"Part 1 - 1.5: An apocalyptic log, and a really tough soliloquy"

(This is kind of nice; I have the urge to blog at 1.17 in the morning, and on my MSN conversation is a girl I’ve never met in real life, and we just told each other to go to sleep without actually committing to the act. This is also bad; because I’m not working on what I should be).

A few years ago, I thought I could write anything. Present day doesn’t seem to present this sort of naive confidence, though sometimes I could really do with that excess of unrelenting assurance. In fact, right now really calls for it.

These days, it’s hard to fall through the hole in the parchment.

Long-distance driving turned out to be not as daunting as I thought, but it did present its own set of tiredness.

I’m not entirely used to great-grandma’s passing; my first thought when I arrived in Penang was to pay her a visit. And then the slight revelation hit. It felt like a new pothole that on the road, that’s easy to forget and driven into.

Got on the ferry, the first time in years. The sea still smelt the same, and I’m glad that you can still spot the odd jellyfish or two. What’s different is the ferry’s divider. It was shorter.

(The girl has relented and gone to bed. My media player is playing a Cantonese song I didn’t remember having).

(I suppose I should head to bed now).

Hey, I did something I used to do. Write about nothing.

Maybe tomorrow I could feel like I could write anything again. Maybe it’ll help me get my work done.

Maybe tomorrow.

(I should probably stop with this habit of only updating before a trip to someplace. I’ll be doing the chauffeur thing tomorrow and driving two of the most important women in my life - my mom and my grandma - down to Penang, to follow-up on some procedural things related to great-grandma’s funeral).

“Prologue, or those days I spend more time daydreaming dangerously”

It was that sort of crazy stretch in a month where everything seemingly led to one another, like the Bold and the Beautiful, and you kind of just sat through it until one day it announces that this is the finale, and you watch it and finish it and get on with your lives (or, somehow, start with CSI: Miami). Of course, by now, your muscles have already atrophied, along with any semblance of a brain.

(Apologies for any soap opera campers out there, but there’s no other way to describe unending lethargy).

And that was sort of how it felt when having to come back from Jakarta straight into closing week, which ended three days back, and things have not entirely slowed down for some recuperation.

(And then, of course, there’s tomorrow and the drive to Penang).

It’ll be an early sleep tonight, so I figure that I’ll keep this one short.

Besides, my atrophied brain needs time to warm itself up.

****

Jakarta was interesting.

Not the place though. But I wasn’t brought to Jakarta Central, or at least that’s how I remembered the local overclocker told me; they held it at East Jakarta, which had Jakarta’s biggest IT mall and the second worst traffic that side of the world.

A fact about Indonesian traffic; the rules don’t apply. The go as far as to avoid cars going the wrong way, but traffic lights and double lines and no-entries only appear as a warning sticker that said ‘Pretty Please’. In Indonesian traffic, might is right.

But you also have to have some puzzle-solving skills as an Indonesian driver. For instance, when you have a good ten or so automobiles converging in the middle of the T-junction (of course, the traffic light was only there as a light source), it takes considerable brain power to untangle each beeping and horning car so that they are free to drive off to their respective junction, while the another batch forms the next puzzle.

Another fact; the pedestrians are all traffic authorities. So don’t be surprised when the elderly lady selling steamed corn at the road side suddenly puts on a scary face and started ushering cars to the right junction.

Needless to say, it was a perpetual state of pandemonium.

Indonesian IT malls are fascinating. Though, only fascinating as much as I could explore, which encompassed eight stores of the mall’s centre court, and three from the first floor when I dashed up to take pictures.

At the centre of the mall was the Overclocking Championship. I’ll write about some other time. For now, let’s just say that it was Not What I Thought It’d Be.

After the championship, the organisers shipped us to an island (Ayer Island, with the eponymous Ayer Island Beach Resort) to let us have fun. They put us in a paintball competition (I got shot in the face, and might’ve shot a few people on the thigh, but it was hard to tell), and those teamwork games that were stupid to do but fun to play.

Then they lodged us on a chalet built on top of the water. If you wake to pee in the morning, you can hear the waves hitting the board under your feet. And the waves get scarily high when the weather picked up; I was on the chalet veranda thinking I could write under the stars and above the waves when sea water started hitting my face. The waves were incredibly high then, and they squirmed and coiled and crashed in the dark.

There were a lot of stars, as island skies do. But from my chalet the trees blocked a lot of the sky.

