My Mind Not Made Up

Aging & Death

2012-01-19T19:41:00.001+08:00

Yes. all of us go through this ... It's inevitable as death ... In fact, aging reminds us of our mortality ... Now, with only three years left to go before I turn the big Four O, I wonder about it more often than I would like to .... About aging, about mortality ....

I fear of growing old and have nothing to show for it ... I would be just a speck of dust, forgotten and swept away ... I do not want to be at Death's threshold and have no hand to hold mine ... I fear of dying alone, as most people do ...

Why should I pretend that these do not matter to me? Some people celebrate the zenith of the life, as they come full circle with their achievements .... And the best achievement in life, I think, is to pass on your legacy ... That's another thing ... I have no legacy to pass on, and no one to pass on that legacy were I to achieve it .... More reasons to fear aging and Death ....

Talking about aging and Death from a philosophical perspective will only prolong the inevitable ... Hey, Plato, Nietzsche, Descartes and Camus met their end anyway ... So, what's the point ....

So, the only thing worth talking about as we age and inch closer to Death is the fear of it, as ironically fatalistic as that may seem ... The fear makes it tangible ... The fear makes us face that it will happen .... If we pretend that we don't fear aging and Death, it's as good as pretending that we don't exist .... But here I wax philospohical, when I rather not ....

I guess the underlying issue that I've been trying to get to here is that I want something .... spectacular to happen before I kick the bucket, bite the dust, cash in my chips, snuff it .... I'm not sure what that something spectacular is, but I know if I want it to happen, I have to make it happen .... And yet, everyday when I wake up, I trudge through mere existence, and that something spectacular seems light years away ....

I just fear aging and Death, that is all ...

Addicted to shopping?

2011-08-21T16:47:00.014+08:00

It all started when I bought this grey bag with faux fur at the shoe store which I used to work ... That was in October of last year ... I had just started working for about two months, and at the time felt a little down in the dumps, so when the new stock of bags and shoes came in, I saw this bag ...

... and fell in love with it ... Well, maybe that's a rather strong emotion, just for a bag, but it felt like it ... So, I bought it with my second paycheck ... Luckily got it on staff purchase, so it wasn't too expensive ...

So, used it as my everday bag ... Took it work, took it when I went out to town, and so on ... But after about three months I think, I started to feel like I wanted another bag ... So, you know what happened ... In the space of about six months, I bought four hand bags ... FOUR HANDBAGS IN SIX MONTHS ... Now, I know I'm a compulsive buyer, but this was going too far ...

One of the four bags, I gave to my sis-in-law, after finding it a bit too bulky ... It's actually a nice shade of red, but just like that, I gave it away ... The second bag was more like a satchel, in a nice shade of brown ...

It's from MNG, and like the grey faux fur bag, also cost less than a hundred bucks, which to me is still reasonable ... What wasn't reasonable was this growing addiction for bags ... What can I say, I'm a woman after all ... Anyways, I replaced the grey faux fur with this a large satchel in a dark shade of green, which I bought at an Isetan sale ... It wasn't too bad, but somehow, it just didn't feel like the right bag for me ... Men would scratch their heads at this, asking "What the hell is the right kind of bag?!" ... I can only say, "It's just not the right kind of bag" ... But rather than give or throw it away, I kept it, so that I can have an inventory of all the bags (note: different inventory for other stuff) I own ...

Then I saw another bag, this time at a Vincci sale ... It was in this delicious shade of brown, and the surface material felt like it was leather ... In face it looked like shiny leather ... It was a tote bag ... But, after using it for about two weeks, I noticed that the material came out at the side where it made contact with my body, sort of an abrasion ... I became unhappy with this ... I mean, I know I got it in a sale, but I, like most creatures who love shopping, do not expect inferior quality even if they were on sale ...

So, naturally, I went out looking for a new bag ... Then I went into Zara, saw this beautiful suede tote bag in a dark, rich, chocolate shade, and this was by far the most expensive bag I bought (close to ttwo hundred), I just felt like I gotta have it ... By the way, it was a sale item ...

The picture doesn't do justice to its texture and colour ... Anyways, was loving every moment that I used the bag, and I love the smell as well ... but that, along with my love for it, faded away as time passes by ... (I also noticed, perhaps a tad too convenient an excuse, that the bag wouldn't allow me to go through tight spaces i.e. people standing closely together ) ... It was at this point, which coincidentally at also the time when I spotted this dark red, faux crocodile-skin bag at M&S (which thankfully I didn't buy), that I realized, like most women out there, I will never stop buying ... Items of fetish, be it shoes, bags, clothes, whatever, are an extension of our identity, I would say... But unlike men, who buy things for their utilitarian purposes, we women buy for the sake of variety and fulfilling the good bargain fantasy ... I even surfed to find why women love shopping so much, and found out that it has to do with years of evolutionary process from the days when men were hunters and women were gatherers ...

But, as much as shopping affects trade economy to a good level, it has the oppsoite effect to my personal economy ... I found to my dismay, the ever steady dwindling of cash in my account ... Luckily I cancelled my credit card a long time ago, but now am thinking of getting a new credit card, so am not such an astute shopper after all ...

Then just yesterday, went out just to get my trousers altered, but along the way, went into this store which sells items at bargain prices, chanced upon this gorgeous cream coloured shoulder bag with faux matted wool and chain straps, and straightaway bought it ... Hey, it only cost 29 bucks, and that my friend, is a very good bargain indeed ...

Sources:

The Economist
News on Discovery

Singapore July 2011 - Sentosa & Universal Studios Singapore

2011-07-24T15:50:00.005+08:00

There is this candy store nearby USS, and they hung all these colourful mobiles ... Wonder whether they're edible ...

Well, you know how much I like the book ... Not so much the movie ... They don't sell movie posters at the gift shop ... If they did, there were some posters I wanted ... I saw The Thing hung before the entrance to a mock sound stage, I want that ... The poster, I mean ... But I wouldn't mind a sound stage of my own ...

Well, they only had Hollywood actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood on their Walk of Fame, so the only actor I really like there is Jimmy Stewart ...

That's about as close as I could get to one of those babies ... *sighs* ....

Shrek's castle, methinks ....

Only in Singapore, I guess ... One of their many rules which I can dig, 'coz I detest cigarette smoke ...

Not the original Merlion, but close enough ...

The cable car ride to Sentosa ...

Hey, I'm a movie maker :)

2011-07-22T14:34:00.003+08:00

The other day, I went out to look at some laptops ... Now, I wasn't planning to buy one 'coz of financial constraints and all that ... But then there was a Toshiba roadshow there, and they had this model which only cost RM999 .... I thought, this must be a rip-off, but the salesperson assured me that they were legit ... Well, it's their job anyway, isn't it? ... Okay, so I considered buying it, but if I did, then it would be the fourth Toshiba laptop I've bought in the last .... oooh, seven or eight years .... You may ask, why so many, and why Toshiba? .... "Well, the first laptop was a gift to my sis, the second one I bought in Japan, and had to sell back 'coz I was kinda cash-strapped at the time, the third time was a rip-off 'coz they installed pirated software .... Yeah, I bought that one at the topfloor at Low Yat, so don't buy there guys ....

So, you could see my apprehension as to why I was rather unwilling to part with RM999 of my good money .... Besides, it was a Toshiba ... So, to answer your question, it was because my ex had recommended Toshiba a long time ago, and he was something of a computer wiz .... Anyway, I thought I should get a Sony VAIO instead .... it's a good Japanese brand, so why not .... But the cheapest model they had was RM1,799 ... and it doesn't come with Intel, but AMD .... I've never used AMD processors before, and Intel is such a familiar brand ....

So, there I was, mulling over whether I should get the RM999, or save up for that RM1,799 model instead .... I don't know why, maybe it's the impulsive buyer that I am, or maybe it's because I really wanted to start on my writing project ... Whatever it was, I ended up buying the RM999 model, which came with some freebies actually, so it wasn't too bad ....

So, I took my new baby home, and fiddled and played around with it, when I realized that the Windows Live Movie Maker actually record webcam images ... Then I discovered that WLMV has some very basic movie editing features, so I was all excited when I edited them all in on my short movie ... It has a simple but cool opening credit, and a simple and cute ending credit ... But alas, I couldn't upload my hard work on any video media, be it Blogger, Wordpress, even Youtube ... As it turns out, none of them supported a wlmv file .... So, back to the drawing board ...

I had to improvise, of course, so here it is .... It's not much ... It's actual pure drivel .... But I enjoyed making it, and I hope you would too :) ...

The image isn't so sharp, 'coz I didn't take the laminate off my screen :) ... It's still new! Don't want unwanted scratches on it ....

I'm a fatuous fart, and don't I know it ....

2011-06-10T20:02:00.007+08:00

So, what's wrong with the picture here? I whine, and in fact have been whining for the last ten entries or so ... Who knows, maybe even throughout the whole bloody blog .... I'm on this, I'm on that, I'm not happy, I'm alone, I'm probably psychotic .... Who gives a fuck?! ... Where's my edge? What happened to my wit? Have I completely lost my brain that my mind got sucked into it as well?! ....

I'm supposed to be coming up with finely-tuned ripostes on Life, Meaning and Existence .... And yet, I come up with pure, unadulterated drivel .... That's another bloody fuck! I redundant myself ...

I want my anger back ... Not the one that drove me to Hell and back, but that mocking attitude I have, or used to have .... I want to use it to write really good, unfuckingbelievably fuck-ass good stuff .... The state of me right now is like House minus Vicodin plus Cuddy ... I could do without the Vicodin actually ... Well, in my case, Remeron ....

Will now attempt to write sacrosanct shit other than me-stuff .... Starting with next entry .... And will do the unthinkable and delete entries deemed whiny, which comprise seventy-five percent of this blog ....

Man vs Food rocks!

2010-06-04T14:44:00.009+08:00

Inspired by Travel Channel's Man vs Food, today I decided to go on a cake quest ...

First stop was KLCC's Starbucks, where I tried their caramel chocolate cake ... Although it was much better than KLCC's Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's chocolate cake, which I had last month, the caramel choc cake did not have the wow factor for me ...

Still grappled with this insane wanting for chocolate, I stopped by the Secret Recipe's near my place and immediately seized upon a slice of their Chocolate Indulgence cake ... Needless to say, the cake holds true to its name ...

Image taken from : www.funnyordie.com/topic/four-horsemen

Adam: I don't mind eating you instead ...

I'm not as eloquent as Adam Richman when describing his culinary conquests, but this cake really takes the biscuit when it came to finishing it ... What the hell am I talking about here?! Well, as I tried to finish it, TC's Man vs Food episodes wafted through my chocolate-soaked brain where Richman's undertakings were overturned by the ginormous servings he tried to finish ... In other words, I couldn't finish the cake ...

But, as I took my time to polish off the Chocolate Indulgence, by writing this entry, it slowly disappeared from the plate .....

Don't know why, but I've been having this crazy chocolate craving, hence the cake quest ... Couldn't hold a candle to Adam Richman though ... That guy can really eat ... There's something disturbingly fascinating about gluttony ... It's like a an car wreck ... You want to drive off as fast as you could, but you slow down all the same to see the awful mess ...

What the bloody fuck, man! I don't, and never had a DiGi account ...

2009-07-21T11:05:00.002+08:00

Was trying to register for Maxis broadband, and as it turned out, my ID shows I've been blacklisted by the stupidest telco company ever .... Even the bloody mascot looks stupid, scares the hell out of me ... So now, am waiting for the stupid assistant whatever who's supposed to come in at 12pm ... What kind of a stupid system they have anyway, bloody fuckers .... Excuse the extreme expletives, but really am very furious right now .....

I quit my job ...

2009-06-11T19:28:00.009+08:00

I should be forthcoming as to what really happened ... But there's only so much you can say on a blog ... It's better if I could tell people what really happened to me face-to-face ...

Which is what I did yesterday, as I went back to the scene of the crime and met my former colleagues .... My boss, or rather, my former employer, the editor, said the most encouraging things ... As for I, she didn't say a word at all ... I don't blame her actually ....

C and A said the most things, and not things to discourage me .... At the end of it, A gave a me a tight hug .... I'd like to say that it was an insincere one, but it was not .... She really was trying to comfort me ....

Put it this way, they remain on the outer circle of my inner circle of friends ... But at least they're in my general circle of friends .... I can't convince myself that they can be my good friends when this incident was partly caused by what happened while I was working there, with them ...

I did say to my editor, and to C, about what I've already said, which is on this blog .... Whether it is justified or not is a different matter .... All that matters is that I said it to them ....

2009-05-11T07:57:00.003+08:00

Here's another thing I dislike - Spouting off pseudo self-help mantra bullshit ... But here goes anyway:

Brainjuice has learned to accept the fact that she cannot change everyone else, except herself ... Only then, can the process of letting go begins ....

I still need the sleep though ... Day five now ....

Temp post - Day Four, and Sleep seems like a mirage down a long hot desert road ....

2009-05-10T05:43:00.013+08:00

Okay, this is not good .... I remember the last time I had this kind of insomnia, I had a nervous breakdown as a result, and almost killed myself ....

Alright, I don't really care abt the people who don't know me, who happen to read this blog, and think that I'm a looney bin ...

It's the people that I care very much, who do read my blog, that I give a damn about ....

This is just a temp post, so that later if I come back to it, and find it just pure trash, I'm just gonna bin it ....

But I really, reallly, need that sleep ... If I had a sleeping drug that can knock me out, in like, three seconds, and make me stay asleep, for like, 58 hours, that rocks ....

Damn you, C ... That's my associate editor .... And while I'm at it, the same goes for you I, the colleague who sits next to me .... As for A, that preening colleague of mine, well, she's a shallow fake, so I don't really give a damn ....

The copy editor? Well, she doesn't like the editor much, so I'll just leave her out of this ....

As for the editor? .... Actually, you wanna know my honest opinion of him? .... He's an okay guy, he has my full respect .... Despite the fact that everybody else thinks he's the biggest arse around ....

Okay, you already know how I feel about my associate editor .... But I think I should really make it clear why he doesn't have my respect .... When somebody tells me, that C goes down to level 2, and has to face criticism from peers alike, and apparently fights back to defend us, but when he comes back up to our floor, and tells me the people downstairs are unhappy about the way we say things, and hence why I can't really say what I want to say ..... I'd just go, "What the fuck, man?" ....

"So, what the hell did you fight about then, to stand up for us, when you turn your back, but when you come back to us, you actually agree with what those fuckers say, or rather just follow what they dictate?" .... That means, you're just as guilty as the rest of us, who choose to keep quiet and just follow the status quo .... You sit on your proud tower, spouting off arguments on workers rights and whatever fuck but can't do a simple thing and just say to them, "Look, she just wants to say what she really wants to say ... Leave her be .... We'll make sure it won't go overboard, like, would land us in liability issues and such" ....

Hence, C, I don't have any respect for you, despite your enormous wealth of knowledge, and your utterly funny jokes .... And they are actually funny jokes ....

I don't know, maybe I'm just making mountain out of a mole hill here .... There was that time when apparently I misquoted in an article, and both the editor and associate editor covered my ass ....

But I haven't slept for four days, so there must be something there ....

Actually I think it started with I, our star reporter .... Yeah, sure you can rope in all the scoops, and write on issues even our rivals try to compensate by writing pathetic imitation ones .... But you know what, you're no better than the rest of us ....

Some months ago, I think it was December, we had to write on this really big issue to do with a major disaster, and of course we had to do it quick ....

Me, being quite slow, got quite stressed up at doing one news piece, and just decided to leave office without finishing it .... Of course, I know it was not the right thing to do, and yes, I agree, I should have asked for help .... But when everbody's busy, and don't have the patience to sit down and help me out, I just get frustrated ....

Okay, it's not exactly fair for me to say that .... They have been helping me out, but most of the time, they look quite busy to me ....

There's only so much I can do to understand their positions, I'm only human, too, y'know ....

Back to I ... Well, as the consequence of me leaving the office without finishing the bloody copy, she got utterly upset, naturally .... A few days, or maybe like a week after that, she came to office one morning, and said to me, along the lines of, "You know, if you really care about your confirmation letter, you better pull up your socks, 'coz everybody's really upset with what you did" ....

What got me really pissed was that she had to dangle the words "confirmation letter" over my obviously stupid head .... And she can say things in a very threatening manner, well, that's my impression anyway .... Maybe it's her lawyer training .... "Hello, we're not in court room anymore lah .... I'm not with the defense, I'm your bloody fucking colleague who you should try to help out, but you couldn't 'coz you're so wrapped up with your own mega issues stories" .... "What right have you to use emotional blackmail (as that's how I see it) and dangle my confirmation letter as if you owned it? ....

And from that ever since, I held this grudge in me so far back, that I hardly speak a few words to her in a day .... But to be fair to her, she's not totally insensitive .... I remember one time during our off stone meeting, she was the one who reminded the editor that the time to break fast was close, and so they should let me go off early (Oh yeah, I still fast) ....

As for the editor, well, one time he was unhappy with my work, or rather I think I didn't get his instructions properly .... Or that I got too nervous that I fumbled with my words, and as a result, he didn't understand what I said, so he said very loudly, in that very open space of ours, that I'm just "full of bullshit" .... Yes, those are his exact words .....

What happened after that? I cried , of course ... After everbody left the office, I went to his room, and crying my eyeballs out, I just told him,

"You know, I'm not okay with that .... With what you did just now .... I'd rather you fire me for the right reasons, than hire me for the wrong ones"

I know, the last bit was just full of rhetoric, but you see, with my emotions still shattered with what I said to me prior, I did feel like my confirmation letter was not going to present itself to me ....

I've narrated here not in sequence, but I know something is going wrong when one day I turned up for work, found on our cover a typo error of a person's name of what I worked on, walked out of the office, and going up the stairs of en empthy stairwell, I banged the walls .... Literally .... with my purse .... Nothing broke, but you know something in me already was ......

But you see, how come I could confront my editor, but not C and I? .... Something about their personalities then, which for me to just keep to myself, and for you, dear reader, to just take everything I say here with a pinch of salt ....

Bottom line is, I am not going to self-destruct .... I am not going down that lonely dark path, ever again ....

By the way, I did get that confirmation letter .... But, maybe, it's time I move on ....

Okay, still couldn't sleep ... & the subject of FB quizzes

2009-05-09T02:18:00.014+08:00

What the fuck? ...

Anyway, while trying to get over this period of unsleepiness, what else but Facebook ... God, that thing will be the bane of me ...

I try not to do FB quizzes, because they are not accurate ... One time, did the IQ test, and got, like, 94 .... That's .... average .... I know I'm above average, and even if I'm not, I don't give a fuck ;) ...

However, I've done quite a number of Flixster movie quizzes, which I doubt the reliability as well .... Could actually give the results of all the quizzes I've done on Flixster, but I think discussion on any of them would be more appropriate on the other blog ....

But you know why I say Flixster movie quizzes are unreliable? .... In High Fidelity, Rob's store is called Championship Vinyl, but there was no such option ... But I got the answer right anyway ....

Well, of course these are just no brainer quizzes for fun .... Alright, alright, I won't take them seriously ... *sheesh* .....

Anyway, one of my FB buddies did a quiz on his birthdate, which happens to be the same day of the month as mine, and this is what it says:

.... shows individual self-expression is necessary for your happiness. You tend to
have a good way of expressing yourself with words, certainly in a manner that is
clear and understandable. You have a good chance of success in fields requiring
skill with words. You can be very dramatic in your presentation and you may be a
good actor or a natural mimic. You have a vivid imagination that can assist you
in becoming a good writer or story-teller. Strong in your opinions, you always
tend to think you are on the right side of an issue.

... "tend to have a good way of expressing yourself with words, certainly in a manner that is clear and understandable" ... Well, take that! .... "good chance of success in fields requiring skills with words" ... And that! .... "you may be a good actor" .... Don't know about that ..... "vivid imagination that can assist you in becoming a good writer or story-teller" .... Like, the bomb! .... And saving the best for last, "... always ... on the right side of an issue." .... Like, whatever footballers do when they get that hattrick shot! ...

.... Except they forgot to add, "and the rest will almost always be wrong" .... 'We Are The Champions' victory march! ....

Individual self-expression should be necessary for happiness, to anyone and everyone, regardless ....

The Copy must go on - I really just dislike the Our Say panel ....

2009-05-07T21:32:00.011+08:00

Now, I've tried as much as I can not to rant abt my work, especially abt the people work with ... Only because I realise, maybe a little bit too late, that I might drag myself into a legal mess to do with libel, more so because I work at a major daily ...

And also I have this growing suspicion that my editor knows about my blog(s), though I'm not that big-headed to think that busy people the likes of my editor would waste their precious time reading pathetic blogs belonging to people the likes of me ....

How would he be able to find out? .... I believe, wholeheartedly, that there are spies there .... No, not for the government, though that may be right as well .... And with me not being so discreet, trying to steal the chance typing up on my blog(s)whenever I can, when actually I should be typing up work, while these god-awful nosey people walk up and down behind me all the time ... You see, the area where I sit is exposed to the whole floor, and I happen to sit between the fucking whole floor and the bloody fucking toilets .....

Anyway, back to what I really want to rant about ... If you, dear reader(s), happen to pick up a copy of the measly paper we write a tiny section for, and so happen see this panel called Our Say, well what I say on that panel has not been what I really want to say for the past few issues now, or rather not the words with which I want to say ....

And that's why I'm bloody upset with the associate editor, who I managed to piss off yesterday, so much so that apparently no one working in that tiny section of ours has ever seen him so bloody mad .... Well, deep down I feel justified for having made him blow his top off .... And you know why is that?

Here's why, my dear associate editor, if you also happen to be reading my blog:

WHY ARE YOU CENSORING WHAT I REALLY WANT TO SAY? I JUST WANT TO HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF SELF-IDENTITY WRITING ON THAT SECTION OF OURS .... IS THAT SO BLOODY FUCKING WRONG? .... I'M NOT PLAYFUCKING MINDGAMES WITH YOU, BUT I HAVE A SNEAKING SUSPICION THAT YOU ARE ....

I understand that my words may not be as sophisticated as you all may what them to be, I fully understand the implication of saying something risky that it would land all of us in legal hot soup .... But really, some of the things I want to say are pretty innocuous ...

I'm not an idiot, and if I were, it would really say something about the people who hired me .... But you see, sometimes I do feel like an idiot, working there ....

I get really frustrated when I can't make him understand what I really want to say .... It's like, "Am I speaking Swahili here or what?" .... Which is why most of the time I just throw up my hands in the air and say, "Fine, what do you want me to say?" ....

Earlier in one of my posts abt my work"mates", I said something about a confidence issue .... Yeah, I suffer from that now and then .... But you know what, I think my associate editor suffers from an ego issue ....

That's it .... If I can think of some more things to rant, and somehow can word them very carefully, then I will .... But for now, I just think it's a complete waste of blog space ranting abt people like this, but I do it anyway 'coz I need to let it out ....

I'm just a fucking actor there, in all sense of the word .... Hmmm, this may not be accurate, in the sense that people in the acting profession may not agree with me using the term 'actor' so loosely .... What I actually mean to say here is that, where I work right now, I am not fully myself, especially with the people I directly work with .... Hang on, I think I already made this point somewhere *scratching obviously befuddled head* ....

Tick tock tick tock ...

2009-05-04T09:11:00.009+08:00

Just turned 34, and the other day, had one of those horrible stomach cramps ... I think you know which kind ... Now, this is where my paranoia gets the better of me .... I think it's getting worse .... I don't normally get it every month, but of the past few months, it's either horrible stomach cramps, or the kind of PMS you wished you'd never crossed my path on said days ....

Well, tick tock tick tock ... Wait a minute, do I really want to have a baby just because my clock is ticking? Do all women go through this? .... There are women who choose not to have children, better ask them how they get through with it ....

