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.

Where stickmen bleed like fire hydrants out of their eyes.


Lately…


I’ve been busy.


Sort of.


You know.


Assignments and all.


Not to mention some freelancing stints.


(All for the future; coins in the banks as well as words in the brain).


And now.


Surprisingly.


I have time!


So gee, if I’m going to spend it properly, I should at least write something here.


(Know that the previous post was written after one part of the freelancing stint is done, and by then I’ve been staring at the computer for at least 9 hours and it was after midnight and I was, at my own right, so completely arrested that everything I spewed out sounded crazy).


So, yeah. Right. Let’s see…


Well lately… I’ve been busy.


Sorta.


You know, assignments and stuff. Same old same old (plus some freelancing stints).


But it’s not quite entirely the type in which I barely had the time to think of using the bathroom (the math can be done; if I walk outside of my room, open the toilet door, close it, use the lavatory, flush, wash, open the door, close, re-enter the room, I use roughly twice the time I can do with a 7-up bottle). I’ve taken the liberty of working and erm, catching up on things at the same time.


That is, to say, that I work alongside surfing the net and reading One Piece, or streaming Youtube vids, or read some blogs. It’s sort of a 3:1 ratio in work balancing; 3 to work and 1 to be blissfully distracted for a couple of minutes.


This works, somehow, but I get the job done slower than usual. But I get the perks of not overheating or going into cardiac arrest.


And that’s just about it. Nothing new in life, except for that odd beetle I caught in my room, which I kept in an old toy capsule for one day and then let it fly the next morning. It was the size of a 50 cent coin, but the doofus me didn’t remember to take a picture, so there’s nothing I can show about it.


The weather’s been cold. It didn’t matter if the afternoon offered some hours of heavy sunshine; there was this definite chill that lingered, and the air hung in this lazily heavy manner, like an invisible fog. Atmospherically it almost felt like London as we see in pictures, the way its chilliness clung to every window and door like a drape.


And there was rain. Short ones, long ones, and yesterday, a full-day shower.


I think I’m enjoying this cold.


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


Now, having been streaming vids for almost the entire duration of an afternoon whilst working, it didn’t mean I couldn’t find a couple of neat things.


First off is Don Hertzfeldt's and all of his randomness, here in the Academy Award nominated animation short Rejected.




And also Genre, which I enjoyed the most.




This is Mater and the Ghost-Light, Pixar’s short from Cars.




Daniel Greave’s 1991 Academy Award Winner Manipulation (which, I guess, inspired Genre)



And this one is something for gamers everywhere, myself included, who haven’t heard of the great news from Blizzard and haven’t gone to watch this.





Cheers!

Work Work So many WORK Muahahaha

There’s so much! Too much! Oh dear me daisies and lollipops the work comes and goes and comes and goes and some I take, some I don’t take, but some I really take and now it’s a lot, piling and stacking and it’s too much…

Assignments! Part time freelancing! Grants documents media monitoring research analysis journals mid term pop quizzes creative brief advertisements type type write write DRAW, yes draw quite rightly draw sketch.

And it’s unmanageable, not without proper planning and time dissemination; allocation to perfection, balance of work and rest and play possibly; the equilibrium must not break, the chink must not appear in the armour

(too much too much)

And the flow cannot be impeded. I’ve gotten it planned out, I think. I think if I

(piling stacking pop quizzes mid term creative strategy)

make sure that I keep to the book, stay within the line of act, keep myself in check

(DRAW!)

I’ll surely be able to handle. This is not the first time it’s happening. I’ve handled worse. I’ve made it through all the time. Assignments grants freelance work I’ve handled them, I’ve taken them before with lesser time, I’m sure I can do it.

The victor is always the victorious.

What’s left what’s left media monitoring e-commerce business website chop assignment research grant 1 grant 2 pop quiz tutorial report mid term creative strategy advertising brief…

Well, something happened. Something.




I had spent the whole week mulling it in my mind. At best it felt like a joke that happened over Halloween, foul eggs over heads and ah well-diddly-doo it‘s just misfor-tune. At worst it felt like a nagging frustration, and after awhile it was everything the flustered facets of life that come even if you don’t call for it. Sometimes I go WTF and sniggered (because, if you look at it, it’s pretty darn funny). Sometimes I go WTF and felt WTF. The sort of trouble that you go whatever with, partly because you don’t care, even if it’s stupidly clung.




But the weirdest part is, when I think of it, is that I haven’t really felt angry. Frustrated and jived up, yes, but angry… erm, no, and it’s starting to feel like an anomaly. These were the things in life that made you feel angry, the ones that punches you like an uncalled swing of the fist in the midst of the crowd. I mean, by right, if you’re in my shoes, you’d most likely be feeling pissed. I’m not pissed. I’m strangely calm. I’m just wishful that idiotic things like this wouldn’t come, and damn me if it isn’t idiotic; I think the thing that frustrated me most is the fact that this is downright the stupidest damn thing ever.




This was what happened, and I’ll lay it straight down on the table; I’ve gotten into trouble with a lecturer.




I hear the ay caramba! It felt a little familiar. Very familiar. *CoughTMJCough*




But here’s the real punch line; I haven’t done anything.




It didn’t mean I didn’t do anything wrong. I had played Hangman in class and wasn’t being too subtle about it, but I wasn’t being anywhere near distracting either. But I had played, and I think to her (the lecturer’s eyes), that was enough to land me under the neon limelight. She probably didn’t have a good day, because she went on an outburst. The type teachers get when they’re agitated, when they felt they weren’t appreciated well enough; it was almost standard procedure (my apologies to teachers worldwide; such generalisation don’t do your dedication justice, but for that we have teachers day and a genuine thank you if you’ve been great).




And then the lecturer had yelled at me, and shouted that I’ve been demoralising and disrespectful, and that I still have the gutso to smile through all that (I’ve been looking up at her with my head rested on the table, and by heavens I didn’t know she was staring at me, hinting that I’m the one, I’m the one, and suddenly I was accused of smiling). And then she said that anyone who doesn’t enjoy this could’ve just signed attendance and leave. And then she shouted for me to leave. I left.




And suddenly I was back in Form 3, looking up at Puan Faridah, her eyes bloodshot and brimming, overflowing with maddened craze that that was strewing her hair, roughing her voice, and her pupils just told me, shouted at me, I’ve got the authority, kiddo; I’ve got the crown and the throne and the position and if you’re going to do something, DO IT. I DARE YOU.




I remembered feeling a little angry, and a little shaken. After that it felt pretty funny (I was smiling? Dear goodness gracious was I really smiling or do I look like I was smiling or maybe I should just really shaved the moustache). After that I was alright.




Here was the simple explanation that I’ve realised after my exit from the class; she was having a bad day, I wasn’t being a helpful student, and it was just a big misunderstanding, the bit about smiling and being deliberately oblivious and disrespectful. It was all a bloody misunderstanding. I can live with that. Maybe it’ll blow over. Maybe I’d apologise.




But it didn’t end.




The next day was her tutorials. I went in and kept the low profile (it isn’t hard; my profile, aside from the bulk minus the height, is physically low already. I’m generally more prone to daydream or doodle away than to be participating in class). I got a nice wallop of a jibe at me, which I just smiled to myself. Leave it be, and it’ll die down. Most battles are won without fighting.




