You gotta try doing it half-drunk, for once.

I’m feeling rather light headed now; put me at the edge of something and I’d tip over, laughing and saying Oops. It’s thanks to the alcohol I was forced to drink earlier, at Mekz’s place, at small-esque party meant for someone that couldn’t make it (Bryan, who had the misfortune of catching food poisoning on his birthday. I’ve toasted for his health, twice).

Well, it was either I take the booze (Smirnoff or Mich’s Special Brew) or drink something nasty Mekz blended into juice. I’ll try to name the ingredients; bell peppers, cili padi, wasabi, bitter gourd, coriander, strawberry syrup and a whole bunch of other things; it tasted rather similarly to Coca’s steamboat chilli sauce, only that the taste lingers in your mouth and throat, and after the first time, I realised that if I drink it again I’d puke.

So I chose booze. Mostly. I drank them when I lose in the games we played. It’s not enough to get me drunk, but I’m feeling woozy and tipsy and since, as they say, among scholars even, that legendary writers of old like Shakespeare himself, wrote under the influence of alcohol/drugs, so I thought I’d give it a try, and see what comes out.

I’ll leave you to decide if it’s any different, for better or worse.

Now, today was a fun day. I drove down to Sunway Pyramid, and we ice skated until we grew tired and hungry. Pauline, the first timer, was improvingly very quickly. I was getting worse, but at least I didn’t fall as much. Haha. After that we had chicken and takoyaki for lunch, and after that dessert in BerryYogurt or YogurtBerry or whatever you call it.

Then the dinner, in which we played Guessture and Black Jack, the penalty being booze or the nasty stuff.

Gah, the aftertaste of it… thankfully, I’m not as red as I was afraid I’d be; the parents didn’t notice anything when I got home. If they had, I’d say I had wine as a toast and pray that I pass any drunken tests (which I may, considering that I can still write).

If anything else, I’m feeling rather sleepy right now. But I have this urge to stay up late, and then sneak into the kitchen and cook myself some Maggi.

Maybe I’ll do it.

Maybe I will.

Filled with fish-bonding, and thoughts of oddities.

It’s strange, and -- when I gave it some thought -- hypocritical, even.

The father was away on outstation, and on the night before he left, shortly after I made him iced coffee, he looked into my eyes and said;

“Take care of the fishes while I’m away. And water the plants, or they’ll go chao tarr.”

I nodded, taking note that he placed the fishes’ importance over the plants, for my mental hierarchical chart of Things to Do and Bloody Hell Done Right.

“Feed them every 2 days, and clean out the turtles’ and the big pot.” I nodded, adding side- notes and making a huge circle over “Turtles, and Big Pot”. Then I spent the next couple of second trying to look like I’ll get it done, truth to honest, honest to good; because the father seemed to be rather ponderous and, in another perspective, especially mine, terrifying. I retreated to the room, and stamped a red URGENT sign over the mental chart.

Dad probably spent both flights composing and rehearsing the things to say to me should I fail. I don’t assume it; I feel it like the strands at the back of my neck, prickling over some invisible apparition (Tingling! Tingling!).

I think I did a good job, as far as my other jobs are concerned.

The thing is, it’s rather leisurely if I did all the feeding and cleaning and water-refilling without the father perpetually looking over the shoulder, barking tips and orders and insults (a rather common, and already stale, occurrence); in fact, getting it done over music and a peculiar affinity to scare the fishes silly, makes it rather nice.

I named the alligator gar Gary.

The goldfish in the fountain pot, I named him Fugly.

The turtles are now named Leo and Raph.

Feeding Gary is like watching National Geographic. You can even add your Steve Irwin voice-overs.

Look at her, what a beauty! And here she comes, eyeing the small little fishes, and WHACK! Look at the size of that mouth. And the teeth; see how she grabs and BANG! Fishies’ a goner.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Given the chance, I’d rid of the fishes and the turtles in a flash. Pour them down the drain or see them swim in a pot over a nice fire. Maybe I’ll keep Gary, but just so I can see him feed over the smaller fishes. But still, I see the appeal; if I’ll ever live to become old and lonely, routinely feeding fishes and occasionally cleaning them out (over music) can be very relaxing.

(I doubt my dad will appear and nag me behind the ear, and say how I never remember the positions of the aquarium decors).

********

Like the fantasies I told, I always thought you’d be a dreamer.

You’d dream and believe and persevere, when the world turned desolate, left you alone, tell you lies and truths and stories about ‘reality’.

Thinking back, weren’t you one? A dreamer. A sailor on a solitary yacht, with a sail as large as imagination, heading into that horizon believing in treasures and sea monsters. Adventure and friendship. Love.

But I guess the world caught up. I guess there’s no good running, really. It always catches you.

I wonder what really happened.

I wonder what you made happened.

But I guess, in truth, I just wanted to know what you’re feeling. Pain? Anguish? Hurt?

Loneliness?