In the mean time, my stomach still feels very unsettled .... Better stay away from food that retains water, such as papaya ... I don't really have an affinity for the fruit, but it does help bowel movement ... Okay, too much info now ....

Or could it be because of the milk? My stomach's kinda sensitive to that as well ... Sheessh ... I need all that calcium, 'coz women over the age of thirty start losing their bone density, despite having children or not, and hence are susceptible to osteoporosis .... But calcium & magnesium have a certain kind of negative effect on the abdominal lining, blah blah blah, am I right or am I wrong?? Who the fuck cares, 'coz it's killing me ....

Okay, so it doesn't kill me, but it still is kind of painful .... I have a high threshhold when it comes to pain - I don't look it, but I'm telling ya, I'm in pain .... End this bloody entry, BJ ... Can't, 'coz I'm in pain, and the colleague next to me is annoying the hell out of me .... Get back to work! .... Fuck you! .... This is getting ridiculous ....

Okay, BJ, try to imagine the pain as something else .... Imagine this cute hunk with curly dark hair and warm brown eyes giving you loving gentle pinches on your tummy .... Actually, that doesn't help, 'coz upon seeing said cute hunk, my baby-making tendency will start kicking in furiously .... Hmm, wonder if his hair is curly elsewhere ....

Okay then, imagine the pain as a bunch of these cute fluffy kitties jumping on your tummy .... That does not help either, 'coz all I wanna do right now is bite off the heads of those bloody furballs ....

*Long sigh* .... The pain will eventually go away .... Wouldn't it be better if I just fainted on the spot? .... That'll give me an excuse to take leave, and go home .... Trouble is, having a high threshhold of pain, I have never fainted in my life, despite having many a light-headed episode .....

All in a day of a drama-queen ....

A Walk Down Memory Lane - The city I live in ...

2009-04-25T18:55:00.043+08:00

Well, I've been meaning to do this particular pictorial blog entry for some time now, but was just too lazy ... Anyway, it so happened that today I had an assignment in the area, so I thought, "Well, why the heck not, can kill two birds with one batu" .... So, let me take you, dear reader, on a walking tour of this city called KL, in the footsteps of a ten-year-old girl, circa some 20-odd years ago ....

In the distance, you can see the Pasar Seni LRT station ... Well, that used to be the site of the city's bus terminal, or Klang Bus Stand (well, that's how KLites used to call it anyway) .... I remember that if I had wanted to return home, instead of going to my mom's office after school, that I would walk to the terminal, and waited like for the longest time, for the bus .... It was a very frustrating thing for a 10-year-old ....

This bridge was not around during my primary school years, but I think it was when I entered college, so definitely more than 15 years old .... You take it to cross to CM (that's Central Market for the uninitiated) from Dayabumi .... For some reason, I remember this one time when A & I were crossing it when this reporter stopped us to ask about National Service .... I still have the press cutting, and my ugly mug on it .... That's how I know the bridge was built before 1993 ....

Okay, that's the bridge we would cross to get to CM, and me to the bus terminal, before the aforementioned bridge was around .... That's the Klang river, right? .... BJ, are you a KLite or not? .... Look, it's been a while since I've been to this area .... I'll tell you the consequences of that in the following few pix ....

Now, if I got really frustrated waiting for the bus at the aforementioned bus terminal, I would go to the one in Lebuh Ampang, which is instead of turning right here just before that white building to go to CM, you would have to go straight on .... Lebuh Ampang is somewhere there lah .... I seem to recall waiting for the bus at Lebuh Ampang was equally frustrating ....

And still on the same bridge, if you make a 180-degree turn, you can see this yellow building, of which next to it is, or rather was, my mom's office .... Not the whole building, mind you ...

I was trying to aim for that metal plaque, which has the name of the building where my mom's office was ....

And right across from my mom's office is Dayabumi, that white octagonal-shaped building, which I believe is one of the first highrise commercial buildings in the city .... Why it's significant to me? Because for the better part of my primary-school years, I would go to the McD's there right after school, while waiting to go back with my mom, if I decided not to go home on the bus .... Now you know why I'm hooked on junk food, who knows, probably I have mad cow's disease by now .... Can't really blame my mom, I was the quintessential latchkey kid .... Makes you wonder why I don't mind walking around the city all by myself, well, wonder no more, 'coz I'm so used to it ... Well, I stay clear from certain parts ... Haven't walked around Jalan TAR and the Chow Kit area for a very, very, long time now ....

Anyway, I think that McD is still there, but didn't go and check just now .... I used to go there every afternoon, so much so that I got freebies :) .... That McD, I think, is one of the first outlets in the country .... Now you know that I'm quite old actually ....

My destination lies somewhere next to the National Bank, which is the dull grey building in the middle .... In the foreground is the Royal Selangor Club, with that European architecture, which I had never stepped in all these years, until today ....

Well, like I said, I haven't been here for quite a while, and I do mean quite a while .... So, imagined my surprise as I walked to this building, and found it to be the city library .... I think I stood there stupefied for a few seconds .... I asked the people there how long it's opened its doors, and they said at least five years ....

Apparently, the libary opened after that stupid huge flash flood submerged Dataran Merdeka's undeground plaza circa 2003, where one of the two KL The Actor's Studio theatres was located .... Now, both are closed *sighs* .... KL is famous for its stupid flash floods ... I know that there was that great flood before I was born ....

Anyway, I can safely tell you that the last time I was here was when I took my students to see Twelfth Night, and that was in 2002, I think ..... Yes, I know, I'm the shits .... I don't know my city anymore ..... Btw, I took an FB quiz to find how Malaysian I was, and I'm only 25 per cent Malaysian .... Actually, I'm quite happy with that .....

And right next to the city library is a sight that took my breath quite literally .... This is one thing KL CityHall has done right - the city children's library .... You see how terrible I am .... I didn't know the existence of these two libraries until now ....

But this site is very significant because this was where the Selangor state library was located, which is now the National Library .... I remember some days after school, I would stop by and borrow some books ..... I was an avid reader when I was a kid, now I'm just bloody stupid .... Don't even know the city libraries .... Apedah! ....

When the state library moved to a building along Jln Raja Laut, if I'm not mistaken, I still went there to borrow books .... But when it moved out and got its own building, and is now known as the National Library, located in the middle of nowhere (actually along Jln Tun Razak, that I know, okay), I stopped going ..... What is it now? A white elephant? ...

So, what else, I became member of the city library right away ...

KL 2009 ..... Right in the middle, you can actually just make out one of the towers of the Petronas Twin Towers .... I remember that if I didn't walk behind the Royal Selangor Club, I would walk along in between Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad and Dataran Merdeka .... It wasn't called Dataran Merdeka last time .... Ah trivia for you, what was it called? (Actually I forgot myself) .....

And during Merdeka Day rehearsals, I recall all these big army tanks would roll by slowly, and everyone stopped to look ..... And many years passed, when I myself would take part in the Merdeka celebrations .... My college was chosen to sing the year's Merdeka theme, and I took part in the choir ....

If I'm not mistaken, the exact spot of the S'gor state library is where that big electronic screen is .... There was a frangipani tree next to the library, and I used to pluck a flower and took it inside the library, and then smelled it until the scent faded ....

The route to the library from where my destination is ... Getting closer now .... There's Dayabumi from afar, in the first pix ....

And while I passed by the Royal Selangor Club, I went inside and took this pix ....

Hang on, I just remembered something ... My batch had an end-of-year party here ... So, guess not my first time here then .... Aiyoh, how could I have forgotten that?? .... Still have all the pix, with me wearing oversized pants ....

To get to my destination, one has to go through these short tunnels in the middle of this roundabout ....

I hadn't realised how low the tunnels are until I reached the first one .... Could easily touch the ceiling ... I'm not tall, you see, so these tunnels are pretty low .... They weren't when I was 10 ....

The smell hasn't changed though ....

And here it is - my primary school :) ... The first thing that came to mind was how ugly it looks in orange .... Well, maybe it's amber ...

I used to go out the backgate after school, and walked down this path .... One time, and it had just rained, there was this minibus that sped like mad down the road, and splashed like a great bucket of rainwater over me while I was walking down the path ....

You remember those crazy minibuses? ... Before they became pink, they had been in many colours, as colourful as their drivers .... Needless to say, I wanted to scream colourful words to the moron driver that drenched me from head to toe, but then I was 10, and hadn't known any swear words ....

This is exactly where the backgate used to be .... You could still see the stone slabs lining the path to the iron-wrought gate ...

My class was one of those on the top floor .... And I remember playing netball on that court, and sucked BIG TIME ....

And facing the school, right next to its front gate actually, was the city's education department ....

The building is no longer there .... I remember vaguely this was where my father used to work ....

And that's the end of this pictorial blog entry .... Don't think I'll go to other parts of KL to do another one ....

My friend P

2009-04-20T19:03:00.007+08:00

I don't have that many male friends ... Which is ironic, because I happen to love the company of men ... Or rather, I think I would enjoy the attention men can shower me :P ....

My two brothers are sad cases, because not only did they hardly shower any attention, but when they did, it was mostly to bully or berate me .... I exaggerate of course ... But those childhood memories somehow stick to the mind ....

Interestingly enough, I seemed to have been lucky not to seek male attention in the 'wrongest' of ways .... Probably because I led such a sheltered life, despite the fact that I was left to my own devices .... I sought out the pleasure of losing myself in movies, which worked out for everyone, I think ....

Of course, from high school to college, I had the usual dose of crushes .... But the most lasting one in memory is my first crush :) ... So lasting that I think a blog entry of its own is in order ... But it was all sweet memories, and couldn't happen at a better time than when I was sixteen ... More like stupid sixteen *ahaks* ....

Anyway, rather than go on and on about my first bf, lest people should start thinking whether I still carry the torch for him, which is a resounding NO, I would like to say that I wish our relationship ended with a proper closure ....My ex would say the opposite .... Actually, I rather not reveal too much when it comes to other people's private matters, though I may have done so in this blog, by default or by design ....

But it so happens that I thought my ex was my best friend .... Or rather, it was the single biggest mistake I had ever made .... Before any form of true friendship could take root, I immediately jumped into the boy-girl relationship with him ....

Well, it takes two to tango, and I think both of us were equally inexperienced at relationships at that point ....

So, I think the main reason as to why I am kind of sorry it turned out the way it is, is because I had lost a good friend when I ended the relationship .... Things were never ever going to be the same again, I admit .... All the same, why did I have to lose my best friend? ....

Many many years passed, then P entered my life .... And it so happened that at the time I had this crush on a mutual acquaintance, idiotic of me really, now that I've come to realise it ....

But it was P who always put everything into perspective for me ... He would kick my butt on everything ... It would seem that he almost always had reason to lecture me .... In the beginning I found it a little off-putting ....

Wisdom comes only when we realise, but somehow never before ....

I finally realise that he is the kind of person I need in my life .... Someone who's the opposite of my ineptitude at decision-making .... Whereas half the time I don't know what I want, he knows exactly what he wants and gets it ...

So, why oh why did I turn him down when he offered "to spend time" with me? ... It didn't look like much of a proposition, but to me it did ....

Well, one, I didn't want to repeat the mistake I had made with my ex .... And two, I thought P wasn't serious about the "proposition" because he was ... ahem, inebriated at the time .... When I think about it, maybe because he was so nervous, he got drunk .... Don't flatter yourself, BJ ....

And so here I am .... sort of in a crossroad about P .... To an extent, I care about him, so much so that I think my feelings for him border on affection .... Why couldn't that be love? ....

But he already said no, when I brought this up some weeks ago .... Was my heart torn to pieces upon hearing his resounding answer? .... To an extent, I have to admit I am crushed by it ...

Of course, it was a long time ago when he made that proposition .... But like I said, Wisdom only when you realise, but never before ....

All in all, I still have his friendship, and I am ever so grateful for that ... He may have no idea what that means to me, but it means to me a hell of a lot .... He could have said that we shouldn't be friends anymore, but in never saying that, he's a bigger person at heart than I give him credit for ....

Added 08/05/09 - My question now is - Can two people who have never met at all, oceans apart (I did like Richard Marx once upon a time) and all that, become best friends? ....

Hmmm, sounds like a premise of a movie ....

Trouble titling this ...

2009-03-18T12:00:00.008+08:00

So, yeah, I haven't been updating my blog up to speed .... Anyway, I'm not tardy .... Indecisive, yes, but not tardy ....

Anyhooo .... Ever since working in the press, particularly in a section very closely related to business with the capital B, with loadsa capital, fuck, just get on with it .... See, since with working with the press, I realize all to often with intense pain, that I need to materialize my meandering thoughts just a little faster than usual .... Okay, so work = income = need to live, blog = pleasure = I can do whatever I damn pleased with whatever time I have = shut your keghole and read the rest of the fucking post ....

Firstly, got rid of the 'random thoughts' tag ... 'coz all my posts are basically thoughts that just pop up at random, regardless of their significance to current events and happenstance .... So, a post on toothpaste may be tagged under 'dig my digs' and is about an accident I had with toothpaste in the bathroom .... Aah, you had one of those, too ..... Or, it could be tagged under 'Oh the global humanity' and to do with a serious shortage of toothpaste due to some China factory fiasco, in turn causing serious tooth decay, not to mention a bit of halitosis to major workforces in the world, giving more than enough reason for large companies to resort to layoffs .... Or, it could just be about toothpaste, in which case I would have to tag it under 'trouble tagging this ...' But under no circumstances do I want to make sure whoever bothers to pick up this godforsaken blog to understand my random system of thoughts, so there you have, out with 'random thoughts' .....

Ever since working with the press, I really have to keep abreast of current events, and I can't be keeping myself in a bubble anymore, hence 'Oh the global humanity' .... 'trouble tagging this' is just that ... while 'dig my digs' may not necessarily be me gabbing about the house, but experiences to do with the home .... I've contemplated pooling my family toils and troubles together with this, but, no, my family remains dysfunctional as ever ....

And since I've got rid of the 'random thoughts' tag, I thought I should altogether delete my second Blogger blog, but there are a couple of posts on there I'd like to transfer here, so that will be another day ....

Actually, this post is really about nothing, and me just wanting to gab elsewhere than on the paper I work with .... This blog, with the tags on its posts, the visual pastiche of badly taken photographs and stolen graphics from some sap's website, the fucking title, are only meaningful to me ....

Hmm, just thinking .... what has this post got to do with 'tech warp'? Well, do you know of the fastest, quickest way to transfer posts from one host to another?? Google Docs has been helpful, but I want to cut out the whole process and have a cutesy button I can click on that says "Transfer post" on a blog's homepage, or dashboard or whatever ....

The only way I can think of is that I write my stories offline and save on backup ... But I just prefer typing straight onto the blog posting page ....

Added 18/03/09 - And yes, I am an idiot ... All this while, there's that beautiful lil' gadget called Import/Export Blog tucked away on Settings ... Aha! It's Experiment Time, again, heheheh *rubbing hands with a gleeful almost wild-eyed look* .... I have that inactive Wordpress account ... Yes, wonderful ... While I've run out of juice on what the hell I wanna write on my Blogger blog, might as well make an exact copycat of it on another host .... Wouldn't say I'm terribly free, but really, I'm just itching to write something ... meaningful, that I really want every single post to count, but at the same time, just don't feel like writing for no good reason ... Do you writers out there feel this way at times? You just want to write, but you don't wanna write shit? ... I think I'm taking myself too seriously as a writer .... Good, Brainjuice, you're well on your way to a Booker Prize ...

NOTICE: Diary of a Movie Addict is now hosted by Wordpress ... Link's still the same under Virtual Brainjuice ...

Added 20/03/09 - Oh my goodness ... Words can't describe it ... I'm in love with Wordpress ... Okay, maybe that's a bit too much ... You'll only fall in love with people, not something that only has presence in cyberspace ... Then again - okay, okay, I'm off on one of my rambles now ...

Alright, Wordpress is far better than Livejournal (personal opinion) ... For one, I think they have autosave ... Very important for butterfingers like yours truly ... Anyway, I haven't typed a new post, so that remains to be seen ... I still recall this incident when I had an accident with the mouse, and that long post I almost finished with on Livejournal just went ... vamooshed .... That pissed me off off centre ...

I like the clean look of my Wordpress blog ... Though Livejournal offered a lot of themes, I eventually settled on the current one 'coz it's pretty theme-related to my blog, though I do remember how my Movie Addict blog looked like in the beginning and I liked that even more ... I think it's all to do with the widgets ... I don't like how my tags on Livejournal look like ... It looks like a very long list, whereas I wanted a compact look ...

(By the way, I wanted to have the main column on my Movie Addict blog to have maximum width, so I wanted the popcorn icon to be in the rightmost column, on top of the widgets, but some fucking reason, every single time I chose that particular layout, the fucking popcorn won't pop up! ...)

Livejournal is pretty inflexible, most probably bcoz it's one of the earliest blogging sites, so it's pretty much stayed that way ... I could be very wrong about this, coz I only joined Livejournal in late '06 ... Then again, I joined Blogger in '04, and since then, it's improved a lot, with its beta versions and all ... I think they are doing some major overhauling over at Livejournal, but for the life of me, I can't see much change ... Then again, I'm a technoidiot, so don't take my word for it ...

Wordpress does seem to its wonky sides ... For some reason, I have four categories on my dashboard (that's another thing, I'd rather just have tags, so still going through Support on how to get rid of the category thingamajig) ... I tried getting rid of that non-existent category, but it remains persistently stubborn ... Pretty much like the blog owner actually ...

Well, you can't have everything, BJ ... Yes, I know I can't have everything, but I want what I want. Period. ... So now, technically, I have four blogs ... Okay, so this will be the next project for now - getting rid of one of the two on Blogger, and preserving my Livejournal blog by way of .... Why don't I just leave it there ... After all, there's so much space in cyberspace :P ... Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe it's the Fourth Dimension ...

21/03/09 - Hmmmm, maybe I sing my praises too early for Wordpress ... I can't fucking bloody type on its post page ... because, in rich text or html, it just runs over the text box ... I can't see what I'm fucking typing, sheesh ... And I can't put in my captions for the pix properly because the stupid text run messes with everything ... I don't know whether this is a layout issue, or a system issue, 'coz if it's the latter, they better do something about it ... Blogger still remains the best ...

01/04/09 - And it was actually an early April Fool's joke, heheheh ... Just kidding ... Still new to Wordpress, so have to go to Support I come across a stumbling block ... Managed to iron out the problem on the Edit page ...

The wonders, and woes, of networking (updated .... I mean, really)

2009-02-26T12:00:00.001+08:00

Art by Dave Walker

http://www.weblogcartoons.com/

Well, my life is pretty boring these days ..... So, the other day, somebody invited me to be on their FB list ..... Some time ago, I was invited by another friend, but never bothered to accept .... Hmm, some friend, huh? ....

So, when I saw this new invite, I thought, oh well, there's no avoiding it then .... So, I took what was to me one giant leap, but a short click of the mouse away for the rest of Planet Earth ....

The thing is, it's not that I find the idea of Social Networking repulsive ... not in the least bit at all .... You should see me in action on YM .... Well, that was some time ago, I've hung up my hat and taken the bullet for all the 'action' ..... It's just the idea that I have to put up all my bits and pieces on one, er, homepage when I've strung out like a gazilion thousand words on two separate blogs, why do I need a networking site for? ....

Isn't it really bad, enough to induce permanent comatose, to read all that stuff I've written on my blogs, all just about me? Yeah, it is, Brainjuice .... I mean, c'mon, who reads your blogs anyway, other than your loyal friends? .... Do I have such a megalomaniac personality that I need to use more webspace only to add fuck-ugly facts and farting fancies about my self? ....

But FB is pretty much unlike, well, MySpace, for example .... You don't really have to fill in a lot on your profile ..... the Applications add the personal touch to that ..... Hmmm .... FB also stands for fuck buddy, right? .... Well, where the hell is he? .... I could use some right now .... Yeah, I mean like, right this minute ..... Okay, going back to this social networking stuff .....

Right, I was hooked on the apps .... They have cool apps .... like what sort of farter you are, and see who has the most earwax among you and your friends .... You know, things like that ..... and I begin to realize that is not about just you, but you and your friends sharing cool stuff and bug each other out with more and more apps invites .... omigod, like .... duh ....

Hmmm, well, welcome the 21st century of making friends ..... One day, we're going to have friends who are just computer interfaces .... we never meet these people, in fact, we have avatars for that who would do all the friendship bonding for us ..... In fact, the relationship is so real, that, .... like, it was discussed in an edition of TIME early year 2007, 'kay, so go read that ..... 'coz I'm just another faceless hack who's just trying to say the obvious ....

In the mean time, I'll try to dodge as many apps invites as possible, thereby making me unpopular and uncool, and possibly, be taken out of the list of the very few friends that I have ..... hmmm, the pressure ....... But nothing, no amount of technology could ever re-create the feeling of a warm bear hug of a cherished close friend :) ....

... Just wanna add that I've had my FB account for some time now, but the fuck buddy still hasn't turned up ....

Added 22/02/2009 - Well, there's been quite a lot of FB dissenters lately, what with the latest fuck-up on its new Terms of Use ... And then about the latest craze on that 25 Random Things about Whatever .... I actually never had a look at the new ToU before it was taken down, and yes, I've been tagged with that 25-random-thingamajig ....

Can I simply point out something? When one enters into an agreement, a law-binding one at that, I am pretty sure there is a clause that says something to the effect, that of the party you sign for, hereby can, and will, change their terms and conditions of use, in whatever manner they deem fit, as befitting the nature of their business ... The thing is, for me, I don't bother reading all these legal literature, 'coz they're a headache to understand ... I know, and am fully aware, of the dangers of doing such a thing ... But you know what, I just take my chance, and clicked the box next to the disclaimer "I understand the Terms of Use" ... The thing is, do you actually think a lot of people out there bother to read the Terms of Use of anything? ... Some people do, and rightly so .... I'm not one of those people ....

And I don't bother doing the 25 Random Things You Ought To Know About Me .... Like I've said, in this post, I have my two blogs to do that for me .... I had a look at an example, though ... It's kind of interesting ...

What I'm more concerned with, is the crime that can be perpretrated through these social networking sites - child molesters targetting young victims, for instance ... That, to me, is a much more immediate and important issue ... Bear in mind, though, Facebook has been used in law enforcement to solve crimes ... Below are some links to help people understand these issues:

1) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/ap_on_bi_ge/sex_offenders_facebook

2) http://valleywag.gawker.com/5065279/the-facebook-murder

3) http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090218/cm_csm/ylibby

4) http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2009/02/articles/the-law/for-people/what-do-facebooks-new-terms-of-use-mean-for-your-content/

5) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28938524/wid/11915829?GT1=40000

6) http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/Law-Enforcements-New-Tool-to-Fight-Crime--Facebook/1$44395

7) http://www.newsweek.com/id/183180?from=rss

My friend, N

2009-02-22T12:00:00.001+08:00

Well, I've talked at length about one of my very few best buds, so it's only fair that I talk about another one .... My best friend, N, who goes under the blogger name Queen Diva ....

Well, I think I got to know Aimo a few years before I met N ..... N and I met at the school I taught some time ago, and I found out only then that she was my junior at college ......

I've told N this some time ago, but I think she didn't really believe me - When I first got to know her, I was intimidated by her .... Yes, 'intimidated' is the word ..... I felt any second now, she would expose me for who I was, which was that I only pretended to be part of the so-called teaching institution, whereas deep down I hated with all my gut the school and the people that I worked with ..... Of course, except for very few of them, including my friend ......

