the simple life

Moving...

2006-03-19T09:21:00.000+08:00

I've moved to Wordpress:

http://isaiahlim.wordpress.com

Blogger has more features but I loved the categories option in Wordpress.

Its also a good way to learn more html.

I did mention before I went to China (on my birthday really) that:

"I have a strange feeling that things are going to change after my trip to China. I hope it's a good change."

It is good. Nothing dramatic but more of a strong desire to step up and grab a bigger chunk of life.

Far Cleverer isn't too far away

2006-03-09T10:15:00.000+08:00

I'm not clever enough.

If you feel the same way, let' s comfort one another and read this together.

I've tried showering with my eyes closed and brushing my teeth with the "wrong" hand.

I feel cleverer already. But all it really means is that I have a long way to go before I catch up with the rest of the normal folks.

We are all Chinese

2006-03-05T00:30:00.000+08:00

At the Forbidden City, my Chinese guide told us about how some of the treasures were moved to Taiwan where they reside in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

He added that he wished the treaures would return to Beijing when China and Taiwan reunite.

"We are all Chinese", were his last words.

It was said with gentleness, longing and humilty that I can't help but to be moved.

Pixar University

2006-03-04T10:31:00.000+08:00

TED conferences sound amazing and I've put it down as one of the conferences I want to attend before I die.

One of the speakers at TED is Ken Robinson, who is described as an education guru.

He talks about Pixar University here, as an example of a company that fosters creativity:

"On the corporate level, Pixar is a good example. The company has something called Pixar University, that runs classes, events, workshops and stuff throughout the day. Every employee is entitled to spend four hours a week at Pixar University, and they are encouraged to not take anything job-related. That keeps peoples' minds alive. "

Wouldn't you love it if you bosses think the same way?

Culture

2006-02-27T07:43:00.000+08:00

I feel ashamed to speak Mandarin so poorly.

And to know so little of my culture.

Of my country.

My English isn't that hot either.

I like to say I speak the language of love but I'm afraid that's the worst of the lot.

Chicken in China

2006-02-26T18:04:00.000+08:00

There's something about the cold weather that makes me want to bite into hot delicious chicken.

So I ventured into zero degrees cold and took 15 minutes to find the nearest KFC. I stepped up confidently to order the 2 piece meal that we have back home.

Alas.

No such luck. They seemed to have only hot wings and something else, but nothing like what we have in Singapore. Struggling with immense disappointment, hunger, cold and Chinese, I ordered some wings instead.

What a let down! I looked around and no one seem to be eating what I really wanted to eat.

There's something about the cold weather that makes you do strange wonderful things - like reach for comfort, love and tenderness.

But this is not one of them.

Getting old

2006-02-23T21:15:00.000+08:00

I must be getting old.

I booked 2 tours today - 1 for the Great Wall in Badaling and Ming Tombs, the other for Forbidden city, Tian'amen Square and the Temple of Heaven.

I have only done 1 tour in my life and that was because my mom was around. But I decided all the figuring out, traveling and endless walking wasn't really worth the trouble this time round.

But the tours was for tomorrow and Saturday.

Today, I did walk a lot, but I wised up by returning to the hotel before 6. In the old days, I would be back much later than that.

Not a good sign.

This morning, I visited Yonghegong, a Tibetan Buddhist temple. One of the highlights was seeing a prayer ceremony with a group of monks. They were seated on cushions with low tables in front of them. The tables had little lamps to help the monks read scripture, I presume. The head honcho (abbot?) was seated opposite the Buddha in an elevated chair with gold fabric wrapped all around him. 2 ladies came up to him, went past his entourage and he put his palms on their heads forcefully. No, nothing dramatic happened afterwards.

After the temple, found myself at Qianmen, determined to find some Beijing duck. They say Quan Ju De is the place to be. And indeed I found myself there, thanks to a great sense of determination. It was ok, too oily for me really and I wouldn't mind not having it for the next 5 years. But there were a lot of people and even a long queue outside for the takeaway.

