums or sighs with music. Sweetness.


(Like the kisses goodbye, the smiles from afar, the remnants of a hug in the creases of the sleeves, the most beautiful eyes…)

*******

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, is a good movie.


Unfortunate as it may be with a story that didn’t quite develop into something away from regular (it felt like Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer; it doesn’t quite suck, but it’s… normal), it makes up with some rather stellar action and some of the most imaginative creature designs ever, making it a world behind the curtains that is as bizarre as it is enchanting.


(Del Toro was given free reign, apparently, and didn’t waste any time implementing the best of Pan’s Labyrinth into this.)


It’s funny too. But it’s humour that I can’t place. I just can’t help but laugh like a moron.


Verdict is; Goodness. Watch it, and it’ll be a favour to yourself.

********

Sitting at the back of the car with Bryan is an… erm, interesting(?) experience.


It also somehow manages to traumatise Pauline to no end, who had no choice but to call shotgun or sit with us (an act that, no doubt, will have her end up both lobotomised and discomforted all the way to 1 Utama since Bryan’s huge and I’m a walrus).


Ah… I don’t know what else to say about it >.>

************

Funeral, and a Poor Man’s Dinner.

It was at the crematorium in Kampung Tunku, strangely just a little way off my brother’s old, old primary school back when we were living in PJ.


It was an aunt’s… my father’s cousin, to be precise. I wish I can say something nice here, but the truth is… the truth is, really, that I didn’t know her name. I knew she was 60 plus and she was never married. When I was told about it yesterday, I couldn’t remember how she really looked. I’ve seen her almost yearly when I went down for Chinese New Year. I know to call her Ah Boh (Hainanese, for elder aunt). I remember that she would serve us drink, ask us to eat cookies, chat with my parents and my relatives. I heard that she was a good daughter and she took care of her mother. I heard that she had been coughing since last September and that she was very, very sick, but chose to hide it. I heard these from the conversations that took place around the crematorium.


The fact remains, however, is that I never really knew her.


Not only until I saw her picture in front of the alter, golden drapes hung flanking it in an air-conditioned room that - in spite of everything, reminded me of the sports complex lobby in Taman Melati, did I actually recognise the face, the quiet demeanour, the serenity in her looks that I would know, would remember, but would forget; perhaps she was too distant, and maybe once a year wouldn’t commit her to my memory… but what excuse do I have? I haven’t one. I know that myself, at least.


So I chose to walk up to her coffin for a final glance; I was the youngest to do it. Some of us wouldn’t, because for them it’s rightful that the last memory of her would be the smiling, ever placid face we see year after year, rather than the face in the casket. My memories of her would, regardless, be her, so I felt that I should see her before she was cremated. She was peaceful.


Then there were prayers. Her nieces and nephews did it, since she didn’t have children. It was a traditional Chinese send-off, so the elders - the ones senior to her - aren’t allowed to do it. We sat and watched and listened to the monk’s chants, her bells and cymbals ringing in a definite resonance, like trance, dreamlike and distant. Then we paid our last respects, and bowed. Three times we had to turn away and look downwards, as respect, I hear, or so that the spirit wouldn’t feel the overbearing sadness of departure; once was when the coffin was closed, once when the coffin was moved to the entrance of the crematorium, and lastly was when she was finally departing. I only heard the bells and whispers.


And then, that was it. I simply hung around and observed. Among the relatives were funeral service personnel, for all in the world dressed like waiters in a wedding dinner, doing what they do. “Death is a good business,” my brother said. I agreed, quietly. Death is a business; you stake your life with it all the time. It’s a fair trade, mostly.


Somewhere between the words exchanged among each family member and relatives, the faint smell of joss sticks in silent whiffs, we bade them farewell, and left for home.


**************


Here’s something you can do if the rich, ever over-fulfilling taste of rich food made you wish for something so simple it’s almost a meal of body-cleansing properties;


Boil rice with a whole lot of water, of which you’ll acquire something like congee, which is in fact TeoChew porridge (don’t forget some salt and big chunks of ginger for a slight, gentle tang).


Hard-boil a couple of salted duck eggs, and crack a few Century eggs for good measure.

Put 4 pieces of fermented bean curd (otherwise known as fu yi in Cantonese) in a saucer.

Fry up some salted fish (whatever should work, but I forgot the name of the best type). Oil and frying pan will do. Fry them with ginger slices, preferably.

Open up a can of Fried Dace with Black Beans (godliness in a can). Mircowave it.

Open up a can of braised peanuts and a can of luncheon meat (best cooked with egg over a pan first). Fry a salted-carrot omelette.

(Note that each of them, save the porridge, is optional, but this is the culmination of the best things. Other stuff might include fried anchovies, fried peanuts and the sometimes preferred pork-leg thingy, either canned or cooked).

Once you’ve assembled all of them, you get what I call the cheapskate dinner, or the Poor Man’s Dinner. It’s TeoChew porridge with the best stuff you can buy for oh-ban-me-for-life cheapness. You might get hungry after several hours, but at the end of it, it’s a dinner so pure it felt like sip of Himalayan spring water.

Don’t, however, visit one of the many restaurants serving porridge like this. Unless it’s buffet type, you’re wasting your money.

Now then, I’m already hungry.

Stepping out is easy.

Goodness gracious me, it felt like a hiatus. And when it didn’t feel like a hiatus, it felt like a long forgotten hobby that was left behind as things picked up and the world moved ahead.


It’s done now, the freelancing thing. Or, at least, it’s done until it comes back from the evaluation with additional demands of things to add. But I wouldn’t be so tightly wound until then (it being work in the nature of financial remuneration will hold a position of higher priority and focus), and that means I’m a freer man to read what I want to read and write what I want to write.


I already feel like I’m kilograms lighter (in spite of the throngs of assignments awaiting my tender warmth and care, of which I’ll leave until tomorrow…)


So. Nothing really happened for the past 10 days. I did get a lot of work, though. Somewhat. Work which I tackled with small doses of manga and vids in between. I am such a fucking arse, haha.


I don’t know; perhaps I’m rather stoned from lack of sleep, but I can’t seem to remember much about the past 10 days. What that was done, what that had happened… an early sign of senility, perhaps? I remembered an exam that I didn’t do well and another that was strangely fun to write (I wrote it as though I intended to rewrite Alice in Wonderland with as much fun as possible), and somewhere between those two days I bought a tube of Mentos and finished it in class.


Oh, and I think it was yesterday that I secretly drove straight to university because the trains had a hiccough and delayed for a good half hour. It wasn’t a very advisable act, firstly because it is expensive (tolls and petrol consumption would aggregate a good 15 - 20 bucks spent driving to-n-fro) and secondly, the traffic at 6.30 a.m. in the morning is not particularly friendly; I had to perform emergency brakes every minute to keep from hitting cars that ducked into my lane without warning, and a few times I went on the wrong lanes and had to wrestle cautiously back into line.


It was a very short drive for mankind (40 minutes plus detour), but a giant step for J-E.


That’s about it. Everything else wouldn’t come to me now, so I guess I’ll have to wait until they do.


I’ll be going to sleep now, but before that I’ll put up something here that’s rather interesting.




This is One Man Band from Pixar; I hold this as my favourite Pixar short of all time. Musical harmony and comedy! Enjoy.

Goodnight people.