But as time revealed, there were more surprises to her than I had imagined ..... She was pretty cool about a lot of things, and the first thing that I grew to admire about her is her sense of confidence ...... She's going to say "What a load of bullshit!" when I say that, but who cares, this is what I have to say about her ..... and I think partly the reason for my initial feeling of intimidation towards her was that, well, she had this certainty about how things should be done, whereas I just couldn't give a damn ..... and I really thought she would turn out to be just like the rest of them, but no, she was not .....

And that's what make her rise above than the rest, that she could still be herself, truly herself with her opinions, and yet be part of that warped environment with people that have warped-up ideas about the world ..... whereas I just couldn't fit in, or only pretended .....

After I left the school, we sort of lost touch with each other ..... I wouldn't know whether my leave of absence had any real effect on our friendship, but I realized that I had taken it for granted after I returned from Japan and hooked up back with N ......

She recounted her experiences and things that happened after I left, and without saying too much, things were never rosier, in fact they turned a shade ugly ...... And so it was ..... We would meet up up, not like every day of every week, but at least a few times a month ..... The routine would be - She would drive all the way from where she lived (and not once has she ever brought up the issue of the ever-rising price of petrol and toll), pick me up from my place, drive all around KL and finally just lepak at some mamak stall and rant to each other .....

It's these memories of our night-time drives that come to the surface of my mind ever so clearly when I think of her, now so far away in another very foreign country ...... Of course, we would also do the usual girls-day-out kinda thing, which is basically window-shopping at a shopping complex .....

We both like to pig out at Chili's, when the occasion affords us, and we both like to watch movies ..... Except of course, her taste and mine differ ..... Up to now, I still cannot understand why she thinks The Brothers Grimm is a really bad movie, whereas I enjoyed it ......

Anywayz, here's looking at you, N .... God bless .....

Added 21/02/2009 - There are so many things about my friend N that I would like to share with the world, but if you want to get to know her, her blog Confessions of a Diva would give you an idea ... Having said that, there's only so much a blog can tell .... There's nothing better than getting to know a person in person ... And N is one of those people you have to get to know in person ....

The Copy must go on - I'm a people pleaser, people ....

2009-02-11T23:13:00.013+08:00

Nobody likes a people pleaser, take it from me ....

I was just about to start this post by saying "Some of the greatest writers produced their best work before they committed suicide, and a lot of these writers are probably people pleaser" ... But before I had the chance to write that piece of sacrosanct shit, my best friend in the whole wide world commented on the post below, saving me in time ...

The truth of the matter is, I feel really shitty right now, and thanks, but no thanks that another good friend had to point that out ... that I'm feeling miserable .... Some good friend, eh? ... You don't have to point it out ... I know, but do you know how it is to feel pain? And not see any sign of physical injury whatsoever? ... I know what this friend is going to say ... He's just going to go off tandem into one of his own profound ramblings, and I'd be left confused myself ... He's going to say either, "I know exactly how that feels, to feel pain and not see signs of injury" and then on and on about something else, or "Chill ..." .... What am I doing, now I'm ranting on my own friend here ....

Yes, it definitely has everything to do with work, or to be more precise, with the people I work with right now ... I just keep thinking, "Why the hell can't I be confident around these people?" ... More importantly, "What is so bad about them that I can't be myself??" ...

The thing is, I just couldn't care less about meeting people's expectations anymore ... I'm just tired of it ... And the thing is, these people don't really see that I take these sort of things seriously ... But I've had this pointed out to me for as long as I can remember: "You just take things so seriously" ... Yeah, but is it a crime?? 'Coz if it is, just put me in jail or something, therefore stopping me from doing something completely stupid like killing myself over it, why dontcha?? ...

It's times like this when I feel like I want to run away ... Just run, you know ... Just run, and run, and run ... And never look back, and just keep going at it ...

My colleague and I had a chat just now ... And she pointed out what I have known about myself for so long ... That I have a confidence issue ................. Like, duh ... But, at least after working there for almost eight months now, and knowing her up to this point, I really appreciated the fact that she was totally frank with me on this, to which I have told exactly that to her ...

I can't say that I don't like these people .... It's not a matter of like and dislike ....... It's just a matter of me having to remind myself time and again, that at the end of the day, we are all on the same team ... But can I just add something here? If one team player goes down, don't you think that the rest of the team will go down, too? ... Or rather, should go down, too? ...

Because every single time I make a mistake, I feel like they leave me floundering there like an idiot .... My colleague pointed out to me of what she has noticed of me so far, not exactly verbatim: " .. that every time you need to explain yourself, you get flustered, and people get confused of what you're trying to say" .... I have to agree with her on that .... But I wanted her to point out another thing (which of course she didn't): "Why are you not confident enough to explain yourself? Has it got something to do with us?" ....

The thing is, and she was kind enough (or vicious, depending) to point out that she suffers from it at times ... And what I really wanted to say to her, but just didn't have the confidence, is that we all have a confidence issue .... All of us ... Heck, the Palestinians and the Israelis, too ... But, some people, like my colleague, and the Israelis, are so good at shielding themselves from letting people know the truth, that they're in fact not confident with themselves, while some people, like me, and the Palestinians, are just bloody awful at faking confidence .... There you go, I've just made a biased political statement ... Bear in my mind, I can only do this in writing, I'm not confident enough to explain this verbally without getting flustered, and as a result, making people confused, and concluding that I have fundamental, terrorist thinking ....

One thing that I can think of, to explain why I'm unable to coherently tie my strings of sentences together, and make sense, is because I feel these people just don't have the patience to listen to me .... I know I'm long-winded, and in the press, I guess you can't be long-winded, and time is of the essence ....

And if I can't make it with these people, I can't make it elsewhere in the media ...

And this all really start with the fact that I'm a people pleaser ... Probably that's why I couldn't hold their respect ...

Wait a fucking minute, I look at myself in the mirror now and then, and see a not-so-incompetent person staring back ... That's it, I have made one of Brainjuice's Ultimate Decisions ... The people I work with right now, the immediate people I work with right now, they are not bad, hideous people, but they will not be allowed to enter BJ's friendship club ... Nevertheless, I would not mind working with them, if only just to forward myself in this industry ... See, I have my motives, too ...

It's late, I'm tired ... I need sleep, but knowing how my brain works, I'll never be able to sleep well .... Sleep, in fact, has eluded me .... Either I sleep too little, or too much ... Now I even have this tiny irritable bump on the corner of my left eyelid ... Had it before, thought it's just an infection due to weather, but now I know it's really stress acting up .... Tomorrow I have a field assignment, and I'm going to do shit ....

My ex-friend A

2009-02-08T15:00:00.005+08:00

Once upon a time, I used to be an avid reader of Cosmopolitan ... Not the locally-produced "tame" ones, but the straight-from-the-States, all sex-n-goss ones ... But in between the sex and goss, one could find articles that really hit a spot ... And one such article is this one by Caroline Knapp on how friendship between women ends ... Not too sure whether it's archived somewhere on-line, but to tell my story, I'll quote snippets from the article ...

"We did a lot of growing up together," says Carol. "She knows everything about me. And now there is nothing there, just a memory of a friendship, ..."

A and I met in college almost 16 years ago ... I was having difficulty adjusting to dorm life, I think, and on top of that, I had trouble getting along with my room mate, most probably to do with the fact that I was having difficulty adjusting to my new life ... It so happened that my soon-to-be-ex-room mate was very chummy with A's room mate, with whom A hadn't never gotten along as well .... And it so happened that we were all on the same floor ... I seem to recall that both A and I would meet in the hallway, and then we'd be talking about each other's room mate ... And in the process, we found out that we had a lot in common ... A was borne two days before me, so that was like, ohmigod, kinda girl moment ... Before you know it, we'd switched room mates, and it worked out very well, I think, considering the fact that both my ex-room mate and A's became bosom buddies, and so did both A and I ...

A was the pretty one, I'll be frank ... Convivial, and got along with a lot of people ... I was the socially-maladjusted, quiet, pseudo-intellectual, keeping pretty much to myself ... Then I met two other quiet intellectuals, AY and T ... and all four of us formed a study group, in which we called ourselves The Confused Grammarians ... I seem to recall that during our study sessions, I'd be the first one to fall asleep (lazy bum), then after a while, A would follow suit, leaving AY and T discussing til the dead of the night ... Aah, those were the days ...

A, of course, was more active than I was ... She'd be involved in some end-of-the-year activity for the batch, while I would take part in co-curricular activities just to get the stupid points and certs ... We were in the swimming club together, and I think it was in the pool that I realized how A would try to be better than I was at everything ...

I was the shadow, A was the light that shone the room ... I think I kinda like the arrangement ... We could talk about how we like the same music, the same movies, the same silly crushes on movie stars ... I think I really didn't mind the attention going A's way, and she just lapped up the intention .... Then this guy J came into our lives, and I think that was the start of the undoing of our friendship ...

Or you become romantic rivals - a sure-fire way to complicate a friendship.
I had this crush for J, and I told A about it ... The thing is, J had the hots for A, and told me about how he felt for her ... Of course, he didn't know how I felt for him at the time, I never told him, until much later, I think ... I think what I did was that I told A about how J felt for her, so they got on together, and I went further in the shadows ... I think I was really bitter, but I was bitter without knowing how to deal with it ... I just gave A the silent treatment for a while ...

Of course, a lot of things happened in the two years that we were living in the dorm ... Really good things, if I put my mind to it to remember what they were ... I do remember staying over at A's family's place for a few days ... and they made me feel like I was part of the family ... They even bought me stuff, like this pair of Levi's I still have until today ...

I remember having A, AY and T over my place, then we watched my brother's dirty movies ... That was a riot *smiles* .... AY and T were disgusted, but continued watching ... I just made fun of them, cracking dirty jokes all the way, I think .... Aah yes, those were the days ...

But it was that time during our first year in our Bachelor's programme, when we took our qualifying exams, and I failed a paper, that was the lowpoint of my life ... One night, like a few days after we got the results, A, AY and T just showed up at my door, and tried their best to cheer me up ... I think it was that night that I secretly vowed I would remain loyal to these people the rest of my life ... Whatever that would happen, I would try to be there for them ...

Maybe that vow was made in complete naivete ... I should have known that all of us would grow up, move away and move on ...

Over the years, most of her close friends have moved away, married, started
families. And her own family, to whom she was never particularly close, live
far away.
A was the the first to get married, I think, then soon after that it was AY, who right after our graduation, migrated with her husband to another country ... T got married some time after graduation ... I lost contact with AY almost immediately, and T pretty soon after that ...
Nevertheless, A and I kept in touch ... We taught in the same state, at least ... and at one point, I lived in her area for a couple of years, so even though we didn't meet every week, we made arrangements to meet each other, we'd go shopping, things like that ... Then I went overseas to further my studies ...

After I came back, we picked up where we left .... I think it was during this time that it became clear to me how our friendship had evolved up to that point ...
On an emotional level, you slowly sense old bonds are weakening. You, and
your friends, have changed ... The forces that cemented the relationships have
shifted, and newer forces, like envy, competitiveness, resentment, have now
emerged.

A confided to me her marital problems ... I won't divulge details, it's just that without her saying it in plain words, I could tell she was unhappy ... She was lonely and unhappy, and I just listened and not too sure what to tell except just to listen ...

Then, she met this Mat Saleh from the Netherlands ... She was telling me how she was thinking of me while talking to that man, but deep down in my bitter heart, I had this feeling that she was just thinking of herself ... Then the man asked her to meet him in the Netherlands ... She was afraid of doing so, and uncertain of what to do ... I think this is where I made the stupid mistake of telling her to go and just meet the man ... I was thinking, "What the heck, she looks really unhappy, why not just tell her to go and meet the guy" ... She asked me to go with her, which I did so very reluctantly ...

Months passed by, and they planned to meet up more often ... One day, she called up, and said she wanted to borrow my winter coat, and that's where I lost it ... I just didn't talk to her on the phone, I gave her the silent treatment again ...

Then Karen started going out with this guy. She became less available at
weekends, then on week nights. They still talked regularly but, Sue says, "I
started to feel like Karen didn't have much use for me."

A and I met like, once, after that ... Then we met no more ... I did send her horrible text messages, along the lines of "So how is it with you and that Mat Saleh boyfriend of yours?", to which, like after a long while, she replied with a text along the lines of "I'm involved with this regatta thing, where there'll be loads of Mat Saleh guys there" ...

I was thinking to myself, "How can I be jealous of a woman who's having an affair??" ... "How can I be an idiot over this matter? If A really cared for our friendship, she would meet up to try mend broken fences", after I sent her a couple of text messages asking whether we could talk about it ...

Both Kathleen and I have a profound aversion to confrontation and great
difficulty expressing anger. Accordingly, we chose to lose the friendship rather
than fight for it, to let our anger or hostility or jealousy grow and simmer
beneath the surface until it became intolerable, and then to back off, hauling
out a set of cliches to explain why the friendship wasn't working: "We've grown
apart", "She's more fucked up than I thought she was when we first met." And
there you go: take two complex, emotional women, add a particularly female
distaste for confrontation, and - voila! - a recipe for passive endings.

In truth, I think, A and I stayed friends for so long because we shared a lot of experiences together ... We were room mates for two years, we went to the same college in England, we lived in the same area during the first few years of our teaching career ... I wouldn't say that I never cared for her, it's just that I thought she could really be self-absorbed ...

The point is, deep friendships need time and care, two increasingly limited commodities in our busy lives. The irony is, the less time and care we have, the more we need good friends.
Recently, AY and I were reunited via the magic of Facebook ... As I would think, she is extremely busy with her two kids, and now she's busy doing her graduate studies ... But now and then she would send me a message on FB, and I'm just happy with that ... and through FB, I managed to get T's number, and now know that she's still teaching, in fact she's been teaching in the same district where I taught, except when we had finally managed to get in touch with each other, and had even planned to do our Masters at the same local uni, I was offered to do mine in Japan ... Anywayz, she's also busy with two kids ... and I completely understand this, but begged her to join FB ...

I saw A's profile on FB like more than a month ago, and sent her a message along the lines of, "You're still looking pretty. Okay, kind of lame there." ... Needless to say, I never got a response ... I think I just didn't know what to say ...

My God, I finally got Astro!

2009-01-09T22:34:00.009+08:00

Yeah, well ... Anyway, I find it amusing that my mother wants the cartoon channels, while I don't .... Twenty years ago, the opposite would happen .... Well, twenty years ago, we didn't send up a broadcast satellite to join the thousand others already orbiting this godforsaken planet .... Not that I don't like cartoons anymore, but it's just that my taste has become .... well, selective, whilst my mother's is that of under-12s .... I'm really beginning to see that the shift is not merely one of responsibility ....

I know ... since I need to kick-start my shitty social life, while my mother seriously needs to get a life, I'll just have to do something about that then - We'll watch tv together .... It's a start, before I could think of something physical for us to do together so that she could work on those arthritic knees .... But right now, too lazy to think of one ...

She may think that going into the autumn of her life means terminal hibernation of her mind, but with both of us being obstinate in our own ways, I may just get my way with her .... So I put my foot down and said, "No cartoon channels" .... She started to say something about the Avatar series .... Cute, she knows I like that series, too, whereas I know she wants her Ben 10 and Totally Spies .... My God, should I get her an action figure? .....

But I put all my weight down on my bloody foot and said, "Look, the Variety package has Animax, and I'm footing the monthly bill here" .... I could swear she skipped a couple of steps .... Well, at least she's into anime ... For having interest in that, I would have to respect her ....

What my mother doesn't know, of course, is that I wanted StarWorld .... I wouldn't have minded having the Movie package, if it weren't for the fact that the movie lineup can be crappy, and of course, there are deleted scenes ... My current tv diet is adequate enough with just AXN and StarWorld, 'coz I don't really have time to watch tv nowadays anyway ... Hallmark's not too bad .... And then I included the Learning package, so there you go, mom .... Life-long education for you .... The Discovery channels are good, but I find the History Channel equally fascinating ....

Oh well ...

Below is a post from back a year ago ... Still has some relevance to it ... In the sense of how much change a person can go through in the span of a year .... Edited it a little a bit ... I think I'm mellowing ... Got nothing to do with age actually ( ... still, 34, man ... ) ... More to the fact that it is so damned hard to carry all this weight around with me .... I really need to travel light ....

HD: Hmmm, the signs are all too familiar ... Haven't I been down this road before?
It all started when I wanted to "borrow" her car ..... Now, I don't take her car out every week of every month .... But you could say that on average, I drive her car once a month ...... So, there I was, asking whether I could drive her car for the weekend ...... And there she went all over again, saying I should get my own ...... Then came out all the argument about how she has to spend for the service, not to mention the cost of petrol and road tax and blah blah .......

This is the classic argument of what I would like to call laying-the-guilt-trap ....... Most of the time, I go into this trap with my mouth shut and bursting out at the wrong end ........ This time, I decided not to trap myself and burst into words I never knew I had, right in front of her ..... I gave her a choice - Increase the monthly sum I pay her by a hundred and have her never mentioning abt buying my own car to my face ... or I'll buy a car, and never pay her the monthly sum ....

At the mention of the second option, she had this look on her face as if I just said God doesn't exist and Life is a big fucking lie ........ And before I could even cut in, out came spewing all her weapons of choice - How she cooks and does my laundry for me, how she spent all her money on my education while I was growing up, blah blah ...... I cannot reason with my mother ..... That I realize, all too late and all too painful ....... So I have to learn to wash out the truth, just so that it sounds like it's true, but in actual fact it's not completely the whole story .....

Like I've decided to tell her that I'm driving the car to go to one place, leaving out details like picking up my friend on the way, or perhaps making a detour somewhere else ....... I used to be this fucking naive idiot and found myself unable to hide things from her ....... Hmm, wonder why that was so? Mr. Jung, care to explain? .....

And the money issue ...... I bet they have done some research somewhere that one of the main causes of family break-ups is MONEY, either too much of it, or never enough of it ...... I just hate that word MONEY ....... Throw it to my face, and I'm supposed to feel like I owe my mother big time??!! For all her prostrating to God, why the hell is she so caught up with one of the iniquities of this "Temporary-Reprive-Before-the-Hereafter"? .....

So, fine, I told her that I would buy all of my own groceries, cook for myself, do my own laundry ..... It's not as if I'm a complete spoilt brat and cannot fend for myself at all ...... At the suggestion that I would stuff up her precious fridge with more food, she got all upset ....... Mother dearest, do you want me to be an adult or not? ........ Hence, the title of this fricking blog .......

In the end, we settled with me paying her an extra fifty bucks, she does all the grocery-buying and cooking, I would do my own laundry, and her never ever mentioning the M word to my face again ........ Deep down, I know what she was really thinking ....... She wants me to be the sort of daughter her friends have - the responsible, always-volunteer-to-do-the-housechores-without-her-having-to-tell ....... Tough luck, mother ...... I'm a lazy git, and who do you want to blame that character flaw on? Not Daddy dearest again? ......... It takes all strength and reservation for me not to be like my mother, but the more I look at myself, the more I see her in me ......... The question is, what exactly does she see when she looks at me? ........

Probably the very same little girl of twenty years ago ...

Deleting accounts and moving on .... Retitled: The many wonders of cyberspace (talk about tacky titles) ...

2009-01-01T08:00:00.003+08:00

In a very strenuous effort to move my lazy ass from where it has stuck (imagine a very tiny toilet bowl) onto the bright future ... that is the unknown, I have taken a very unBrainjuice decision .... which is to delete my primary email accounts .... The fact that over the years, I have created numerous email accounts, hosted by a variety of ... erm, webhostesses? (BJ, you really gotta learn ... What?? No gender equality in cyberspace? Or is that just plain uber-sexism, if there is such a thing), must have left a nightmare for those who sorted out their respective ... *saying it very tentatively, with just the tip of her tongue, like it's some alien language* log files .... Ah yes, finally, I can claim my hyperbolic, oxymoronic language as my own .....

Therefore, in order not to be a pain to anyone anymore, virtual or not, I have decided to streamline everything, and delete email accounts, so that there will only be one representing each cyber domain .... Yucks, I hate it when I use techie language ... techie as in tacky ... What's that one? Oh yes, Open Domain Name System ..... Which brings me to this point .... After I had zealously deleted my oldest, and by far, the worst brought upon myself, email account, I had accidentally deleted the account in which this blog was .... well, accounted for ..... It was enough reason for me to get up at 3.30 in the morning .... Anywayz, I couldn't get any sleep, hence the account-deleting mania .....

Moving on to my story, the strangest thing was, I could log on to this blog, despite having earlier deleted the email account ..... Look, I'm no internet wizard, but tech-wise, wouldn't I have not been able to log on, since I used an invalid email account? ....

Strange things have happened to me in my internet sojourns, and I'm not merely talking about my Yahoo Messenger adventure .... So strange that I have decided to become inured by it .... My whole point, in recounting all this phooey baloney, is what assurance do I have in having all my email, blog, whatnot accounts secured, if I could access any of them with an account that has been deleted, hence invalid?

I don't know the answer .... Do you? ....

On a different note, I surf personal stuff on the office comp ... Doesn't everybody? ... Oh, not you, of course .... Anywayz, while trying to squeeze every single juice from my brain in typing up endless copy, I go and update my blogs, Facebooking, chatting using Yahoo email, chatting on Facebook, blah de blah ....

I also surf for fresh news from reputable press agencies via MSN and Yahoo ... as well as movie news, and the occasional celeb goss .... And very recently my computer has hanged a couple of times .... Now, with me not being techie-wise, I had not got the foggiest idea what was going on ....

Just last Saturday, right after saving one very important copy (as with all the copy I've typed), I shut down the computer, only to find that it wouldn't shut down .... I wanted to wait, but it was really late at night, so I just skedaddled out of there ... When I came to the office on Tuesday, my comp was still not shut down ..... After sitting down with the IT gal (yes, of course, there are women out there who know their bytes from bites ... way to go) and shooting a few random questions, I found out that my surfing habits may very well contributed to the hordes of viruses found inside my poor computer ....

Firstly, apparently Yahoo sites are unstable ... Even though all those error messages kept popping up while I surf for that one in a million celeb goss, I never thought the better of them until now ... So, for those of you out there who are tech-wise, you probably already know this, but for those of you, like me, completely clueless on internet matters, just take note ....

What saddens me is that I really like to surf Yahoo!News .... Tried Google News, and, erm, I don't really fancy it, but not to say Google itself is not good, I mean, for goodness' sake, it's my main search engine .... If I'm not mistaken, it's only when I surf Yahoo!OMG that those error messages pop up, but I am not taking any chances ....

Maybe I should go directly to the press agencies' websites, which I have done for major local print media, not forgetting BERNAMA .... Using search engines to surf multiple news from different sources saves time for me .... Wouldn't it be for you? .... Besides, I have tried to surf to this well-known and reputable, even with my little knowledge of the British Press, newspaper's site, and it takes like, dinasour years for the page to load ....

(Hmmm, checking up on two internationally renowned press agencies ... Okay, a lot faster than going to that British newspaper's website ... But I still prefer Yahoo!News)

Now, I think I read somewhere that the local major ISP has connection problems, something to do with bloody cables linking it to North America and Europe (not to sure about the validity of this story ... My God! You're a reporter! Go and check it out!), but I've been trying to go to this newspaper's site for some time now ... Maybe I should go to another British newspaper's website ....

Anywhooo, chatting ... Oh, puhleeeezzz, don't tell me you have never succumbed to this? ... Oh-My-God, you don't?? That's so, like, get out of here! .... Of course, I shouldn't be chatting, or in the very case of what I'm doing now, blogging, during work time ... but I think I'm responsible enough to know my limits ....

Now, I have stopped using Yahoo messenger for some time now, I chat using Yahoo email, which I think is safer ... Then again, you can't really take my word for it, 'coz I am quite blur about internet security (refer above) ... Besides, it's Yahoo .... I get a lot of spam on Yahoo, and once there was this weird message from the vice vice president of Yahoo telling me to do something godforsakenly weird ... Mind you, I almost fell for it, if not for the weird English ....