I wanted to pay my respects to Chairman Mao but apparently so did thousands of patriotic Chinese. They was such a long queue and such a massive sea of people that I felt intimidated. What if I failed to bow at the correct time or weep with great emotion at the sight of his casket. No, I was not going to incur the wrath of so many fervent devotees.

I tried to do some shopping before heading back to the hotel. I ended up buying a Starbucks Frappucino, a Breadtalk loaf and a $15 box of tea leaves.

And ended up in the hotel watching American Idol.

Sad.

Going to China

2006-02-19T22:38:00.000+08:00

I'm leaving for China tomorrow. Back on March the 2nd. And then I leave for Phuket on the 4th.

For work mostly and hopefully a bit of pleasure.

I'm not particularly looking forward to the trip. But I'll get to see Guangzhou (a day), Beijing (5 days) and Tsingtao (2 days). It's also good to get out of the heat.

I might miss some of Liverpool's games, especially the Champs League match against Benfica. I'm still enjoying yesterday's win against the Mancs.

I'm so proud of my mother. She saw the Wigan-Spurs match just now and ask me whether Danny Murphy was the same guy who played for Liverpool. She mentioned the exodus from the team, saying many people have including the "black guy" (Heskey). Amazing! Next, I just have to teach her to hate the scums.

I have a strange feeling that things are going to change after my trip to China. I hope it's a good change.

Hidden

2006-02-17T12:00:00.000+08:00

If the day comes I become a film reviewer, I will have begin my review with: "Don't watch this if you're..."

For example, to review Hidden, a film I watched last night, I will say:

Don't watch this if you're tired, lack sleep, want a romantic night with your partner, hate lack of resolutions, hate slow films and just want pure entertainment without having to think much.

It's sometimes hard to determine what you want. It could be easier to determine what you don't want.

Hidden is an open work. It says something, not enough to be SOMETHING but strong enough to say some things. What some of these things are depend on you and me and all who watch - what things we bring to the film.

I brought nothing to the film except for my ticket and a spirit of openness built solely upon the reputation of the filmmaker and the strength of reviews I briefly perused.

openness is crucial in a film where meaning and motives are hidden. I have to remind myself not to try and understand what the film is saying. Rather, I think of what I'm adding to the film. But it's so tempting to want to resolve it, to tie up the loose ends and to make sense of it all.

I try to resist that.

Not having to make sense of everything makes sense to me.

But away from all these philosophical meandering. The performance of Juliette Binoche, in the scene when she screams at her husband for not telling everything he knows was breathtaking. It seemed like she was screaming at me - "This is trust?"

For that scene alone, I would watch this again.

Brokeback Mountain

2006-02-15T09:34:00.000+08:00

Hours ago, I was sitting in the cinema, eagerly waiting for Brokeback Mountain to begin.

(It's best to clarify the above. No, it doesn't bring me any joy to see guys on guys. I wanted to see a good film, judging from the reviews- this was one. If you however insist on a more carnal motive, I must confess that seeing Anne Hathaway naked, even briefly, was a good reason as any. Yes, it's Miss Princess Diaries herself. I bet if you are straight and do not object to see naked women on "art films", you too will say a silent amen and maybe a word of thanks, followed by a petition for forgiveness.)

Anyhow, instead of Brokeback Mountain, they mistakenly screened "Fun with Dick and Jane" starring the very funny and periodically suicidal Jim Carey. You can imagine how strange this felt. I thought I was there to watch "Fun with Dick" or perhaps "Fun with Dick and Dick". But "Fun with Dick and Jane", with all the hype and the anticipation, really didn't sound that appealing at all.

Fortunately, they did resolve the problem and we saw many Dicks and Janes having fun.

A happy (for lack of a better word) ending for one and all.

(Watch out for the "Rojak" Total Defence video, playing in cinemas. It's probably the context of the viewing but Mr. You Tiao and Mr. Cucumber looked very queer indeed.)

Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T15:19:00.000+08:00

I found a bunch of mp3s on my hard disk. Almost a year ago, I ripped it in San Francisco. My colleague had brought a whole pile of cds after she found out my weakness for jazz.