I shared my chalet room with a Vietnamese man who couldn’t get my name right, and instead resorted to smiling and nodding at me whenever he needed my attention. He was an amazing sleeper; he slept the minute we entered the chalet (sand still sticking on his legs and all) and he slept with the lights on and the world cup showing on the incredibly blur TV, all the way past breakfast (he skipped it).

The organiser shipped us back when they got our flight schedules sorted out, and I found myself on a bus back to the airport.

Another Indonesian road fact here; you can bribe, or in a better sense, tip the pedestrian road authorities with cash for them to stop traffic for you so that the large bus can make an impossible U-Turn.

I flew home with the Malaysian Overclocker, and one of the Malaysian sales rep. It was all good fun.

The rest, they say, were the dreams you can’t remember when you sleep after a long weekend.

*****

Closing was, well, closing week. Thankfully, I chose not to pick up any game reviews, because I couldn’t remember having to have so much to write.

Saturday gave me a few hours off so that I could go attend Li Mei’s farewell lunch. I gave her a Magic 8 Ball. Because, well, we needed magic sometimes to make decisions.

I’m also owing her something else, which is now at the stage which requires me to daydream dangerously. Like when driving home in the heavy rain. Thankfully, Malaysian traffic is nowhere near Indonesia‘s. Constant vigilance is required but not compulsory.

I expect to be in Part 1 when I get back from Penang. Hopefully.

Right then. Goodnight folks.

A quick one before I head to bed;

Tomorrow I’ll be flying to Jakarta for the regional finals of the Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship 2010.

The first time I heard about it, it sounded like something a bunch of scientists with lab coats and clipboards would do in a room full of motherboards, but after checking out the reports of previous championship finals on the net, I’m now rather excited.

I guess, in a way, it’s sorta like building the faster race car, or creating that battle robot to put in an arena and watch as they duke it out for the prize. In a geeky way, it looks incredibly fun.

I’m not sure I’ll be getting Internet there, but I hope there is. There’s also a day where Gigabyte will take us out on a post-championship Ayer Island chill-out, where the GOOC handbook states that we shall ‘Enjoy the sun and beach on a private island’. Whatever that is, I highly doubt they have Internet.

But yeah, so I’ll be pretty much missing for the better part of the weekend. Drop a message when the Third Reich of the Goats decided to invade in their milk bottle spacecrafts.

Goodnight people

It might be a case of ADD, or perhaps I simply left any form of Concentration a couple of years back, tangled somewhere with that last bit of rationality and functional brain cells.

At any rate, I think it’s highly problematic. Not being able to concentrate on one single thing for a period of over two minutes is worrisome. To phrase it into analogical effect, it’s the difference of an orderly line compared to a chaotic mess of anarchic commuters to a public transportation service. That’s bad. And it causes delays.

Maybe it can be cured medicinally. Maybe there’s a sort of pill that can let me concentrate for an hour and tap on the full potential of every single second of it, letting me reap the benefits of the time-space continuum and the very fabric of dimensions.

Something that can let me read up on computer overclocking without having to jump off and visit TVTropes every two minutes. Where the heck are our alchemists?

As per my usual conformity to the fine art of procrastination, I now find myself revising about overclocking a fair too late for comfort. In the days of college it’ll mean that I have to pull out an all-nighter. For now, I decided that I could get the final stretch of cramming done masterfully within the confines of tomorrow. That’ll probably mean at midnight.

Or during the flight to Jakarta.

Or the night at the hotel itself.

Shoot.

That’s it; by tomorrow evening, I’ll technically become the most knowledgeable person at the office when it comes to overclocking. It’s not arrogance talking. It’s what I have to become, or I’ll find myself in the bug pits of Skull Island.

Okay. To bed, so that I can wake in time for the event tomorrow.

Watching A City Fall Asleep

It works as long as you can keep awake, by which point, if you kept at it for an hour or so, you’d be wondering why you were doing it in the first place.

(And proceeded to either the TV, bed, or another hour on the Internet).

It’s a little like abstract art; that subtlety in pointlessness that only has a point if you make it to be. It’s actually quite beautiful.

(And, undoubtedly, very pointless, especially after that first hour).

I got to do that thanks to the great folks at Nokia, who made sure that I’m on the 9th floor at the very least, which has a generous view of the (Singaporean) Fountain of Wealth and the streets that encircled it. They also made sure that I’m well fed, well entertained and well exhausted, with an Amazing Race type game to keep us occupied for the evening. It was fun, and tiring, but mostly fun.

Back home now, and doing my bit to fulfil that self promise, though frankly not to the extent of what I would’ve liked.