Neverthless, chatting on Facebook is fun ... Apparently, not everybody likes the chat function on FB, but I do ... It has landed me in hot water with the associate editor, so, yes, I have actually toned down ... I still think I'm responsible enough to know my limits .... It's pretty much as to how you limit yourself to alcohol ... We all have our vices ....

What's is the point of me telling you all this? Okay, here goes, and probably you know already ... Besides being a movie addict, I'm also an internet addict .... I can go on for two days without going on-line, but not the third ... But I'm not as bad as some people I know ... I mean, how about those people whose livelihood depends on them surfing on the internet? Are they internet addicts? ...

So, maybe 'internet addict' doesn't so much describe me as ... erm, 'internetphile' ... In fact, I think it's a wonderful invention ... Even TIME magazine has a made a mention of it as being one of the greatest 20th century inventions, if I recall ... I can't thank Sir Tim Berners-Lee enough ....

But, the internet's greatest gift is also it's also greatest curse, I think .... No thanks to some really irreponsible people .... This beautiful invention, which can connect you with someone, regardless of space and distance, can also destroy your system, and all your precious files, with one swift stroke ....

Before I strike down with my point, a little rambling history first ...I grew up during a big transitional period of computer and internet advancements .... I joined the computer club in junior high, learned BASIC, and went, "Whoa, I know computer language" ... I remember MS-DOS ... Forget the 3.5" floppy diskettes, I still remember the 5.5" ones ...

I even recall Wordstar ... Lordy me, I remember using that programme to type my assignments ... It can never hold a candle to Microsoft Word (except perhaps the version in the latest MS Office Vista, god, what the hell is this?) but in it's simplicity, it works ....

Then, one time, I was moseying down the library hall when I chanced upon a few collegemates doing something on the library computers .... And it was there that I got to know Netscape (can't remember which version) ... Omigod, it was sloooww, like longer dinasour years .... Probably got more to do with the 56K modem than with the poor sodding browser ... Move up a couple of years, and I was introduced to FriendFinder, and that, I think, was the beginning of social networking in a big way ... Heck, I got to know my one, and only, ex on FF, opened via my very first Yahoo account, so all this hold a special place in my heart ....

Well, enough personal history ...So we all grew up and moved on and advanced .... And now people like Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs, and the two dudes behind Youtube make mucho moolah, while people like you and me, in the background, are lazing on our ergonomic chairs, just enjoying playing on our workstations, and reaping in the rewards of what they've accomplished ....

But, like I said, there are a few irresponsible people out there who just cannot see other people happy .... So they create viruses, and somehow these viruses mutate or what, how the hell would I know, but their lethalness is incredible ... Some of these viruses can even disable anti-viruses, as I found out to my own, incredible you may think, astonishment ....

Yes, I was astonished, I did not realize the full extent of what these viruses are capable of .... I just thought, like most of us probably, "Oh, the anti-virus will take care of it" ... What anti-virus? .... So, if you're one of those hacks who enjoy flooding major servers with your very own concoctions of Bloody Mary bloody hell viruses, and so happen you come across this blog .... STOP!

Because I'm not just talking about me, I'm talking about the thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, people out there who are incapacitated by our own limited abilities, not so much knowledge, of troubleshooting virus attacks that keep getting more and more sophisticated .... Yeah, there are more imminent issues at play at the moment, like the global economic crisis, and global warming ... But you know what, the internet can contribute as much to solving these very problems, among others ... To highlight a point: Barack Obama uses Facebook to garner potential votes ...

I hate to see a future where the very thing that advances us, is the one that ultimately destroys us, and it's not because of the machines per se, it's us really ...

Useful reading (probably):

Microsoft Support on computer viruses (Read: blatant advertisement)

2008-12-19T10:52:00.007+08:00

Stupid Wabbit is wondering that with the latest news on fraud related to Polaroid, so much so that they're filing for bankruptcy, that if it weren't for the subprime crisis, would one of the greatest pyramid scams of this century, ala Mad Madoff (that's my own nick for him, hahah!) could have been found out? .... I mean, the SEC not being able to dig any dirt on the guy, for decades?? ..... The moral of the story is, out of great adversity, comes deflation which should do good for everybody's ego .....

Spring cleaning on Christmas ...

2008-12-03T15:17:00.021+08:00

I actually hate cleaning ... Okay, hate may not fit the bill .... I actually detest cleaning .... The fact that I was such a perfectionist in my early days of cleaning, in that I scoured every nook and cranny with vengeance against the very miniscule of dust, was probably because the whole activity somehow exorcised some kind of demon inside me ....Or rather, because my mother told me to do it .... Now, I'm just old and doggone lazy .... Anywayz, as much as the idea of cleaning up stirs hardly an industrious bone, the idea of a messy place, to me, is even more frightening, and very much loathed .....

So, if I had to put it down to a list of most detestable house chores, from the worst to the least terrible, this would be it:

i) Vacuuming
ii) Ironing
iii) Cooking
iv) Cleaning the dishes
v) Laundry

Erm, have I missed anything? .....

Alright, what has all this talk on cleaning got to do with anything? .... As it so happens, my room is getting crowded with stuff, and though I may have the option of throwing the junk out, it also so happens to be that my old and doggone lazy bones have gotten sentimental .... I have developed an incurable affinity for inanimate objects .... Even for something as trifle as a pen ... I'd imagine it would cry out "Why do you push me away? Why do you throw me out??" as I let it fall into the wastepaper basket ..... Imagine instead if it was a book ....

Oh dear lord, strike me down for committing a sin worse than chanting something obscure which I wouldn't know the meaning of anyway - Besides, I really don't know the meaning of most of the things I recited in kelas mengaji ... I mean, I know they're Arabic, but I haven't a clue as to what they mean - I have thrown away books, yes .... Tonnes of them, truckloads of them ... Okay, I exaggerate, but point remains .... Why did I do such a stupid thing? Because I was stupid then ....

Not wanting to be overly remorse over matters long past, I decided I will no longer throw away anything .... except old and tattered underwear, and paper that has been used over and over again, and DVD and CD covers (because they take up space unnecessarily), and ....

My mission is futile, but I shall prevail .... So, without much ado, I have dedicated the yuletide holiday for the very purpose of spring-cleaning my room .... *sighs* .... The daunting thought of it .....

I could, however, resort to selling my stuff at some flea market .... erm, RM50 for my music CD collection? Now, wait just a fine minute, you're out of your fucking mind!!!! ..... Okay, okay, maybe the .... hmmm, lemme think .... Oh wait, I've actually set aside a box for worthless junk, I mean, actual worthless junk .... so worthless that I don't think I could get money out of them anyway ......

And after clearing all those things away (into shiny bright IKEA boxes), I can just imagine my room breathing easier with more space .... and in that bright new empty area, I shall put a ...... hmmm, maybe one of those colourful deckchairs .... where I can lounge, and sip pina colada, and while away time doing absolutely nothing .... Or one of those comfy IKEA armchairs .....

Hmmm, it's the idea of putting in something new emboldens me to buck up, and clean up my room :) ...

Added 06/12/08 - And the first to go would be my almost-in-tatters pair of trainers ... They're definitely more than five years .... close to eight probably ... God knows how hard the soles have become ... Could explain why my knees get painful after I jogged in them, but still, I plodded on the poor sodding pair ... Only when it started to chafe badly on the area just around one ankle that I've decided that, well, it's the end of the road for you ... Goodbye, my trusty trainers ... Rest in peace in trainer heaven you shall .... At least you'll forever be remembered on this blog ...

And hello, my new pair ... The first thing I did after putting on these spanking new ones was I jumped and jumped on them .... and jumped some more, they're so incredibly light .... And the jogging feels much, much better .... Check out the socks ... I got them, with another few pairs, at Topshop when I was in the UK .... and when was that? ....

Added 28/12/2008 - Progress report .... With just a few more days to 2009, I am not too sure whether my spring-cleaning mission will be completed when the New Year is ushered in .... Firstly, I am just too tired after cleaning the storeroom/utility area after half a day .... and I'm not finished yet .... My mother is jumping up and down when I said I wanted to throw away this makeshift table .... Okay, so fine, I won't throw it away, but by George, I will fit in the bookcase into that tiny room, or my nick is not Brainjuice a.k.a The Killer Wabbit ....

Added 29/12/08 - Owww, I hurt my back .... getting old ... I'm only 33! ...Anywayz, my room is almost done ... Have put a lot of things in boxes ... My room looks a lot more spacious than it was before .... Hmm, now thinking of whether I want to tackle the dust on top of the fan ... Ceiling fan, I may add ... That's it, no more spring cleaning until, like, after 3,000 years ...

Phuket November 2008 in pix ...

2008-11-14T21:32:00.018+08:00

Well, I didn't take that many photos ... Would like to put up photos of my colleagues, but then I don't want them to stumble across this blog, so those will have to go on my Facebook ....

Don't exactly know where this is, but it was the first place we stopped for food ... I find it interesting that broken English can be spoken perfectly here ... But after the third day in Phuket, I started to speak like them as well, heheheh ....

The first beach we saw, while we were having our lunch ...

What would my Thai experience be without tucking into some Tom Yam Kun .... Mmmmm, delish ... This one was the right combination of HOT & SOUR ... But I am not a fan of seafood, so the cuttlefish took a while to chew down, while the mussel .... yucks! ....

Nevertheless, this spicy fried crab was the bomb!!!! I was practically crying out for water, it was that hot, but oh man, it was *gobsmacked*!!!

The entrance to our hotel, Royal crown in Patong ....

Our tour guide, Arisa (in yellow shirt), or better known as Lisa, and her trainees, on our way to Coral Island ...

Like I said, my camera wouldn't have worked so well if I tried to take photos of the nightlife down Patong beach, which to me was much more interesting then walking down the beach during the day ... Oh well .... Anywayz, I had the luck of following my boss & his family, 'coz we got treated to really nice seafood like this lobster .... mmmm, yummeeeeee .... I WAS IN CHEESE HEAVEN ... And the lobster's flesh was really soft ...... Did I feel bad for the rest of my colleagues who didn't follow us? ... Not really, heheheh .....

Wat Cha Long .... We spent so short a time here, which was a pity coz the stalls selling the souvenirs there where among the cheapest ... I mean, I'm a lousy haggler, but I could have gotten these key chain purses for 50 baht for four if I had showed my pity face and bargained coz they were selling for 100 baht .... And there were some really interesting souvenirs there .... Oh well ....

Downtown Phuket .... The green building is Robinson's, which I didn't bother going in ... Somewhere nearby is Ocean shopping mall, where I got my cheap bras :D ....

If I'm not mistaken, this is Kata beach, or is it Karon? ... Oh well, this is where my boss made a lunge for me, and I finally jumped into the sea .... I would have enjoyed the three feet waves if I wasn't too concerned with the fact that I only had one bra .... but that one dried overnight, and I got my cheap bras the next day anyway .... BJ, next time, pack in the swimsuit when you know you're going near water ....

Now I know this is somewhere in Karon .... Just fascinated with the blowfish with its tomato eyes ....

Phuket November 2008, Pt 2 - .... Am broke, but not too drunk

2008-11-09T07:57:00.007+08:00

To not remember that my boss can make really crass sexist jokes that border on sexual harassment ...

To see that all the, erm, so-called good-looking mat saleh guys are really pruney old ones with ugly beer bellies that go for really young local girls, if not underage ones, yucks ... The really hot-looking ones are taken, as is usually the case!! The bloody hell!!! ...

Speaking of beer bellies, I think I'm developing one ... But how can that be?? The first night I was here, had a few shots of watered-down whiskey, which tasted fucking awful to me ... Don't understand why most people go for this sort of drink .... Then yesterday had this Lychee Liquer, which was the opposite ... but I guess it's the sort of drink for wussies, huh ... Last night had a Chang beer, which tasted like .... Tapai?? And it's even a lot milder than that local delicacy, which to me has a very strong taste .... which makes me wonder that maybe tapai has, like, a 3 per cent alcohol content ... If that's the case, then why don't they ban that, instead of doing stupid things like banning yoga?!! ...

Anywayz, back to the beer belly .... Well, after having had the whiskey, I became dehydrated, so drank lots and lots of water .... Could it be that beer bellies develop due to water retention? Dunno, not bothered to look up on-line .... Well, that's even more of a good reason why I DON'T want to drink .... all thanks to Vanity ...

And speaking of being vain, I finally find bras that can fit my tits perfectly ... I have Thai girl tits! ... It's really hard to find nice bras with cups that my breasts can fill fully in Malaysia, the irony of that .... And over here they're cheap!!

And speaking of Malaysia, we're going back today *sighs* ... My boss had to remind about work last night, great .... I know he's going to drive us harder after this ... Oh well, the break was good while it lasted ....

And the reason I'm broke is because I didn't bring much money, and I'm a lousy haggler ....

The pix I've taken are not up to my expectation, coz one,I didn't take any night photos due to my going to break soon camera, and two, the card is almost full, bummer .... Should have taken a couple last night while we were walking down Patong beach ... I'll just put up whatever I have ....

Phuket November 2008, Pt 1 - Shit, I only brought one bra, and NO swimsuit!!!

2008-11-07T18:47:00.005+08:00

Well, that's just convenient .... Must have passed out when they came out with that stupid regulation on liquids .... Do I look Iike I'm MacGyver? Can I make a bomb out of toothpaste?? ... I don't even like Chemistry, what the fuck .... Moving on ....

Hmmmm, there's loads and loads of good-looking Mat Saleh guys here ...

On a totally different note .... I drank myself stupid on Scotch whiskey .... The thing is, didn't have enough sleep the night before, so wanted to make myself sleepy, or wanted to make myself forget, who knows .... All I know is that the first night there, my boss and my colleagues formed a new-found respect for me, since I said "Bottoms up" and took the whole shot with one swig .... Well, I didn't know what 'Yam Seng' meant ... I thought it meant "Cheers!" ....

On a slightly different note, my boss put his arm on my shoulder and said "Thank you, J ... You're a team player" .... Either he was too drunk, or I was too drunk, and misheard what he said ....

The next day though, he lunged at me, and wanted to throw me into the sea .... Then I recalled some more of what he said last night ... "We just want to break you out of your shell" .... Hahaha, my shell's pretty hard .... But deep down, though I will never ever admit this to him, he has my respect more than any other man I've ever known .....

Anywayz, tonight gonna watch the .... hmmm, oh, well, it's called Simon Cabaret Show .... I actually want to watch a tiger show .... Not really to look at the people on the stage, but to watch the people watching the people on the stage .... If they're randy enough, I might jump on one of them, hahahah ....

Phuket November 2008 - Brainjuice on break from brain-squeezing work ...

2008-11-07T08:00:00.006+08:00

Just to inform that some time in November, by the time this entry is posted on my blog, I will be enjoying some, erm, fun in the sun .... up in Phuket .... Woo hoo *albeit in a tired, rather unexcited tone* ... Company trip ... Maybe that's just what my absolutely brain-dead brain needs .... Will post photos of the trip instead ....

p/s - It so happened that the day before said trip had to be our production deadline, and good ol' Murphy's Law came striding around the corner, beamed us a wry smile and said, "You're not going anywhere until you get that fixed." ...

And so while we tried to fix the problem, good ol' Boss Editor had to bring up the issue of checking-in luggage ... He kept saying "You have to check in your luggage if you're carrying liquids" ... At the time, my mind, already sluggish trying to finish everything, but end up not finishing anything, could not fathom what the hell he was trying to say .... I mean, it's a two-day trip, why the hell do we need to bring such a big luggage anyway?? .... Then it finally hit home when I was finally home ... He didn't want the whole floor to hear they're bringing good ol pals Jim Beam and Jack Daniels to the party .... Well, I almost got high while in Amsterdam, let's see whether they can make me drunk as a sailor, haha ...

Writing ...

2008-10-06T20:00:00.008+08:00

Well, don't let my posts July onwards belie you ... They were written when my mind was somewhat in a traumatic state ... It is still in a traumatic state, but point is, I have reached the zenith of my frustrations and ride the wave to the shore of something familiar and comfortable, to the person I recognize as my old self ...

So, the question is, was I not myself all this while? .... More importantly, since when have I "lost" myself? ... Probably that is what people need to think when they watch Lost ... I am a master of stating the fucking obvious ... I have stopped watching Lost since the finale of Season Two ... And I swear, I did not know that Evangeline Lilly is/was romantically linked to that Hobbit guy ... It makes me think I may have a fighting chance with Josh Holloway ... Erm, can we move on? ....

Well, I suppose when my new job, which is writing for a newspaper, took hold of my life for the first few weeks, I became lost for words when it came to my blogs .... Undoubtedbly, I could still write, or else I won't get paid ...

Then, today, it becomes crystal clear to me as to what sort of writer I am ....

There are writers, and I think a lot of people would agree with me, that are so super-talented ... It comes to them like a dream unbeckoned ... Hardly conscious of their own ability and skill, they can conjure up a multitude of images with writing so subtle and sublime ....

Then of course there are writers who take night courses on creative writing, while at the same time have utterly mundane day jobs ... And I'm pretty sure some, if not most, are actually renowned writers ... I, of course, have not read enough to know ...

Point is, there are many types of writers ...

Then there's me ... I don't know which category of writers I fit in ... Actually I'd rather not fit in any category ... And for me, writing is as much about coming from the heart, as it is with the mind ... Actually, maybe that is so true of a lot of writers out there, but what I'm trying to say is ... I can force myself to write, and I can write pretty okay when push comes to shove (read: deadlines), but there's a piece of me missing in that piece of writing ....

I don't exactly know how to elaborate on that .... If any of my close friends decide to put their mind to torture and read my blogs from beginning to end, they would probably not see any difference ....

Anywayz, here's to writing ... from the heart ...

The Copy must go on ... Pt 2 - The Fourth State of Dementia

2008-09-17T22:35:00.008+08:00

No, I don't know anything about the Fourth Estate, but it makes for one hell of a cool heading ...

16 September marks exactly three months I have been working with the press .... "Oh my goodness, really, I did not know it's Malaysia Day??" What an idiotic reporter!! .... No, I did not participate in any form of gathering ... What's the point anyway? They're just gonna beat us up and throw us in jail .... Okay, enough, enough ..... No, seriously, who's running this stupid country??? .... Alright, Brainjuice, there's no need for name-calling .... You're an intelligent, educated person ..... That doesn't say much for them, does it????

If there's anything I've learned about working for the papers, is that one can never run away from politics ... of the day .... Actually, I lurve my cosy, warm place on the fence .... I AM a nonpartisan .... Leave me alone! *Brainjuice looking mad* ....

*Long sigh* .... Alright, the other things I've learned ....

1) Writing news pieces is HARD .... I kept thinking about how back in the days when I was a teacher of how my students just couldn't get the five wives and one husband concept ... Well, I had never heard of the WH- questions being called that way .... But now I really see my students' frustration .... There are so many WHATs .... The trick is to figure out which one is the most topical, to sieve through all that information, and write one concise, brief and up-to-date news piece ....

Let's just say, I hate to admit this, but I cried in the toilet one time after struggling to finish one short news piece ... Then there's the fact that we're a weekly ... all the dailies print the day after, so what is your bloody angle then??!! ... "It's not rocket science!", my editor's voice is just echoing those words in my head as I write ..... Frustration festers ...

2) Coming up with a punchy headline is HARD - Let me just put up this joke that my colleague forwarded, which highlights how just important a brilliant headline is ...

A preacher wanted to raise money for his church and on being told that
there was a fortune in horse racing, decided to purchase a horse and enter it in
the races. However, at the local auction, the going price for horses was so high
that he ended up buying a donkey instead. He figured that since he had it,
he might as well go ahead and enter it in the races. To his surprise, the donkey
came in third! The next day the local paper carried this headline: PREACHER'S
ASS SHOWS.

The preacher was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race
again, and this time it won. The paper read: PREACHER'S ASS OUT IN FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the
preacher not to enter the donkey in another race. The paper headline read:
BISHOP SCRATCHES PREACHER'S ASS.

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the preacher to get rid of
the donkey. The preacher decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The
paper headline the next day read: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The Bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get
rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.00. The next day the
headline read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.00.

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the
donkey, lead it to the plains, and let it go. Next day, the headline in the
paper read: NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE. The Bishop was buried
the next day.

3) Deadlines ...... actually, I think I'm getting better at this ... Last week, my editor asked when I was going to hand in this one story, and I said the day .... and I actually put it in on the very day ... Feel kinda proud of myself .... It makes me feel better 'coz I've totally abandoned my own deadlines for my blogs .... Oh yes, I do set deadlines for my blogs .... well, until about recently ...

4) House style ... I still get them wrong .... Oh well ....

5) Going on assignments ... food and beverage served after press conferences suck ...

6) Related to point #2: HD: Hell & Damnation, Sf: Shit fuck .....

7) ..... Stopped taking notes on how .... JUST TYPE IT .... then let the copy editor suffer through your work ....

The Copy must go on - The part I can't think of ....

2008-09-08T07:59:00.009+08:00

This morning, the feeling I dreaded most finally surfaced .... As usual, I've been denying it ... But there's no denying it anymore as I stepped slowly out of the LRT, and walked even more slowly towards the office .... I have become bored ... That's it, really ....

It is not so much what is causing this boredom that bothers me, as I found it that those causes are actually stated in one Yahoo hotjobs post .... I would have to agree with number 1, and especially number 4 ... But, where this job is concerned, how the hell could it be number 1? ... Realistically, of the five reasons, #3 should be the topmost reason why I should dislike this job ... C'mon, admit it, Brainjuice, it doesn't pay you enough ... but that's not it ....

I just don't get that ... No, not the fact that I don't want more money, it's just that I cannot have everything .... This boredom is actually something else .... The thing is, I overanalyse myself too much that I don't know where my ass ends and where my head begins .... But it is something when that feeling affects everything .... Even my addiction to movies has dissipated .... Now I just feel like sleeping - that is a major cause of worry ....

When I can't think of anything else, except to cocoon myself in sleep, it is a major sign of something .... I know this, 'coz I've been living with it for more than half my life .... The funny part is, while half of me just wants to sleep, the other half just keeps getting me on .... Like a drone ... It gets me up, then brushes my teeth, then moves my hand over the shower knob, or button, whatever, then dresses me, then moves my legs out the door, then uprights me still while I fall asleep standing in the LRT, then moves my legs even further until my whole body is on this seat, facing my workstation ...... I think it's called sheer stubbornness ....

The Lang Tengah Experience July 2007 - The Enchanted Market

2008-08-31T08:00:00.001+08:00

Well, I haven't actually finished my story about the trip to Terengganu .... Anywayz, after we got off Merang Jetty, headed back to KT ..... and when we reached KT, we had several hours to kill before boarding the bus @ 2200hrs .....

So, my friend said that one of KT's attraction is Pasar Payang ..... In fact, I asked Bang Mat the other day what could we do while we're in KT, and he said Pasar Payang as an attraction ..... I asked him what can one find over there, and he said lots of things ..... What he failed to mention, which he actually told my friend, is that you have to be careful when you visit the market ...... And this I found out only AFTER we had visited the market .....

Anyways, the market looked unassuming enough .... It's a two-storey building which doesn't look that big on the outside ...... On the ground level, what's mostly sold there are all types of keropok, dried goods, serunding, local goodies, fruit ..... when I looked over the market on the ground level in which you could actually see the outside because it's not walled up, it didn't look that big ..... I mean, sure, you could take a while looking through all that stuff, but still I felt the perimeter of the whole market is not that wide ....

Now, you must be wondering why I'm so bothered with the size of the market ..... Well, here's where whole tale starts ....... We went upstairs ...... The first thing that greeted us at the entrance was this sign which I felt is rather strange for a greeting ......