I should have told her about my weakness for women and maybe I have a pile of them on my hard disk.

Among this pristine collection is Chet Baker's My Funny Valentine. Once upon a time, I had this album twice. Twice, it went missing.

Apart from the title track, I love I Fall in Love Too Easily (listen here).

I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever last
My heart should be well-schooled
'Cause I been fooled in the past
But still I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast

There was a time when I fell in love too easily. But it's been years since I've fallen in love and that's actually quite sad.

I think about my past relationships and I think I miss the falling in love part more than I miss the people - the guessing, the tension, the romance, the sweetness.

That's a horrible thought.

Yes, but I am a horrible person.

Poor Milou

2006-02-14T09:20:00.000+08:00

Poor Milou lost his valentine's this year- also his very first.

Just 2 days ago, Miss Watson's became BER (beyond economic repair) thanks to Milou biting her eye out and dragging a mouthful of cotton from where her socket used to be.

Yesterday I bought him a $7.90 toy and within half an hour, cotton was again flowing out.

I grief for Miss Watson's. She lasted an amazing 5 months which is really a long relationship by Milou's standards.

Milou's got to start treating his women right or he will end up like his brother.

Tolerance

2006-02-13T22:20:00.000+08:00

The words of the very honorable and wise N.T. Wright:

"In these initiatives, ‘tolerance’ is not the point. My Lords, I can ‘tolerate’ someone standing on the other side of the street. I don’t need to engage with them. ‘Tolerance’ all too easily supposes that all religions are basically the same, and that all of them can be discounted for the purposes of public life. No, my Lords: ‘tolerance’ is a parody of something deeper, richer and more costly, for which we must work: a genuine and reciprocal freedom, a freedom properly contextualised within a wise responsibility, freedom not to be gratuitously rude or offensive, especially to those who are already in danger on the margins of society, but to speak the truth as we see it while simultaneously listening to the truth as others see it, and to work forwards from there. This is so in matters of religion; it is so in matters of public policy; it is so in matters of sexual morality; and it is so in areas where all those issues, and others, rightly overlap and interlock. And, my Lords, it is precisely that sort of wise, responsible freedom which is at risk if you’re afraid that honestly held beliefs, clearly and respectfully expressed, are likely to get you into trouble with the law. My Lords, we must learn fresh wisdom, before the moral climate changes irreversibly, and the sea rises to engulf the moral lowlands where we presently live."

In a multi-cultural society, we talk a lot about tolerance.

It's a nasty word. You don't tolerate something nice. It's always bad.

Engagement is better - people talk, they exchange ideas, they communicate. As long as the engagement is peaceful and gracious.

Treat your staff better

2006-02-12T21:33:00.000+08:00

May you find courage to do the same!

Thanks: http://www.beyondrobson.com/

Aliens

2006-02-12T13:38:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Tom Peters, I got to know this quote from Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner:

"We meet aliens every day who have something to give us. They come in the form of people with different opinions."

There are friends - people who read Murakami/Hornby/Ishiguro and there are aliens.

My understanding of aliens is best explained by giving you a real example.

The Tank, frankly drives me mad, sometimes. Her thinking/logic/tastes is so alien to me that the words "evil twin" and "doppleganger" come to mind.

But you need people like that in your life - to stop you from taking yourself too seriously, to question your actions and motives, as an alternative to exercise for cardiovascular benefits.

You get the idea.

I think aliens are good to have in your life. But like real ones (???), meeting them too often is simply asking for over radiation, insanity and a short life.

3/20

2006-02-11T15:12:00.000+08:00

You will know, by now, faithful reader, that I am boring.

So when it comes to meeting people for the first time, I don't talk about cool things, being uncool myself.

I talk about books.

What do your read? Like Borders or Kinokuniya? Favourite book/author?

That kind of thing.

Unfortunately, many people ('tis unfair since I make like 3 new friends a year) don't read and when they tell you that, your aspirations for everlasting friendship and brotherly/sisterly love are somewhat diminished.

Many who read, you get excited at first and then you ask them whether they read Murakami/Hornby/Ishiguro.