But I’m dreadfully tired.

And I’m just short of falling asleep writing (typing) this. Maybe a little more tomorrow.

And then, of course, there’s another promise I have to fulfil. I shall get to that. Tomorrow.

Goodnight folks.

Hiatus

Unh. I guess I’m having it bad.

Perhaps I should make it imperative that I actually try and write something daily. Doesn’t matter anything. A hundred words, two hundred words. Just to make sure I don’t fall into the same slump, where it’s mucky and deep, but not uncomfortable.

This is that moment where I ask someone to give me one tight, piercing slap (preferably strong enough to send me to the heavens) so that I fall asleep and go back to the clouds.

Too long in the mud makes my socks soggy.

*****

So we came back from the funeral (weeks ago, go figure), which went well. I tried my best and read the prayers - a difficult task, considering that there’re parts where you would have to do it like you’re singing, and parts which read so fast that it’s also probably impossible to do with English. They last as long as two to three hours, and we did it for two nights.

Then we followed the hearse to the crematorium, and paid our last respects, and washed our hands and face with a bowl of chrysanthemum-soaked water, and left the place wearing red (tradition, apparently, for funerals for people aged a hundred and over).

Uncle Fook shot a video of it, which he put up. I still haven’t watched it. Mainly because I know I won’t take it so well.

(and if you’re actually curious, interested or just plain bored, you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggzk-bgZ-gE)

The rest, as they say, is that drive home where life goes back to normal.

*******

Tomorrow will be another flight to Singapore. Two days after coming back, they’re sending me to Jakarta, where I’ll be reporting a motherboard overclocking championship. I’m surprised that such a thing actually existed.

But I’m looking forward to it more than most. Surprisingly, it’s not about Jakarta, but the actual championship.

I wonder how it’ll be like. I wonder if commentators would be present, and if they’d go; “The GD7 looking great today; he’s all in to gun for that top spot, after that overheating fall-out last year. And he’s revving it up and ho, look at him go!”

Naturally, it means that I’ll be doing a fair bit of reading about overclocking. I could hear the brain cells groaning.

To bed now, else I’ll oversleep for breakfast tomorrow.

Good night, peops.

When I thought about - and I do, in sporadic periods, throughout the day - it felt like I was merely giving excuses to myself. Like in the way people try to justify a lie by simply weighing out between the bad or the better points, and sticking to what that make them feel good, regardless. When I thought like that, and when I thought about thinking that way, I felt like I’ve probably lost a heart somewhere.

Sunday morning I woke up to pass my mom a phone call. Shortly afterwards she told me my great grandmother passed away.

The first thing that came to my mind was; this is probably the right time to cry.

But I didn’t.

I left my mom to dress and lay down on the couch. When she came out of the room I went to put my arm around her shoulder, listened to her talk and weep, not really talking back. Because I think we both know what we were going to say, and what we both really thought, so I didn‘t say a word.

Whatever I did then felt fake. Like an obligatory action. It felt like I just did it because it was right.

I felt like I was indifferent. I didn’t know if it was age, or because I knew personally that this day would come. When I was younger, when those ramifications in the night led me to question the questionings of death, I would think of my great grandmother and, reminded of her age, of her growing fragility, I would quietly weep in my dreams. Maybe I’ve wept so much in the solitude of nights and nightmares that I couldn’t weep today.

I loved my great grandmother. I might not have been closest to her, and she to I, but I loved her nonetheless.

Later I fetched the mother out for breakfast with the grandmother, to talk about the news and the immediate plans. On the way back we talked about it, and said the things we meant to say. My mother then mentioned about ‘Hei Chung’, which sounded different from what we normally call the funeral procession.

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

“It’s a celebratory procession. Where it’s considered a happy thing for one to live more than a hundred years old and passed. It’s a happy thing.”

I knew then, as I’ve always knew it, somehow, that it is true. My great grandmother was a hundred and four years old. She was witness to the coming of the millennium, and lived into its first decade. She has children that gave birth to children that gave birth to children; generations of a family that has gone to have their own. And I certainly hoped that she had lived a wonderful life, and seen all there is in the world that she needed to see.

Whether or not it’s a good life is not for me to say. But I hope for it. Living for 100 years, one is bound to have at least seen one part of a good life, no?

And I hoped, but in my heart, I already knew. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t cry.

********

I always felt that, as a writer, as a means of a parting gift there should always be a written eulogy. And I’m set to write it, only that it dawned to me eventually that I knew very little about my great grandmother.