Literally, this sign means "Be polite when using the stairs" ..... Another way of looking at it is "Be courteous when using the stairs" .... Alright, I understand that it is common courtesy to be polite to people, but why do you have to be "polite" when using the stairs? .....

At the time, it didn't really make sense to me .... Anywayz, we went inside ...... I wasn't really interested at the stuff that we saw initially ..... I thought I wanted to get a sarong, not a batik sarong, but one of those you wear at the beach where you tie around the waist, but for some reason couldn't find it ..... The stuff were mostly knick knacks, t-shirts, kain pelikat, and lots and lots of textile .....

Then, we stopped at this one shop that sold t-shirts, and I bought one ...... and that was after going thru, like, two rows of shops ...... From the end of one row to the other, it felt like it was quite a stretch ...... Then, we came by this shop that sold local handicraft stuff like tikar mengkuang, bamboo tikars, rattan stuff, mengkuang bags .... I bought a bag which is not made from mengkuang leaves, but simply rope ..... I asked the lady what sort of rope it was, and she said "Rope lah ..." .... Okay, that was helpful ....

Anywayz, our interest in the stuff there started to get more and more interesting ..... Like for example, my friend was piqued with these miniature tea sets .... I mean, come on, miniature tea sets? We're grown up women, for heaven's sake ..... but at that time, I have to admit, they looked really cute ....

Then I saw a shop that was my undoing - it sold batik of the most beautiful designs and colour ..... I'm talking about the traditional cotton batik ...... and Terengganu, if you must know, is a haven for this kind of textile (Ceh, doing my bit for Visit Malaysia 2007) .... I'm not talking about the kind of batik that your mother likes to wear at home, but the kind with the modern designs and rich colours ....... My eyes went wide looking at the selection, but in the end I only bought only a two-metre length of one design and colour .... My friend bought four pairs of kaftan, or baju kelawar, although one does not become Batman when wearing one ......

And still, every single row of shops we walked along was a different one from the last .... I started to think, hey, wait a minute, shouldn't we have end up where we started? .... And the further we went in, the more "glittery" the stuff became ...... Sparkling costume jewellery, silver/bronzeware that shine and catch the corners of the unknowing eye .... At one point, I felt that indeed, both of us were "spirited away" ....... My friend said let's find an exit, quick ...... and after we got out, I asked her, didn't you feel strange about the place? ...,

And here was when my friend said, "Don't you know this market is enchanted?" ..... I went, "Enchanted?" ....... Apparently, the people doing business there use bomoh/pawang and cast "spells" to make visitors buy more and more stuff and things like that ...... And I had to believe her ...... Only somebody who has visited this place would understand what I felt ..... Then again, the person might be a non-believer ...... but I would consider myself above believing all this hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo stuff .....

Nevertheless, I'm telling you, there is something definitely strange about that market, especially about the fact that we kept going into different rows of shops, despite that it didn't look that big on the outside .....

And after we reached KL, and I kept thinking, why haven't I bought more of the batik stuff, and I really regretted it, and felt at one point that I wanted to go back all the way to Terengganu one weekend just to get more of the material .... I told this to my friend, and she said, that's part of the enchantment, the spell that they put over us, the ignorant disbelievers ...... Only now, I finally realize that the sign over the entrance makes perfect sense .....

If you are a Muslim, before you start a journey to a new place, or enter an unfamiliar area, you must recite a few doas ...... That's what the sign means ...... Beware, stranger, be polite to the "guardians" of this place, lest you are rude and decide to take photos instead of paying respect, you would pay a whole lot more when you enter our kingdom ....... I think I read too much of Dina Zaman's I Am Muslim ........

The turning point ...

2008-07-12T08:00:00.002+08:00

I will not be philosophical, or try to wax lyrical, because I don't read that much ... I just feel that time passes by too quickly for me to take stock of everything that has happened in my life and reassess possibilities ... I have come to THE turning point in my life ... and I wish there was someone with me that I can turn to and hold on when that moment comes .... I think the turning point has finally come ...

The Copy must go on - Part 1

2008-07-08T08:00:00.018+08:00

Well, why don't I start from where I think I should start ..... For some time now, I haven't been able to write ...................... Oh fuck it, I got a job as a journalist ..... You cannot imagine the euphoria I was in, right from when the editor said I got the job, until the very day I started on the job ... which was for a full week .... Then I was on the job ..... Needless to say, feelings of utter inadequacy and total ineptitude were there, to say the very least ......

Right on the very first day, I was pulled aside for a ciggie break and told that I needed to be confident .... Oh yeah, the people here smoke like nobody's business .... It's a fucking chimney .... They could smoke the roof down, man .... So, I just passively accepted the smoke, and the comment .... In all my years of working - yeah, ... years - with all sorts of people, there will come a time when you realize you just have to swallow your pride and take all sorts of remarks thrown at you ..... There are times when it's best just to shut up ....

.... Yeah, but how can I just keep clamming up? .... So, a few days later, I casually brought it up as they were going for a ciggie break, whether I was deliberately turning myself into a social pariah if I didn't join them on their ciggie breaks .... Needless to say, that remark didn't go down so well ..... Further down the line, I became a casualty of my own inanity with comments like, "Oh man, I really dig your joke, but I didn't know your parents passed away" .... Well, something to that effect ......

Not to mention the stupid questions ..... I just love stupid questions, 'coz frankly, I just don't know any better ..... Can't think of an example right now, put will post it right here if I can remember ..... (Don't know why I like to ask stupid questions though .... Probably it has something to do with my primary school education where I never really did ask anything in class, so now all the wide-eyed wonder kind of questions are coming out, like, "Oh wow, tell me again how that works?" ...... and probably the reason I never asked is because I never really liked school .... Used to go to the school early in the morning with morbid images like picturing the school going up in huge flames as I arrived .....)

Anywayz, if there's a lesson to be learned here, since I joined the press, is that reporters have to have thick skin (especially if you're involved in the media industry) .... This sage advice was shot point blank to my face by my colleagues during my first few days .... Point taken .... So, I will keep on asking the stupid questions, until I'm smart enough to know the ones that matter where my job is concerned ......

On that note, this job is a real learning experience for me ..... For one, I get to be a professional writer, what more can I ask? .... But man, the first copy I read with my byline on it (is that by-line with a dash or byline with no dash? ... fuck) ... is NOT my writing .... What, in the name of Arthur and the Legacy of Pride, has the copy editor done to my fucking-bloody copy!!!! I don't write like that??!! Where are my beloved adjectives, and much-adored hyperbolic alliterative fuck-phrases??%#*^%& ..... *After a somewhat long sigh* Fine, go on, fix my writing ... Take out all the imagery I've worked so hard at all these years, to work in my writing ... and while you're at it, you might as well take out my byline and use yours .... But please, let me keep the sarcasm .... As a reporter, I think I need a little bit of that, don't you think? ....

Where my writing has been, most of the time, on a no-stand platform, now with this job, I have to, well, do factual reporting, and write it for a publication that's been established with its own set of audience .... I can no longer write for myself, which is basically what my blogs have been .... Now I write for the people .... And frankly speaking, I think the local audience could use with a little sarcasm and dry humour in their otherwise flaccid state of existence ..... But no, I didn't read sarcasm in my copy today, nor humour ... just dry ........ fuck, can I say fuck more? ......

Of course, this job offers multitudes of lessons on writing for me ... as it is, I could build on my writing, erm, prowess ... Well, Ernest Hemingway received a Nobel Prize for his super-reporting style .... You should also know that I've never really dug Hemingway's writings .... Stopped reading after, like, the third short story (short stories of an already economised style of writing, man) of his collections, and now the book is on the shelf gathering interminable dust .....

No, really, I do actually enjoy the challenges of having to write with angles specifically set for a certain group of people; write it brief, concise (OMIGOD! NO MORE long blathering sentences I lurve so much!) yet enjoyable on topics related to a subject matter on which I have little knowledge .... Of course, if I were to write professionally for a movie magazine, that's even more enjoyable, heheheeh .... but that's another day, another dream .... Let me build up my profile first, 'coz I want to learn every aspect of the press while doing this job ...

As it is, I see so much scope for my own learning curve .... I mean, I could just simply say no to the meagre wage they offered me, but please do refer to my previous entries on my own brand of work philosophy, if need be .... In the final analysis, it's all about liking what you do, and loving it (a certain global consumer brand has sort of relinquished their rights to that phrase ... Right about now, they're coming after me) as well as the people you want to be with .... It's as simple as that .....

Added 11/07/2008 - And the stupid question is when I had to use the Mac for the off stone .... I was sure I was going to fumble it all up and lose at least one page, and my colleague, thanks a lot, had to give this warning that if I did lose all that copy, we had to start all over again, and if that were to happen, we would never go home that day ..... I just hate that .... Everyone, and I mean everyone, from school & college mates, to colleagues and close buddies, friends and strangers alike, will be able to sum me up and say things like that .....

Anywayz, I didn't want to lose anything, so I very carefully used the Mac to make corrections .... So at one point, I wanted to save one page, but just wasn't sure how to do it, so asked another colleague (the one that gave that warning left me flailing by myself while he went out for a ciggie break, go figure) how it's done .... She went to click Edit on the menu bar, and then clicked on Save ..... I think I stood there, just dumbfounded, then laughed stupidly ..... Oh well ....

Slanting skinny tree on the right: Hey dude, up for a smoke?

Skinny tree on the fore at left: *hacking dry coughs, and with a raspy, almost inaudible voice* Thanks dude, I'm good ....

Taken from: http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/forests/clock_ticking_for_indonesian_rainforest.htm

And while I had been stuck in the midst of writing a story, somehow other ideas popped up ....

But I have to say, I am quite naive about being thick-skinned in this industry, aren't I? .... It's all back to the people you work with ..... Why does it matter, BJ? It's complete waste of space, not to mention precious brain matter, to bitch about these people ..... The funny thing is, I happen to like some of them .... but I don't think they really see that ......

Just in case, on a need-to-know basis, I write for a very small section of a small local paper .... Nothing fancy schmancy .... My editor would blow a dragon's worth of hot air at me if he were to read this, but they don't know this blog .... *looking paranoid* or do they? ..... More importantly, do I really give a fuck? .....

The Malaysian Idiocracy

2008-06-21T13:54:00.013+08:00

Malaysians are a bunch of idiots ... I know, coz I live among them .... Far be it for me to admit that I am a Malaysian, 'coz that would mean I would have to admit that I don't have any brain ....

Have you seen Malaysians using public transportation? ..... I keep imagining a skit where an innocent bystander tries to get on or get off the LRT during peak hours .... He or she would come out naked because of all the pushing and pulling and elbowing and kicking and, who knows, even groping .... If that happens to me, I'm gonna kick his balls ... right on that very train .....

Forget about getting in line .... Some idiot would just make a beeline straight for the doors when the train arrives, regardless of the long line of already impatient people .... What about those morons who just push you right inside when basically everybody is already in a sardine can, and then the very same moron would just give you dirty looks when you accidentally step on their toes? ...

I just want to tell these people to look at themselves in the mirror and see that their head has a wide gaping hole at the top .... It'll be like Twilight Zone meets Senario, except with superior dialogue compared to stupid sketches of the latter .... And what about those dumb-belles who would push their way in to get a seat, and then push their way out before the train even comes to their stop? .... What the hell do you need the seat for anyway? Even with all the the pressure-work done on the seat, it couldn't very well support that big ass of yours, since that's where all your brain has gone to ....

Then we move on to how Malaysians generally go about in public areas .... Have you noticed how a number of them just love to stall right in the middle of traffic in shopping complexes? .... At the escalator .... At the entrances to the stores or to the washroom ... At the spot where everyone has to go through .... But when on the road, pandu cam hantu .... Pontianak pun cabut lari ....

And then during the weekends, when there are just so many people at the local hypermarket, and everyone's lining up and crowding at the registers, ader lah manusia celaka yang shopping cart nyer penuh ngan barang, tapi still want to line up at the express lanes .... That goes to show how idiotic Malaysians are, can't even count how many items they have .... The onus is on the management itself to force the express lane ruling, but still, ader jugak manusia yg terlepas .... tak tau express lane konon, kepala hotak ngkau lah tak tau!! .... Signboard punyer lah besar, takkan lah buta kot?! ....

And what about people not knowing where to park their shopping carts, or how to handle them for that matter .... Just today I saw one idiot actually pushed their shopping cart on the fucking escalator! .... Dier nie mesti ingat dier ader superpower, cam shopping cart tu takkan topple backwards and cause unnecessary injury to people standing behind ..... Who cares if the idiot falls backwards, hits the floor and cracks open his head .... That's one less non-brainer to worry about, but he needn't to take us all with him .... The Malaysian mentality on the road demonstrated in the public area .....

What would be great actually is that instead of those boring montages with tacky graphics of public awareness campaigns that FNM always cook up, this is what they should do ..... They should get as many footages of all these examples of how Malaysians are really like, edit them together, and at the end just put a message that says, "Kalau nak tahu perangai orang Malaysia, ah inilah dia ...." But instead of putting the words in horrible tacky typography with some horrible tacky graphics in the background, if you have watched Labu Labi and know it by heart, there is this one scene where P Ramlee introduces his character and shows Haji Bakhil's car, after which there is a medium shot of the car, and then back to him, where he deadpans, "Cantik kan? Macam Setan" .... Well, with modern editing and sound technology as we know it today, they should re-edit that bit of dialogue where P Ramlee introduces himself and make him say the line I've written above, and finish it with that classic deadpan line that always cracks me up .... It would work brilliantly, coz Malaysians still look up at P Ramlee, and look down at most of the stupid local politicians alive today ....

And I saved the best for last .... Imagine you and a bunch of girls about to have a nice lunch together, and suddenly out of the blue, these two so-called Datuks just pushed their way next to us, and just started talking as if we knew them ... apparently I was the only one who didn't who they were .... Because what annoyed me even more was when the girl next to me wrote a really obtuse message, in my opinion, on her phone and showed it to me surreptitiously .... "Semua nie big boss ... Next time introduce yourself" ....

Excuse me, these two obviously ill-mannered, ahem, men just shoved their way into the conversation, and I'm the one who had to introduce myself to them? ..... What the fuck do I care about Panglima Darjah Kebesaran they earned? More like Panglima Tak Berdarjah dan Kecik Mak Datuk punyer Datuk!!! I AM NOT AT ALL IMPRESSED with their brash ways and telling stupid stories while the girl-bitch just laughing at all their stupid unfunny jokes ..... It's men like these who give me the heebie jeebies ..... If you expect me to respect you, you have to come down to my level ..... Do you honestly think Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln just shoved their way into a conversation without introducing themselves? .... So impolite and just .... eeeii, menyampah aku .... Datuk konon .... Just gives all the Datuks out there a bad name ....

The thing is, it's this sort of uncompromising attitude I have that would probably get me kicked out of the company, as it has happened on a quite regular basis with me recently .... I don't like the management, go fuck themselves .... Whereas it's people like the girl-bitch that gets ahead .... by kissing ass and giving blow jobs ..... No, thank you, but I just smiled all the way throughout the conversation and did not say a word, unless they asked me .... I don't have much money in the end, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror ..... and find that there isn't a wide gaping hole on top of my head ......

Sheriff Labi: Oooo, banyak cantik ... Tepi sikit, aku nak tembak semua manusia celaka nie ...

Taken from: http://www.geocities.com/filemelayu/gambar/filem/filem.html

Superstition

2008-06-13T21:53:00.004+08:00

I wouldn't say that I'm overly superstitious, but being brought up in a culture that still practices shamanism to a certain extent, "modern" that it may be, and believes with religious zeal in the power of religious rituals, some of that has got to rub off on me, try as I may to disassociate myself from all those elements .....

But Friday the 13th is a Western superstition, isn't it? .... Anyways, have always been rather fascinated with tales of the supernatural & the unexplained, which is why I watched X-Files religiously until the end of Season 2, 'coz when they got into all that alien conspiracy stuff, I just lost interest in it .....

Alright, I have an interesting tale to recount about Friday the 13th ...... It happened while I was in Lower Secondary ...... We had monthly tests on all the subjects, right .... So there was this time when we had our monthly test on Maths ..... Now, I dislike Maths, always have, always will ..... actually, it's all just pure hard work, I realize that, but all that simple divisions just hurt my brain ..... My brain is meant to write, not count .....

Alrite, so we had our monthly test on Maths, and on the night before we got our result, I had this very vivid dream .... Everything was so real ..... I remember seeing the classroom as it supposed to look like, and there was my Maths teacher looking exactly the way he's supposed to look like, and when he handed me my paper, I could see my mark in huge red ink .... And then I woke up, and discovered to my embarrassment that I had wet the mattress ..... omigod, I have just made a public announcement that I wet my bed when I was fourteen ....

My mom told me off and said I should wash my feet before going to bed 'coz that's supposed to ward off all those bad dreams .... Okay, tell me again how am I not supposed to be superstitious? 'Coz you know what, I still do that until now ...... Anyway, the next day, I went to school as usual, and as it turned out, we did get back our Maths papers that day ..... and I did fail .... and guess what day that was? .... I'm not kidding you ....

Actually, it's not so much the superstitious in me that I still remember that day up to this day ...... I think it's more because I have a cool tale to tell people, you know ..... Don't we all like to do that? To have something really cool to tell 'coz that experience is only unique to us and us alone .... I mean, how much more unique can a story about bed-wetting get? .... Hmm, yeah, so it's not a cool tale after all, what do the hell do you know? Go and suck a lemon ....

Anywayz, here's to Friday the 13th ...... Just a day in a year and nothing more ....... but after this, I'm still going to wash my feet before going to bed and go and knock on wood ...... Just think about it, if people are not inherently superstitious, then why do we still go on and talk about it? ........ Almost everybody I talked to today realized what day this was ....... If we're not superstitious, at least on some level, then why do we still recognize the significance of it all? ....... Do I make any sense at all? ...... My brain's really hurting right now, you know, trying to make sense to myself .......

The car issue .... again

2008-06-08T08:00:00.002+08:00

Am I the only 33-year-old on this planet who's not allowed to drive her mother's car out of a 10km radius? .... Because, if it's just me, one person out of the six odd billion suffering humans out there, the chances would be ...... well, duh, one out of six odd billion .....

Look, I'm no math genius, and simple arithmetic stupifies me sometimes, what more the logic of probability .... but just take all the 33-year-olds suffering humans out there, and make it smaller by taking all these 33-year-olds that has this particularly sufferable issue with only one insufferable parent i.e. mother, chances are that the likelihood of this scenario is stronger ..... I haven't even mentioned the 10km radius factor ......

Okay, so she didn't exactly say I could only drive within a ten-kilometer radius, but really, this confounds me even more than mathematics, which, by my paltry example outlined here, has managed to illustrate that my situation is not so unique, and that there are at least a few suffering humans out there who share the exact same situation as I do .... So I drove her tyre over a concrete divider ... which was, like, several months ago ... I paid for the bloody tyre and hubcap, haven't I? ....

And now that petrol price is hijacked yet again, she's probably gonna say "You don't re-fuel" or something like that .... First and foremost, I almost always fill back, unless the tank is already full ... Really, what is it about parents, their cars and them not letting their kids driving them cars? .... Even when their kids have turned 33? ....

My first ever concert ....

2008-05-19T08:37:00.004+08:00

Well, anywayz, my friend got free tix for the Switchfoot concert last night ..... I'm not a fan, but free tix, man .....

On the ticket, it says starting time was 6.30pm ..... but it wasn't until around half past seven when the band who did the opening act came on stage ... Two local bands, Love me Butch and Altered Frequency .... Not bad actually, considering the fact that I don't follow local music at all, English or otherwise ..... Yeah, musical-wise, I thought they rocked ....

Then Switchfoot came on, and I think the audience almost brought the house down, despite only filling just about half the concert hall .... Man, this was my first ever concert, and I acted like a total raving lunatic .... You should ask my friend, at one point she had to back away from me 'coz I screamed so loud ..... Then there were these two dudes who jumped like hell, and me and my friend followed them .....

We were at the back, so I noticed there were some people who just stood there, as if they were just watching some boring old exhibition ..... Fuck's sake, I don't understand Malaysian audiences, at least a number of them .... At a theatre, or a movie screening, you'd find some of them just can't keep their trap shut, but when there's an actual reason not to keep still and scream like nobody's business, some of them just stand there motionless ..... What the hell is wrong with these people?? ..... I mean, I'm not a fan, right, but when the music started playing and filling up the hall, one just gets this urge to just start moving .....

And all of them, the local bands as well, played really good music, so you just have to move with them to show support, or something like that ..... I think some Malaysian audience members just don't know how to appreciate ..... Anywayz, some photos I took of the concert .... Really crappy 'coz my camera doesn't work in an environment/atmosphere like that ....

Sod's Law, Conscience and Gratification

2008-05-10T11:49:00.004+08:00

Today at work - .... yes, today is a Saturday and I worked ..... Well, so what, there are people who work on the weekends ..... Well, today at work, everything went perfectly wrong ..... Somebody mentioned to me the other day about Murphy's Law, but I like the alternative phrase better, because that's exactly what I felt like shouting when everything went completely crazy today .... "Sod it!" .....

It's interesting to me that we talked about Murphy's Law just a few days ago, and today that was what exactly happened ...... which brings to mind another rather commonly-used modern phrase, that which I think takes its origin from some philosphical thought - "self-fulfilling prophecy" .... So, rather than blaming it on everything but the rain, which it did actually today, I mean the rain, again I have to stand back and take perspective .....

But interestingly enough, on the way home today, the thought that came to my mind was this thing called Conscience ....... Personally, I'd like to think Conscience is what separate humans from animals ...... but I know nothing about the animal kingdom, where there might be certain species that are compassionate towards other living beings, for example .... which if there are really such species, that would put the Darwinism theory off-balance, wouldn't it? ....

Hang on, hang on, what do I really know about Darwin, or Darwinism for that matter? Again, I'm just talking out of my ass .... Well, back to what I was saying, if Conscience is part of the definition of Mankind, which I'd like to point out is just an opinion and nothing more, something definitely shortwired in the minds of those who commit crime without an iota of guilt or remorse, as those two elements are partly the definition of Conscience ( I Wikipediaed this) .... which makes me think that Conscience is, after all, a controlled process .... Something else is controlling Conscience ....

Well, definitely not Intelligence .... Take Ted Bundy, for example (I Wikipediaed him as well, urgh, really gruesome) ...... Well, I don't know what that something else is, but I do know that when I walked out of the office today, there was none of the little voice at the back of my head which should have whispered, "Why don't you stay on and help her out?" ....

It so happened that I happen to like the escalation manager I worked with today ...... I find her to be unpretentious, unlike the other one, who I very much like to bitch about, but I don't make it a point to use space unnecessarily to bitch about people I don't like ..... It will be a complete waste of space ...... Anywayz, I think she had a breakdown of some sort, 'coz I saw drops of tears on her lashes when I walked to her workstation at one point ...... and to think I get all stressed-up about this job ....

Of course, there have been numerous times when I feel like throwing the monitor out the window, if not myself, but alas, I don't have the muscle to lift the bloody thing ...... So, at the end of my shift, as I said my goodbye, she said to me, "You know, I can't do this by myself" ..... Yes, I do know that, I said to myself .... But, at that crucial point, I decided to be unfeeling and walked out the door .... Only people with a remarkable sense of Sacrifice would have stayed put ....

A line from the Wikipedia entry on Conscience: Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. ..... So, if I'm honest enough with my own selfishness, does that mean I don't have a conscience? ...... But if I had stayed, it will not be out of Sincerity ..... Doesn't Conscience play a part in being sincere as well? I thought that when I walked out the door, I had been sincere with my colleague and showed her who I really am ....