Specifically Wind-up Bird/High Fidelity/The Remains of the Day.

If they heard of those names but have not read them, sure, they can be friends but hey, friends don't last forever.

If they read them, I almost immediately expect an unyielding torrent of praise, adoration and really the Hallelujah chorus. If this doesn't happen, I start thinking whether I want friends with such poor judgment and no soul whatsoever to speak of.

So there you have it. Now you know why I make 3 friends and drop 20 every year.

David Funnyman's take on Brokeback Mountain

2006-02-08T15:21:00.000+08:00

Top Ten Signs You're A Gay Cowboy

10. "Your saddle is Versace"

9. "Instead of 'Home On The Range', you sing 'It's Raining Men'"

8. "You enjoy ridin', ropin', and redecoratin'"

7. "Sold your livestock to buy tickets to 'Mamma Mia'"

6. "After watching reruns of 'Gunsmoke', you have to take a cold shower"

5. "Native Americans refer to you as 'Dances With Men'"

4. "You've been lassoed more times than most steers"

3. "You're wearing chaps, yet your 'ranch' is in Chelsea"

2. "Instead of a saloon you prefer a salon"

1. "You love riding, but you don't have a horse"

without thinking

2006-02-07T13:54:00.000+08:00

While trying to heed the words of James (see previous post), I was Googling a charity's name.

Without thinking, I typed "Habitat without Humanity".

Surprisingly, that got me where I wanted to go.

But what a thought, really.

That would mean world peace and all things good.

Mercy

2006-02-06T10:25:00.000+08:00

At the end of his clemency speech before leaving office, Governor George Ryan quoted Abe Lincoln who said:

"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice".

The Bible echoes:

"Mercy triumphs over judgment"

I agree.

People of a religious persuasion, who believe in God and Judgment Day, should therefore be more inclined to mercy.

So it's disappointing to see Muslims burning down embassies, Christians torching abortion clinics and religious people misbehaving in violent, vicious ways.

There is so much to do: food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, help for the helpless. But yet we exert so much energy, effort and emotion for the unimportant things.

What's important then?

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

Deadline

2006-02-05T19:51:00.000+08:00

Deadline has a great subject for a documentary - the death penalty.

The creators are definitely against the death penalty. If you watch this, you might too.

I'm glad that the death penalty (can't say issue, can't say debate) isn't politicized so much in Singapore. But it is such a pity that the recent hanging of Aussie drug-smuggler Tuong Van Nguyen did not contribute to a vigorous debate.

That is, if the public even give a damm.

I don't know about you but forgetting and not giving a damm are some of my greatest sins.

The Postman Always Ring Twice

2006-02-04T20:05:00.000+08:00

Since the Postman always ring twice, here' another gem, courtesy of our friend and Forsaken Pessimist- Mr. Tan.

Allow me to set the context. Postman encourages us to think about the downsides and disadvantages of technology and information. Instead of creating solutions, technology may create even more problems.

"Here is what Henry David Thoreau told us: "All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end." Here is what Goethe told us: "One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it is possible, speak a few reasonable words." And here is what Socrates told us: "The unexamined life is not worth living." And here is what the prophet Micah told us: "What does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?" And I can tell you -- if I had the time (although you all know it well enough) -- what Confucius, Isaiah, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Spinoza and Shakespeare told us. It is all the same: There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.

Even the humblest cartoon character knows this, and I shall close by quoting the wise old possum named Pogo, created by the cartoonist, Walt Kelley. I commend his words to all the technological utopians and messiahs present. "We have met the enemy," Pogo said, "and he is us."

Postman

2006-02-04T12:16:00.000+08:00

I like what Neil Postman has to say about postmodernism:

"If postmodernism is simply skepticism elevated to the highest degree, we may give it muted applause. The applause must be muted because even skepticism requires nuance and balance. To say that all reality is a social construction is interesting, indeed provocative, but requires, nonetheless, that distinctions be made between what is an unprovable opinion and a testable fact. And if one wants to say that “a testable fact” is, itself, a social construction, a mere linguistic illusion, one is moving dangerously close to a kind of Zeno’s paradox. One can use a thousand words, in French or any other language, to show that a belief is a product of habits of language — and graduate students by the carload can join in the fun — but blood still circulates through the body and the AIDS virus still makes people sick and the moon is not made of green cheese."