What happened was, I stopped assuming. I’d wonder, but never assume. I’d imagine if it was true; I guess that’s what you call empathy. But I’d stop, because that’s not knowing. That’s just standing and watching at a distant, seeing things as a dot. What moves or didn’t, I wouldn’t know.

I don’t think I’ll ask.

I don’t think I’ll dare.

The most I’ll do is wish you luck. Pray that you’ll be fine. Which you will be, surely, knowing you to that extent.

Maybe I’ll hope you’ll become a dreamer. If you were ever one, perhaps you’ll be.

Maybe I’ll say hi one day.

Right-o.

I’m having trouble starting this post. Somehow it felt that the course of this exam took away whatever little writing prowess that I own, and spread it around a Pacman maze waiting for me to avoid ghosts and try to gobble it up (pardon the odd analogy, but of everything going around my head now, it felt closest to that).

I don’t think I can call it writer’s block. Felt more like wading through scrambled eggs looking for egg shells than trying to climb an impenetrable wall, if it makes sense to you.

Well then, now to the usual update of events;

The exams are over, and while I’m nor particularly free or feeling as light as cotton candy puffs (final year project, beckoning, beckoning), still meant that between the guilt and work I have more time to game. And I have Assassin’s Creed, Devil May Cry 4, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and a second Kingdom Hearts 2 play-through to keep me occupied, not accounting possible new games.

It’s probably high time I start reading the bunch of novels I got during the Book Fair thing; I’ve only finished four, and perhaps I should hold buying The Graveyard Book (Gaiman) until I finish Galilee (Barker).

Speaking of books, my Kinokuniya RM10 coupon only have 10 days left of validity. I’m thinking of getting Elizabeth Bear, just for the heck of it, or perhaps Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Any suggestions? (Airman by Eoin Colfer also looks mighty tempting, if not the for crazy 50 bucks price tag).

(A Tom Holt might be nice, for a change.)

(And lets not forget the great Terry Pratchett).

(Gah damn so many damn choices).

*****

Yeah, well, it’s the start of sem break.

The first thing I got around to do was to convince my dad I didn’t need a vacation and it wouldn’t help to bring me down to Laos for a 5 day trip; on the contrary, it’s best that he leaves me alone so that I can camp in my room gaming and writing and movie watching until I go blind. It’ll also be nice if I get to go out once in a while, for a movie or for lunch with the gang.

I’m well aware that this sem break wouldn’t rightly be a break; there’s the FYP to worry about, and because I’m starting to drive down to uni now I think I should try freelancing, wherever I can find them.

(And I’m rightly the type that wouldn’t want to be introduced in by a friend, because I believe that if I get accepted or hired or whatever you call it, it should be based on the quality of my work, of which they should judge and decide).

(That’s probably my ego speaking. Gee, he’s been dormant for quite some time.)

What’s left now is the initiative to start, and knowing me, the initiative is probably as faulty and useless as a 1940 ‘Thunder-luck’ truck left to rust in a field.

And maybe I should start picking up basketball or badminton again; it felt like it was a century ago since I played something.

****

Ah, part of the bunch of things I looked up to distract myself while cramming for the exams;



CalArts looks like a really nice institution...



(Just to see how many people get amused by it. Oh, do check it out on Newgrounds, for better quality).

And lastly



Because it looks like a Gorillaz MTV.

Oddly, insomniac.

Which isn’t to do with the exams, or so I assured myself (the possibility of it is, well, impossible), and certainly didn’t have to do with a whole bunch of unwanted thoughts that haunt in the middle of the night.

I just couldn’t sleep, no matter how tired.

But if there’s something good out of it, I’d say is that, somehow, it gave me dreams that are both vivid and strangely intriguing. Dreams which I wake up from, waiting to disperse and make sense, and then quietly “Huh,” at. And then I’d find myself awake sometime before the initial alarm, more sober and conscious than I’d liked.

The one I remembered most, not without its reasons, was the one two days ago. The dream had shifted from something that had to with beds and lamplights to a full-fledge murder scene. There was a dead body, and a lot of blood, and when I moved closer I realised that it was Wendy (from class) lying face down in her own puddle of crimson plasma.

I think I went, oh shit. Then someone spoke to me.

“Don’t pity her. Don’t pity at all.”

I’m not. “What happened?”

“Got whacked. Pissed off the wrong people. Clean and jerk. Professional.” He lit a cigarette.

“Who did she piss off?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he tipped me a wink.

And then he went away.

The CSI team moved in; Kelvin was among them, and he went Haha grimly while taking the blood sample. I realised it was not my scene, and walked away. Someone passed me a towel and sat me by the ambulance, like I was a fire victim. A hot cup of chocolate was put into my hands. I didn’t remember if I had tasted it.

It was like the ending of a Die Hard movie; throngs of ambulances, police patrol cars, the red-and-blue lights dancing and intercepting each other. A medic checked my eye, asked me for my name, and then walked away sniffing. She was quite pretty. I don’t know if I’ve seen her before.