And then I went out of class to answer a call. What happened in the class after that was, according to classmates, the lecturer stating that I seemed like a very successful businessman, leaving class to answer the phone so often (turns out that it was the first phone call that I had in her class that I tried to answer, and somehow once was a couple of times). Kelvin wasn’t happy with the jibe and left. I went in and got yelled at again. And then she said I got an attitude problem. And I might get a letter from the dean for disciplinary action. And she hadn’t been unfair, she hadn’t sent me out of the class yesterday (apparently, I left on my own account after she ‘hinted’ who she was displeased of), and that why people like me had to go and ruin her day and trouble everyone and disrupt everyone’s studies…




The only thing I said to her was, “excuse me?” when I entered the class and she asked (yelled) if she should apologise to me.




Oh, right, I hadn’t even made a single retort. I’ve officially pissed someone off by doing nothing at all. Someone pass me a cert. I’ve graduated.




Then I thought I’d go and just apologise, because this is getting ridiculous and my friends are starting to get the heat (great friends as they are, they stood by me… thanks). I called her a few times but she refused to look up. I dragged Pauline out and left.




I won’t meet her until next Monday. I don’t know how I’m going to manage in class without another episode.




You see, back during TARC and the TMJ incident, I had brought it upon myself. I had launched a personal catapult, yelling Fire in the Hole and dove head-on like a brainless moron. At least, back then, I could justify to myself that the trouble I got myself into, I got myself into. My shit is self-collected and scattered around to be stepped. This time, the shit was knee deep and I sat right into it.




I don’t know. Now I’m in a dazed limbo. I’ve gotten my pals in trouble; they had stuck up for me and they’re getting the heat. I don’t know if I should really just walk up to her and call her a paranoid bitch. I felt that I could swallow the shit and go and apologise, provided she’d listen. The biggest part of me now is saying Fuck it, you did nothing wrong, she can’t do jack-shit. But it’s like I said, really. The reason why I’m aggravated is because this happened while I did nothing to incur it.
Ah, yes. Injustice. That’s always a hard thing to stomach. Wherever, whenever.
I think I’ll do that. I think I’ll Fuck it, I did nothing wrong, and she can’t do jack-shit.
Whatever.

*********************
I think, kind reader, you deserve an apology.
I finally got this incident out of the system. For a better use of a horrible analogy, it feels like after one’s done the end bit of diarrhoea, felt shaky for a day or two, and then felt the lightness of the body after a purging. Right. My apologies again.
The trouble of being a writer is that, at the light, sight and blight of everything, one will feel the need to write it down, limn it, mull it over and over and then leave it out in the open. At the end of it, even if one is not particularly satisfied or proud, at least the thing’s out of the system.
I got this out now, finally. And I’m feeling like I’m kilograms lighter.
Thank you, and Goodnight People.

And so said the Man in the Canary-Yellow Tweed (to a dark-skinned individual named Calendar who waters his corn and sometimes massages his legs); “Laughter is a medicine best served with Lamb Chop grilled medium-rare with mash potatoes at the side.” And so, like prophecies made by not being made in purpose, it became true.

I’ll tell you what was fantastic this week. I may not tell you what that was not so good or, in some cases, just preposterous, but I can assure you that things haven’t really gone down the drain, or impeccably ludicrous, or somewhat shambled over a tirade of disasters as it does sometimes (the oh-heavens-this-can’t-be-happening things). Things’ been good, I’m happy, and maybe that’s just what the fuel to life is all about.

What’s fantastic this week is;

The Nintendo Wii, god bless them people of Nintendo, and subsequently my 6th Uncle (or Uncle Raymond, who married my 6th aunt) for buying it back in China when work got him down enough to seek life’s aspirin which is the Wii, and then taking it back. Now it’s in my grandmother’s house, and I get to go over anytime to play (and also find people to play with, because my 5th Aunt and Husband is addicted). The only setback is that here in Malaysia, you can’t find the good games. I’ve been looking, but no Super Smash Bros. Brawl, no Twilight Princess, and no RE4: Wii Edition.

(These are, of course, the *ahem* games we’re talking about).

Kung Fu Panda, and this one you bless the people of Dreamworks for not going with the very, very old and stoic Shrek formula and make something that’s entertaining, genuinely funny, is seriously (if not mildly) heartfelt and have a great few awesome fight scenes thrown in for good measure. Nice. Better than Iron Man, even.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures; this one I thank Travellers Tales. It’s a game, in case you’re wondering, following the same formula of TT’s previous LEGO titles revolving around the Star Wars movies (great games, by the way), though this time you play the Indiana Jones movies. There’s still something really, really fun about punching LEGO tribesman with the classic Indiana Jones theme rousing in the background.

And lastly, the Dude on a Retarded Journey's birthday lunch, held at Chilli’s in 1 Utama.

Kelvin did not use Durex. He now finds his birthday celebration interrupted by some rather disturbing news.

It was good. We laughed. We gave him a Starsucks Coffee T-Shirt. We had fun.

The picture says it all. Notice the thumbs up?

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

And so said the dark-skinned individual named Calendar to the Man in Canary-Yellow Tweed: “What that ascends as facets of truth, taking place in the stands before the Eyes of Men, are merely facades that show enough but never entirely. These becomes the truth, the shell of the story, and this is what that protects it from being seen as the blight in the Golden Valley.”

(To which the Man in Canary-Yellow Tweed responded in being confused, then proceeded to search the dark-skinned individual named Calendar’s shack by the corner of the side of the corn field for books and, finding none, laughed and sat by the fire nursing Whisky that was not on the rocks.)

In a Bizarre Turn of Events...

I am now typing this on my brother’s computer, which is close to as slow as the Apple Lisa, with a keyboard that I can’t get used to and a mouse that has a population of dust (and the stuff that live with them, such as the Dust Mites and Dust Faeries) underneath.


This PC has been with us for… good god, quite about 7 years now, give or take. Back then it was the hotrod; the mean machine, built for gaming and for gaming only, the other PC perks tagging along as minuscule, overlooked and secondary applications. Now the gaming is gone from it, its hard drives overcrowded, its motherboard switched twice (now a run-of-the-mill cheap substitute) and its graphics card turned from a GeForce4 (the super-power accelerator back then) into a bargain price 3D Integrated Card.


And the fight is out of it, too. Lately I noticed its hard-disc spaces seem to disappear themselves, and the Ethernet card just decided to go kah-poot. It’s taking longer than usual to start and sometimes it wouldn’t start at all, and had to be reset a few times before the windows would run.

Old buddy, I think it’s time to go. I think it’s time to rest.


I’ve been taking time to look at catalogues for a new PC, which should come when my brother leaves for the UK with the laptop. This one will live on, in some ways; I’ll be transferring its hard-disc memory into the new one.


7 years have been a long run. A great run.


****

There’s something wrong with me head. I think it has to do with a mushroom.

Or a toadstool, perhaps. Possibly poisonous.

The mushroom is growing in my head and is taking up space, all the while tossing the left side of my brain into the pits of oblivion, and soon I believe my logic, reasoning and altogether my memories will be wiped-out cleaner than any slate.

It’s a daunting, almost horrible idea, but I think the mushroom has tampered with my means to feel the creeping tendrils of impending brain-death, and has left me in a prolonged state of contentment, littered with the occasional whim to go and dance in the rain.


If you think that I’m merely imagining all these, or perhaps had just jumped to an early, rather preposterous conclusion, then I wonder, good sir/madam, what do you make of the weird symptoms that I’ve been experiencing lately?