All this time, I figure that all I knew about her is that she was old, that she was Teo Chew, thatshe was kind and caring, and that she had the greatest memory. Other than that, I knew nothing.

I just found out her name yesterday. It was Lee Hou. It was a pleasant name; in a way, it sounded like “You’re Fine.” Or “Everything’s Good.” Lee Hou. “You’re Fine.”

My earliest memory of my great grandmother were those days where I could find her in my grandmother’s house. Back then I was in primary school, and both the parents would be at work by the time school finishes. For that period, instead of taking the bus home I took a smaller bus to my grandmother’s house, where there’d be warm food to eat and aunts to terrorize. For one time, I can’t remember how long, my great grandmother moved in to live with my grandmother.

Back then great-grandma (or Ah Pak, as we call her) could still walk; she had a cane where the top handle was the painted head of an eagle, with an eye that stared out with determined ferocity. I used to think it was the eagle that helped her to walk, like she was resting her hand on a flapping eagle that took her to wherever she needed to go, its wings like a personification of a strong spirit.

If you’d had talked to her, my great-grandma, when she was in her room in Penang where we’d go visit her, she would tell you the way I used to act whenever I arrived from the school bus at my grandmother’s house. And she would do so with exact detail; something which I’ve never ceased to be amazed of. She would tell you how I liked to lie down on the floor and pedal myself about (like mopping the floor with my back, she’d say), or how I used to spend a long time during baths to play with water. Or how once she asked me something and, not knowing a single word of her dialect, I thought she called me stupid. And it wasn’t till years later when they told me she actually meant something else.

What I remember most fondly were the afternoons that we spent together. I would watch, for the thousandth time, those Disney cartoons that were kept in my grandmother’s house, and my great-grandma would exclaim, sometimes excitedly, during the climaxes, though I never knew what or how to tell her. Sometimes we’d play cards, and it was always either Blackjack or The Fishing Game, which were the only two I remember she could play.

She would move back to Penang eventually, and I’d still come home to my grandmother’s for the rest of the year until we had a maid. After that, the only time I got to see my great-grandma was in every trip down Penang with my family. It was something we did without fail. And every time she would recognise who I am, and recited the days in my grandmother’s house.

The last time I held her hand and kissed her cheek and said goodbye was December last year. That felt like a long time ago. And today, it felt like I couldn’t have ever done it enough. But that’s the way death would make you feel.

My family and relatives would tell me that my great grandmother was a strong woman, a kind woman, a caring and kindred soul. I would remember her as the one person that could always make me feel soothed, somehow, whenever I see her. Even when she was so old that she couldn’t walk, and that her hands could always seem so frail, so brittle, I would somehow feel fine. Like the eagle of the walking stick, holding her hand made me feel like I’d get somewhere. And I’d be fine.

That was her name, after all. You’re Fine.

Everything is Good.

*******

On Sunday morning, the clouds hung low and dark and heavy, and I thought that it was prophetic in the way we always make the weather to be. But in the afternoon the clouds lifted and vanished, and the sun turned the tarmac impossible to walk upon, especially on worn orange slippers, and there was this quietness in the town and in the neighbourhood that felt like how Sunday himself would spend the day.

And I went out to get the house telephone fixed, along with a haircut at a barber who was suddenly extremely meticulous . The brother cooked Pasta ala Carbonara for a friend, and I got to eat some (it tasted like Carbonara, only that it dried up a little too quickly to enjoy). I squeezed some Final Fantasy in between chores. And I did something that involved gloves and a drainage pipe, which I would hope to forget soon enough.

Come dinner, and a trip to the Pasar Malam for it, it felt completely like any given Sunday.

In some ways I thought I could hate myself for it, but I didn’t. There was one thing that we all understood that day.

Tomorrow we’ll be heading down for the funeral. We’ll get to see her for the last time, and walk with the last with her. Life, after that, goes on.

And it keeps going.

There’s a spider in this blog. If you left your mouse pointer over at the white area, he’ll approach it to investigate.

Unfortunately, I can’t feed him. But the koi and turtles from the same site could be.

I’m not particularly too awake to properly blog, but if I don’t do this tonight I doubt I ever would for the rest of the month. In one way, I guess I’m forcing this bit of writing. But if I don’t get the fire stoked, in ways or the other, the furnace is just going to put itself out.

A full month is an incredibly long time to not update. I had thought the week after Singapore would give me a night or two, but things picked up faster than I expected, and when the dust from closing week finally settled, I caught the brother’s fever and that lasted a week. A fitful of coughing later and it is already May, towards the mid of it. It’s like the time-monks simply forgot to redirect time to that particular, um, time.

