The Price of Bacon

There was this air of foreboding when the plane touched down yesterday. If I would illustrate it, it felt like sailing towards dark, damning clouds that roll out from the distance, with the darkness and cold that was quick to envelope, extracting a quick and desolate “Oh Crap”.

(It later turned out to be indigestion, most likely caused by the large amount of bacon I ingested at the hotel breakfast spread. Rolling clouds of discomfort indeed.)

No bit of foreboding got me to this, however; shortly after settling down to unpacking the bag, the dad told me that the car repair bills - as car repair bills tend to be - might have just escalated beyond budget and expectation. I felt like my soul got ripped off, and it’s now still tangled to the ceiling fan, and I’m not yet in the mood to retrieve it.

I’ll leave it there till Monday.

Tomorrow’s Singapore trip turned out to be very real, and very confirmed. So I’ll be boarding a flight at 2p.m tomorrow to fly down south, to get to tour a recycling plant of all things. It still sounds incredibly exciting in my head.

I’m struck with the sudden revelation that if tomorrow’s itinerary ended up being inexistent, meaning that I can actually craft up my own, I won’t be able to figure out what to actually do.

The scenario is suddenly terrifying. I arrive at a (partially) foreign land with a little money and given time to my expense. Deciding to stay in my room for the remainder of 10 hours seem like a self-suicide condemnation. Wandering out aimlessly will get me nowhere or, very possibly, lost. And things happen to people who get lost in a foreign lands. Helicopters and mooks with paper bags get involved. Sometimes the government.

A possible alternative is to now browse through the Internet for touristy things to do. Otherwise, I can go with the spirit of adventure and stay in my room for the remainder of 10 hours, exploring the vastness of Singaporean TV.

Time in my hands always go to waste.

But I can be hopeful; maybe there is an itinerary after all, and they’ll tell us tomorrow that we’ll have to be whisked around like lambs in a shopping mall where they’ll tell us not to look if a meat shop comes to view. It’s a comforting thought.

I suppose it’s for tomorrow to decide.

*****

How to Train Your Dragon is just about the best Dreamworks movie since Kung Fu Panda. Considering the rate of movies they release yearly (two or three this year; it’s almost a monopoly) and their bar of standards, this is actually a fantastic accomplishment.

I’d say Dreamworks is starting to grow mature. They might’ve been already if I hadn’t found the trailers to Shrek 4Ever After and Megamind (released a little too close to Despicable Me, don’t you think?).

At any rate, great year for animation. On foresight, at least. But I dare it to best last year’s offerings.

But before the year gets populated by all manner of other animated features, go and catch How to Train Your Dragon. In 3D if you must. Take your kids if you have em; little kids, big kids, old kids. They’ll all have a good time. It’s just that good.

And, if you’re the type to check out movie soundtracks, John Powell’s composition for the movie is a refreshing mix of action, adventure and Celtic.

It shall lull me to bed now.

Oidhche mhath

Lost in Backlog

This is what you get for not updating when the supposed post was fresh in mind. Now I’ve completely forgotten what I had intended to write.

I think it had something to do about the Law of Averages, as read at Mr Jam’s Curious Diary. Or maybe about how the world had decidedly went into a laundry dryer and came out tumbled and tangled, though the comfortable warmth afterwards is something oddly soothing.

Or maybe because there was this one time where I wished the escalators wouldn’t pitch me back onto the floor when it went up to the end, but start eating me from the shoe up while I scream helplessly as blood sprayed around like a broken fire hydrant.

Nope. I can’t remember nuts. I suppose I’ll just keep going with whatever I’ve got.

Wrapped about a week ago, but because the car isn’t back yet, resulting in me mooching off at the mother’s car at any given opportunity, I haven’t had the mood to do anything else but play God of War 3 (which I’ve finished this evening, and came away satisfied but a little sad). Project March is in development hell and the graphics card just died again after three days of use since it came back from the repairs.

Gee, it felt like a whole week of bollocks.

Will most likely be in Singapore this Wednesday, which is something about recycling. It sounds much more exciting in my head.

Right, because I have several stuff backlogged, it’s high time I start clearing them;

*******

There must be some sort of mistake, because this shouldn’t happen to me.

I guess the whole system sort of messed it up, and delivered the wrong award to me, which should rightfully be something like;

There’re other awards, that I’m aware of, but it’s definitely either this or the Award of Blogging Excellence, First-Class Honours in the Conveying of the Amazingly Insightful and Utterly Inspirational Content Through the Medium of Blogging and Pigeon Carriers Sponsored by the Venerable Blogger.com (or ABE: CAIUCTMBPCSVB Award for short).