Forget Great Expectations

2006-02-02T11:12:00.000+08:00

In the Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby, being a big fan of Great Expectations, recommends the novel to his friend.

But he struggles to remember why he likes it so much.

"But when I tried to recall anything about it other than its excellence, I falied. Maybe there was something about a peculiar stepfather? Or was that This Boy's Life? And I realized that, as this is true just about every book I consumed between the ages of say, fifteen and forty, I haven't even read the books I think I've read. I can't tell you how depressing this is. What's the fucking point?"

Indeed, what's the point of reading something when we forget so easily?

Hornby, in another entry, compares Dickens with Coetzee.

"You can’t read a review of, say, a Coetzee book without coming across the word “spare,” used invariably with approval; I just Googled “J. M. Coetzee + spare” and got 907 hits, almost all of them different. “Coetzee’s spare but multi-layered language,” “detached in tone and spare in style,” “layer upon layer of spare, exquisite sentences,” “Coetzee’s great gift—and it is a gift he extends to us—is in his spare and yet beautiful language,” “spare and powerful language,” “a chilling, spare book,” “paradoxically both spare and richly textured,” “spare, steely beauty.” Get it? Spare is good. "

As for Dickens, you will know how elaborate his novels are; Hornby says he is believed to have created 13,000 characters.

Whew!

In a year when I am reading Russian literature, I will, for the love of life and everything sane, lean towards Coetzee.

Milou the puppy

2006-01-31T09:53:00.000+08:00

I sometimes forget that Milou is a puppy.

You see, despite being 9 months old, he is rather tall and long. His King Charles Cavalier genes has somehow gotten mixed up with some unknown breed so you can say he's quite a special KCV.

My mom has been bringing him around the neighborhood for walks. So he's been making friends with some doggy friends.

(My mom has been making friends too, including one "Christian" (false prophet) who claims that Christians cannot name their dogs after human names)

On some occasions, Milou has been rather shy, when meeting new canine friends. So he hides behind my mom, which to me, is terribly human and incredibly heart-warming.

This year is his first Chinese New Year. So there was this lion dance making a hell of a din downstairs. Milou was so frightened by the noise that he went mad, ran all over the house, including the bathrooms and kitchen. My mom tried holding him but he was truly afraid. My room was closed so my mom had to open it. Milou jumped in and onto my bed (something he doesn't usually do). I had to hold him real tight before he calmed down.

At night, he watched a lion dance on television. He barked repeatedly at the television.

Yes, Milou is still a puppy. He may be a young son of a bitch, but he's a sweet child of mine.

The Polysyllabic Spree

2006-01-30T13:17:00.000+08:00

The Polysyllabic Spree is Nick Hornby's monthly account of what he's read. He lists the books that he buys and the ones that he actually reads, and like me, his failure here is recalcitrant.

Yes, I'm guilty - yesterday, today and forever. Amen.

I hide my books. I can't face them all, knowing they remain unread. I have ruined their purpose driven lives.

What will Mr. Warren say?

And what about Shakespeare (Complete Works), McEwan (Atonement), Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), Conrad (Nostromo) and Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath)? What will they say to me when I'm in book heaven?

Thou art false.

I will thus be cast out of book heaven, alongside those who borrow books but don't return and defacers of library books.

And what would I find in book hell?

In the beginning, wasn't the Word.

Selah.

Year of the Dog

2006-01-28T10:10:00.000+08:00

The Year of the Dog beckons.

After some initial inquires, I gathered faithful readers are optimistic and looking forward to a glorious beginning to the New Year.

Here's a little film review that will surely interest you. After all, it involves a dog and an awesome opening.

Enjoy.