(Dear lords; one month and I can’t make any sense. At all).

Anyway, a few things to note here, if it matters in any way:

The Beautiful Blogger Award stint managed to invigorate The Intricate Swirls of Miss Vic. Well, I figure it’s closer to a three pulls with the defibrillator; the rest is all surgeons and natural recovery. At any rate, swing by to throw in your support!

And once you’ve done with that, Teh Ais Limei wrote this fantastic piece about Amir Muhammad’s book on Yasmin Ahmad. Probably pretty late to feature here, but if it’s one way to get the word out, I suppose it isn’t so late. Check the comments too!

And The Twistedtrainsistor just plugged in the third part of Marjorie's Margarine in her blog (took her long enough). Don’t worry, she has kindly left part 1 and 2 linked up. Swing by for (immensely) rare fiction from her.

Aaaand that’s about it. Nothing this sleep sodden mind could remember or perpend any more.

Maybe I’ll fare better tomorrow.

The Price of Bacon

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

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

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

I’ll leave it there till Monday.

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

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

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

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

Time in my hands always go to waste.

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

I suppose it’s for tomorrow to decide.

*****

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

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

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

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

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

It shall lull me to bed now.

Oidhche mhath

Lost in Backlog

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

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

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

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

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

Gee, it felt like a whole week of bollocks.

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

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

*******

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beautiful and Dastardly too.

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

4. State 7 things about yourself.

Therefore:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3) I’ll skip this one here.

4) 7 things eh?

- I’m fat.

- I live in Kajang (with my parents)

- I have 5 dogs.

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

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

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

********

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

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

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

Cest la vie.

Bonne Nuit!

Strings from up Above

"Who flies these things?"

Tomorrow is very well the start of Closing Week, so I figure I should update before I’m too paralysed to do it (or start giving the excuse that I’m too paralysed to do it, the same day I slam dunk from the three point line). (I can’t slam dunk from the three point line but I can do it in NBA Street. That counts.)

The car is now at the repair shop, which is going to cost me a good 2 thousand bucks, thanks to the dad, because he figured I couldn’t live with a fraying door panel and some minute windscreen problem, forgetting that I really couldn’t live being 2 thousand bucks in debt.

But well, I’ll take it as redecorating the car. It was going to happen eventually anyway.

(When I’m the King of Sheba, and I have golden maidens to sell for millions).

And I appreciate the dad in finding the people to fix it all the same.

Everything makes my buying the PS3 all the more regretful. I’ve had a (horror!) thought of selling it off while it’s still new, but there’s this part of me who knew I would die of depression if I did it.

No games for next month. Well, maybe FF13.

(Or God of War 3. Each or either.)

****

Not much for me to remind anyone, but Script Frenzy starts in 11 days.

Don’t know what it is? Here: www.scriptfrenzy.org

I know, I know. NaNoWriMo was hard enough. But hey; writing projects never hurt, no?

Speaking of projects, I owe a story to Li Mei. I’ve named it Project March but it doesn’t seem like I’ll be finishing it by March after all.

Here’s to hoping that it’ll get me back to writing, uh, more pointless stuff.

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

“We’re all puppets to Gods. They’re up there with their strings on us, making us move and dance and get tangled up with everything else.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“That they can walk you off a cliff if they want to? Sure thing.”

“Doesn’t this sort of make the fact that you can actually blame something else when bad things happen?”

“…yeah.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

****

Goodnight, people.

Noir

Wish everything I draw would stop talking back

Black paper(s) and blue lead courtesy of Pauline, whom I could trust to get me a mechanical pencil with something extra thrown along. Cheers, chum!

Couldn’t have asked for a better birthday celebration; great food, great company, a gaming session somewhere, some great news given and amazing, utterly amazing gifts only these fantastic friends could’ve gotten me.

Pauline already gave me Noir paper with a pencil. The guys rounded up and got me Shaun Tan’s The Arrival.

"Oh my God... you're a... goat?"

Which is this downright beautiful, phantasmagorical, delicious and wondrous graphic novel with no words and the most amazing art ever. I’ve been drooling over it the first time I ever saw it on Borders. Now I drool over it in the room with a bucket and a mop to clean up after.

Thank you, guys.

And I couldn’t do it enough times, so I’ll do it once here and do it again and again silently, in case you guys started calling the mental asylum, which you guys probably already have on speed dial, being friends with me.

But seriously; thanks guys =).