That was when the dream shifted into something else, this time to do with watching a movie. Casablanca was on. (This, here, was when I woke up).

I had thought of telling someone about it, or write it down as a story (it struck me as one that’s fun to write), but the day drove it off my mind.

And today, halfway through Newspaper Management, I imagined it as a stage musical. Starring the class. The poster of the play is titled The Blob(:Not The Horror Movie, Please).

Somehow, that amused me.

Bitter and Butter

I wonder if those two go together. Somehow, somewhere, there’s probably a Marjory and Mabel’s Bitter Butter, stacked at the supermarket refrigerator, beside the cheese and the dairy, and sales research would register that a lot of the buyers consists of little girls named Betty.

(I’m not the sanest tonight; I think lack of sleep and tiredness is accounting for some rather severe loss of rational thought and coherence. It’s probably best that you ignore this post, and go someplace more conducive, like Newgrounds, or East of the Web.)

Are there really bitter butters?

Butters, so far, are just butter to me. The only difference between them is the price that go with them, and with it probably quality in taste of which I can never truly discern (they taste the same, smell differently when put on a pan, and maybe a little different in saltiness). That, and the fact that I don’t see them any different from margarine, makes it even more evident. Nope, I just don’t taste butter. But I like them, and whatever they make with them.

So if there are really bitter butters out there, I’d like to try one. Just for the heck of it.

*****

There is a bitterness that linger in my mouth when I walk into the papers, and when I walk out the bitterness turned tart and seeped into my central nervous system, so that I lumber around and slur like goo.

Ah well, tis brought upon to myself. Talk about splashing yourself with Nippon paint while aware of the consequences, but you do it anyway because it seemed pretty artsy.

Two more papers to go; one of them I’m still unaware of what and how it will be tested, the other hopefully an easy hurdle if I take the days before it to study extensively.

Two more papers. Then I taste the beckoning freedom, and shelf it away for the sake of the FYP.

*****

My father surprised me the other day by bringing back a piece of art.

It comes in the form of a badly framed, rather flimsy looking painting depicted two half-naked women (with perfect Goddess of Venus bosoms), both of them who reminded me of Lindsay Lohan, amidst a sci-fi fantasy backdrop. The painting is very grey, rather sombre, but rather beautiful. In a mystifying way; Elegantly gloomy.

I followed a logo at the bottom corner of the painting and found that it was illustrated by Luis Royo. My father told me that his boss bought it sometime ago, in an art exhibition, for RM3000. The office was being moved, and the boss decided that the painting has to go. So the father took it home.

The next day, the father and I sat down and tried to frame the painting better (it was disdainfully held between a cardboard piece and a plastic layer, with cello-tape to hold it together) when we discovered that it’s not quite a painting, but a poster.

I wonder if it was really worth 3000 smackaroos, and if the father’s boss hadn’t got himself conned stupid.

At first we hung it at the wall facing the dining table. When I got home today, however, the painting is on the floor, leaned against the wall, and in its place was the Fortune Deity picture we had hung at the top of the front door. On top of the front door now is a wood ornament, supposedly a carving of the Qilin (or Kylin, or Kirin).

If the painting (poster) have nowhere to go, I think I might just ask if I can hang it in my room.

Ah-la-la-la

I’m feeling tired right now, and I don’t know if it’s caused by dinner or an innate self-defence mechanism that triggers when I’m supposed to study (it makes me stay away from the notes, go to happy places, do happy things, like sleep or Call of Duty or to visit old manga shelf). But it’s Creative Strategy for Advertising tomorrow, which doesn’t require me to study, only make things up as creatively as I can (oh yay ain‘t I good at it? Ain‘t I?), so I guess I’m entitled to rest a bit and allow the happy place to kick in.


Today was action packed. The exam was easy and I didn’t know how to do it, and on the way home I made three illegal U-turns and got caught in a traffic jam, in which I saw someone picking his nose. And when I got home it was late, the dad had managed most of the chores, and I actually took time and listened to the news.


News that told me that the UMNO Supreme Council had suspended Bukit Bendera division chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail for 3 years, due to his racist remarks. Good for him, but he’s not being racist; he’s just being a nationalist. What’s wrong with you people?


(Three years is also very short. Something more viable would be a lifetime ban).


I’m not very political.


It’s a staple of my father to lament my lack of insight and knowledge of the political realm, something he considers of utmost importance if I actually intend to stick to a journalistic career path.


I didn’t tell him that journalism is more than politics, nor the fact that my journalistic views does not dictate me to follow our nation’s political development with as much mileage as I can handle; journalism, for me, is getting stories and telling it as it is; truth. But yes, obviously, such responsibility shouldn’t be given to those who knew not the truth, and know little of everything else. So yes, I should, probably, get more involved in politics. But no, quite honestly, I don’t really see myself heading that way.


