Argh...

I suppose I should be writing about Bali; that was the initial plan, when I thought of it this morning. A few hours and a bowl of curry noodles later, the dad called us home urgently to find the house broken in and ransacked.

Ironically, nothing was stolen. We do, however, have the ceiling and door repairs to consider.

This was what we deducted, based on the trail of household damage:

The thief, or perhaps two of them, noted that the bro and I have left the building, and that Lanna was still chained (I should’ve let her go; we normally do, but I didn’t know why I didn’t). They vaulted the gate from the side, damaging dad’s herbal tree in the process, and went for the back door.

Point of Entry

He broke the plastic door, easily done, and went into the wet kitchen. He chipped a part of the low ceiling first, wondering if it interconnects to the main house, which it wasn’t, so he broke a window plate and unlocked the wooden door. The first alarm must’ve hit, but the lack of interest from anyone kept him there. He then bent the metal door at the bottom (with a crowbar, or something similar) and squeezed in. We suppose he must be really small.

Must've learnt this from Half-life

He ransacked the drawers at the altar table first, found old light bulbs and rusty locks, then went for my room and the brother’s. He closed the lid of the laptop, probably planning to return to it later. Missy must be in a barking fit now, in her small cage. Good thing he left her alone.

Then he entered the living room, and hit the infrared sensor, but no one came to check on the alarm again. He folded dad’s laptop and moved it to the couch for the getaway, then ransacked the parent’s room, piling clothes and finding some jewellery.

That was when the father came back. He went to talk to the neighbour first, which was thankful, or he’d unlock the door into a man, probably armed, and it could’ve been disastrous.

The thief must’ve panicked then, because he left the jewellery by the window where he saw dad, then broke the ceiling tiles in the room wondering if he could escape into the roof, but it hit a narrow spot. He probably notice the dad planning to talk longer, snuck out the back door and vaulted the fence again.

This is the real heartbreak

We’re speculating a lot of things; that this was a planned heist(?), that they’ve scouted out the house and our habits well. He/they could’ve been the one who poisoned Marley, since we always had kept Marley out. It could, in certain ways, even be an inside job; the minute maid had particularly asked several questions this morning in regards to whether anyone would’ve been home or not.

That’s to the extent of it. I suppose we can count ourselves lucky that no one was hurt, and nothing was stolen. It’s just that we’ll have to fork money out for the repairs. The PS3 will have to wait.

Watch yourselves, folks. I used to think our house was safer than the average one, but after today, I suppose nothing can stop a determined thief.

God damn mother fucker.

Taking Off: A Title of Apposition, I Swear to Goodness

"Hold it! Something smells fishy here..."

"Bug off with the excuses. You're getting your haircut. Now. TODAY"

"But. Wait. I mean, the stench! There's certainly a STENCH!"

I’ll be flying off to Bali in approximately 10 hours time, where I’ll be staying until Thursday. Normally, whenever I go away, I tell people that they should keep an eye out for the goats and their evil-scheming tendencies to take over the world, but these days they’ve been embroiled over the Yak scandal that started last week, so I suppose they’ll be full-handed to actually plan and execute the next downfall of humanity.

(Keep an eye out, still. They’ve been opportunistic at times.)

I guess I should be excited, but I’m not. Strangely, I haven’t exactly looked forward to it. Somehow carting off in the middle of the month, rather impulsively, into an (un)exotic island for 4 days and taking random tours to places I wouldn’t know sounds like a distant thing that other people would do, that I’d read/write about. When I take the plane in 10 hours time, it would seem like someone else was doing it. I’ll be at home and at the computer, reading about Inigo Montoya.

But what the heck. It’s Bali, it’s a vacation, and I suppose I’ll just think about it when it’s right in my face.

Ah, and there’s a beach involved. I could do with some sand.

And sights.

Ahem.

Ah:

Not that it matters, but trying to contact me within the next four days, or expecting some sort of reply to a message or e-mail, would be pointless. Just needed to make that clear. Because, you know. I’m like. Away? Ok? Got it? Because I trust you people to be capable of thought well enough to -. Right. Ok, good. Now that you’ve understood…

Goodnight people.

Empty Imaginarium

“You know… why is it when we’re so high up, we never look higher, but keep looking down?”

“There’re just more interesting things down there.”

“And when we’re down, we just look up?”

“You mean you do that all the time?”

“I just think that there’re nicer things up here. And more, further up. If we looked”

“Well, I’m more worried about other things than what’s up or what’s down.”

“Like what?”

“Clouds dissipate over time, you know.”