I’ve summed up my reasoning and, with the compiled data over the course of a week, came to the decision that a mushroom growth beneath the cranium is only too obvious. These are the symptoms that I have been experiencing;

1) Vivid dreams of a red mushroom, not unlike the ones you can find in Super Mario Brothers, looking at me with eyes as old as the rocks that formed the earth, eyes that carved into pity and slight resentment that said the words; “grow-up power-up!”


2) Lost of memory, like where I might’ve placed that damned camera battery or what are the classes on Tuesday.


3) Lack of reasoning and thinking abilities, like how I can’t figure why the battery would go missing or who might’ve taken it or whether it could’ve just got up and walked away from a life of abject monotony (wait, I haven’t figured that possibility out yet).


4) Unstable and inconsistent state of mind, which is sort of like being smart in one moment and in the next instant, completely stupid. This is determined from the Short Circuit Incident. It goes like this;


Instance of Brilliance.
I was nursing a headache at home and was watching National Treasure 2 when the electricity went off. Apparently the jumper went down, as it does sometimes when the lightning is too assiduous, and it would snap itself down whenever I try to flick it. Confused, I asked the neighbour and it’s apparent that I’m the only one with electricity down. It is undoubted, then, that the house is experiencing short-circuitry.


I noted that I’ve never been taught on how to handle a short-circuit situation and was about to think of calling for help like a helpless little girl when I figured that, why not? Perhaps it’s possible to trace the source of the circuit and isolate it, if you can consider that that the circuit is caused by a defunct application or object. It is only a simple matter of turning off every switch in the house and flicking up the jumper to see if the electricity comes back, then test each switch one by one.


And it worked. I’ve isolated and identified the source of the circuit to the large refrigerator in the wet kitchen (used to store large amount of meat and dog food). I’ve checked and concluded that the plug and its switch has not malfunctioned, therefore the fault must be the refrigerator itself. I’ve moved it out and was preparing to check the motors when I noticed the floor was wet. The wire providing the fridge with power goes all the way to that bottom part of the fridge. The water was causing the short-circuit. Good. It means that the fridge and its motors are functioning fine.


I dried the floor and even took time to clean it up the year’s worth of lizard/bug/rat droppings at the bottom of the fridge, and then I tried to the switch again. The jumper didn’t jump. Everything was fine. I felt pretty proud of myself.


Instance of Stupid.
Of course, there’s always a cause to something. Obviously the water couldn’t have gotten there unless the ceiling was leaking, but it didn’t rain and there were no signs of a leaking ceiling tile (you can tell if there’s a dark grey patch). The fridge has a hole at the corner to for water to flow should someone decided to clean it up, but the hole is at the other side and away from the wire, and the floor that side was dry. It didn’t make sense. Where did the water come from?


So I had to check.


I felt the side of the fridge and found it wet. It flowed a little from the side then. I searched the place where the dish-stand is. It was wet there. I searched under the stove and saw water there. Water had dripped onto the floor from where the dish-stand is. Then I realised; the whole place from the dish-stand to the stove was wet. And then I saw the packet of soup. I’ve bought soup noodles for the brother for lunch. I’ve propped the packet of soup at the dish-stand and never bothered to tie it securely after I was done transferring some fishballs. It had managed to fall sideways a little and a good 80% flowed out.


The soup had caused the short-circuit. Oh my god.


(Oh, and the camera battery I can’t find? My father had taken it out from the charger and had placed it at the top section of my book shelf so it was easy for me to see. I was too busy searching under my bed and concocting conspiracy theories to notice. That makes a DOUBLE STUPID.)


5) Lastly, some headaches that come out of nowhere and from no apparent cause. It would just happen. Mostly when I turn during my sleep, and it would blossom out into a full-fledge brain-numbing-dumbing migraine. How do I put it? It’s like having a chasm in a part of your head, and when you turn, you feel your mind falling into it, falling and falling into the emptiness, but then it’s still attached to the other part of the head and what it could do was just tumble and swing like a pendulum, and the world swings with it too.


There. I have a potentially fatal mushroom growth from within my head. My only way of curing this without having to spend millions at the next money-hungry neurosurgeon is to attempt self-trepanning. This can be achieved with the power-drill and the toilet mirror. A box full of Panadol soluble should work as anaesthetic. It all comes down to how much shock-trauma a patient can take before he kills himself.

God have mercy on my soul.

It started with a morning call.

But it didn’t happen while I was asleep, which would’ve been the type of situation where one wakes up, bleary and still occupied with the tangling tendrils of pre-wake drowsiness, to answer the phone in a voice that cracked and sounded 30 years older, wondering who it is and whether a beating is impending (and then the good/bad news will come and one would sit up to make sense of all the tumultuous info).


No, this time I was wide awake and was actually discussing with my brother the fundaments and delicacy of the Wing Chun art of Self-Defence (an interesting, rather applicable bit of Chinese Kung-fu, and yes I discuss something like that with my bro. Frequently) when Pauline called and told me that the results for the Industrial Training thing was out.


(She got an A, by the way, which is very good, and particularly more due to the worry she exhumes over. Some moments later, though, she buzzed me online and we both discovered she had contracted some Spyware and suddenly she was back in the pits with the snakes and the closing-in walls, and just now she had just told me her brother saved the computer. Wow, I wonder how many times you can fall in the pits and get back up all in one day.)


So I went online and did whatever a self-respecting student of the University would do in the light of discovering his/her internship results by getting all tensed up and mildly aggravated, and you gotta have to feel that way if you’ve just spent the good of three months getting up in the morning and doing something both unrelated to your studies and personal gain only see that, in the end, everything fucked up.


The webpage displayed an A for me. Holy fuckshit.


You can say that a whole lot of load on the shoulders took flight to the sky in a flurry of feathers and white.


But I guess I’m lucky. Lucky that my work evaluation came high, thanks to the ‘small-company’ status it holds; as Ji Lin might’ve put it very well, they probably need interns badly and would give a good evaluation so long you do fine as a good worker. I was an OK worker. I did my job and tried my best. It was a fish-out-of-water situation but I guess I managed to scrape through. Got rewarded with something good, yet then again, too good; somehow, there is the injustice that would be hard to swallow, especially when knowing that a whole of other slaving students out there who probably didn’t get what they deserved.


I think I just lost my right to complain, that I didn’t get what I wanted, that I didn’t get what I actually need to learn in order to know what journalism has in store for me.


It was back to the old question again, the one I asked myself throughout the months of January to April; was I unlucky, or lucky?


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

There were many things that happened this week.


There was the first class of the new semester, and boy was it boring.


There were the other classes as well, some good, some abysmal in the sense that I’m starting to have premonitions as to how I’m going to spend my time in these classes and not contract ennui.


There was the Safety Campaign, which might’ve been disastrous but -- thank goodness -- was rather OK considering the utter impossibility of it.


There was the grandee who walked, talked and balked and didn’t know how far he was threading into the lake in the utter darkness.


There was the moment which I would dub in my life story as The Moment I Received Pan-Mee (Noodles) Enlightenment; courtesy of Bryan (and indirectly, Pauline). Restaurant Kin Kin’s original spicy Pan-Mee is -- oh bloody hell -- like the beacon of power and excellence that shone and drowned all other Pan-Mee in blight; so good and utterly unique it is, other Pan-Mee (be it good, bad or passable) shall fall into the rims of the sideline as merely indifferent.


There was the new camera my father bought, recklessly impulsive he is when it comes to buying unnecessary things.