An update on life so far, both good and bad:

1) I bought the PS3. Along with it I got Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2. It has now gotten me addicted to HD.

2) The same night I hooked up the PS3, the modem and router fried. It cost me Final Fantasy 13 to get a new set.

3) I have a hole in my car now. Something stupidly parking beside a truck gave. The back door’s jammed and rust has worrisomely settled now. This would cost me God of War 3, Assassin’s Creed 2 and just about 10 other games to get fixed.

4) Reading Un Lun Dun by China Miéville, which is interestingly bizarre and, from where I am now, an example of how to subvert common story tropes as you go.

5) I haven’t counted the fact that I still have a new set of rims to buy. I think I might just have to sell the PS3

5) Because it went down to as low as 30 bucks, I bought Mirrormask: The Illustrated Film Script of the Motion Picture, so I can ogle at Dave McKean’s storyboard and read Neil Gaiman’s scripting. (Right when you needed the cash? Shame on you. Shame on you.)

Everything else is fine. And today I get to see my dad holding up to his principles and become a badass, not that he’s already one anyway.

*****

Strange that when I laid it all down on a list, it felt so distant and dull and insignificant. A week ago it seemed like every night lasted long and unfulfilling having to figure out how to make things right.

I suppose that - now that it has come to this point in time - it’s oddly therapeutic.

Maybe it’s the way the mind works. When it stopped getting confused, when everything is laid down in order and the appropriate plan of action allocated accordingly, it can go to ease.

Sounds like it could be worked into a book. A List of Problems; The Single Best Way to Cope with Stress, Worry and Depression.

Gnite folks.

I don’t know what to say to myself.

I just don’t fucking know.

Ah jeez

12 hours ago I was awake and staring helplessly at the computer screen, the red brick wall of writer’s block grinning as stoically as mentally projected walls would, failing over and over again to properly process the simplest of news into rewritten news. 12 hours later I’m sitting here half asleep wondering why I couldn’t stop thinking of words that never stayed still and why I let them jeopardise my sleep. It’s like half my mind isn’t quite my own. Maybe it’s an organ on loan.

At any rate, 3 a.m. does not allow me to make any sense.

I’m doing what any respectable 3 a.m. insomniac would; try to tire himself to sleep. Basically my methods require me to get rid of the words that gnaw and terrorize my brain in unholy conjugation, but they don’t normally stay still long enough to make them out. So I figure I’ll just tempt them out. By writing. See if it works.

So far it’s working just as well as jumping over the Cape of Good Hope knowing that it’ll cure cancer. Forever.

Argh. This isn’t good. There’s an event at Cyberjaya tomorrow and I would need the better functionalities of this insipid brain to clear off my news before getting started with the piling features and reviews. From the way things are going, I’ll be attending the event tomorrow stoned to a tacit, irresponsive state and spending the other part of the day shaking my fist at that damned writer’s block wall.

If I’m lucky, I won’t turn crazy and start yelling quotes from The Planet of the Apes at the speech-makers. It wouldn’t be nice for the Energizer CEO to hear “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” right after concluding his speech about how marvellous their battery worked powering the lights of insane people trying to run a marathon at night.

Right. I think I’m done here. I think I’ll go try and sleep again.

Damn words better stop bugging me.

March the Third.

I can’t properly start the post without wishing Pauline a HAPPY BIRTHDAY. It has to be all caps. It’s just the way it is.

So today became today, and I got through it with a cake from the brother and half a bottle of Kampai (Kanpai?) Beer (which 5.0% alcohol is already taking effect; man my tolerance is horrible). It just makes the day all the more worthwhile.

And thanks to everyone that wished, be it through SMSes or phone calls or Facebook. Made my day more than the day could already do.

There’s nothing else I could post now. And now that I’m probably red all over from the beer I think I should stop, before I start writing weird things. And subsequently posting it.

Well at least I end the day drunk. From half a bottle of wussy beer. Cheers!

Gnites peops.

Excuse me Mr. Goldfish; you appeared to have run out of Air.

Wrapped the magazine for March, and just in time for the Editor to fly off to Japan. I’m suddenly faced with the prospect of an Editor-less week, which sounds the scary part completely more so than what people assume would be fun part.

This is what that have been keeping me sane in that very hectic week succeeding Bangkok:

Charlie Brown: What can you do when you don't fit in? What can you do when life seems to be passing you by?

Lucy: Follow me. I want to show you something. (They get to the top of a hill.) See the horizon over there? See how big this world is? See how much room there is for everybody? Have you ever seen any other worlds?