"A pretty girl sits on a couch reading, her face spotted with zit cream, her dog stretched out on the floor at her feet. She gets up, chain locks the door, and turns to look at her pet, splayed out on his back, his genitalia in full view. The next thing we know, the girl is running for mouthwash to the accompaniment of one of the best voice-overed opening lines in recent cinema history: 'My name is Amy, and yes, in college, I blew my dog.'"

The Civil Servant's Question

2006-01-27T10:57:00.000+08:00

Pop quiz, hot shot.

Imagine a nuclear holocaust and the whole world is burning, burning, burning. You are the sole survivor of the idiot race and you must find a place to live the rest of a radiation-free existence.

Would you choose a library of books or a library of films?

The Civil Servant formerly known as The Curator asked me this last night, leaving out the apocalyptic background.

I am afraid Fellini, Welles and Kurosawa will be disappointed by my answer (more so if they have seen any of my 'films').

No hesitation here.

I will read, then I die.

The men of Robinsons'

2006-01-26T12:59:00.000+08:00

Allow me the luxury of a cruel generalization.

The men, that shop at Robinsons', do not dress well.

I was there last night, between 7 to 8. A friend, no a brother, was trying his sub-$40 pants and here I was sitting between pants and winterwear, looking at nothing but men.

Staring at their chests and buttocks.

Gazing at their loose pants, faded fabrics and their dull colors.

And letting their abysmal drapery stare back at me.

We dress alike, the men of Robinsons'.

low and humble principles

2006-01-25T09:43:00.000+08:00

At this moment, I'm excited because I'm rediscovering the core fundamentals in life.

Like Thomas Hobbes, who when confronted with the Pythagoras theorem, "compared other philosophers unfavourably with mathematicians, who proceeded slowly but surely from 'low and humble principles' that everyone understood."

Low and humble principles, yes, I love this phrase.

I worry too much, and often about the unimportant things in life. Lately, I've been fretting about getting a cross trainer, how to spend vpost $10 offer, where to go with my airmiles, etc.

I should really be spending more time thinking about the low and humble principles in life like-

How can I be happier
How can I be healthier
How can I improve my relationship with my loved ones
How can I give more

America

2006-01-24T14:08:00.000+08:00

Walking into my American colleague's hotel room was somewhat illuminating.

We are both about the same age and do our fair share of traveling.

I always pack extremely light.

But not him. In the toilet, I see a big tube of toothpaste and a full-sized bottle of foam.

I see his clothes and his shoes and there are a lot more than mine.

A giant-sized packet of beef jerky sits on top of the television.

It seems a lot to bring.

I'm probably reading too much into this but I see America here: in all its bigness, its abundance and its excess.

Laughing Club

2006-01-23T12:36:00.000+08:00

After watching The Laughing Club of India, I laughed.

For nothing. At nothing. I laughed.

I think it's sad (and funny) that the world has gone so wrong that a laughing club seem so right.

I have nothing against these laughter clubs considering there are more ridiculous things in the world like award shows, children starving and honest politicians.

Reunion Dinner

2006-01-22T11:40:00.000+08:00

Reunion dinner for the Chinese New Year is problematic for the two of us.

My mom, while dependable, is not entirely imaginative. Lately, she has been mumbling and grumbling while figuring out what to eat.

My relatives, across the Causeway, had their share of problems too.

Last year, they had their reunion dinner at a well-established restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. After being served their first dish, the cooks went on strike.

Perfect timing.

So over 30 of my near and distant relatives had to trudge out of the restaurant and made the humiliating journey to a Indian stall where they had prata, kambing soup, roti and mee goreng.

Not entirely appealing, but considering we had pizza last year (delivery no less), they didn't do too badly.

Lolita: an excerpt

2006-01-20T10:38:00.000+08:00

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

---------------

The prose is sublime when beheld, ineffably ineffable when read.

My eyes have seen the glory.

What's wrong with the world today?

2006-01-19T15:03:00.000+08:00

Today, I had lousy linguine.

Probably the worst I ever had. The Al Funghi was like Hell Flood Me. The sauce was soup-of-the-day watery and splashing all over my work shirt.

Pasta Mania.

Right.

This is exactly what is wrong with the world today.