And there was, last but not least, rain the evenings. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you see the faint outline of a rainbow barely visible under the scanty, post-shower drizzle.

The ants on my table doesn’t know the dangers of marauding into my table-top waste basket; an expedition into perilous grounds, most probably suggested by a delusional worker that believed of the world of discarded candy wrappers found under and between crumpled paper of flustered miswritten words.


Ah, the foolish band. Only a single line, not accompanied by the occasional diligent soldiers that would’ve been something more impressive a sight perhaps. Up they march into the unknown, with the scant promise of sweet, sweet food for their brethren, disregarding danger, waving away the rationale of safety in larger numbers, or safety away from the sitting giant, now watching them with some sort of fascination stemmed from ennui, itself rooted in oh-holy-macaroni the marvels and wonders of a university-night, and heavens help me that it’s only the first week of the semester…


Down comes the wet cloth, like a yellow and coffee-stained tsunami. Micro-fibre qualities of the cloth ensures their entrapment, and subsequent slow suffocation, should they remain in it for long. Into the sink they go, water carrying them down the pipes and into the sewers and into the dark dank world of eternally pungent water.


The giant laughs maniacally and shuffles back to this room.


********


Oh holy macaroni. I’m bored.

My first robbery. And afterwards, the biggest burger I ever had.


I don’t know why, but as far as sketches go, I often get the person who is subject to some form beating. When I was in secondary school, Form 5 to be exact, I had to act alongside a pal for our English oral speaking exams and I was the overzealous boy whose girlfriend got nicked by his best friend; overzealous boy tries to hit the best friend and gets slugged in the face. Yee-haa.


During college, back in TARC, there was another English speaking test and this time I was a middle-aged man in his mid-life crisis with a debt and a failing family, who got a good pounding by a bespectacled loan-shark (“You can’t hit me!… Wait, technically you can, you’re a loan shark. But argh!”). It didn’t help to know that I was acting in front of a group of girls I barely knew, and that the first presentation I had involved me being hurt in a fictitious manner.


Wednesday I was a robber who tried to rob Li Mei (carrying a bag owned by Carmen, which I just got to know better and is a jolly girl) and got arm-locked in the process. Oh, and I got thrown on the ground! In front of a good 100 freshmen, who did some whoops when I was down and groaning. It was a promotional teaser to introduce the upcoming UTAR Safety Campaign, and we did it with a bang by bursting into the auditorium shouting and tugging at the poor bag until Li Mei Jujutsu-ed me and I got thrown. Apparently it worked, and while the initial plan was to have an unexpected drive-by snatch thievery (with me as the snatcher, but the idea got scrapped by the supervisor), I guess we managed to make a good enough impression.


Afterwards we were down at the Pavilion for lunch, and the Kelv-ster suggested the Carl’s Jr. restaurant. The burgers there are the sort that mutated from ideas written on pieces of paper, mixed in a biscuit can and prominently picked by the Creative Executive, who would proceed to place three ideas to a single burger and pitched to the director. You get all sorts of combinations; bacons and beef and mushroom and pickles and whatnot, and they all turn up in abominations held together by sesame seed buns. Wow, talk about the towering monster of doom.


They don’t look as ugly as I may make it sound; to the regular burger-lover, they’re possibly Van Gogh sandwiched in the classy strokes of Da Vinci. And they taste like Shakespeare exploded into lyrical splendours accompanied by Mozart and London Symphony. They taste good. They’re dead big, though, but shared with a friend it’s just about right (even halved, I reckon they’re the size of the average McD’s). Combo the burger with chilli-cheese fries and bottomless drinks, and you get something quite worthwhile once in sometime. I’d remind you to reserve more stomach space, though.


I managed to skip dinner that night. It was a huge, life-changing decision. My parents looked at me as though I just came out of the closet.


***********

Today (Saturday of the 24th of May 2008, 2 days after Indiana Jones went on his latest adventure after 20 years), Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day is Ruminate.

Word of the Day for Saturday, May 24, 2008

ruminate \ROO-muh-nayt\, intransitive verb:
1. To chew the cud; to chew again what has been slightly chewed and swallowed."Cattle free to ruminate." --Wordsworth.
2. To think again and again; to muse; to meditate; to ponder; to reflect.
3. To chew over again.
4. To meditate or ponder over; to muse on.

You can use it this way;

The pot-bellied fathers of the participating children, in complete sync and understanding of each other’s paternal plights, pulled out their pipes and congregated at the corner to ruminate over the joys and ramifications of fatherhood.


And it seems to happen this way, really. I noticed that a group of fathers found themselves at the corner of the MPSJ this morning, their cigarettes out and carefully shielded away from any passing teachers, talking in a mixture of weariness and excitement about their kindergarten children. It’s Sports Day for the Kinderland children, held at the Subang Jaya Sports Complex, and I was there to help out the aunt and uncle.

I was listening for a bit (in a dire means to escape the repeating children songs booming out of the PA system, smack beside of where I sat), and I wondered if this is what fathers do, during parties or dinners or a random ball in some hotel somewhere for the wealthy celebrator. Do they really whip out some smoking device, gathered in a corner and discussed how Michael couldn’t seem to eat his broccoli, or that Lisa needed more discipline than what the experts suggested, or that the wife is suggesting another kid and that little Jason’s kindergarten fees are already sky-rocketing?

And I was there, half-listening and half tying my shoelaces (a little guilty perhaps, to be eavesdropping out of sheer boredom), and I guessed that maybe fatherhood sort of deserves something akin to the Gentlemen’s Club; but instead of talking the latest shipping companies, you talk about your kids.

I don’t really known why I thought like that and why I had decided to actually write about it (as I would put it; I couldn’t help but ruminate on it). Maybe I had wanted to write about how the fathers actually looked when they talked about their children, or that way that they could somehow agree with each other more than any other conversational topic.

Then I remembered that it’s Father’s Day soon.

Maybe dads deserve their own Clubs.

Bathing Rabbits.

Quite honestly a no-go sort of thing, but my father wagered his socks that the sun was warm enough to dry the rabbits before they catch the hypothermia train, so we had them quickly soaked and soaped and un-soaped and then chucked into the garden, where they camped wet and flustered, and made disgruntled attempts to shake the water off their paws.


(Note that bathing your rabbits is inadvisable. Unless dried very, very efficiently, your rabbit is more likely to stay at one corner of its cage for a few minutes, and then keel over into a salutation to the sun. By this time, grab a plastic bag.)


Now the rabbits smelled like anti-flea cat shampoo, and I know they’re not quite happy with it, proven by the couple of times I see Ms. Grey trying to rub it off onto the grass. Beats smelling like overused gloves, missy.


We don’t get a lot of sun these days, and the crappy thing is; we don’t get a lot of rain either. The weather is caught in this sort of uncertain limbo, or probably playing the game of running towards the waves and then leaping backwards when the waves lurch forward; the skies will amass an interesting ensemble of dark clouds (with the orchestral accompaniment of Thunder and Lightning), prompting the neighbours to rush out to their clothes, and then reverting back into a dull canvas of gloomy emptiness. The nights turn the house into baking oven and the mornings lack the sense of hovering chill; all you get is dry whiffs of wind and that’s it.


Isn’t it springtime somewhere?