Charlie Brown: No.

Lucy: As far as you know, this is the only world there is, right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: There are no other worlds for you to live in, right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: You were born to live in this world, right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: WELL LIVE IN IT THEN! Five cents please.

- The remarkably weird yet appropriately genius Charles M. Schulz -

Just because we needed a little more Peanuts in our lives. Then, for an equally big enough part, Calvin and Hobbes (and the Transmorgrifier. Someone should patent that).

I think I should be treating myself for the month (this disregarding anything else I’ve been ‘treating myself’ with. It works this way), and just go all out and buy that Sony Playstation 3.

I’ve seen Final Fantasy 13. I’ve seen God of War 3 (GOD FUCKING WAR OF 3, GOD DAMMIT). I’ve seen/read/heard/spoken enough about Uncharted 2. And now that I’m more or less addicted to HD, the PS3 is just the way to go.

This week; scout for the price. Next week; purchase. The years after, both regret and rejoice in prolonged cycles that I’ve splurged on something tremendously expensive for the betterment of nothing but to fulfil my HD quota.

After this, it’s all about working for the savings. You read this, me-reading-this-back-because-I-was-bored-and-couldn’t-find-anything-else-better-to-do? It’ll be all about working for the SAVINGS. S-A-V-I-

****

My speakers seem have broken down. That or it has caught some sort of disease, sputtering static and agonising thumps like some sort of a diarrheic… never mind.

Which leaves me with the Alienware headphones, which works surprisingly good for music despite a fellow tech writer telling me it doesn’t. I’ve had it to Chrono Cross’ OST the whole night. Best night of the week (so far).

Suddenly felt like I’m having the easy life. Never mind the late work nights; I happen to enjoy those. I have enough to cover for myself and I get to keep writing. And the world of tech is steadily opening up to be a fascinating archipelago of both wonders and a lot of Huh?.

This is the type of complacency that I think should be avoided. At least, in this point of life.

There is this vision. I’m in a room dressed in a suit and I’m looking at a lady with spectacles and her hair tied to a bun. She holds her pen like she holds a cigarette and she does so like Cruella De Vil. She places a clipboard in front of me and asks me to fill it up.

This questions go: Are you satisfied with this? Do you want more? Should you want more? Are there anymore? Shouldn’t you really have more? DO YA DO YA DO YA?

And the pen sits there, still and beckoning. And the lady stares and smirks and crosses her legs, waiting. I haven’t got all day. More applications to submit. Then dinner.

And I think I’m kind of afraid to answer. Because right now I think my answer will go both ways, and if I tick one I’ll never get it right.

There’s no right answer, even if there isn’t a wrong one.

I leave the room. She looks at me and says, we’ll be talking about this some other day. I can only close the door.

Yeah… well, we’ll talk about it some other day. Right now, to bed!

Gnite folks.

Pre-trip Postage

In retrospect, not the best of weeks. But I haven’t tried to summon an Eldritch abomination to raze the world into ashes yet, so perhaps things hadn’t be bad enough. At any rate, I forgot the chant words (ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?).

Friday found myself with a tyre that burst (literally; the whole thing resembled melted rubber when I finally managed to snail-manoeuvre it into the emergency lane), and when I had managed to remove it, the old spare tyre wouldn’t fit, thanks to the new brakes. I had to then deal with a road-mechanic trying to cheat me out of 60 bucks by doing practically nothing (all he did was remove and replace the same tyre) and the ungodly heat while waiting for the dad to fetch a new tyre.

The day after I took the car to service and the entire cost of repair ate up every cent of my ang pows. I nearly wept.

Those were the worst. Though when I thought it, there were nothing else remotely horrific. So I guess everything’s dandy. Except that the PS3 is now a dream and that I have to save up for a new set of rims.

Tomorrow I fly to Bangkok for the Nokia Showcase. It’s having me in nerves. Don’t ask why; I can’t tell you. I can’t even tell myself.

Now lets hope I don’t get embroiled with the political brew over there. Though, considering my luck these days, I might just will. You guys knew me well. Or didn’t. At any rate, someone come look for my body please.

****

It took me 13 years (or so), but I finally found the name of that cartoon. It was The Animals of Farthing Wood. And damned if you think it was a comedy. It wasn’t. This is why;

Remember those cartoons that air in TV1 and TV2 every evening, the ones that weren’t really popular because the awesome ones were usually reserved for the weekend mornings (Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers, for instance). No one watches them. Or, at least, some do. I did. In periodic days, when I was bored out of my wits waiting for the parents to pick me up from grandma’s place (that was before they started stashing Disney movies by the dozens. I never remembered whose movies were they).