I don’t see myself heading anywhere, anyways. I’ve blindfolded myself, turned around three times and walk wherever my legs lead me, and if I fall into a pothole, well, I don’t think I’ll still learn anything.


But then again, walking blindly is very lonely. Fearful.


It’s also very painful.

********

Ah, this is worth noting.

Step 4 for the There She Is!! Flash animation series by SamBakZa is up. Head over here to see it: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/456643


You probably don’t know it, but There She Is! By SamBakZa is probably one of the best flash animations around. Somewhat conventional-cute, but the animation is great, and the story effectively told plainly through music, animation and emotion. Great stuff. Check out the entire series if you can. You can find all of it at http://www.newgrounds.com/

Well then. Goodnight everyone.

So, it continues like this…

The bro is now safely in the UK, possibly shivering his arse off, bless his soul. We’ve video-called him three times now and he looks dandy on the webcam, albeit, well, cold. Mom’s quickly lost her anxiety, I’m not swamped with unnecessary housework (not yet, perhaps) and my exams started off with a hail of blizzard and possibly a touch of imminent disappointment (there you go, it’s what you get if you didn’t study enough).

Life’s good. However I see it, it should probably stay as good. I’m optimistic enough.

Well, that aside, there’ll be no more stories to tell. I won’t bother going with the same-old, same-old; that’s because everything’s quite about same-old, same-old, surprisingly. Aside from the brother gone, everything seems unchanged. Probably the tricks in the bag ran out, or, as I see it, probably life just reached that pinnacle, in which I’ll walk up to and find a brick wall, a sign saying; “end of the road. Nothing else ahead.”

Fine with me, I guess.

*****

Ah, this will be the first blogpost I’ve written on this PC (hard-damn the keyboard takes getting used to). So, well, YAY!, I suppose.

A post. The sort that goes very long.


And it’s because I have a lot of things to write about, so I guess a little forewarning will be extremely helpful.


It’s also because this will be the last time I’ll be writing (typing) on this laptop; I predict that this will be the last of my using it, and whatever else that’s down the road, will come as it comes.


I guess this is the best adieu I can give it, doing what I do best, on this faithful compatriot.


Let’s hope he does well to serve his new master.


*****

I’ve noted with great disdain that my writing has taken a dip down the cesspool, so bear with me for quite a bit; as far as my consistency goes, this is the plummet in the pulsing chart that goes all the way down and down, and whatever chance to see it climb up again into the sunlight will depend on how much improvement my brain will take during what I hope to be a revitalising plan, come the next few weeks.


Well, there’s a lot to tell. To brag and to bawl, so to speak. Let’s get started, shall we?

*****

My brother is leaving for the U.K. The big United Kingdom.


He’s there to further his studies and will be back a year later, with the complete and full acknowledgement into the world of law and the practising of it (dear God doom is upon us). I’ll miss him, I guess. I really might. After I celebrate, of course. I’ve planned a quiet, personal champagne-popping event at 4 in the morning, and later in the morning I’ll go ignite the leftover fireworks.


The house will be quieter now.


He flies tomorrow night. Thursday morning, to be exact. Taking with him his luggage and this laptop here, which I tendered up for him to take over rather than get a new one. I’ve gotten Bod (Black of Death, the new PC) to fill the role of house computer, so it’s fine. And this baby here comes with a webcam and full wireless online access, so it’s everything he’ll ever need over there, food and clothing aside.


The anvil took longer to drop, but drop it did, probably way later compared to everyone else. Him leaving will be a huge change. It’ll be his longest time away from home, and I daresay mom is already at the tipping point of her anxiety; she fusses endlessly, and for the next few weeks I expect to see her walking around with a shade of worry under her eyes. She’ll be proud, but she’ll be very worried. I wonder if my brother knows that.


With him gone I’ll be around to take the full fodder of whatever the house throws at me. It means that everything, and I mean everything, is under my full care. The dogs, the rabbits, the fishes, the car, dad… I’m up against it frontally, no armours, no covers, just guts and glory and tubs of lards. Ooo-rah!


Hmm well. The moss adepts to the cold, so they say.


I wonder if my father is anxious? I wonder if he worries, let his thoughts wander in the middle of the night, traversing the small cracks of possibilities and concerns.


He’s very cool about it.


*******

My brother leaving has been a huge cause for celebrations.

So far, we’ve had three BBQ parties, two to his name and one to our aunt who takes it as another chance to celebrate with him. Everyone went up to him, bid him bon voyage, shook his hand and patted his back, questioned his plans to bring home a ‘blue-eyed blonde’ (on my grandfather’s loud prompting), handed him gifts and ang pows and advices, asked him the questions he answered to millions of times. It’s not surprising; he’s the eldest grandson on both side of the family, and he’s the first to ‘soak in the sea’s salt-water’, as the Chinese say. He’s the first to step across the pedestal, up onto that threshold that leads far far away.