Le festin est sur mon chemin




Les rêves des amoureux sont comm’(e) le bon vin
Ils donn(ent) de la joie ou bien du chagrin
Affaibli par la faim je suis malheureux
Volant en chemin tout ce que je peux
Car rien n’est gratuit dans la vie

L’espoir est un plat bien trop vite consommé
A sauter les repas je suis habitué
Un voleur solitaire est triste à nourrir
A un jeu si amer je n’peux réussir
Car rien n’est gratuit dans…

La vie… Jamais on ne me dira
Que la course aux étoiles; ça n’est pas pour moi
Laissez moi vous émerveiller et prendre mon en vol
Nous allons en fin nous régaler

La fêt(e) va enfin commencer
Sortez les bouteilles; finis les ennuis
Je dresse la table, de ma nouvell(e) vie
Je suis heureux à l’idée de ce nouveau destin
Une vie à me cacher et puis libre enfin
Le festin est sur mon chemin

Une vie à me cacher et puis libre enfin
Le festin est sur mon chemin

(English Translation)

Dreams are to lovers as wine is to friends
Carried through lifetimes, (and) spilled now and then
I am driven by hunger, so saddened to be
Thieving in darkness; I know you’re not pleased
But nothing worth eating is free

My hope is a banquet impatiently downed
Impossibly full, now I’ll probably drown
Many thieves’ lives are lonely with one mouth to feed
If giving means taking, I’ll never succeed
For nothing worth stealing is…

Free at last; won’t be undersold
Surviving isn’t living; won’t eat what I’m told
Let me free, I’ll astonish you; I’m planning to fly
I won’t let this party just pass me by

The banquet is now underway, so…
Bring out the bottles; a new tale has spun
In clearing this table, my new life’s begun
I am nervous, excited; (oh) just read the marquee!
A lifetime of hiding; I’m suddenly free!
My dinner is waiting for me

A lifetime of hiding; I’m suddenly free!
My dinner is waiting for me


(Thanks to the kind people of stlyrics.com for the lyrics and the delightful translation).

French is rather hard to sing; I thought I’d give it a try but pronouncing malheureux damned near sprained my tongue, so I gave up and wondered if there ever was a chance for me to say Je T’aime to someone, I would simply just mispronounce it into Jet Amy.


French; ze language of love. Paris, ze grande ville of amour. 5 years ago I was one of the three people, namely my mother and father and I, who wondered aloud as to why my brother scoured the bottom of his piggy-bank to purchase an English-French-English dictionary (pocket sized, by Oxford). This was shortly after he bought an English-Japanese-English dictionary, and we thought he was on the verge of becoming a prodigious 17 year-old who will inevitably master command of 7 languages and will be one of those people who can rescue distressed Spanish ladies asking for directions in Kuala Lumpur*.

(*It remains without doubt as one of the coolest things one person can possibly do. Being able to do so will increase your cool level notches higher. This, somehow, does not seem to work with Hakka and Sing-lish. No offence. It’s personal observation and analysis).


Till now, the reason for the French dictionary now sitting on the top of my writing table (mostly seen wedged between the Japanese dictionary and the Federal Constitution when my mother saw fit to tidy it, collecting dust lightly along the top and proudly giving people the assumption that I could speak some French, which I really don’t) still eludes us, and my brother would simply claim “I don't really know” whenever I asked.


I concluded that my brother had, among the many individuals out there immersed by the way Gomez Addams would go nuts when Morticia used French (“Ah cherie! You spoke French!”) and knowing that girls sorta reacts the same way on a vice versa scenario, thought he would benefit from the additional few vocabulary in French.


Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but the dictionary now stands gloomy and very much unused, aside from the occasions in which I saw need to know how something sounded in French (now Babelfish took over, but I still flip the book sometimes).


But French; the language and all of its articulated properties; why is it so captivating, so alluring and enticing, to be deemed as ze language of love? Is it the way it is pronounced? Does saying voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir sound more appealing than saying “You, me, bed, tonight”? Or is it the enigma of it; the mystery both heightened by its often difficult-to-fathom pronunciation and the opposites lesser knowledge upon the language (“Vous gros et paresseux re comme un porc” said Andy under the perfect cerulean skies, and Lisa sighed and said, “yes, I do.”)? Or is it stereotyping to a profoundly huge level, that French, regardless of anything, IS the language of love, brought as the gospel truth by movies and stories?


Alas, I do not know. Perhaps I with some sort of miraculous brilliance I would have studied upon it. But I would tell you that French is, undoubtedly, beautiful, but it is the sort of beauty that lies in every language spoken in the pleasure of passion and purpose. Latin, Italian, Japanese, even Hakka, all have this quality that transcends the need to understand the meaning. Think of it as orchestral music, and the melodious harmony it sprung, like rivers of abstract stories and emotions, when played right and passionately, and you don’t even need to know what makes that sound like clams dropped on one another.


(I would like to state here my believe that the most beautiful way a language could’ve been spoken, in the fashion of utter passion and desire, is the flustered ramblings of an Italian lady discovering the activities her husband did sub rosa.)


* * * * * * *


I think I’ll have to apologise for this, even if you won’t likely have read it. I think I can safely say that I am bored out of my skins.


It’s pretty annoying when in a situation where one is torn between writing for the class blog, as promised to a fellow classmate to which he replied with a Thanks, and feeling like ditching everything to play Chrono Cross. I’m not obliged to write apart from being obliged to write as some sort of practise, this being a responsibility to myself for aspiring to be a writer while not being a good one. But I would try to write and end up something nonsensical, or fiction at the closest best. Fiction which I would not think suitable to post in a class blog once deemed political blog but really a journalistic blog.


And currently the only things journalistic to me are reviews and some feature on some stupid something which significance to the world is close to zero. I feel my abilities being limited here (It’s like Spider-man in space, and webbing is useless there, man.).


Well, nothing worth eating is free.

I’m back now.

And I see no cow-related calamities, nor do I chance upon a random, unidentified body upon my doorstep, which would’ve been the doing of Mr. Moo (at any rate, even if I do find one, I wouldn’t be likely putting it up here, would I?). As far as I know no downright peculiar television broadcast went on the air, though I do know that there was a 45 minute long tech error on Astro Wah Lai Toi (which caused an outbreak unlike which I’ve seen; millions of house-cooped up housewives terrorising their family members because Dicey Business was replaced by a blue screen announcing the technical error, and I tell you, it was pandemonium).

Well, everything’s fine, and my previous post can very well be just forgotten and wiped clean like the Slate in Slater. What do you say?

Betong turned out to be an interesting trip, and possibly the quietest, most placid vacation there ever was. Where was the urgency of rushing through ever landmark before the days are up, or the worry and brain-cringing hours planning the impossible trip to eat every damn thing in town? Nope. Betong only had 3 famous landmark to visit, and food is everywhere within walking distance and we actually wanted as much time in the hotel as possible.

I didn’t really expect it, but it was a relaxation sort of trip. Wow.

I think I'll post the pics and vids up here, instead of letting it rot in my drives.

Well.

Betong, in a nutshell, is a town in the Yala Province of Thailand, smack south and just off our Perak border with the Land of Rice and Smiles. 5 hours drive from Kajang, and just 5 minutes from the Pengkalan Hulu border control booth (308m above sea level). It’s a small town, just as quaint as you might have imagined, with a few notable landmarks and the bustling air that calls Tourist Business. According to Marimari.com, the name is derived from the Malay word for Bamboo (isn’t it Buluh?). The town holds a population of about 48K people, with the majority Buddhists and Muslims.