And this is where Gratification comes in ...... Truth be told, I find no form of gratification whatsoever in doing the job I have now ..... It's simply because I need the money to live .... It's just about survival ..... I don't wake up wanting to do the job so damn good that I would surprise even myself ...... It's more of an automatic switch in my head that goes off at four in the morning every single damn day ...... even on the weekends ....

I wake up at four, go off to work at five, and by five something, I'm at the office staring at the monitor like it would answer all my life problems ..... More often than not, I stare at the screen like somehow the work I have to do would disappear, but instead my system crashes every so often and I have to get everything re-booted, which makes the desire to throw the monitor out the window even more .... Does this sound very familiar to you? 'Coz I bet a lot of people out there who work in front of a workstation go thru this like every fifteen milliseconds or so .....

It's not really the measly wage I make on this job, tho' of course I have to be honest with myself and say that money does matter, but it's more of the time that this job has stolen from me ....... I think I've worked more than ten hours a day, for most of the eight months that I've worked ..... Doing this job has made me realise that above everything else, one of the things I treasure most is Time .... You know the hackneyed phrases we all like to use such as Time is Golden or Time is Money, well, look at it this way, it's not so much the things we could do in the time that we have, it's more of the things we could not do despite having all the time in the world .... Does that make sense? .... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd rather spend my time just staring at the ceiling or do nothing then having to spend hours doing something I don't like at all ....

So when I chose to walk out the door and leave my colleague to carry the brunt of the work for the day, it's not because I had a really important engagement or anything, it's more like I'm saying, "The one thing that I do have total control in life is the time that I have" ...... I cannot control how people respond to me, nor can I control how things work out, but I do know that I can somehow bend Time to my liking ..... Most people think they don't have this "superpower", but actually we all do ...... I know, I know, *sighs* it's called Time Management ... but don't you think that it sounds way cooler when I say that it's a superpower .... C'mon, people, we are after all, the not-so-mythical Ordinary Heroes ....

One just has to bear in mind that Time is always there, it's just that one has to make a decision what to do with it ...... And that is what my conscience said to me ..... and hence I chose to walk out, and if I'm being selfish, then so be it ....... When I walked out and left the hellish world that is my job, that gave me the purest sense of gratification ....

Just one question - when will the time come when I could find a job where time didn't matter? ....... This is one thing my lazy brain has yet to work out ...... In the mean time, I'll try to find as much time as possible not to do anything, hahaha .........

Temporary post - Thrown Out!

2008-05-04T15:49:00.003+08:00

Okay, I exaggerate .... I choose to leave .... Come school holidays end of this month, I won't be having the comforts of my room ... for a couple of weeks ... Mother dearest has decided on another exotic overseas trip, and my brother's family have decided to stay with my brother here .... which means my bratty niece and nephew would be here as well ..... These creatures of darkness DO NOT SLEEP ...... Hence, in a way, I am thrown out, by my own sense of helplessness, and irritation, at dealing with .... hyper children ..... How the hell am I suppose to raise even one of these ..... living anathemas that suck the life out of you, at a slow and sure pace? ..... Basically I just don't have the patience ...... Look, if it were my own children, probably what I'll do is lock them up, or something like that .... but these are other people's children we're talking about .....

To Blog or Not To Blog ...

2008-04-27T10:09:00.008+08:00

Taken from: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?cat=4 ....
originally from toothpastefordinner

When Hamlet posed that one-million-(add your own currency) question, it's safe to say that blogging was the furthermost from his obviously turbulent mind .....

Anywayz, being too lazy to keep a current update of my own blogs, it seems only natural that a lazy git such as I would pilfer, plunder and pillage other people's blog content for ideas .... and Lo and Behold, haven't I just hit the mother lode? .....

Reading my friends' blogs, I just get pissed, yes, pissed by the fact (but not by them, mind you) that they are "taking it personal" by their own submission (yes, that's the word) with what they have written on their blogs .....

The conclusion is that they they may or may not decide not to write what they truly feel and/or think about ....

Okay, to me, this is what a blog, especially a personal blog such as this offered by my webhost, is basically is: A personal journal, set in a public domain

Simple enough working definition .... so what we mean by personal is, of course, personal .... The things that one writes about will definitely encompass the things that happen in one's lives, including the people that one encounters/deals with/has an argument with/fucks with/go shopping with/declares war with/co-authors a blog with .... The list goes on ....

So, the question is, how personal do you want it to be? ..... The term "personal" in fact becomes more hazy in definition when we take into account that a weblog such as this is hosted by a public domain ..... You write really personal things, and you realize, you are fully aware, that with a click of the mouse, some stranger can actually read what you have written ..... or are you? .... In my opinion, it is what one aims to accomplish within this very public sphere by posting obviously personal entries ..... Are you merely ranting, or do you intend to do it with malice? ....

Unfortunately, from the legal viewpoint, such argument is not grounded ... isn't it? I wouldn't know, being where I stand, 'coz I'm just a hapless blogger with all these bloggers' responsibilities issues thrown all around me that they basically just go over my head ..... I'm reading all the related articles as we speak, and boy, even I have been "unethical" on certain things, such as allowing anonymous comments, using a pseudonym myself, and god knows what else .....

Heck, I'm not a reporter, by my own admission, and I assert that my blog is my personal space ..... I understand that it is a moral obligation to apply the terms "transparency" and "accountability" to all our words and actions, but what if I just needed to rant about something or rather someone that's bugging the hell out of me, and doing it in my own hand-written journals isn't enough? I want to write about it so that some stranger would actually come across my blog and read it, not because I want them to come away thinking "Well, that is some nutter, and I pity the people she spit her venom on" but more of "Well, she shared her pain, let's just move on" ..... I understand that we need to draw a line somewhere, but my question is, who is doing the line-drawing? .... Definitely not the hapless bloggers .....

To my two friends, you do what you have to do, but I was hoping that all the sincerity and honesty with which you have written your entries could be maintained .... notwithstanding, you did write rather ugly stuff about certain people (and/or organizations?), in my opinion I do not think you wrote them with the intention to harm or throw malicious light on said parties .... It's okay to rant, don't you think? ....

References:

1) Rebecca Blood's article
2) Tim Reilly's proposal on bloggers' Code of Conduct
3) Code of Blogging Ethics (C.O.B.E.)
4) Article on libel .... I put this in thinking maybe they should add "New/Alternative Media" as part of the ones already listed
5) Jumbie's Watch .... I especially like what the anonymous commentator has said

P/S ..... Well, when I do visit other people's blogs/websites, it isn't so much what they've written there that annoys the hell out of me, is more of the fact that they have superior web designs and all these stupidly cool widgets .... I can't even put up a decent visitor's counter on my blog, for god's sake! All thanks to the fact that I don't know jack when it comes to Hell-To-Mark-Language .....

The Lang Tengah Experience July 2007

2008-04-18T21:53:00.019+08:00

Well, last week my friend and I went to one of the islands off the coast of Terengganu .... If you want a blow-by-blow account of the whole trip ... er, forget it, 'coz with my tendency to go and on, it may actually take me way into next year just to finish telling everything on this entry ...... Okay, so I exaggerate, but for a change, let the photos that I took on that trip tell the story ..... If you like, check out out Queen Diva's blog ..... Well, here are the photos, not in chronological order ....

The best friend I went on this trip with .... It was her idea to go for this island trip, which proved to be one of the best trips I've had my in my life .... 'coz you know what, as far I can remember, I have never been on an island trip before ....... pathetic, isn't it? .....

The resort we stayed at was called Lang Sari, and they served good food .... now, I'm quite particular when it comes to food, but I'd just have to say that the nasi lemak we had for breakfast was one of the best I've ever had, apart from my mother's ...... It waas damn hot, but I loved ...... The sambal was exactly how sambal nasi lemak is supposed to be - hot (as in pedas) which burns your tongue, but not sweet .... I even went for second helping ..... If there is one thing which tells me I'm a Malaysian, is that I can be a masochist when it comes to food ..... some food has just got to be hot and spicy, no less than that .......

The Redang Marine Park was one of the spots we went snorkelling ..... I'm not loaded enough to get one of those expensive casings for either my camera or digicamcorder that would allow the user to take images underwater ..... 'coz it was a sight to behold, looking at all those all colourful fishes .... I could almost hear the opening soundtrack of The Little Mermaid playing in the background..... I was exhilarated when they were just within reach, but of course the fishes were too quick for my slow, clumsy hand ..... I just wanted to touch them, not strangle them to death, mind you ..... but being clumsy, that might just be the case ..... Then most probably I get banned from ever entering any marine parks for mass murder ...... Anywayz, there was this huge Moray eel that our guide, Abg Mat, coaxed out of its hiding under the coral ....... There was one time when I panicked when it looked as if it was coming my way ...... no doubt I swallowed sea water because of that ........

One of the four baby turtles they keep in this large container until they are big enough to be let go into their ocean dwelling ..... About a month old, they could only be let go once they reach three months ...... Well, there you go, a bit of a lesson in nature conservation ...... To think that these buggers could reach up to a hundred years old, or even more .......

Ah, the elusive Lopez De Squirral ...... actually, that's what my friend called the little critters who could be seen coming down the trees around the resort, scavenging for food ...... I did have a good chance of taking a full photo of one of these cute buggers, but guess where I left my bloody fucking camera? In my bloody fucking room ..... When you go on a trip like this, or any trip for that mattter, naturally you would take your camera along everywhere you go, right? ..... But, no, not me ...... and I imagine myself to be an aspiring filmmaker .... Filmmaker, my foot! .... More like filmfuckmaker ....... Well, actually I imagine myself more of a screenwriter ...... or the person holding the boom ......

The boat that carried us around on our snorkelling trips ..... My friend even had the chance to navigate it on a couple of those trips ...... It's slow, and if you sit yourself on the aft deck, you could hardly hear yourself above the roaring din of the engine ...... and some more pictures of the surrounding areas of our resort ...... A lot of dead coral were washed up on the beach ...... Going barefoot on them was painful, not just on the sole of our feet..... I thought my friend was being a little over dramatic when she said "We are walking among the dead," when we were, ahem, stepping on the washed-up, dried coral which clinked like glass when one stepped on them ....... I had to ask, "Why so much dead coral?" ..... My friend said in a word, "Pollution" .......

This is Bang Mat (picture below) captain of the fishing boat we take our snorkelling trips on, snorkeller/diver extraordinaire, canoe expert, jack-of-all-trades resort guide ....... I wanted to take some footage of the island, and thought I could do that on the boat while the rest go snorkelling, but to cut a long story short, that chance was lost on me .... so Bang Mat suggested a canoe ride ......

It was about six, the sun was about to set, I thought, "Great! I could also take some footage of the setting sun ....... Well, there we were, on the canoe, me at the front, with my brand new digicamcorder ...... Almost halfway around the island, the waters started to get choppy ....... And there I was, worried sick that my camera, the camera which I saved up my measly wage trying to get, was going to get thrown off from my clumsy hand as wave after wave hit the underside of the canoe .....

But for some unknown reason, I wasn't terribly worried that we would capsize ..... With Bang Mat at the helm, I had this unshakeable faith, strange that it was so, that we would reach ashore, safe and in one piece ..... The waves were not that high, but if it had been just my friend and I, we would certainly have capsized, and despite the fact we had our life-jackets on, there was this possibility that we could have panicked had we got ourselves in the water, and there was nobody at all on that side of the island ....

Anywayz, when we were about to reach the side of the island where one could see fully the setting sun, the waters were still choppy ..... I did not want to miss this opportunity at all, so without care, I held one side of the canoe tightly, whipped out my camera, and started taping ...... It's all on that miniDV, waiting to be edited and posted on YouTube ....... Did I say the operative word here is "waiting"?

This is Jonne and Siri, from the Netherlands ...... I bet they just got out of school and this is one of those trips most young Westerners like to take before they go off to university, or work, or whatever ...... Siri shared with us her fear of large tropical insects, and to think they're going off to Taman Negara after this .... shucks, I hate those buggers as well .... Well, my friend and I got along well enough with them ..... and there was this time we went to another resort on another side of the island, so here are the photos of us heading there and the deck chairs at the front of the resort ......

My friend, Aimo

2008-04-01T10:00:00.004+08:00

Recently I went to watch Pirates 3 with my friend and her friends ...... I agreed to meet her at the Kelana LRT stop since we planned to watch the movie at the Cathay Cineleisure ..... After a hard day's work, watching a movie with a bunch of friends is definitely a good way of winding down ...... I met up with my friend and her friend at the bus stop adjacent to the station and waited for the other friend ...... They had splurged on some books at Kinokuniya ......

Being the curious bugger, I had to ask what they had bought ...... As it turned out, they had splashed mucho moolah on comic books, or the more fashionable term, "graphic novels" ...... Go figure ........ Now I would never describe my friend as ..... "nerdy" ...... and I would rather throw myself into a blazing pyre than call her a geek for that she is certainly not .... Well, may not a blazing pyre, but you get what I mean, right? ....... A tad introvertish, that she is, and yes, she is a Nintendo DS freak and RPG extraordinaire .....

Yet, I would never put her in the category of people who are sadly, by most of us indeed, labelled as being socially inept or maladjusted ...... Or perhaps I'm just too blinded by my own loyalty to her, because as the evening progressed, the realization dawned on me that other than the fact that we both like to watch movies, we have very little in common .....

Actually, this thought has crept up at the back of my mind every time I hang out with her, but for some reason I choose to ignore it .... In the car, they were talking about the comics they were currently digesting, and as usual I was lost ....... During such a time, all I ever wanted to do was make an intelligent remark to whatever they were talking about, but I find it whole lot easier to just keep my trap shut ......

When we reached the place, there was this XBox Lan Party going on .... Apparently, these gamers came together for an online shoot-them-all, except they're all actually together ........ And suddenly I felt like an alien ...... My friend and her friends would be more in tune with these people, and me? ...... Ever heard the expression "Rusa masuk kampung?" ..... I'm trying to think of the English equivalent, of which I'm sure there is one, but the only expression I can think of at this moment is "Deer in the headlights" 'coz rusa and deer mean the same ....

Okay, okay, never mind .... Anyways, the place, at least the ground floor of the cineplex feels like geek's paradise .... Apart from the XBox party, which was a one-day thing I figured, there were comic books' and action figure hobbyists' stores ...... We went into one of the latter, and there I saw action figures of George Bush and Osama ...... What the hell? .... Now, I could perfectly understand George Lucas in a Stormtrooper outfit, but Bush and Osama? ...... My friend and I looked at Yoda hugging the leg of this Dominatrix-looking doll and both of us thought, "That is just so ...... wrong" ... (Or maybe not, heheh) ....

While waiting for the movie and some of her other friends to turn up, I tried to engage my friend in a meaningful conversation, and as usual, it almost always revolved around what she does i.e. her current job and what I've been doing i.e. my current job ...... I would ask her about her parents 'coz they, especially her mother, had helped me through a crisis a few years ago, and she would say they're fine and the cats are fine (They keep a lot of cats back in her hometown) ...... She would tell me her favourite cat of the moment and what it's been up to .....

Now if I were to stay over her place and spend more time with her, our conversations would traverse a wider spectrum of things, but invariably, we almost always end up just talking about movies ...... but as it is, we both now lead rather busy lives, and don't hang out as often as before, so now it's just about movies ....

While waiting for the movie to start & for two other friends to turn up, we went to this Japanese restaurant for dinner ...... My friend & her friends really dig the LCD screen menu they have at each table ..... apparently, the reason they like to eat at this particular restaurant is so that they can play around ordering from the touch screen menu ...... But it so happened that the LCD screen at the table we were seated was not working .....

Everybody was so disappointed .... except me ..... Was I supposed to be upset over something I have never seen before? ..... I was indeed curious at how the LCD screen was supposed to work, but I couldn't say I was thoroughly disappointed as the rest of them were .... So everybody ordered the old-fashioned way .... I looked at the choice of dishes they had, and suddenly I was thrust down memory lane .... Oooh, Ebi Tempura .... Ooooh, Tamago-don ........ Oh no, Okonomiyaki ...... Apart from Takoyaki, that's a well-known Kansai delicacy, if I'm not mistaken ....

In the end, I chose Garlic Fried Rice ..... 'coz I couldn't make up my bloody mind ........ I should have chosen the okonomiyaki, goddammit, 'coz one of us ordered that, and when I had a bite, it tasted exactly how it supposed to taste ...... In the actual okonomiyaki restaurants in Japan, they have this .... well, I guess you could call it a hot plate, in the middle of the table for you to make your own ..... 'coz I think that's what somebody told me what "okonomiyaki" means - you can put whatever you like on top of it, and make it whichever way you like ......

While waiting for our food to come, my friend's friend took out her Nintendo DS ...... and everybody followed suit ...... except me, of course ...... If you've ever read manga, or watch anime, I would be the character where there's this huge dialogue balloon over my head with a straight line of dots in it .... "........." ... Like that ....

I liked Pirates 3, despite the fact that it's three hours long ..... My friend thought it could have done without some of the scenes, some scenes should have been shorter or taken out 'coz they didn't really help with the story-telling ..... Her final verdict was that she didn't like it the way she liked the first two .... Well, to each her own ...... I wondered which scenes she was talking about, which means ..... I'm so gonna watch it again, before the movie ends its run in the cinema (Added 01/04/2008 - never did, 'coz never had the time then) .....

This is not the first time I find myself silently disagreeing with my friend over a movie .... There have been other movies, but I just can't remember them .... and there you have it, with the one thing we have in common, we don't agree with everything ...... But she's my friend ..... and in the end, that's all that matters ..... Besides, we both share the same perverse sense of humour, and that's what binds us actually ....

TOO DAMN ECSTATIC TO THINK OF A TITLE .....

2007-04-30T21:14:00.003+08:00

YES! ..... I HAVE NETWORK .... 24-7 ..... & A SPANKING NEW DESKTOP ...... THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT I'VE EVER GIVEN TO MYSELF ....... well, actually can't think of anything else at the moment .... Can name Friendship, Health & Sanity ..... er, maybe not the last one ..... 'COZ I'M TOO DAMN ECSTATIC THINKING THAT I DON'T HAVE TO GO THE THE CRUMMY INTERNET CAFE WITH ITS HORRIBLE STINKING TOILET & MORONIC GAMERS .......... I - LIVE - AGAIN! .........

Added 29/01/2009 - Dammit! What happened to my pix?? See, this is what I mean by tech warp ...

IKEA & I

2007-04-22T11:12:00.003+08:00

The IKEA LACK sidetable .... Mine's the coffee table ....

Image taken from: http://www.furniturehomedesign.com/tag/ikea-furniture/

I love IKEA .... Actually, that's an understatement ..... There's something about the IKEA store that just fills my heart whenever I visit it ...... When I look at all the home displays, you know, the living rooms, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the kitchens and all that, I keep saying, "Yeah, that looks great for my house ... Oooh, oooh, I want that, I want that ...."

Of course, I don't own a house .... and because of that, in the past years, all the IKEA furniture I bought I had to give away (GIVE AWAY, okay, because M'sians are a bunch of cheapskates and would rather get things for free) because I had been moving around and moving out of the country ...... That's the thing about me - I like to hoard stuff, and I develop a sentimental attachment to them, especially if they are things I really like ...... IKEA furniture for example ......

So, after giving away my ANEBODA cabinet, my ROBIN & RAST chests of drawers, I thought, "That's it .... Until I get my own house, I will never buy any IKEA furniture" ....... A fool and her words are soon parted ....

Several months after coming back from Japan and settling down at my mother's place, I realized I needed a new bookshelf ...... So I went and bought a FLARKE bookshelf ........ and then yesterday, I went and bought a FLARKE tv rack and a LACK coffee table ....

Now, one of the reasons I like IKEA furniture so much is because they are so easy to assemble ...... and for some reason, I always feel a sense of fulfillment after having assembled one ........ My first IKEA piece - the RAST chest of drawer - took me more than two hours to assemble, but after I finished, I looked at it proudly and said, "Wow, I actually assembled that all by myself" .....

That's another thing, all these IKEA furniture I've bought I assembled them all by myself ..... Of course, I did need help when lifting some of them, that ANEBODA cabinet for one, but the main thing is I always assemble them myself ....

So when I bought that tv rack and coffee table, I was thinking, "This is going to be really easy" ....... 'coz mind you, not only that ANEBODA cabinet was tall and heavy, it had hinges, so I had to make sure they were screwed in properly so that the door won't be hanging askew .....

Now, all the IKEA furniture I've assembled had a lot of different types of screws, and each type amounting to a quantity more than four, at least ....... all except the LACK coffee table ..... by far, it is supposed to be the easiest to assemble because it has the least amount of types of screws .... I was dead wrong ....

Screwing all the screws in was not that easy .... I wondered if it was because the wood was hard, which was kinda weird because it's lighter than the tv rack ...... I even had my nephew to help me on this ('coz he volunteered anyway) ..... Then came the part where we had to screw in the legs ...... What was supposed to be breezy, became wheezy as it took all my breath to screw those legs in at the proper angle so that the hole in each leg would be adjacent to each other (there is a piece of board to be put under the top) .....

Now I got all three legs in, left but the last leg standing .... By this time, my arms were kind of stiff, so you can imagine I woke up this morning with my body aching all over ....... I couldn't screw in the last leg, at least to the right angle ..... so I took it out and tried to unscrew the screw from the leg ..... the bloody screw was really fastened in to that bloody piece of wood, so I had to use a plier to take it out ...... Needless to say, it was a futile attempt, and I ended up ruining the screw ..... SCREW IT!!! ....

So this morning, this fine Sunday morning, I drove all the way down to IKEA, all the way on the other side of where I live, just for a bloody fucking screw ......

So, is this the end of my love affair for IKEA? ...... I can't say for sure, but at least I know I won't be buying any for the time being ...... Only because I dont' have my own house ....... and the reason I got that coffee table is because it's small enough for my room, but big enough for my ultimate buy .... Yes, by next month I will be putting up an entry on that ....

I'm a disaster in the kitchen

2007-04-03T17:03:00.004+08:00

Image taken from: istock.com

Some time ago when my friend came over my place to hang out, I tried making some tea for her ..... While she was sitting at the bar stool, I was going around, looking for the necessary stuff ....

Problem is, whenever guests come over, it's never been me who makes the drinks ..... or cooks the dishes .... or serves the guests .... I'm the quintessential dishwasher ..... I only come out of my room when there are dishes to be washed ....... other than that, I just stay in my room and watch DVDs ..... especially if the guests are relatives, I avoid them like the plague ....

Alright, so I may just pop out from the comfort and safety of my sanctuary into the oblivion of hellish nightmare that is my relatives, just to show them I exist, but after that I disappear again, never to be found unless an annoying voice calls me out and commands that I do the dishes ..... which I normally do anyway ....

Anywayz, back to my friend's visit ..... well, I was looking for the container where we keep the teabags, and after opening and closing cabinet doors, my friend asked, "You can't find the tea, can you?" .... I gave her a sheepish look, and a weak laugh ....

After I found the tea, I went looking for sugar ..... then the most idiotic thing happened ...... I opened the jar and was about to take a spoon of it when I realized that the sugar looked funny ...... I looked at it intently, yes, intently's the word, and showed it to my friend and asked, "This is salt, isn't it?" .....

My friend, apa lagi, kutuk I habis-habis ..... "Apa lar kau nie, J- ... gula pun kau tak tau ker?!" ............. Yeah, well you may think I've exaggerated my story, but that's basically what happens ..... So the other day when the same friend came over, and I made her tea, I reminded her of that incident, and she started making fun of me, but in a good-humoured way and I just laughed and laughed ....