Some years back, The Curator brought me to Scotts Picnic and we had wonderful cheap pasta. Now, these guys are spread thin, in their chase for the almighty dollar and the food has all gone to hell.

Branches, franchises, hopelessness.

I think about the smallest little curry joint in Tokyo where The Missionary and I had the humblest of meals. The people cooked, served, cashiered. It wasn't the best curry I had but the taste was unique. You can taste an individual cooking, the fine balance of spices, the sense of purpose. But if there's one word I'll use - it's an honest curry.

And so what's wrong with the linguine I had today as well as the whole freaking world is that it's dishonest, dishonest, dishonest.

Broken Flowers

2006-01-19T11:07:00.000+08:00

There are 2 things I want to do after watching Broken Flowers.

1) Get a Fred Perry track jacket.

2) Drop in on an old friend, who is somewhere in Hong Kong, whom I once silently loved.

I have a budget so I have choose between these options and so let me analyze soberly the steps needed.

To get the jacket, I need to do 6 things.

1-1) Set aside $170

1-2) Choose a color

1-3) Order online

1-4) Set up a vpost account as they don't ship internationally

1-5) Pay vpost

1-6) Wait for delivery

To visit my old friend, I need to do 1 thing.

2-1) Ask myself why the fuck years ago did I not open my mouth, look into her eyes and tell her to come to papa.

I'm going to go with the jacket.

Law and Disorder

2006-01-18T08:52:00.000+08:00

The Law isn't perfect.

Spray-can perverts desperately await the next festivities, authors fictionalise their memoirs and politicians tell lies that kill people.

Criminals get away everyday.

No, the Law isn't perfect.

For example, how do you legislate against people who play bad music?

I'm talking about the people who play loud music in their vehicles - in cars with the windows down, on bikes with sputtering speakers.

Is it just my bad misfortune that all of these exhibitionists tend to have very poor musical tastes?

I do have a suggestion for these showoffs. Of course, this can be a rather harsh label. Who knows these people might really love music. But that makes my job harder.

You can't cure bad tastes.

If you desire so much to stand out from the pack, avoid cheesy techno music and dance compilations.

Why not try opera?

Go watch The Shawshank Redemption, look for the scene where Tim Robbins plays Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

And listen, as did Morgan Freeman who spoke these words:

"Those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away."

Do not just assail our ears.

Affirm our hearts.

When will I be famous?

2006-01-17T08:33:00.000+08:00

So sang Bros.

A friend of mine is leaving his job to focus on his career as a photographer. He's already got his photographs published and he is certainly going to be famous.

I told a close group of friends, not too long ago, that we're going to get famous.

But here I am.

Unpopular, unstated, unwanted.

I walk alone.

Undistrubed, unmolested, unpublic.

In the cinema. In Japanese porn shops. In cheap hotels.

At what price, freedom?

Israel

2006-01-16T15:15:00.000+08:00

I find myself in awe of the Rabbi Abraham Heschel's God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. It's a book all Christians should read.

Why?

N. T. Wright, the eminent New Testament scholar, argues:

"It simply will not do to tell the story of salvation as simply creation, fall, Jesus, salvation. We desperately need to say: creation, fall, Israel, Jesus, salvation."

We are all susceptible to re-inventing Jesus, re-inventing the Bible and making erroneous assumptions based on our pre-Christian understanding of God, sin and redemption. (And don't forget our post-modern tendencies to please and placate the lost)

An understanding of Judaism and Israel will provide a context to understand who God is, who Jesus claimed to be and God's redemptive purpose for His people.

Fortune Teller

2006-01-16T09:58:00.000+08:00

Bravo Milou!

My mother was taking a nap with Milou on her lap in the living room couch.

The front door was open but the gate locked.

A fortune teller at the door woke up my mom. He was asking to tell my mother's fortune when Milou sprang towards him.

That god-fearing and apparently dog-fearing fortune teller retreated immediately without even finishing his sentence.

Bet that charlatan didn't see it coming.

A perfect moment

2006-01-15T10:26:00.000+08:00

A perfect moment, in my view, is a point in time, where you'll remember for the rest of your life for its sweetness, fulfillment and perfect timing.