Possibly because it’s just beyond the borders of Malaysia, pretty much everyone there can converse in Chinese (your standard Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkein and Hakka). Here’s how the town sort of looks like:

We checked in the hotel shortly before lunch, and then set off for our first meal. Beef noodles and chicken rice (if you’re not familiar with Thai chicken rice, know that the chicken there are lean and stripped of fats). And then on with some shopping. Stuff there are pretty cheap.

Soon after I found the out-of-place clock tower, rightly in the middle of town (a landmark, apparently).

Looks beautiful in the night, too.

Nearby, you find the biggest mail-box in the world. No kidding; the largest one according to Marimari.com

Giant red dildo, with yours truly beside it as comparison.

I thought it was big enough (you don’t have that much mail, do you?), and was busy wondering why it was even built in the first place when I saw this;

Holy Excrement of Heavens; this is f***ing huge!

(yours truly as comparison, now a mere speck).

This box is built in a new community centre sort of building, not yet open to the public. I guess they didn’t want someone else to take the Largest Mail-box trophy anytime soon.

This here is the where my dad calls as the Bob-Marley shop, for its huge collection of reggae stuff. They have flip knives and fedoras, dildo-shaped lighter and a large number of katanas.

Metal-cast BB guns; like the damn real things, man. Straight banned in Malaysia.

Oh, and this is where the Rastafarian Pup came from.

It may not look it, but it's a pet house

Well, after the wandering around and eating, we head back to the hotel for a nap… supposedly, until my dad decided the day is too long to waste and took me and the brother for some Thai massage.

I can describe it simply as F**K-SHIT Motherfuking HURTS.

It hurt. Like mad. And somehow my dad can fall asleep in the process. You’re basically naked on top, wearing these pants that don’t hold and will keep falling down. They lead you to this room, turn down the lighting, and let you listen to some soothing music (I recognised them as simple, orchestral pieces from famous songs, notably Killing me Softly, Raindrops keep fallin on my Head and Song Sung Blue). Then they press whatever pressure points they’re taught to press, and at first it was pretty alright, until suddenly oh damn-shit they’re NOT doing that and you wanted to scream, you really wanted to, but you got your pride to care for, and then they started twisting the limbs in odd directions to stretch and to crick and oh god no, no, DAMN SHIT IT HURTS!

(and they press, sometimes, a little too close to the crotch area to be comfortable).

Well, at the end of it, I was glad it was over. And you might be either like my bro, who swore it off forever and ever and ever, or you could be like me who somehow felt really, really good after it.

It’s fun. But freaking hurts. Sometimes things go two and two.

Then back to the hotel. Then rest. Then dinner (BBQ seafood and authentic tom yam), then sleep.

The next day was properly planned out. First we go eat, and then we go to the hot springs before the weather got too hot to enjoy it.

The place had been built nicely; there’s the main part where the spring is, which they flowed the water into a separate pool to cool it down (too crazy hot on the spring itself). They had some dragon thingies to decorate the place too.

And here’s the centre of the spring, where you can pop eggs in and get them boiled in 7 minutes. Everything there smelled like eggs. It’s something to do with sulphur.

After soaking in for a few minutes, we left the springs and headed for the Piyamit Tunnels, but not before stopping to take a look at these pagodas, built as a resting spot for tourists. They have the statues of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals built in front of them.

There’s the view of the valley the pagodas overlook; beautiful (but ruined by my shots).

And then, to the Piyamit Tunnels!

On the top should be the village the commies built after surviving the bombings. The place is surrounded by properly cared foliage and marble statues. There’s a nice Kuan Yin statue near the entrance.

The plate says for itself.

We’re charged a small entrance fee, and off we hiked to the tunnels. It’s a little way uphill in the jungle. Here’s the hike up. You’ll forgive my family banter and my less than orthodox narration.

And soon enough we’re at the tunnels. There was an uncle who gave a brief explanation of the tunnels, which is the same story they gave at the entrance. I decided that the tunnel is too dark to be photographed in, so I took a video. Once again, forgive my crappy narration and the odd family moments.

The millipede is HUGE.

After the tunnels, we’re whisked into a small museum exhibiting the stuff and events concerning said tunnel. Photography is strictly prohibited inside, but there's virtually nothing inside downright interesting. Educational, yes.

And then, that was it. The end. We’ve went through all the landmarks and it wasn’t even noon yet of Day 2.

We went back to eat, then to rest up in the hotel until dinner, and we camped in the hotel until daybreak (everyone was strangely tired, after the hiking and shopping).

And come 10 a.m. the next day, we were already heading home.

I’ll be going away for a bit.

To Santa Monica, to St. Andrews, Sans Francisco and Honolulu.
For the little sun that goes unseen
Right where the beauties’ been
For the sight of sound, the sound of sin


All rolled up into a humble place called Betong. The one is Southern Thailand, by the way, and has nothing to do with the Pahang place of the same (or possibly just similar) name.
Just for a short trip, with the family (the parents and the bro, and oh, wouldn’t it be smashing…), and Betong’s not short on the sights as well as the fun, apparently. I’ll post about it after I get back on Saturday night.


(I’m pretty sure I’ll be back. I doubt this is a trip to sell able bodies in Thailand as a means to support my family’s clandestine activities -- which mean that I will never possibly know of it, and seeing my bulk would make for a very good sub rosa trade to cannibals of the Wakka Wakka Islands.)


I’m optimistic.


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


There was once this girl, who found herself in mud.


She realised, soon enough, that mud is a terrible place to be in; it stank, for one, and it is gruellingly sickening to sit knee-high in muck, with the cold pressing onto her, constricting. It was humiliating, it was lonely, and it was painful, at times, when she wondered how it was like before the mud and the muck, when it was green grasses and meadows and the promise of eternal spring. The oaths, given beneath the moonlight, swore under the presence of the stars and the nightly wind.


The worst of all was the feeling of sinking in. Of falling deeper into the ever convulsing mud.
There were hands that came, to pull her out. Ropes and sticks and four-wheel drive wenches at points, which she would grab on, hoping that they would pull her away from the mud, and farther away from the meadows before, into someplace new and fresh; a village, perhaps, where she might start anew, with a flower shop at the beside the clinic, exhibiting fresh flowers daily on porcelain china propped at the front of the shop, under a homely sign promising the freshest and loveliest. And people will stop by buying flowers, praising them as they go, or simply just to bid good morning as they passed. A new start to a new, unknown, but certainly better life.


She would hope and wish, and she would let go and fall back into the mud, because she still wishes for the meadows before it, and in the mud by the roadside was where she could see it best.


And she wallowed. She cried. She sank deeper, lamenting, hoping and not knowing whether she would wait or take what that is given; wait, for the hand to take her back to the meadows, or take the hands that offered to help her to the village.


At one point she was too deep, and she was scared. But she wanted the meadow more than the village.


She wallowed. And I think she is still there, sitting in the mud, crying when the cold and the stagnation and the stench closed her lungs and squeezed her throat, or when the night proved too reminiscent an experience, with the stars and the moon, retelling her the stories about the great green meadow, the promises and oath, so that she remembered and wept. I think she still takes a hand sometimes, letting herself being hauled closer to her feet, closer to dry ground, telling her that the village welcomes her, if she would just come. And she would let go and fall, too afraid to lose sight of the meadow.


A long time ago I saw this girl, and I asked if she would like to go to the village, but her voice told me that I understood too little to empathise, and that the mud wasn’t such a bad place to be, so long the meadow remained a canvas close enough to feel and smell.