Gosh, it's been a while since I had friends over my place ... When you think about it, it is really funny, isn't it? ... which is why I reminded my friend of it ......... We laugh at our own foibles, but how come we can never accept our own mistakes? ........ Well, maybe it's just me ......

Anywayz, I am no good at cooking ...... sure, I can boil an egg .... and cook instant noodles ...... I do make a mean cup of hot chocolate ........ but I can't cook the way my mom does ....... she makes really good nasi lemak, so much so that I refuse to eat nasi lemak that you buy at the stall ...... unless if my mom buys it, then I have no choice, but every time she does this, I always mention that she makes the best nasi lemak, only to make her think that I'd prefer her nasi lemak which is true and she would cook it more often .....

So far, it has been a successful ploy ....... My mom was a Home Economics teacher, so I guess she's got the skills ...... She used to make this really nice Pineapple Upside Down ...... but now she's too old to make any of those things anymore ....

I on the other hand never inherited this talent, but it was passed down to my sister, who went to catering school, and although now she's a full-time housewife, when she's not too busy with the kids, she can whip up a mean dish or two ....

I did, when I was in Lower Secondary, or Junior High if you wish, take Home Economics classes ......... I remember making these Rock Buns, which became like their namesake .... and I remember making Bubur Cha Cha which was really thin ..... it's supposed to be nice and thick ......

And I remembered making two sweet desserts instead of one sweet and one savoury for our practical exam, and that's where I lost marks .... You know Florence Tan? Well, she was my Home Ec teacher ...... and she's a damn good teacher ..... How she is on her cooking shows is exactly how she's like in her classes ...... Well, actually I've never sat down and watched any of her shows, but I bet dollars to doughnuts her bubbly personality comes through ........

Well, eventually I'll learn how to cook, when I have my own family ...... but for now, just be forewarned ..... Make your own drink when you're at my place .......

The Wonderful World of Unreality ..... and Tax Evasion

2007-03-10T13:51:00.003+08:00

http://skyblue.gen.tr/img/roadrunner.jpg

I did my my fucking taxes today .... Honest to God, I'm not lying here ..... three and half years (technically almost six years 'coz I was still in service while in Japan doing my postgraduate) working with the government and I never bothered paying my taxes ....

The truth is, before I started this job, I had to fill this form from my employment agency, and one of the things they needed was my income tax file number .... Okay, all they need is that file number, right? They don't need to know I never paid my taxes, do they? ....... What happened afterwards seemed so surreal .... all I wanted was just that file number ....

But on that day, it felt like I was walking down the road, and the day was incredibly sunny, but not hot at all, and people were smiling, and looking strange at the same time, and I came across this very large screen, like the kind they put up for outdoor movies, and on it the Road Runner was being chased by Wile E. Coyote all over the desert, and I looked at it for a moment, and suddenly I jumped into the screen and started chasing after them, when out of the blue, this giant anvil came out of the sky and fell on me and I was buried good in the ground, but I got out, then opened this door which led me back out of the screen, then the first thing I saw was the Internal Revenue Board office which I headed for straightaway, went inside, and the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "Erm, I haven't done my taxes, could you just give me the forms for all the years I need to pay?" ...... Like I said, it was all so surreal .......

Oh, did I mention that on the latest tax form, one of the things they ask for is DATE OF DECEASE .... I looked at that carefully and thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, like maybe I was still in the desert and I saw this mirage which is supposed to be funny but not .....

But no, this was no Jedi mind trick ..... I didn't ask any of the officers there what this question meant, but even if I did, they'd probably look at me one kind and said, "move along, move along ..." ..... I'm thinking, "What, they still want you to pay your taxes even after you're dead?" ....

TYPICAL FUCKING IRB .... They bleed you to death, and after you're dead, they bleed you some more ...... It's funny to think that the deadline for taxpaying happens to be on my birthday .... It's like saying, "Pay up, Brainjuice, or you'll never see another birthday again ... ever" .....

Work revisited

2007-03-10T12:48:00.001+08:00

For three and a half years, I taught English at a semi-rural therefore not quite urban government school ..... I should've gone to one far in the rural areas .... I could have taken my students to the jungle or the river and learned about nature instead ....

And when they muck about looking for ideas to write in their compositions, I could sit under a tree, have a little picnic, and daydream with a smile, "Aah, this is the life ...."

And when we go back to the school, I would write in my record book: "Teaching and learning successful. Students had a blast. And they learned a great deal, too." .... and then come up with some other bullshit for the next day's lesson plan .... Most probably the principal wouldn't check my record book anyway, or wouldn't even bother .....

The thing is, I was, and still am, a lousy teacher .... When in school, I'd rather be anywhere but the classroom .... I'd rather go to one of those out-of-school meetings, not because I enjoy meeting teachers from other school, but simply just wanting to be out of school, or most importantly, to be out of the classroom ..... and that was my biggest problem .....

When I was in class, I always put up an act ..... I'd be writing something on the board, and explaining whatever horseshit I wrote to the students while thinking "What the hell am I doing here? Do I know what I'm talking about? And for the love of God, what is that boy doing under his table?"

.... And at that moment, it was with irony in full force that my mind went back to a time when I was a senior in high school, sitting at the desk looking at my Maths teacher trying to explain himself to the class while all I did was stare at the booger hanging precariously out of his conk (ladies & gentlemen, this really happened) and thought, "That is the very, very last thing I want to be caught doing" .....

And so while I was in class, teaching, or rather tried to, that thought repeatedly came to mind ..... I felt it was the worst joke ever played on me - becoming a teacher ..... It isn't so much the idea of teaching I dislike, it is the fact that there I was, a great disbeliever, trying to teach a bunch of impressionable kids, on how to walk the straight and narrow ..... when deep down, I really didn't care ..... and so the joke became uglier and uglier .....

It slowly ate me from the inside out ..... I'd go into class, and tried looking at my students in the eye .... but the more I looked at them, the more I felt the pain ..... and to add to that, there were these managerial tasks that I needed, or rather had to deal with .... I had headache, heartache, and heartburn .... literally .... I developed gastrointestinal problems which has persisted until today whenever I get stressed up .... I started not going into class every chance I could get .... I hated myself, or rather what I had become ..... so I left ...

And during my jobless period, the thought had crossed my mind, "Why oh why did I quit before I could find another job that's more to my liking?" ..... But that would mean looking and searching and smashing my head against a wall, at the same time disgust and apathy gradually eating me from the inside out until I become a zombie .....

Then the students would come up to me and ask what's wrong, and I would look at them, or rather through them, and then just walk away ...... This didn't happen to me 'coz I got out in time, but it happened to my former colleague who became my best friend ..... and although I'm making sweeping statements here, I don't think I'm far from the truth when I say that this mental malaise is happening to a great number of teachers in this country .......

It's like what Red says, "First you hate it, then you get used to it ... enough time passes, you become dependent on it" ..... which is true, ask any government school teacher what they think of their working life, if you can call it a life, and you'll get this answer ...... at least, that's how I saw it when I felt I was stuck in this dead-end job ...... There is something seriously wrong with the system ..... and frankly, I don't give a damn ......

Of course, only after I left the system, I realize I did have a choice of not entering it in the first place ( I thought I didn't 'coz I signed a death warrant with the government, or else one hell of a penalty to pay ) ...... Of course, this new-found wisdom only came after many a painful lesson at making horrible decisions in life about life ......

And what I've learned is that I'm still growing ...... I realize, with gravity and a sense of hope, the fact that I'm still in that process means that I know it's never the end .......... So now if I do get a job, I have to find something about it that I like ..... I have to put aside the fact that it might take away a bit of my life, I have to put aside the mundane day-in-day-out existence, I am the one who has to find meaning in doing it, and not the work giving meaning to my life .....

To a God unknown

2006-12-26T15:24:00.004+08:00

I'm hard-pressed for a good opening when it comes to talking about God, Religion and Faith ..... I know jack when it comes to any of these topics, but it seems appropriate for me at this point of my life to talk about them in light of recent events that have happened to me ....

What I say here is all just opinion, of course (so don't get your panties in a bunch, alright?) .... I don't intend to offend or rebuke anyone who has strong beliefs in an idea or a way of life, but personally I believe in the questioning of beliefs itself ... because our way of thinking is such that we become accustomed to and comfortable in a certain mode of seeing and understanding of this world and beyond once we reach a certain stage in our lives ..... For me, I was way lost in my own comfort zone, and it was high-time I re-boot .....

I'm ill-equipped to talk about religion because I am quite ignorant of other religions, much less know about the religion I was borne into .... So how is it that I have come to this point in my life where religion is no longer part of my Psyche, part of my Consciousness but just a superficial, external facet of my identity? ....

It has been a long journey, one which began with an innocent, naive point of view of this world .... My perspective changed with outside help, no doubt, but to me, my spiritual transformation took more than just counter-arguments and living the lives of other people .....

Whether by design or by default, I wouldn't know .... Perhaps it was Divine Intervention .... the motherboard that hosts my thinking processes got fried some time ago, and in that moment of darkness and despair, I thought my mental hard drive was going to crash as well .... It was as good a time as any to test my own faith in the mind's ability to re-boot .... but perhaps it was God's own way to show me that, hey, he's a cool programmer ...

(Who knows, he's probably sitting in some cubicle right now in slacker mode playing City of Villains with this super-way-cool version of PS2 ... Added 13/12/2007: Darn it, don't have any idea in hell what's the latest RPG/FPS/Strategy/Whatever videogame that's the coolest now .... but there's PS3, which apparently is not as good as its precursors according to Aimo, my would-stay-up-whole-days-to-finish-a-certain-Japanese-dating-simulation-game-friend ... it's much better to get XBox apparently) ....

The mind is a mind-blowing invention - a self-aware, self-programmed bio-organic super computer .... In my opinion, a number of programmes are not installed in there since conception, but only uploaded after birth, and one of these programmes is called Religion ver. 1.0 ..... Perhaps the mental shutdown I had was a blessing in disguise after all .... It was God's way of telling me, "Alright, if you're so smart, you install whatever programmes you want in that brain of yours .... Don't ask me to troubleshoot when there's a problem, but that's the thing, isn't it? You always come to me when there's a problem" ....

Erm, I admit I romanticise God a little too much .... But like I've said, religion is just this programme that is installed in our thinking since birth .... All I have to do is just delete it ... or do I really want to do that? .... Why don't I just delete Prejudice instead? Wouldn't the world be a much better place if we could just delete prejudice from our programming? But sadly, to me, prejudice is one of those programmes that although was installed at birth, becomes hard-wired into our thinking .... Probably because it's such a simple programme ..... Try installing something complicated instead ... like Love ....

Back to what I was saying, we can come up with version Omega of Tolerance, but we just can't uninstall prejudice ..... However, religion is something I can uninstall from my consciousness .... right? ..... I can't uninstall it, it's going to be there along with rest of the junk that's stuck in my brain ..... I can, however, partition my brain and put religion in the I'm-Taking-A-Break-From-This section ..... it's something like ROM of my brain ..... What am I talking about here, I know jackshit about computers, sheesh .....

But that's it, I'm taking a break from religion because all my life, religion hasn't helped me understand the people who should matter to me, and understanding them matters to me a whole lot more than living this so-called way of life which ultimately, in my opinion for all that it's worth, is just some other people's idea of a way of life ..... Hence, that is what I think of religion .... It is mainly a system in which there is regulation .... and the ones who perform such regulation are ultimately only human .....

If religion is the perfect programme, then shouldn't it count in human error? ... Am I wrong in thinking this way? ..... For me, just because I've taken a break from religion, it doesn't mean I have completely stopped believing that it works .... I'm simply looking for the right version .... ver. Perfect-For-Me ...... So I have decided to be my own self, not by rejecting point-blank values that were instilled in me from birth, but by questioning them openly in front of people whose hard-line viewpoints of the world propagated those self-same values ......

So far, I've never had the opportunity to question, because my refusal to do or not do certain things has automatically erected a fortress of dogged denial and flat-out stubbornness around said people ......

Where God is concerned, I'm really in a weird place .... I believe there is a God, but I have stopped believing in him .... The god I was brought up to know, the god that was superimposed on my consciousness, has a nature of duality .... I was taught to believe that if I serve him, and serve him well, I would be granted an eternity of gratification in the afterlife (Is there an afterlife anyway? Why couldn't Death be like what Albus Dumbledore say it should be - death is only but the next great adventure?) but if I diss him, or turn my back on him for good, I would face an eternity of punishment ....

So god, to me, has come to mean eternal Pleasure and Pain .... but I refuse to believe him in that manner ..... God, to me, is all shades of gray because that is how I see the human condition, or the ways of the world ..... If God is supposed to be reflected in all these things, then shouldn't it naturally come to our thinking that God, after all, is a plain right mess? ..... More importantly, when I distance myself from religion, I find that I could disassociate god, or the idea of god, with this be-all and end-all superpower entity ....

In the end, I find it a lot easier to connect to God, once I realize that I'm only looking for Faith, searching for Meaning, and God is simply a symbol of a greater scheme of things .....

So when I say I have stopped believing in God, that also means I have stopped praying to God .... I have been called an apostate because I have stopped praying, but nobody has stopped to ask me why .... most probably I wouldn't be able to give a straight answer anyway .... I don't really know why I've stopped praying .... Most probably because it is an inconvenience, a lot of bother .... Or probably I just don't like the idea of praying and having to show for it ....

I don't like the idea of people (especially people who think it's their rightful business to judge other people) checking up on me to see whether I've prayed or done certain things to show that I'm a believer .... because then it becomes a burden to me, and I'm doing it not because I sincerely want to do it, but because other people tell me to do it ..... But just because I've stopped praying, it doesn't mean I've stopped thinking about God ....

Why couldn't that be a form of prayer, thinking about God? I guess why I'm all bothered about this is that people always pay attention to form, and never function ..... In definition (The New Penguin English), prayer means:

1) A personal request, confession, or expression of praise and thanksgiving

2) An earnest request or devout wish

3) Something prayed or earnestly wished for

So, in other words, when we pray, there's always something that we ask for, isn't it? Sure, we pray for the good health, well-being and happiness of our loved ones, but we also pray for a lot of other things that have nothing to do with saintly intentions ....

Why couldn't it be when we pray, we just want to talk to God, or rather talk with God? What bothers me is that whenever I'm in a rut, I always turn to God and ask for help .... and that bugs me to hell 'coz it seems I always pray for an easy way out .... It's like God has somehow become a wishing well for me, like I hope the problem would magically go away ....

But this isn't true for most people, I know that .... They pray for guidance, the way to find the solution ..... For me, I have decided to pray for the simplest thing - Hope ..... and that's how I see it's possible for everyone, irregardless of beliefs, to have a place in our hearts for God ..... It's called Hope ...... Well, hope is a prayer in itself ....

However, it's a lot less easier to define Faith .... there is no order to faith, one can't use Logic to explain it .... What I want to talk about here is that along with my questioning of religion and god, it seems I have lost my own sense of faith ..... but if I'm praying for hope, then I'm sure to find faith along the way .... I'm not altogether bothered about having lost my faith in religion, but I wonder where I actually stand in this great scheme of things when I have lost faith in faith itself .....

But when I distance myself from religion, I find a lot more room to form questions on faith, or ways to understand it ...... So far, I haven't formed an opinion on faith ..... I guess it's because I'm still looking for it ..... And how would I know what I'm looking for? ..... To me, it's the search that I have faith in, and perhaps some people would agree with me on this - that it's not what we look for that matters in the end, but the journey that takes us there .....

In conclusion, I have taken a break from religion, or rather am trying to look for a better way of understanding its meaning in my life; I'm still trying to figure out God; most importantly, I'm still searching for my own sense of faith .... I hope I would find faith .... I hope (The Shawshank Redemption ending score playing in the background ... This is a little bit too melodramatic ... But you know Brainjuice, always the drama queen) ...

Glass half full of Milk

2006-12-01T12:12:00.004+08:00

Couple of weeks ago, Milk was stalked by this horny tomcat ... I tried to shoo the bugger away, but the stubborn prick of a furball didn't want to budge .... In the end, I picked up Milk and put her somewhere else .... and it was then that I realized that she had a limp in her walk ....

I wanted to take her to the vet's, but my friend told me this horror story where her family took their cats for a check-up, and they ended up vomitting blood and gone to cat heaven after the visit to the vet's ... I should've asked whether they did anything about it ..... My friend advised me to let Milk just be ... apparently cats can take care of themselves and their injuries; they know which wild herbs to chew on to heal themselves .... but I'm thinking of something else actually .... I want the limp to be examined, but more importantly I want to get Milk spayed ....

I have a friend who once said that animal castration is inhumane - who are we to have a right in deciding whether cats or dogs breed or not? ... Animals have feelings, too, you know ... Are you sure that's what they want - the inability to propagate? We're going against their natural tendencies .... Well, I forgot the whole argument, I'm sure he must have said it more eloquently ....

But my friend's a guy, you see .... and if anything I've learned about men is that they will always stick to their guns, in a manner of speaking, when it comes to castration ... They can't even imagine it happening to their male animal friends either .....

Well, I guess I can try to empathise with that, but I'm thinking of the way Milk and other female cats behave every time a tomcat stalks them, and you know it's mating season .... Like I've said before, I don't know anything about animal behaviour, but it sure looks to me like those female cats don't want any, and the horny tomcats just dying to give them some ....

Then again, maybe it's part of their mating manners ..... Female cats play hard-to-get, and male cats just don't take no for an answer, or they just don't get it ..... Sounds pretty familiar, isn't it? .... I can just imagine what the female cats are saying, or meowing, to the male cats ....

"What?! You again?!! You had me last week, a month ago, for cat heaven's sake, you had me two minutes ago!! I have nine kittens who look stupid enough to be yours"
"You bite me too hard, almost had my neck snapped last time!"
"What is it with you? Either you smell food, or you smell pussy"
"I don't like you. Your balls smell funny"
"Go away! Or I'm gonna run to the middle of the street with that car coming straight at us!"

..... And you know what, the horny tomcat runs after her .... and then, SPLAT!!! ...... That's the reality of these stray cats ..... It's either they breed, and breed, .... or they end up as roadkill which is actually to me, more inhumane .... One of these days, I'm going to look up that friend of mine and ask whether he still hasn't changed his mind about animal castration ....

Psycho-anal-lytic junk pt. 2 - Me, the Devil and the Slutty, Sinner Saint

2006-11-20T17:17:00.006+08:00

http://ladysbugwhispers.blogs.sapo.pt/arquivo/conscience-thumb.jpg

Okay, I have to write something .... to prove that I'm still alive .... but the thing is, since my life isn't going anywhere at the moment, I have somehow run out of brainjuice to write ....

The thing is, I need to be inspired to write, and since there is absolutely nothing happening in my life where career or relationships are concerned, I can't be inspired to write ..... but if don't write, I feel like I've sort of given up .....

It used to be that writing was an outlet for me to express everything that's inside of me ..... but now, I find that I have to channel on something inspiring, to say the least, in order to write ..... Apparently, my well of inspiration has dried up .... One could say that I'm going through a really rough dry spell .... In more ways than one ..... God, I hate it when my mind is helpless and starts thinking about that .....

Firstly, I may without actually realising it, have committed a form of online thievery, in a manner of speaking, called inline linking ....

I've taken all these nice images, you see, from all sorts of sites, and copied and pasted their URLs on the my posts, the rationale being that these images are not mine but taken from such sites .....

Honestly, I do not intend to plagiarise these people's works, but I could see why certain people like my good friend Aimo would not take kindly to such goings-on since she and her friends have legitimate paid websites respectively, and people like me just simply take their hard work and put them on my blog, increasing their bandwidth, and them having to pay for me, a freeloader ....

... Hence, I've made it a point never to take images from freelancer artists and such (in fact I don't think I could because most of them have put certain preventive measures, unbeknownst to an internet idiot like me, to ban such activity) ..... then again I may have done this ( refer to images on my post on cartoon characters ) ....

Well, well, well, what can one expect when yours truly also buys bootleg DVDs ....... Yeah, like I'm the only one guilty of such crimes ..... I personally know people who have downloaded all sorts of things, and I mean all sorts of things, from the internet, without paying ..... what I've done pales in comparison to what these people have done ....... So, why should I be made to feel guilty? ....

Actually, I do feel a slight twinge in that beating organ of mine .... because I always have this habit of putting myself in other people's shoes when it comes to trying to see their perspective ... (Aah, this is just me saying something good about myself, so that I could feel good about myself ... I'm just as pretentious as the rest of 'em) ...

I mean, what if I'm the freelance artist busting my ass trying to find a decent means of existence when some freeloader hack go and steal my work ........ Sure, Brainjuice, like the rest of the human population actually care ....... Who cares whether other people care or not, what matters is whether I care or not .......

So, moving on to my next point, is sex better with a caucasian man, or with an asian man? .... Heheheheh, got you there ...... I don't know if anybody reads this, but this is my goddamn personal blog anyway, so I can write whatever I want!! .....

But I guess where sex is concerned, it's both personal and public knowledge ... In my case, personal means it's me and the person I'm involved with, and public means just about any form of opinion I have on this topic .....

The most I could say on this is that sex gets better with experience, that is only common knowledge, right? and it really does not matter with whom you're having it with, be it age, status, creed, colour, personal opinions, bank account balances, .... size .... am I right? am I right? am I right ? except personal hygiene, which matters to me, and I think to a lot of people ..... and that is all I would share .... The rest I leave to the imagination of the blogosphere inhabitants ....

But going back to my question, while I was doing some, ehem, research on the topic, I came across this (for the lack of a better expression) cultural/social phenomenon called "Asian fetish" .... I find it interesting that I have yet to come across anything equivalent to "Caucasian fetish" .... 'coz frankly speaking, I think that's what I'm suffering from .... but for argument's sake, I would say I'm open to all (As long as he is caring, affectionate, and willingly want to spend the rest of his life with me, among other things).... Well, almost all ..... Alright, call me a racist pig 'coz I don't prefer men of my own race, especially the typical ones .... gives me the heebie jeebies .....

The thing about having sexual preference for a certain ethnic group is that on some level it does involve questions of racism, and let's be honest here, nobody likes to be called a racist .....

I have questioned myself over and over again, why do I find myself attracted to caucasian men? It's not like they're all good-looking, or that all of them could string ten words or more in a sentence (No, of course not) .... It bothers me that every time I go to a place like KLCC, for example, and find all these inter-racial couples, and I sort of get a stab in the fucking heart for some reason, and that drives me crazy ....

Maybe it's just plain ol' jealousy, but my point is, why should I be jealous? .... I'm not jealous when I see other couples .... It's just these inter-racial couples that drive me up the wall (Not really, only if they're a Mat Saleh guy with an Asian woman), to the point where I don't go to KLCC that often anymore ...

Okay, another reason is because I'm trying to control my spending ........ When I deal with this side of me, I often wonder whether I have really matured or not ..... I know for a fact that I don't need a caucasian man to validate my existence, I don't need a caucasian man to tell me that I'm intelligent, I don't need a caucasian man to look at me in a certain way to know that I'm attractive ...... but for some fucking reason, I find myself attracted to caucasian men .... I'm only human *sighs* ...

Then there's the fact that I'm not at all attracted to men of my own ethnic group ...... and I don't think it's because I find them ugly or unattractive ....... Look at Fahrin Ahmad, for example - mmmmmm, hubba, hubba ..... Once, while I was waiting for the LRT, there was this guy who looked decent enough... glasses on, simple t-shirt and jeans .... I noticed him before boarding but I didn't really look at him .... on the train, he sat next to me ..... and then he spoke to me, and immediately I was turned off (No, he didn't have bad breath) ...

It wasn't so much his choice of words, but his tone and manner .... no, he wasn't lecherous, but he was simply .... a typical Malay guy .... It's really difficult to explain what I mean by typical Malay guy, but I think a lot of Malay women out there would know what I'm taking about ....