But the mistake has already been made, so I shall dutifully perform the tasks as stated by the Rule, which are:

1. Thank & link the person that gave you the award.

2. Pass this award onto 15 bloggers you’ve recently discovered and think are fantastic beautiful dastardly

Beautiful and Dastardly too.

3.Contact said Blogs and let them know they’ve won the award (I’m too lazy for this).

4. State 7 things about yourself.

Therefore:

1) Both Teh Ais Limei and the Twistedtrainsistor gave me this award

2) a. The Winners of the Beautiful Blogger award:

- Teh Ais Limei and the Twistedtrainsistor, but since they’ve already won twice, I’ll give them both Incredibly Honorary Mention Which By Default Means They’re Winners and Are Awesome At the Same Time.

- The Intricate Swirls of Ms. Vic, which is in a bit of a slump now; this award will hopefully reinvigorate it.

- Creme Et Noir. Her constant, consistent updates have been inspirational, and her excellent writings just keeps getting better.

- Thissucksmonkeyass (or True Story of What Was). Read and you’ll know (and who says you can’t award a family member?)

- Where Rachel is Idle and Mom is Exasperated, and also where she writes entertaining pieces and show that delightful weirdness which is her beauty.

-Heck, pretty much everything in my link-list.

2) b. The Winners of the Dastardly Blogger Award:

- The Curious Diary of Mr Jam, for the fact that it’s NSFW. Why? Because in the world of office jobs and the 9-to-5s, Mr Jam’s blog (or column, whichever you prefer) is the secret paragon of glimmering hope that keeps this depressingly gray world not so gray. It is the blog that office superiors, those that wield the chain-whip and the Taser of Obedience, can smell in the air as the computer monitor radiates out, which will prompt them to say, “What’s this? What’s this in your monitor? Mr Jam? You DARE VIEW MR JAM IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD REGIONAL MANAGER? TRAITOR! HEATHEN! Guards! Seize this man!”. In the world of office jobs and the 9-to-5s, Mr Jam is like Confucius’ Scriptures in the Qin Dynasty, the Books of Nazi Germany and Fahrenheit 451, the Propaganda of the People or the One Ring of Middle Earth. It is the Hope in Pandora’s Box, sealed in the swirling, convoluted forms of Evil, Fear and Corporate Cruelty. Mr Jam is the Saviour, and he’s getting us killed in the office. We don’t care though, but our magazine articles do.

- Neil Gaiman's Journal, which is home to his Oracular Magic Crystal thing, and also where his genius shine even when not penning the next amazing novel. It’s dastardly because he’s dastardly himself, but in a very good way.

- Boltcity, which belongs to Kazu Kibuishi. Once you get started with his web comic and marvel at his amazing art, you’ll end up hopping into every artist in his link list too. When that happens, your only means of salvation is to hop into TVTropes, but a similar fate awaits you there.

3) I’ll skip this one here.

4) 7 things eh?

- I’m fat.

- I live in Kajang (with my parents)

- I have 5 dogs.

- I live with my brother too. He hurts me.

- I have a brain infected with some sort of fungus, which is now growing and taking on all sorts of mutations, and the doctor says that one day it’ll grow out of my nose and attach itself on my left arm, slowly turning me into a Fishman - the servants of Cthulhu. He has given me pamphlets on the Fishman Help Institutions and Training Centres and has directed me to a few GOO churches (I’m considering St. Lovecraft’s) where I can start getting counselling and prepare myself when I inevitably become a Fishman. After that I move to Innsmouth and into the Fishman hostel and start serving the GOO, which the doctor says isn’t a bad thing, because I should be honoured to be able to serve the GOO, though I still can’t understand why my parents cry whenever they see the green stalk growing out of my nose.

There! I’m done. I’d have an acceptance speech but I can’t think of one. So I’ll just say Thank You, and it’s directed to everyone I’ve mentioned above.

********

Phew. That felt like the storm after laxative. I guess I needed that.

I’ve kinda concluded that life isn’t quite so bad - even if it is, and it happens - if you simply create an Optimistic bin and dump everything inside. Then you get the good, worthwhile parts filtered out. For example; the day I wished the escalators would eat me in a painfully gory manner was the same day I went to work and bustled along happily knowing that what comes after is a great thing (even if I screwed it up. I think).

Not that it really helps in this big, great life that stands at point of the rock, tipping everywhere the wind blows and crashing down when it gets too hard.

Cest la vie.

Bonne Nuit!