Flew on my first overseas trip as a writer. One second I was awake, bleary and grumpy from the ungodly morning, and the next I was lining up at the customs booth trying to figure which thing in my pockets was triggering the metal detectors. And then I was staring at the Singapore Airlines LCD screen, very tempted to pull those airplane pranks you read about (like groaning when the pilot introduces himself, and saying “Oh my God, not him!?”). The next moment, the taxi was telling us that we were late, and drove us down to the city which I could barely take time to sightsee.

But the media briefing itself was interesting, so much that I actually secretly turned on the compact camera and recorded the thing on video (they didn’t forbid so, but I worry it’ll distract the presenter). And there’s something about looking out of the Google office window, all 38 floors up, and watch as the rain envelope and hide the city like the gentlest apocalypse.

Another moment, and I’m back in Malaysia, cursing the complicated way KLIA transit made itself to be. And, when I’m home, puzzling about the Church attacks.

Saturday I stayed home and watched movies. Sunday I went out with the gang to shoot zombies, and watched The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which I liked. A lot. The only problem of watching it is that it’s hard not to actually try to narrate it as a written story.

That night, had a conversation (conference?) with the gang over the Church attacks. It was - when I thought about it - the first ever serious conversation I’ve had in a long, long time.

And I talked about it till late at night. I tried to talk about it with the brother before he dismissed me for sleep. I’d talk to dad but he sleeps so early these days.

I know myself as ignorant. Oblivious even. But somehow, these days, I fire up the news websites daily (the alternative ones mostly; the mainstream ones only to see if they’ve reported similarly), and I read through opinions and blogs and comments. Dad’ll probably be shocked.

I don’t know why. Maybe the whole thing’s finally got me, and ignorance is not a game to play now. And if you’re jumping in on another game, you gotta know the rules.

And you gotta know more than that. Much, much more.

Somewhere I feel like I should do something. As usual, I don’t know what to do.

But I want to do something. Maybe, or sometimes, that counts for something.

**********

It’s both troubling, when I think of it. It’s also very stupid. But most problems in the world are stupid to begin with; they started with stupidity and stupid people thought it’ll be great to spread stupidity along.

But no. It’s only a partial truth. Another way to see it is that it’s a smart move. A chess move nobody read and anticipated. Now the chessboard is in chaos and the player smiles behind the mess he orchestrated.

Think of it that way, the world seems just so much more fucked up.

Of course, this is a nascent suspicion. I said nascent, because inevitably it’ll be a conspiracy theory. Truth, by then, will blur into the wisps of the nightly clouds.

I’m not qualified to think too much of it. But it seems that there’s a hand behind the curtain that pokes the event its current state. It’s a domino effect. The pieces have fallen and now the picture is shaped.

I wouldn’t know. But I think people should see the most worrisome aspect of this. The implications will far arch and brand itself into the back of society’s hands. Depending on how this is resolved, our future will be a very different one.

My ramblings don’t make sense, but I need to get it out.

And then, afterwards, get out myself.

A Quotidian Thing

Almost. At least, time's been excessively slow for the week.

But time’s a subjective matter, and an extremely temperamental entity. Mostly, when I ticked it off, it speeds up so much that days flashes by in a blur. On the long run, it’s depressing, and foreboding.

And it can get rather free at work, particularly breaching into the evening, where I’d resort to TVTropes to pass the time. Even so, it moves in such a deliberate crawl I can feel it as it screeches like an amplified show of dragging a chalk across blackboard.

But la la la la la. Boring times do not deserve much blog space.

Will be heading to Singapore tomorrow for the first overseas press event (briefing, in this case) which, for god forsaken reasons, is making me nervous.

There’s this looming feeling that I’d take the wrong train down to KLIA, and find myself in Perlis mistaken as a foreigner assaulting a woman while insistently asking for directions. My parents would have to come and bail me out of prison.

Maybe I should go play Left 4 Dead 2 now.

*********

Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts is quite the interesting read.

It’s a short story anthology of horror, though so far two of the three I’ve read aren’t more than poignant stories of bizarre twists. This would be Pop Art and, well, 20th Century Ghost. Best New Horror had me saying shit and, admittedly, somewhat scared.

Short story affairs were more comfortable to stomach lately; I often have such a long gap between novel reads that I pretty much forgot some of the plot and characters. In a relationship, that means you’d either have to start over, or give it up in exasperation. The one night stands with Joe Hill meant I can finish something before the night is over.

I’ll stop now. I blame Stephen King for the sexual implications (he started it. Neil Gaiman enforced it).

Anyhow, it’s very much worth mentioning that Pop Art is a story of friendship between a friend and an inflatable boy.

Other short affairs I’ve been embroiled into (I’ll stop now, I swear); Gaiman’s Odd and the Frost Giants (really only a Giant), King’s Here There be Tygers (featured in The Darkside, chosen by Susan Price, which I read over the water boiling), and whatever TVTrope article I might’ve bumped into.