There’re times people had asked me if I felt unfair that my brother is given the chance to study overseas. They asked if I’m jealous. I told them there’s no forsaken way I’d travel halfway across the world to study, not unless the study involves art and is free and takes the course of a three-week European tour. I told them the only thing I’ll be jealous about is that he gets to see Trafalgar Square before me, and he won’t take a single goddamn picture of it.


And it’s true. I don’t want to go away unless I go away to write, or backpack into the unknown with a notebook and a camera. I’ll go for an adventure. I’ll stay here if I want to study.


*******


I gave my brother a Moleskine


It’s not that I’ve given in to its marketing gimmick that went on to say that it’s used, a long time ago, by the likes of Picasso and Hemingway and Matisse. I got it because I see giving it equals the same as giving someone a silver-embossed Parker pen; it’s the symbol of growth and the ascension into the mature world. Sounds gay, inevitably, but it’s the best thing I can get for him, since pens were no longer an option (my 5th aunt beat me to it).


And the notebook’s really nice. Gives you a vibe of class and inspiration; boy, I’ll get myself one if I can help it.


Unfortunately, I won’t. But I’ll get those imitators that go for half the price.


*******


Well, I’d be lying if I said that life didn’t just revolve around my brother and the hullabaloo of flying over, but there’re snippets that still went on, quietly, at the sidelines, poking over imploringly.


The exams are near, and it’s sort of near enough to feel it burning the hairs on my arms. I’m grossly unprepared. I have time; I always have time, bearing the mark of a true procrastinator (class S = Sloth, 2nd Honours). Just not enough, I suppose, now that it’s immensely close and I haven’t done anything.


What sucks is that I promised -- swore, that I’ll ace it, months and months back, in a fit of burning inspiration. I see that inspiration taking the next plane to Cuba.


Holy crapshot doesn’t regret and anxiety burn? Ss-ah!


I realised, in a lurch of panic, that the work I’ve sent to my ex-boss might not actually have been sent, and that the true copy of it is accidentally deleted while I was transferring my documents over to the PC. I feel that I’ll be getting an SMS or an E-mail a few weeks later asking what the heck happened and if I’ve just abandoned some unfinished work. I’ll be waiting for it.


My brother had picked up Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox at Borders last week. I read it up in a day, barely leaving the room. It’s a pleasant book, nothing short of Eoin Colfer’s ingenuity, but nothing more as well. That’s the unfortunate bit about it; after what I feel was the excellent Lost Colony, Time Paradox fell short and disappointing in scope. It still makes for an enjoyable Artemis Fowl romp, though.


We won’t see another Arty Fowl for 3 years or so, so I guess there’s nothing else to wait for but Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, coming in 4 weeks time.


I was surprised when I heard of it, but I found out that Elizabeth Bear’s excellent short-story, Tideline, actually won the Hugo Awards for Best Short Story.


You can read the story here: http://www.elizabethbear.com/tideline.html


I found her novel in Kinokuniya the other day, which is a rarity. Her books aren’t very popular here, and if it wasn’t placed (rather oddly) together with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, I wouldn’t have noticed it. The novel is going for 25 bucks; I’ve got a Kino coupon for 10. That makes 15 bucks for it.


Excellent.


*********

I guess this concludes it. I expect tomorrow evening to be the last time I shut this laptop down, pack it into the bag and give it the usual dust down the top cover.


Thursday night I’ll be typing on Bod, on a keyboard which I’ll have to get used to.


I’ll be bidding farewell to the brother.


Here’s where I put up my wishes and prayers for him, and mine would go: Don’t shag the ang mohs.


I guess I really will miss him.


And to you, reader, if you’ve actually endured to this point of the post:


Goodnight.

This morning, I woke up freezing.

I had a weird dream. I don’t remember the details, but it was vivid enough to make me sleep on my hands, so I had to spend a couple of minutes flexing it to make it feel at least relatively like hands, and not tofu stuck on bones.


It was cold the way that it bites, and latches, temporarily, until you rub it off or take a few minutes under the blanket. It must’ve rained prior, else it wouldn’t be so cold.


I think I like these sort of mornings. I wake up and I feel obliged to return to my cosy bed and sleep through it; somehow it felt like the only plausible thing to do. And if I couldn’t, the cold will nag me awake and I’d feel more awake than usual, Goosebumps all around and the stubborn tingle down the spine.


The cold stayed the whole day, and by evening it ten-folded and turned into rain, one that stayed into the night and would probably remain a drizzle till morning.


I said today that I’d it like to rain. I regret it now.


It probably shouldn’t have rained. But it would, and it did, because it’s that time of the year. It’s that season, and it’s that rain that comes after a long bout of dry days fraught with the hottest sun. I guess I could say that it’s inevitable. But I reserve the right to say that it shouldn’t, and I say that yes, it probably shouldn’t have rained. It should be done with after the morning chill and yesterday’s torrent and as the right equivalent balance this evening should be dry and warm with a touch of wind. And in that way, I’m being childish.