I remembered a few, but damned that I couldn’t remember that one cartoon where I’ve only managed to catch a few episodes, just as few as one or two. But these one or two, boy, do I remember them. I’ve never know the title of that show, but by chance (and TVTropes.org, god bless ye), it was really The Animals of Farthing Wood.

I remember it because the very first episode I watched, two characters got killed off. For good. They were hedgehogs and they were killed by cars on the freeway. Damn.

And the next few episodes I caught, it was watching how those rats were terrified of that snake that seemed like it could very easily just broken the oath between them that is preventing her from feeding. And then there’s that leader Fox, and the Badger.

I wouldn’t do much justice trying to remember what the plot actually was about, but you could do yourself well by reading the wiki article here, if you’re interested. You can even find a few episodes on Youtube. But be warned though; like the animated adaptation of Watership Down, this isn’t your typical cartoon.

So here’s the opening. See if it brings back any memories.

Gnites peops.

Hypnagogia

Is, according to Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury, The Transitional State between Wakefulness and Sleep.

Which, therefore, would make the term Hypnagogic applicable to describe something sleep inducing or pertaining to drowsiness.

I just realised I could’ve used this when describing certain lectures back in University. I could walk up to the lecturer (dear goodness, those that lull you into frothing boredom) and say, it’s Hypnagogic, miss/sir; splendidly so.

And if they thanked me I’ll be a really big jerk. Success!

Ah, but well, the real point to make here is that I discovered today that being alone can be very hypnagogic.

It’s not quite ‘sleep inducing’, but more The Transitional State between Wakefulness and Sleep. Only that the transition took either too long, or stuck in transitional limbo.

I thought that I had turned into a zombie.

Office was never this quiet.

But it’s that silence that permeates and hangs like a shoulder sore; uncomfortable and heavy. I could have the music up, blasting shamelessly, but it’s still there. This gnaws to the head. This trepanation.

I predict that I’ll succumb to cabin fever very easily. Spam “All work and no Play makes Jack a dull Boy” by day three, and go “It’s JOHNNY!” by day five. Did the door just open to a wave of blood crushing down the hallway?

I was actually incredibly glad when the Sales Manager turned up for lunch. I was almost thinking of grabbing the car keys and drive down Jalan Duta in crazy speeds.

I’ll make sure I get a digital cat tomorrow. Just in case.

****
(You’d probably notice that I’ve been writing nothing but crap for the past few posts. This is the direct symptoms of the mental withdrawal caused by the in-repair GPU, which won’t be fixed for another 3 weeks, by heaven’s grace. Nevertheless, it has given me plenty of reason to write, even if whatever written is crap. I probably need to put a safety disclaimer somewhere, but I think I already did it once a long time ago. No need to repeat myself.)

(Crap of the day achieved. Now I shall return to Battle Studies.)

And it finally rained, even if I hadn’t noticed it, being stuck voluntarily at the office while the writer’s block stood inexorably like a wall that asks riddles. Headed home in a daze of sugar rush (M&Ms; a recurring addiction), and under the darkened skies of impending but unthreatening clouds, it felt like a picture fortune telling. An old man would say, look ahead but not too far. Endure, and vivify. In the end you’ll find your pineapple tart. It’ll be sweet and it melts in your mouth.


I was just that high.

Got through the first two days of Chinese New Year with, thankfully, as little incidents as possible. We just cleaned as hard as we could, visited as much as our proximity allowed and cooked to the extent of our own health. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as it was. Or might’ve been. In fact, it was somewhat enjoyable.

And yesterday I counted off the ang pows and stashed it away at the bank. It will go to the PS3, coming by March, if all goes well.

****

“So I have this Idea. Not just any idea, but an Idea – the real deal here, ladies and gentlemen – and now I’m wondering if I can just pull it off.”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s the problem with Ideas. Because so much emphasis is placed on that Idea, successfully topping it at the pinnacle of ideas that stack in your head, the chances are that you’ll be too afraid for it to fail to actually pull it off.”

“So-“

“You won’t pull it off. You won’t do anything. You’ll just keep telling yourself that you have this great Idea, the motherlode you hit that’ll raise you from utter failure to a runaway success, and you’ll smile and sneer and cry and carry on with your life knowing that you have it but not daring to do anything about it.”

“Ah...”

“You're welcome.”

“Fuck you, man.”