Then there was this time, again on the LRT (actually you get to meet a lot of interesting people on the LRT) where I met the Malay equivalent of Mitch Pileggi ...... Yeah, he was balding, with glasses on, but he really did look like Mitch Pileggi ... well, that was my first impression .... anywayz, he kept smiling at me, and you could tell something about a person from the way they smile .... and before I got off, he smiled again at me ..... and did I do anything about it? Er, no ..... I'm kinda stupid about this sort of thing ....

I guess I would like to get to know the non-typical Malay guy, the kind of guy I could have an open and honest conversation with, we could talk about movies, among other things ... But you see, I'm just not attracted towards Malay men ... And like I've mentioned, it's not because of their looks ... So, there it is, why I'm still not in a relationship .....

The reason you're not in a relationship Brainjuice, is because you're stubborn, choosy and indecisive ...... or you just don't want to try .... you keep making up excuses for anybody who's a potential ...

In fact, the only reason why you think you only want to have a relationship with a caucasian man is because it goes back to that side of human nature about wanting what you can't have ....... What are you saying? That I can't have a relationship with, let's see, hmmmm .......... Okay, while you're deciding which movie star look-a-like you're gonna pick, let me remind you that it's the way you behave that's not going to get you any guy .... have a little self-respect, BJ ............ Damn, but what am I going to do about sex, then?

Walk Down Memory Lane, pt. 2

2006-10-30T12:37:00.002+08:00

Caption at bottom of ad: Exotic Fruits Crushed In Sparkling Spring Water. It's 5,740 Miles Away From Any Other Drink

I don't remember which mag I got this ad from, but at the time I was staying in Bognor Regis, a seaside town along the south coast of England ... When I looked at the ad, I thought "This is just typical of British humour", something which I do truly miss about the UK, apart from the TV ads which is full of such humour ....

I wrote a long piece about the ad, and about how I felt of Bognor in a scrap book .... This was written, ohh, about nine years ago, so you have to excuse the obvious I-Know-How-To-Do-Discourse-Analysis-On-Print-Media bullshit and the God-I'm-Good-At-This-Aren't-I? ostentatious writing tone ....

What I really want to publish is my comment on Bognor since I've written an entry on Osaka, another place I have had the honour and the pleasure of living .... This is just to remind me that although Life has not always been kind to me, I have often overlooked the fact that I have been luckier than most people because I've had the opportunity to go places and experience a lot of things to make my life a lot more richer than it is ....

So it's kind of unfair for me to say that Life is unfair, I have to say that most of the time it was I who made it tough on myself ..... So, here it is, my piece on Bognor Regis .....

You look at that ad and what do you think you're
supposed to think? Subliminal, isn't it? Effective message, I think. You're made to think that Bognor is Rio and like Rio, it is divinely exotic.
Having lived in that selfsame town for ten long
months, I wish whoever that was responsible for the idea behind that ad must have come from another planet, because if he's a native Brit and has been to that dreadful place, then he couldn't possibly have the strait-jacket sanity to
come up with such a ludicrous excuse for a tactical ploy to con any innocent bugger to buy that product, which I'm sure must taste "divinely exotic".
Nevertheless, I'd like to think that this person has
a wicked sense of dry and sharp humour. Having noticed how staid and dead Bognor is, he exaggerates the very opposite of it, which I think is meaningfully implied in the second line of the caption. By being far from everything, the
drink is rare, and thus exotic as it claims. But I'd like to think he meant that Bognor Regis itself is far, and when I mean "far", I mean really far, full of old people (hence the granny and her dog) and a constant shade of greyness.
Which made me come to the conclusion - if I had the
foresight to see it coming, I would have taken a degree in advertising, knowing the subtle influence it has in its power. My God, can't you just begin to comprehend the magnitude of such power? ... Hmm, I'm beginning to sound like a power-crazed tyrant bent on conquering the world, and if I could get away with it I might just believe I am.
Back to what I was trying to point out, how I could
have just revelled in glee, yes, absolute glee at the thought of devising a careful double-meaning advert like that. Not because I take particular pleasure in seeing someone stupid enough to buy a product I campaign for (I like to think that all of us has a choice as a consumer) but because the thought that some consumers out there can read between the visual symbols and the encrypted
caption on my "ad" (my masterpiece, really) fills my heart with satisfaction, complete contentment. To know that by the end of the day, I've achieved what I aimed for - the art of subtle, and if I might add, subliminal
persuasion.
What am I babbling about here? I was supposed to be
talking about hell-hole Bognor Regis, not the bloody advert. Well, I've described Bognor briefly, but I'm sure you can just imagine the disgust I've felt for that place. The only spot I've ever cherished going to in Bognor would
be the train station, knowing that whatever train I would take could bring me out of the wretched desolateness that I almost always felt in Bognor.
Mind you, not all of Bognor is awful. It is peaceful
and as a small seaside town, it does have its own little quirks - old people walking about in town with their dogs, mothers pushing prams. A lot of contrasting features really. Apart from the chilling gust of wind from the sea
during winter, one of many distinct aspects of the British weather that I abhor, Bognor Regis is perhaps just like any other ordinary English seaside town, except of course it's smaller than Worthing and Brighton.
I guess part of the desolateness that I felt every
time I walked in Bognor came from the fact that I was born and bred in a busy city. Man, the capital city of my country, for goodness sake. I'm quite used to bright lights and sham glamour that something as original as Bognor seemed to me to be profoundly unsophisticated. Maybe I was too caught up with my own wretched feelings of loneliness that until now as I write, it never occurred to me that the small seaside town is also suffering from loneliness.
I mean, I've seen life growing quietly amongst the
housing estates, along the esplanade towards the pier, even the almost out-of-place Butlins there. But that's it. Life growing quietly, no zest, no spark, no nothing. I almost felt sorry, but not quite.
I don't think I need to feel sorry for that sorry
town. Indeed, I don't think it needs any. Why should it? For all it's loneliness, its dull outlook on life, it has been stubborn and refused to die out just like that. Just like the ad to give more underlying meaning. Like Rio
but perhaps not as exotic, Bognor Regis has its own identity, despite eveything but the kitchen sink that any stranger that have lived in it might feel for it,
including myself ... Yep, boring ol' Bognor, proud to hold such a reputation.

Well, now looking back ..... naaah, I don't want to look back on my life in Bognor, and in the UK in general ..... Yep, there were a lot of good things I remember of living there, but that's where they should be - in remembrance ....

Walk Down Memory Lane, pt. 1

2006-10-18T12:24:00.002+08:00

Before my current blog, my first one was about my experiences in Osaka, Japan .... I regret to say I have deleted it ... I wrote a lot of interesting stuff, then somehow a lot of nonsense crept into my writing so I deleted it .... what I should have done was to delete the nonsense and leave the juicy good stuff .... So what I'm going to do now is to try and write out of pure memory, and tainted brainjuice, the things that I remember about Osaka ....

The second picture is of Dotonburi, which is in downtown Osaka (this photo is taken from someone else's blog, something which I don't really like to do, but while I was in Japan, I didn't own a digicam ..... imagine the irony of that) ....

I didn't often go to this area, but you get to see a lot of interesting stuff here .... not the redlight district, mind you, though one time while I was walking with another bunch of Malaysians, or some other foreign students, I don't remember, I somehow chanced upon a XXX cinema .... It should be equally interesting to note that I was the only one who saw said cinema ....

Anyways, alongside the river there are a number of amusement arcades, and most of them have these innocent-looking UFO catchers (picture 3) .... Now, ever since I came to Japan, and whenever we were in town, I'd always been curious about these .... things, but never really had a good look at them ..... On that one particular day, my curiosity got the better of me ....

While my friends walked ahead, I went inside one of those arcades and looked at the stuffed toys they had ..... Let me tell you for a fact, in Japan the toys they have in those UFO catchers are way, way cooler than the ones we have here in KL ..... You can tell, in terms of quality, and most definitely in variety, even though all these toys are made in where else but China ....

Well, needless to say, I tried them out ..... My friends observed me first, and then they caught the bug ..... I could say for certain that I was hooked .... and lost quite an amount of money ..... It looks easy enough, you see ..... All you have to do is target the toy you want, strategise your move (only two moves anyway, one forward, one to left or right depending), put the coin in the slot, and let Chance do the rest .....

However, I don't know whether Chance did the hard work or was it our luck with the arcade assistants ..... You see, we got help .... My first attempt was for this cool-looking bag that has this cat which has this bleeding wound (picture 1) .... Well, one of the arcade assistants saw me going for it, and before I had the chance to put the coin in, she opened the glass door, moved the bag so that it was literally almost in the hole, and closed the door back ....

I stood there for a while, not sure what to make of it ..... Probably it was because the word "Tourist" was clearly stamped across our foreheads, and we were about to spend mucho moolah at their arcade .... Well, if I'm not mistaken, I think we blew more than 5000yen (approx. RM150) between the four of us .... I know I spent 2000yen .... but we did not walk away empty-handed ....

Each of us got a toy, two of us got two each, including yours truly .... the other one I had was this cat from The Aristocats, but I had to give it away, since I can't carry too many things back to Malaysia ..... which is a real pity, 'coz I also gave away a number of my Japanese language learning books which included the textbooks they used to teach us basic Japanese when we were there the first six months ....

I regret that decision now, but books are heavy ....... No, I should have brought them back 'coz I still had to pay for excess baggage no matter what, which cost me an arm and a leg, and then some .....

http://www.coffeeandtv.org/coffeeandtv/snabbt/index.html
http://www.shinbashi.net/top/search/search.php?mse_idd=10049&PHPSESSID=45a938326d7287b383796de6e19c1c30

Milk

2006-09-21T13:15:00.004+08:00

This is Milk. I named her that 'coz whenever I see her, I feed her some milk. That's right, she's not mine. I don't think she's a stray cat 'coz there have been times when she's around and I pat her, her fur seems clean and soft, meaning somebody's given her a bath, but those times are very few and far apart.

There was one time I patted her when she snapped at my hand. Of course I don't understand animal behaviour, but I think she may have had catfights with the local tomcats, in all sense of the word. Well, there are missing fur here and there with exposed skin, and hint of blood. And yet, she's one of the very very few that I approach that would not run away from me, and in fact she likes it when I pat her.

I'd like to think that it's in her nature to be like that. I watched a movie starring Sandra Bullock called 28 Days. It's about this woman who suffers from substance disorder who checks herself in a rehab clinic. There she makes friends and learns a thing or two about herself. If I'm not mistaken, it was her counsellor (I wouldn't mind having Steve Buscemi as my therapist) who gave her advice about getting a plant or a pet.

Milk may not be my pet, but I like our relationship. It's the kind where one does not depend on the other, but now and then seeks each other out to give support. It's not a strong and stable relationship, but it's a start, isn't it? ....... And who knows, one fine day, I might just go out there and grab a plant, a pet, or a guy .... and make him mine .... for good ... yeah, it's possible ...

Pictures taken at Utrecht n Amsterdam

2006-07-29T17:47:00.001+08:00

This is Heksenwag (Witches Weigh House) in Oudewater, some 40-minute bus ride from Utrecht ..... It holds documents about persecution of those thought to be witches in the 16th century, and what methods and forms of persecution they used to "weed out" so-called witches ....

I wouldn't say I have any real interest in witchcraft, or the history, even tho' I used to follow Charmed (until the plot's become really convoluted that I decided to stop) and the Harry Potter series being one of my all-time favourite reads .... But it's mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide on Amsterdam that this is the place that people were weighed to find out whether they were witches or not .... so that got me mystified ....

The place was practically empty when I got there, probably 'coz it was a weekday ..... After reading all the documents and looking at the artifacts, I got myself weighed, and this was where it got really interesting ..... The lady started asking me questions like "Do you cook at home?" and "Do you go out at nights?" ..... Then she gave this certificate in which she had stamped a symbol of a witch on it (imagine Wicked Witch of the West) ...... It turns out to be that I AM A WITCH! ....... hahahah, explains it all, huh?

This is the hostel I stayed at ..... Really cool place to chill, especially in you're in good company, which is most of the time .....

On the way from the train station to the hostel, one could find certain monuments .... you know, the usual ones like men on horses, or waving in a grand manner etc. but the one that got my attention was this funny-looking rabbit that looks as if it's thinking .... So I decide to call it Rodin Rabbit (who knows, it might actually be called that, but I didn't bother to read the inscription) ....

The other photo is of the Rijksmuseum, which is under major construction now so not all the works are displayed ..... The most famous one being Rembrandt's The Night Watch, but the one that I really like is this painting by Johannes Vermeer called The Little Street ..... I don't know why, but I just like it ....

Went to the Van Gogh museum as well ..... so I guess my outing to Amsterdam had been a cultural one, and not the naughty kind ..... tho' we did go into some interesting shops and perused some really interesting things *wink* ......

Okey, in the hostel's kitchen, they had these put up on the cupboards .... I laughed out loud when I read them, but one of the workers said they're not supposed to be funny .... I think he doesn't get the sarcasm; he's from Poland anyway ....

This is a view of Austria .... I was amazed by the geometrical patterns of the fields ....

Work ..... again

2006-07-29T12:30:00.002+08:00

Image take from http://www.weird-websites.com/

I used to work at this establishment .... In the very small management office of the store I worked at, they had all these colourful flowcharts with big bold key words for work performance and output and all that put up, but on my first day of training, I wasn't informed of the company's objective or anything like that, but they started me right away on french fry duty ....

Er, well, let me tell you that it doesn't look as easy as it seems .... probably that's why new staff start on french fry duty first ..... You do not want to be messing around with vats of oil boiling at 300 degrees ...... and the halogen bulbs are really hot, you get a nice tan on your arms ...

... Of all the duties I had to do, lobby duty was the easiest to me, probably 'coz I like cleaning up, being the anal-retentive freak that I am ...... but let me tell you the amount of food waste that human beings can produce ..... It's astounding ..... all the filthy mess we make with the chilli sauce and ketchup, and they hardly touch it ..... and drinks that are hardly drunk and chicken bones thrown here and there ....

.. and the treatment you get from some customers ...... It is one of the most debasing jobs one could ever have, next to toilet cleaning ..... which explains the look on the cleaning ladies when you enter any public toilet in KL .....

I lasted at McD's for a month ...... It wasn't because of the work itself, or the shitty pay, it's because when one works for an institution like this, if you can call it an institution, one has to commit him/herself to shift work ...... and I was thinking, since I'm gonna be underpaid anyway, why don't I get my weekends off ...... at least I have something to look forward to ...

... er, no, nobody can change that system ...... If they need you, they need you, and if they're understaffed on weekends and they call you up, you better come up with some damn good excuse ........ Hence, I quit, but not without learning something about the whole experience ......

I learned that one can either work to live, or live to work ... (Like, duh) ... It's all about finding the right kind of job for you ...(Indeed)... I'm sure that there are a lot of people there who at one point in their working lives have got this feeling in their gut that they want to get out, this work doesn't feel right anymore for them .....and despite practical considerations to think about like bills to pay, mouths to feed etc. they still feel trapped .... and why is that so? Isn't the work they're doing the dream job they have been waiting all their lives to do? .... What has happened to the so-called dream? ...

What is the dream job? The one you get after working like hell getting a degree, and graduating, and going through all those strenuous interviews with interviewers from hell? .... You'd say, my dream job is the one that I enjoy doing, but let's be realistic here, there are a number of people out there whose certs/diplomas/degrees/whatever are not relevant at all to the work they're doing, and if you ask any of them, they'd probably say "Hey, one has to make a living, and who's gonna pay the bills?" ........

I can give a load of bullshit about my definition of the dream job ....... but I think I've just made my point ....... The dream job should define you - your goals, your motives, your principles in life ...... Then work would not just be a means to gain anything, but simply an end to itself .... (My God, this is, like, so insightful) .... I'm talking bullshit here again (yeah!)..... So I'm gonna stop ...... and think up some other bullshit for next month ..........

Psycho-anal-lytic junk

2006-07-28T12:22:00.003+08:00

Anywayz, I just realized something ..... Most, if not all, of my favourite movies have a predominantly male cast ..... and at least two of my entries are about looking for "the ultimate male role model" ....... *sitting back and looking at the computer screen, thinking* ....... What the hell ...... I need to do a reality check with myself here ...... and my blog is supposed to be my virtual leather couch, the other being my hand-written journals, so I'm gonna figure out what's going on here ......

- break -
I'm actually at my workplace now, taking a break and writing this entry, and my co-worker, Mr. Cool I call him, is either on substance-D right now, or he's simply not making any sense to me ........ Actually, I haven't really heard every thing he said 'coz my mind right now is on what I want to write for this entry .....
- break -

Okay, so here goes ...... I obviously had a fucked-up childhood ...... *sitting back and looking at the computer screen, contemplating* .... No, that's not it ..... I had a childhood almost as ordinary as everyone else's, except during the crucial pre-teen to the teenage years, there was a lack of a strong male presence in my life ..... So you see, pretty much the same as a number of people out there living their ordinary lives and trying their best not to let their past get the better of them .....

I guess I've been trying to look for that strong male figure, slowly getting the idea as I grow older that there is no such thing as perfection, ..... or rather that perfection must also be complimented with imperfection 'coz how else would you know if that something or that someone is perfect when you don't have all things imperfect surrounding them ...... which would explain why my favourite movies and cartoons and t.v. series have a predominantly male cast, they're immutable, unchangeable, cast in celluloid, frozen in time ..... they're perfect, but they're not real ....

... and on that note, I'd just like to say that I have nothing against chick flicks .... In fact, I have nothing against any movie genre for that matter ....... although I would say my least favourite genre is Western, and gangster movies, too ....

So there it is - explanation for the load of junk in my head ...... I'm gonna go back to Mr. Cool and ask him what the hell was he talking about just now .......

Utrecht, near Amsterdam

2006-07-08T04:49:00.001+08:00

This is a picture of one of the few ice cream vendors in Utrecht .... The reason I chose this picture ( this reads like the composition of an 8th grader) is because I like ice-cream, love Venice and this is Venezia ice-cream vendor ..... Do I sound like I'm high with all the weed they smoke in this hostel? ..... Gosh, dunno ......

The hostel I'm staying at is unbelieveably cool, and not just because I get to share room with guys ..... Oh, yeah, plenty of drop dead gorgeous hunks here in Utrecht ..... I practically salivate every time I go out the door .... Back to da hostel ...

Well, it's da kind of place that a person fresh out of school and about to embark on a totally different kind of living should experience ..... Yeah, most of the people here are around that age - very late teens into their early twenties, and from all over the world - China, Hong Kong, Finland, USA, Ireland, Mexico, Poland, Sweden, Australia just to name a few ..... which is why I really like it every time I go down to the lounge to chill ....

The TV's on, everybody's watching and enjoying whatever we watch, it feels like we all have something in common ...... There's a baby grand piano there where sometimes somebody would play something really good, like the other day this Irish geeky-looking guy played Bach's Prelude #1 on my request, and I just loved it .... Too bad he looks a bit too geeky, 'tho I do find ones with glasses on really cute ..... Then last night, this guy and girl played Chopin's Tristesse, and I was .... I was ever so grateful to them, they made my day :-))) ....

The weather is just lovely, it's not that hot, just in the twenties, the full blast of summer still hasn't hit us, just yet that is ...... Everybody's relaxing in the park, everybody's enjoying themselves ...... and I am having a really good time .....

Work

2006-06-26T15:24:00.001+08:00

Artist: James Paige
http://hamsterrepublic.com/bobcomic

Ah, yes, work .... My first day wasn't so bad, tho' certain things that poor Bob said apply .... In my case, the big bad wolf is my own inner insecurities eating at the foundation of my already floundering confidence ..... Yes, I ask stupid questions, yes, I make mistakes .... which is all part of learning .... One of my best friends said that the reason I'm feeling out-of-place right now is because I have been out of the working scene for some time, and I just need to find my groove again ... She's right of course, always can count on her for wholesome good advice .... I'm glad to be working again, and this time doing something closely linked to something I've always been fascinated with .... So despite feeling unsure most of the time, I have to be determined and stick to the plan .... Of course they make sure that I ask questions ...... but you see, most of the questions I ask are the non-accounting-related questions .....

Hunky Cartoon Character Fantasies

2006-05-19T14:54:00.001+08:00

When I was a wee lassie (more accurately, in my early teens), I used to watch a lot of cartoons, Saturday mornings or otherwise ....... and inevitably developed a fixation on a number of characters ..... Actually I'm in an image-download frenzy right now, and don't really feel like sharing my pathetic childhood stories ..... I used to think that Goose was a really cool character ( and he still is!) and for some unfathomable reason, I had a major crush on Optimus Prime ..... Kinda strange, isn't it? When other young teenage girls were fantasizing about their pop star idols, I was into cartoon characters, more specifically the alpha male/robotic kind ...... For copyright reasons, these cool images were taken from these sites:

http://www.comixconnection.com/blog/2005_10_01_archive.html, http://epguides.com/AdventuresoftheGalaxyRangers/,
http://www.animate-usa.com/HTML/PB/KENSHIN_PBS.htm

...... Then I grew up, passed through high school scarred for life ...... (Just joking) , went to college and was about to graduate when I was introduced to the wonderful world of anime .... I wish I have an access to really awesome anime right now, and I did for a while ........ Osaka to me has left a rather bittersweet aftereffect somewhere on the fringes of my memory ..... The quest for the ultimate male role model continues as I plod on through this life, coming to terms with my existence .......

Hunky Hollywood Actor Fantasies

2006-05-19T13:18:00.006+08:00

Image taken from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/217597/open_letter_to_michael_rosenbaum_.html

I like this guy ..... I really like this guy .... In fact, I want to marry him ..... me and the other million salivating fans out there ...... but the minute, the very minute I say that, I know for a fact that I could never date him, or the likes of him .....

It's not that I'm ugly, or unlikeable, though some people have called me weird ..... I look at myself in the mirror in the morning and say "Hey, I do have boobs" ..... Yes, I do suffer from poor confidence now and then, but it is not because of that that I turn around and say that I could never date this gorgeous hunk or all the other gorgeous hunks out there .....

..... The thing is, I'm beginning to wonder about this fixation I have with gorgeous hunks .... The question about the inner desire ..... The search for the ultimate male role model ....... Actually, Michael here isn't a bad role model - He's into sports, charity, and plays cool characters .....

.... Okay, let's get back on track here ..... What is it with me and gorgeous hunks?! Why do I need to define myself by dating one? ...... Is it because I want women to turn around and envy me? (YES) ...... Hmmm, that could be one of the many reasons ...... You know, I could really delve into my mind and come up with a lot of junk, so rather not go into that ...... For now, I'll just be contented with the fact that I will forever have all these Hollywood hunky actors' fantasies .... and at the present, it's Michael Rosenbaum ....

So, here's to you, Michael - I wish you all the best in your future projects and you will most definitely get the woman you love, cherish, respect and protect til the end of your days together ............ *long sigh* ......... "Lucky bitch" .....

Apple Blueberry pie ....

2006-05-19T12:38:00.006+08:00

Currently, this is my favourite pie ... *long pause* ... It goes to show that I don't really have much to say .... Actually, I have this digicam that I bought quite a long time ago but haven't had the opportunity to use it much .... Then it hit me - "Brainjuice, you dung head! Whaddaya use digicams for?!!! For the love of everything that's perverse and insane, to put up all sorts of nonsense photos on your weblog!" ...... *pausing for effect* .... "Oh, yeah" .... So, there it is, my first experiment .... Actually, I'm an absolute technoplegic ..... A cellphone is for talking and sending simple messages, not a whole entertainment system ..... and I know nothing about file sharing .... The fact that I got this far with this photo demands a standing ovation from the techie geeks out there .... Perhaps not ....