But that’s the way of the world; when it folds on you, the only way to fight back is to demand that what happened shouldn’t have happened. It’s a lost fight, but as fights can sometimes do, it may make you feel better. I guess it’s a consolation, somewhat, that sometimes after a fight you sit down and you cry, you bawl perhaps and shout, but at the end you tell yourself you lost, and it’s ok, really. It’s ok. You didn’t make it lose. You simply got bested.


It probably never worked like this. It probably worked differently and harder than this, maybe. I wouldn’t know. I’ll find out eventually, and that’s the sort of bridge you cross when you come to it.


I can only imagine, and what I’m imagining now, is that it worked that way, only that it’s real, and really, really painful.


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


I don’t know what I’m writing. I was hoping that it’d reflect of what I felt after receiving some rather sad news, but the way I see it, it’s a hazy mirror behind a fog.


I’ll keep it at that, and I’ll keep it here, so perhaps one day I’d come about and get reminded of it. And then maybe it’ll make more sense than it does now.


And for now, I’ll go to sleep.

Two round things, and lines.

I’m still amazed, roughly 48 hours later, of what Wall-E did and still could do.

It’s an amazing movie. It’s the perfect amalgamation of the simplest and best of storytelling, of presenting visuals and music and sound and emotions, and at the of it even manages to throw a few rather serious matters into our faces (a world we can destroy so easily is one, overtly obese and hover-chair reliant humans are another).

But what got me the most is how utterly astounding it is to stoke the heart, evoke comfort and love and sadness, with just two coloured lights for eyes, a heart-wrenching “No..No..”, and a small gesture of hand.

That, I think, is the biggest achievement in animation history.

Bravo, Pixar, and Thank You.

******

I hope I’m not hyping it up too much.

But I feel that Wall-E had tapped on both the epitome and the deepest root in animation; if you can remember what Disney used to be able to do, then you’ll understand what I mean. For that reason itself, I can say that Wall-E is one of the greatest animated movies ever made.

(I’m not going to go into the other parts of the movie, namely the visuals and the music and the utter cuteness of most everything, because if you read just about any other movie review about it, professional or not, they’ve practically touched on it enough to wrinkle it and make it shrivel.)

It’s just a movie, and I think to some it’s probably nothing special, but how I see it, we’ve all forgotten how easy it was to be touched and transported by a simple movie of simple proportions.

Right, that’s about it. I’ve talked enough about Wall-E and if I start talking again I’ll be writing a thesis on it.

I find it peculiar. Curious, and somewhat precarious, but in a sense that I cannot place.


I don’t know why I think about it, anyhow.


I wonder, sometimes. I harbour a sense of unwonted romanticism and let myself be harkened back, unnecessarily, to that time where I made what I feel was the wrong choices, thronged with the what ifs and whys and come what mays that sat there smoking cigarettes and glare at you distinctly, harpies of the bygone memories.


I always think it’s stupid, but I always do it. I guess you can say that I can’t help it, and in that sense I’m hypocritical; I always believe that we can pull away from the mud and the muck, and go ahead. But still, there’re stains that never go.


So I guess it’s all that pondering that made me stand where I stand now, feeling weird and stupid about it, watching revelations after revelations tumble-weed down and away and thinking, man, isn’t this really odd? Ever asked yourself if things had happened differently and why the painting never materialised?


And then, I thought, the painting had always been romantic. Optimistic. Happy ending happy beginnings, you know? Not reality. No surprises. Surprised me, still.


I know it doesn’t make sense. Nothing ever will, not even to me. You’ll do better ignoring it. I do, too.


But still…


I find it peculiar.


I find it fascinating.

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

CSA. Is. Done.

*Confetti!*


I had worried over it. I had dreaded it like I’ve dreaded it like I’ve dreaded dad after I accidentally broke his favourite teapot. Now it’s done, perhaps not very well or very satisfying, but it’s done and done and to hell with it, good riddance, sayonara sucker and bye bye babalu, it’s been a pleasure, yes sir-ree.


Now, to Media Ethics, Media Planning, BEC, Newspaper Management x2...


You don’t get a more hectic end-of-semester assignments rush.


I’ve been slaving ahead with the Creative Strategy Advertising assignments to the point I had to disregard everything else. We were largely behind schedule, rather messed up, confused and mostly up to our necks with other assignments.


Somehow we pulled through, I guess, as best as we could. At least it was considered so-so and not bad in general.


I can breathe easier, at least.


Nothing new lately; I vaguely remember classes anymore because I either spend my time spaced out trying to figure out better ad executions (not much different of an act as compared to daydreaming; largely imaginative) or trying to doodle myself into sense (which is like doodling normally, only that I do it in a notebook instead of the table).


I play a lot of cards lately, too. Somehow I managed to.