And I told her; wouldn’t it sound ridiculous, when I told you, that something living -- even an animal, to say the least -- would know when to get away when being trapped too long in a state of torment?


Isn’t it basic instinct?


And she said I wouldn’t understand. I’ve never seen the meadow.


And I thought; yes, perhaps, until I’ve seen the meadow, and know what’s it like to make an oath and found it shattered one day, to find myself in the mud, I would see to myself if the mud is worth staying in for the meadow. And then, perhaps, if I may know enough to stand up and walk away, I might just return here and tell you about it.


I might just ask if you would need help to get up.


And I walked away.


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


In my absence from the net for these 3 days, do take notice on a few things;


1) If a new post were to appear here during this period, and contains something about World Domination and the Salvation of Cow-kind, please know that it is written and published by an enigmatic figure known as The Cow. I don’t know this person or thing, but I know who to blame when something unwanted is posted here during these 3 days.


2) If my MSN goes online and starts spreading messages about World Domination and the Salvation of Cow-kind; What and How to Act According to the Decree of Cow-hood, please know that I have nothing to do with it and they’re probably a spam virus thing, which I will deal with when I get back.


3) If you receive a phone call by a person claiming to be me, and promptly invites you to the Meeting of Bovine Minds, DO NOT AGREE OR ACTUALLY -- IN A CASE OF UTTER AMAZINGNESS -- ATTEND THE THING. If you do, you will be trapped in a cellar for a week and then used as an experiment to better understand the human anatomy. Trust me, I know. I may not be subject to it, but I KNOW.


4) If you dropped by my house and is invited in by a butler, who is very big and fat and walks oddly, as though not used to moving on two legs, and has a coat of white with black spots (patches), who speaks in a Swiss accent and has a tendency to go Moo sometimes, who identifies himself as Mr. Moo, DO NOT ENTER THE HOUSE. Just leave and call me when I get back. I don’t have a butler.


5) There might just be a chance that national TV (like RTM1 and RTM2, TV3 perhaps, but definitely not on Astro) will broadcast a special announcement saying that the world is considerably f***ed up and that humankind is to go bye bye, for the Time of the Cows have Arrived, do not take it seriously and just go to sleep. But if somehow, and just damn somehow, you wake up and see the streets overrun with Cows and Buffaloes and maybe even Goats stamping on people and gutting everyone with a special Gutting gun, please run. As far as you can. I will deal with it when I get back. Don’t call the military or the police or the U.N. Just run.


Well, that’s that about it. Take care ya’ll


Goodnight people!

Heroics.



Score from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (the one everyone skimped on, even with Brad Pitt leading the vocal frontline, causing the Hollywood directors to yell, as though the day of reckoning is upon us all; “Traditional animation is doomed, I tell ya! Doomed!”)

*Composed by Harry Gregson-Williams*

I should be asleep, really. But I’m not going to. Instead, I’ll floor this post with movie scores, just because I feel like it.



The theme to Back to the Future, composed by Alan Silvestri.



The Godfather Theme, by Nino Rota.



John William’s Battle of Heroes.

And while we’re on Star Wars;



The real battle was fought with sticks with Shrimp/Peanuts tied to the end of it, by the way.


Goodnight, people.

Redundancy.

Put a door at someplace that don’t need one.

Can’t think of a place? Perhaps you can take heed and straddle off with these few examples first:


Put a door on your roof.

Put a door on the Karak Highway.

Put a door that opens to a door that opens to an elevator with only one floor button (13) and when you press it the cable snaps and A Whole New World plays on the speakers.

Put a door in the Hulk’s room.

Put a door in a monorail train with the ‘W.C’ label, that opens to nothing.

I think you pretty much get the general idea.

Good ideas, non? Imagine the utter confusion it would cause. An old hobo walks out to the middle of the Karak Highway, and opens the door into a oncoming 16-wheeler (not that we have many of them there). He sees blinding light, and that’s all he will remember.

The point to all this? I’m afraid it’s merely to place my opinion (or rant, if you may) in regards of my dad who, somehow, in spite of all possible explanations except for pure having-nothing-to-do, saw fit to install a door smack between the garden and the new, expanded porch.

Before you start getting impressions of a 7-foot mahogany double-door with brass handles, let me first inform you that it is merely one of them bar-counter doors that opens and flaps back with ease (my father refers to them as ‘cowboy doors’; the ones that open into western saloons and clatter back into place after someone walks through it, which I think is for the ease of the excessively drunk). It is now installed on one of the metal bars that hold the canopy and flaps out into the garden.

Sounds sensible, yes, if we have a wall that specifically would spell “Door here, please”, or even a proper picket fence. What we have is flowers and pots and plastic flower-bed Just Stick it on the Ground and It’ll Look Like you’ve Built It mini fences.

That said, the door now stands so out of place I wouldn’t be more surprised with one on the Karak Way.

I looked at it this afternoon and realised that it’s not really a sore to the eye; it’s just out of place. Not door-on-the-roof out of place, which is downright bizarre. Just… weird. Needless. Yes, that seems to sum it out right.

I believed my father thought it as a means to successfully keep the dogs away from the garden or vice versa, but the dogs have worked it out now and the father is… well, just passive about it.
I just think that it’s uselessly there, like a door to a door to an elevator express to death. Just give me a hole with no “Beware! Hole ahead” sign, and I will gladly (accidentally) fall into it.

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

I’m bored.

(This is holiday boredom, by the way, and not to be associated with other forms of boredom that are inexplicably and inevitably existent in everything else).

Somehow this shouldn’t be, because I have the stack of books I got from the Book Fair Thing that still sits on my table, staring at me glumly and catching dust quick. I haven’t gotten to the rest of them because Danse Macabre proved to be a long read, and somehow I don’t want to start on something else until I’ve finished it.

I also have Chrono Cross on the laptop (EPSXE emulated, with the complete two-disc ISOs), which I know I can get lost into for hours on end. And Tekken 5 is fun fun fun.

Across the Universe is still in the laptop, which I haven’t gotten to watch while at work, and now still haven’t gotten to watch yet. There’s that huge pile of DVDs in the living room cabinet and I might just actually watch the entire Heroes season 1 on DVD.

So why am I bored? What unexplained, incomprehensible, illogical force is holding me into this stagnating and dourly unmoving limbo?

Great skies above! Give me an answer!

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m innately one who seeks the boredom, because being stoned by inactivity is in itself a form of unrequited pleasure, refined, possibly, by dancing away from the other temptations that bid themselves as ‘cures’ for it. That’s right, like a strip tease or a carrot dangling on a pole; pleasures heightened by refraining from it, kept at a distance not too far to whiff but not too near to taste.
Or maybe I’m just being stupid.

The Day Something Bad I Ate Turned into A Swirling World of Crazy that Almost Led to a Puke-Fest.

That was Tuesday, and the food in question was Maggi Mini in a cup. After regurgitating it into the toilet sink, the world was spinning as though I just got out of a carousel after three hours, and it even spun while I closed my eyes. Somehow I managed to tell the people I was chatting with online that I needed to go, and fell asleep until 7.

And then the mother came and woke me up, insisted that I ate plain porridge for dinner (with canned Fried Mackerel and Black beans, so I didn’t protest) and then go rest up. I was pretty alright after that; everything was still tilting from time to time, and when I walked I was pretty sure I was swaggering (“Yarr… is it the boat, or the rum?”). I felt like puking sometimes, but heck; puking takes the worst out of me, so I held it back by eating mango (it helps, really, especially if it's sour).