My relationship with TVTrope can be accurately illustrated in this TVTrope trope about itself.

Right then. Time to head to bed. If I really end up being tackled by the police at Perlis tomorrow, I’d better be sober enough to take it.

Goodnight all.

Reading Backwards

(An amiable hobby. You should try it someday, and see if it nauseates).

Had my first ever company meeting today, in which I sat through saying little and, when prompted, gave the most pointless suggestions. Mostly I took down notes, and tried not be imagine that every eye cast in my direction is wondering why I was even hired.

The magazine industry, it turns out, is quite like putting on The Greatest Show on Earth. You set up the throw lights and let the fireworks fly, and make sure the actors acted and the singers sang. You enchant the audience, wrap them in so much spectacle that all they could see was the stage, and light, and magic; and questioned little else. What happened backstage, they’d never know.

There’ll be those pesky individuals who purposefully wander in, trying to take a peak. That’s where the bouncers work.

And no matter how bad things go, the Show Must Go On. As ringleaders and clowns, the horn must be honked, and the trapeze must swing. Only when the last audience leave do the tents close.

Admittedly, I’m trying very hard to make sure I keep hitting the apple on top of Ms Assistant’s head with the knife. Eventually, either I’ll miss or the audience will get bored.

Maybe I’ll move to the elephants.

*****

I let the fingers do the roving today, and it found itself clicking the archives of the blog all the way back to 2006.

That was when the previous blog got unwittingly deleted, and this one started itself. It had a different name then, and I think I changed it another time. Now it’s a name of a notebook that I had written on, and ultimately lost.

(I fear that the name of the notebook is actually The Paradiso Notebook; Paradiso meaning Paradise, or that place where Dante ascended into enlightenment and immortality. Pragadissio, I’m sure, meant Crabs.)

In 2006 I wrote a lot about days that were eventful in its small ways, and I also wrote about nonsensical things, sometimes about Love, and sometimes those really fun to write but rather cringe-worthy rants.

These days I don’t write about the days. I still write nonsensical things. I might’ve written about Love but the subject seemed so distant right now it’s a voice locked within cubes locked within boxes. I don’t think I’ve written a rant in a very, very long time (or maybe I did, but the fun of ranting seemed to have died a gutter-death when I realised I was annoying myself).

I think, when I started this, it was a journal. Now it was something I made excuses of not updating frequently, and sometimes a place I refuse to write in because I’m afraid what I can write might not be written piece I’d like.

I think I forgot it’s a journal. Back then I used to tell myself I don’t care if anyone read something; I’d just write in it. Now that practically no-one does (you mean you are? What the.), I barely wrote anything.

First resolution of the year:_________________________

(I’ll fill it out eventually.)

Next Year, Baby.

I don’t I need to make an eulogy of the past year, or the past decade for that matter, as it can be easily summed up as ‘pointless’ and ‘non-progressive’. Thankfully, it is nowhere decadent.

(If life is like a continuous stretch of dead, monotonous wood, then the mushrooms that sprout are the tasteful points in life. Some of them are tasty, and yet, some of them are poisonous.)

I still, however, felt like I’ve never grown up. Interestingly, I still feel as short.

I know I’m very late with this, but Merry Belated Christmas. Also, Happy New Year.

I’d wish you something, but aside from the typical Pink Healths, Great Fortunes, Wonderful Life Ahead-s, the only other thing worth wishing is that I hope you have a monster under your bed. That way, life is much more realistic, and it opens the way to believing in things like True Love and Destiny is Just a Sidewalk Away.

(Hello, Pessimism)

Also, I wish the best of the decades ahead, and if they finally learn how to preserve your head over a mechanical spider, I wish the best of the rest of the century.

I know I complained a lot, but when I looked back, and thought properly, 2009 was a year of change. Changes to both personal life and the world.

Let’s just see if it’s brought forward.

********

Resolutions? I think I’ll just leave a self-explanatory song.

Next Year,

Things are gonna change,

Gonna drink less beer

And start all over again

But get up at a decent hour

Gonna read more books

Gonna keep up with the news

Gonna learn how to cook

And spend less money on shoes

Pay my bills on time

File my mail away, everyday

Only drink the finest wine

And call my Gran every Sunday

Resolutions;

Well Baby they come and go

Will I do any of these things?

The answers probably no

But if there's one thing, I must do,

Despite my greatest fears

I'm gonna say to you

How I've felt all of these years

Next Year, Next Year, Next Year

I gonna tell you, how I feel

Well, resolutions

Baby they come and go

Will I do any of these things?

The answers probably no

But if there's one thing, I must do,

Despite my greatest fears

I'm gonna say to you

How I've felt all of these years

Next Year, Next Year, Next Year

Goodnight people.