Roughly two weeks or so before the exams arrive. Dear god, I still don’t know half of what that’s taught in class.

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

I called it a dynamic storyboard; I recalled unused Ratatouille storyboards that the developers bundled into the DVD release, which is sort of a pseudo-animation thing with actual music and voice acting, and in a desperate bid in trying to make a better presentation for CSA, churned this thing out;




It’s largely experimental; I spent an entire evening figuring it out while doing the chores. It’s simple, really. And it took 8 hours, mostly because I had to draw the slides with the mouse.


(I kick myself every time when I think about it; this is unnecessary work brought upon to myself by myself.)


No more. Not for last-ditch assignment situations, at least.

Teru no Uta




From Studio Ghibli's Tales From Earthsea (Gedo Senki), Goro Miyazaki's directorial debut and arguably weakest Ghibli movie produced.

The song is performed by Aoi Teshima, who voiced Therru (Teru) in the movie. You can check out the scene here, too.

Cheers

“No, no, I beg to differ, quite honestly; I don’t believe that cheesecakes are it. Black Forest… now, that’s the sweet stuff,” she said.

“Someone told me that it was the cheesecakes,” I said.

She shook her head histrionically, her tomboyish hair tossed around like a weird variation of a shampoo commercial.

“Cheesecakes are cheesy. You need… exquisiteness. You need… subtle, sublime charm. Passion. Mystery.” She smacked her lips.

“It’s just a cake,” I said.

She winked. “A cake to go somewhere. Think about it.”

And then she was a fisherman tossing the day’s catch into a wicker basket, yelling “4 KILOS!”. And after that, she was gone.

* * * * * *

My dream didn’t go exactly like that. It’s roughly like that, and I can only say roughly, because it’s a dream (my dreams are the type that are built like film reel badly edited and horribly cut; it jumps and stutters and most of the time the sound is out of sync), but I did remember that I was talked to about Black Forest cakes.


(I am also pretty sure the fisherman yelled 4 KILOS, but it might’ve been mandarin sounding like that. It might’ve even be German.)


This harkened back to a long, long time ago to that dream where a girl told me about cheesecakes. I think I might’ve written it down somewhere, but I forgot. It was the weirdest dream I ever had (this also accounting the other scenes the dream jumped into, one of them about ghosts and a frying wok), and I sort of forgot what the cheesecake was all about. I don’t know if anyone can remind me.


It’s funny when I dream about cakes. I don’t like cakes.


I do, however, to a certain degree, enjoy Black Forest cakes.


**********


Now, yesterday was a peculiar day.


You see, I woke up at 9.45 or so, and the first thing that struck me was that I was late for class. The second thing was the fact that both my father and my brother had left for work and outing respectively, and I was literally stuck home with no transportation and no company. I third thing was the several trucks rumbling into the front of my house, most of them with ladders and men, one of them a large wooden cylinder with huge wires twirled into it.


I went outside and asked the nearest uncle what’s up. He said that there’ll be a power-line wire upgrade for the street and that power will be out until 4 in the evening. He said that there was a notification prior. I walked back into the house, looked at the fridge and found the notification.


I said, oh shit.

I walked down to the shoplots and bought breakfast and lunch, and by the time I returned home the power had already been cut.


When the power’s out, my house is as dark as hell.


The power didn’t come back until it was 5. By that time, I was already mossy and the cobwebs had settled and the termites had eaten through.


This was what I did during the 6 hour power outage;


1) Play solitaire (with actual cards, of course) at the front door, where there’s a little light.

2) Do as much work as I could until the laptop battery ran out (1 hour and a half, with music on).

3) Go talk to the dogs. Lanna talked back. Marley slept.

4) Took the rabbit Happy out, petted him for a few seconds, and placed him back.

5) Found a gecko in the garden.

6) Read a book in the porch, but the mosquitoes annoyed me out of it.

7) Practised the Coin Matrix trick with 10 cents coins. Practised the coin drops absent-mindedly for a bit.

8) Raked leaves in the garden.

9) Shot at some birds with the BB pistol (intentionally missed; just to scare them off from stealing Marley’s leftovers).

10) Lay on the floor and thought of sleep.

11) Ate lunch at the porch, beside Marley.

12) Grabbed a bunch of manga from the store, settled down at the porch and read with the music playing from the phone. Made 3 books when the father came back.

13) Read the newspaper.

14) Retreated to the room to lie down and hope to sleep.


The first thing I did when the power came back was to turn on the PC and play Assassin’s Creed until it was time to feed the dogs.

Surprisingly, it wasn't quite a long day.

You have to do it, one way or another.

Ah, to be honest, this post took several tries to finally get up. Mostly it’s because I never actually got around to finish it, and whenever I did I forgot to post it up (it happens, because I type it down on MS Words and forgot to save it). And when I’m finally adamant on completing it, like tonight (and I’m sure I will), I realise that I have nothing much to tell.