Somehow I managed to type down a huge remainder of my final report, the ones I left out of procrastination and a stalemate battle between Do or Do the Tekken. The next morning I rushed out the parts that I left purportedly, edited it quickly, printed it out with the appendix and then flew down to PJ to hand it up. All done without breaks; I was still pretty proud of myself, until it happened to me that I could’ve avoided this and gotten it done last Friday.

Well, done is done, and now the swirling has ended and I’ve safely discarded the other packets of the Maggi Mini. I’m free and nothing else should be bothering me unless I saw myself to be bothered.

In all the mess, I even forgot to wish Vic Happy Birthday on Tuesday. Happy Birthday!

(You’ll forgive a friend who had a final report to rush and a massive headache to boot due to some instant noodles, thus forgetting to wish you, would you, Vic? Non? Please?)

(Please?)

(Please? =P)

(Thanks for this pic by the way =P)

Ah, as they say, freedom is felt by the sense of weightlessness on your shoulder, as though the strains of gravity and the worldly power of depression is vanquished by the heavenly wings that spout from your back, bearing you into (temporary) bliss. And somewhere in the clouds, the air with fill your lungs with sweet, Soda Pop tangs and momentarily the angel harp will play in serenading harmony. Oh, Bohemia!

Yeah, well, freedom is dependant, obviously, on the state of what you have just escaped. For me, and for this moment, it just meant that I have more time for myself. And time is all that I need.
I think I’ve had the holidays planned out well enough; I have days for complete leisure, days to take care of some unfinished business and days reserved for freelancing gigs and unplanned family thingies. Ah, there’re a few days, perhaps, for some planned family thingies, which should involve going for a short vacation, and heaven knows we all need that to clear our systems.

Something brighter looms ahead, and being just the good shipmate on board, I steer right towards it.

Water in the watering can; “I’ve made life easier for you…”

My dad can be both ironic and unknowingly hypocritical.


He made me break my back Thursday morning until afternoon, helping him with the plethora of chores that involves the massive pile of animals he had decided, many years ago, to share residence in our humble abode as means of promoting responsibility and a sensation of Zen. It pretty much made my life crappy and burdened with irrelevant workload and worries.


The Rastafarian Pup bathed, the aquariums washed and the turtles fed later, I moved to refilling the rabbit’s water-bottles. Unknowing to me, he had actually placed a watering can full with water near the cage, for me to fill the bottles with.


I didn’t notice, of course, and when he saw me heading (trudging) towards the pipes, he said to me; “There’s water in the watering can. I’ve filled it for you.”


“Oh,” I said, and walked back to the cages.


“I made life easier for you. What do you think I’d do?”


“Ah.”


I was crouching on the ground, refilling the bottles, when it hit me like the boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I laughed grimly, flushing away the rabbit droppings.


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


A note to all:


If you’ve heard about the infamous Orson Wells War of the Worlds radio broadcast that caused nationwide mayhem because people actually believed martians were invading with heat rays and tripods, it’s now available for you to listen.


Part one of the broadcast is here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4wf5TPVz56A. You can find the remainder of it there as well.


One part of Stephen King’s Danse Macabre (a study of the horror fiction genre by the King of macabre himself) talked about horror on the radio. He harkened back to the time where radio drama was just as staple as Heroes and Desperate Housewives are to us; a fusion of dialogue and narration (by 1950’s radio spokespersons, which can say “Ladies and Gentlemen, we interrupt this broadcast to bring you…” in such perfection you wonder what evolutionary pandemic had caused our voices to degrade) that played on our imagination, giving us the canvas to draw on rather than a full picture.


I’ve read that part, which has Arch Oboler and Orson Wells and some interesting measures of horror voices and sound effects can give you, and went to try the vast ocean of Youtube for some samplings. I wasn’t disappointed.


Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds, I’d say, is ingenious. The things they can do before the tube of images and sounds turned into imagination itself.

73 Days Later…

And I was liberated.

But liberation, I believe, depends on how you look at it; three months and a half had been both long and brief, but after the liberation -- the act of walking past the prison gates, towards the waiting car, nary a look backwards -- it is back to the old humdrum monotony of having nothing else to do.

I don’t have to go to work now, I tell myself in the morning (not yet anyway, not until I’ve graduated and got lucky). I have to wake up and do the chores and make sure that the pets don’t die. That, coupled with afternoons with nothing to do but Tekken (fun, but short-lived fun), it’s just like getting out of prison and going back to the drug-infested alleys.

But still, because I don’t have to rot in the office, as opposed to having to rot at home with all of its humble comforts, things are definitely better. *Confetti!*

The internship has ended. I only have a report left to finish, which I haven’t started

(recuperation is a delicate matter), and after that I shouldn’t be pestered by things that I do not deliberately pester myself with.

I looked back, as usually as one might, and I think I remember the past three months half as something of a mixed nuts. I didn’t hate it, but I never liked it. I’m grateful I landed there, perplexed and disorganised, but safe, and yet I’m disgruntled that I was involuntarily kept away from knowing what being unsafe meant. I remembered little, forgotten too much (rotting for a good month or so can do that), and found things to be new and fresh but utterly monochrome and dull.

It’s a like a movie with the good and bad bits blended, turning into a multi-coloured slush of so-so tasting slurpy.

Still, when I left the office Wednesday evening, I don’t find myself looking back. I may be back, though, but that’s for the future to show.

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

Oh baby… baby!

I was having dinner with the mother last Friday, and just as the bill was safely settled my mother’s phone rang.

It was a call from the grandparents, down in Johor for some babysitting. They had called to mom that Aunt Shirley (or Aunt Five) was in the hospital. She went in for a bout of food poisoning, but what the doctored discovered during the check-up was the she was a month pregnant.

We drove to the hospital in relative silence, discussing only a little, and mostly this was because I was pretty much occupied with my thoughts, and I could tell that mom was, too. I was sitting in a mish-mash puddle of anxiety, and -- what I remembered repeating to myself during the journey home -- a sense of childish excitement.

The aunt is fine, now resting at home. Come December or next January, she would be having her baby.

A baby!

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

What I have gotten myself during The Book Fair thing:

And the titles, from bottom to top, are:

Danse Macabre and Cujo by Stephen King (both in their 1993 publication covers by Warner Books, which feature a lot of red and a picture of the King at the spine and the back of the book).

Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub. I wonder how two horror-filled heads are better than one.

The Naked Face and Morning, Noon & Night by Sidney Sheldon, which is in the same cover collection as my copy of Best Laid Plans.

The Chamber by John Grisham, which looks sparkling brand new, as well as Skipping Christmas, which is hard-cover.

Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Michael Crichton; I’ve watched both movies and I hear the booka are completely different.

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, which I’ve read and loved and now turned into a fan.

And finally, Galilee by Clive Barker. This is about the only paperback of his I’ve seen which doesn’t price above 50 bucks (well, I found this in the bargain bin, but I assume that it’s the sort of paperback that you can find for about RM35).

(Propped on top of them is my Alkem Cap, and below is my Capstone Books malleable star).

I’ve also bought two non-fiction books as gifts for my dad, and they are 45 Years Under the ISA by Koh Swe Yong and Merdeka!: British Rule and the Struggle for Independence in Malaya 1945-1957 by Khong Kim Hoong.

All of them tally to RM195; the most I’ve ever spent on books, and the best I’ve ever spent.