The week was busy and hectic, and the aftermath was a tense, constricting air of anticipation; how it works into anticipation, I guess I wouldn’t able to describe. But there was, certainly, a bated breath of worry and wonderment, of which that seem to sprout out, raven like, to latch on a tree and watch wordlessly.

It’s like we’re all waiting for something bad to happen, or something to give reason and stand and shout and lob mash potatoes at one another. Like we’re waiting for something to blame.

(This is, of course, the stupid things I thought I felt and mostly best to do away as nonsense).

And the workload never ended. What ended, however, was the urgency of it. And I’m certainly not feeling it, aside from the way it settles down the gut like guilt (for all in the world it is), but heck; I’m supposed to be swamped and buried, but I’m here and I’m blogging and I have two tabs featuring Naruto and Slam Dunk.

Tomorrow! I swear, tomorrow I’ll get it done… tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow row row row rowrowyourboatgentlydownthestream…

******

I was food-poisoned on Tuesday.

Or rather, my epicurean self did. He insisted that his unrelenting thirst for epicure demands that I purchase that roadside nasi lemak I’ve eyed for a week, to be consumed for dinner. He said if I didn’t, I would forever feel the wrath of not having passion for good food (dear heavens no!), for he controls that side of my longings, so I gave in and bought it. I ate it for dinner.

And after I washed it down with water, I felt this feeling that went sorta felt like, oh shit. And the epicurean self, he was looking away shiftily and starting whistling.

And then I was feeling all rumbly-tumbly, as Pooh may have put it after some bad honey.

And then it was like the Brazilian Fire-breathing Troupe was performing for the Queen of England in my gut.

So I went to bed early and thought I’d sleep it out…

Then I woke up at 4 and barely left the toilet.

So I took Wednesday off from classes (impeccable timing, really; I had quite a lot of work and it needed to be tended to immediately). I gained a lot of reading time, and at one point I thought, wouldn’t it be great if the toilet had a drink stand and some sun so that I can read and drink lemonade? (this point, I knew I was seriously f-ed up).

But it wasn’t that bad. Least I didn’t go until I had to crawl around with shivering knees and the loss of all hope of living. In fact, come dinner, I was strangely full of appetite, but the parents forced porridge on me and told me to lay of the spice and fry-ies for a few days.

I thankfully still got the work done, and it’s thanks to me group mates who stayed around and helped.

As of now, I’ve given the epicurean self a good lecturing, and he promised no more roadside nasi lemak aside from the ones I trusted. I said, good enough. No more new roadside ones.

He grinned at me, and said, so, what’s for lunch?

I asked dad, and he said, rojak stall down in Sg. Chua.

Ah, noodles vegetables egg tofu bean-sprout cucur udang aaaaand sotong.

I’ve noted as I go, the way I would not know,
But hey, Why not stop?
The daisies are blooming.
Perfect day, perfect place
For picnicking down the mountains.

(Lalalalalala…)

A quick one before I nip away.

I’ve gotten some work done and is pretty proud of myself for finishing it before the strike of 12, and while the night is young and still brimming with the virginal, untested calls to write something unrelated to work, perhaps I can sneak a few words here before nicking back to the remaining workload.

(I can already feel Pauline glaring at me, sour lemons and venom of disapproval.)

I’ve bought a new PC. I figure that I should be thanking the person who helped me out all the way here in Big Bold Letters; so

Thank You Bryan

He had provided me the specs to look at, then fetched me around to Low Yat to get a deal and finally help fetch it back home with me; in the process, being late to fetch Li Mei home. I’m eternally grateful, and the man still chuck games at me to install; I guess I’ve repeated it too many times already, but I seriously can’t thank you enough, man.

The PC is a sweet deal, and I’ve set it up to be a gaming machine (don’t tell mom and dad), and managed to pay that half of it. At one point I call it the Black of Death, for the heck of it, but somehow I started calling him Bod and it’s something that’s gonna get stuck if I keep doing it.

It’s won’t be until sometime when I can sit and use it entirely as my own; it’s in the brother’s room, where the old PC used to be, and he’ll be using it until he leaves for the UK and takes this laptop with him.

I see a long future ahead of us, Bod and I.

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

Erm.

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

Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

For example, I can write something like this;

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

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

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

(Dear God, what I writing now?)

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

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

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

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

Insensate

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

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

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


Lux Aeterna



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

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



The Dark Knight

Hmm.

I don’t know how to put it.

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

It’s awesome.

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

It’s a class of it own.

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

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

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

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


There was once…

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

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

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

Once upon a time, things were simple.

Never forget that.

Tis the Season of Durian.

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


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


(For the record, I like durians.)


* * *


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


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


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


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


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

* * *

All the world’s a stage.





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

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

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

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

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

Mild Surprises.


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


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


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


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


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

*******

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


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


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


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


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

********

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


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


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

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

Funeral, and a Poor Man’s Dinner.

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now then, I’m already hungry.