I found an example of a perfect moment in an article on text messages by the Washington Post:

Text-based intimacy went on display during a recent Bon Jovi concert at the MCI Center, when Sprint Nextel Corp. invited the audience to send in text messages, which then scrolled across a gigantic screen behind the stage, including proclamations of love, birthday shout-outs and even several marriage proposals.

Robert Helsel III and his two sisters high-fived when their text message to their baby brother lit up the screen: "Todd helsel here in our harts."

"In June 2002 our little brother was killed in a car accident," said Helsel, an Elkton resident. Todd was 18 and a week shy of his high school graduation. "We grew up on Bon Jovi. We've always been huge fans; we always wanted to see Bon Jovi before we died," Helsel said over the din of the crowd. Seeing Todd's name appear over the stage was a kind of fulfillment of that, he said. "It was like closure. It just made it feel like he was right there with us."

Sadly, perfect moments have close association with pain, with evil, with suffering. Fortunately, perfect moments resolve. They bring closure, understanding and hope.

Truly, without suffering, there can be no joy. Without evil, there can be no justice. Without pain, there can be no comfort.

And without hope, life is not worth living.

The Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity

2006-01-14T09:03:00.000+08:00

It's official:

1) We are more creative when we are internally motivated.

2) We should avoid high levels of time pressure if we want to be consistently creative.

3) Too low time pressure isn't good for creativity.

Thank the Harvard Business School.

Reading List 2006

2006-01-13T11:08:00.000+08:00

Feb 2006

Fiction: The Man Who Was Thursday

Fiction: Crime and Punishment

Jan 2006

Non-Fiction: The Polysyllabic Spree

Fiction: Lolita

Religion: God in Search of Man

Fiction: Gilead

Fiction: The Elephant Vanishes

Comics: Channel Zero

Indian madness

2006-01-13T10:16:00.000+08:00

I just had probably the worst day of my professional career.

Our Indian audio/vendor was spectacularly horrible.

Even though their website says they have worked with big coporations and done shows with at least 2 POTUS (President of the United States). Even though my Indian colleague has assured me of his high level of comfort with them, in their years of working together. Even though, it has been claimed, that they are one of the top vendors in India.

Apart from their incompetent technical skills, my other problem was their indifference. I have blank faces whenever I told them off. And no, I didn't start by screaming my head off at them but I nearly did. I did however, very harshly, asked them why they had to snigger when I told them about the bad sound they recorded.

We did have an amazing Indian colleague who went out of his way to help us. He saved our collective asses.

The only nice thing about this trip was the amazing food. Even the room service was amazing.

Here's another place to check out when you're in Mumbai:

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/mumbai/D34789.html

How to be good

2006-01-08T21:32:00.000+08:00

How to be good?

I ask myself today. It's not a question I ask often. My faith doesn't talk about good a lot cos good doesn't bring you nearer to God. God brings you to God so we talk about being Godly.

But how to be good is a good question.

Some people say there is no answer. I say bullshit. There is an answer if you look for it. But it's not going to be easy. It may not appear overnight. You may die not knowing the answer.

The answer will lie with you. But you have to brutally honest. Crazily honest. Honest to goodness honest.

Which is damm hard.

And when you find your answer, you may find that being good isn't everything. Cos who determines what good is.

I think that's the ultimate question.

The really ironical thing in life is that people who have that answer aren't really interested in doing good.

The Constant Gardener

2006-01-07T21:03:00.000+08:00

I flew to India while watching The Constant Gardener.

Among the frequent dreams the past weeks, I dreamt about a lover's betrayal.

So it was almost painful to struggle with the possibility of infidelity in the film. It touched me, affected me and bothered me.

For the next half, I had to struggle with understanding how others have to suffer for me to enjoy advances in technology and medicine.

I had to struggle with poor people, oppressed people, suffering people.

And then, I come to India.

And then, I see slums.

And then, I stay in big fancy hotels where everyone knows your name.

And I learnt nothing.

Goal Free

2006-01-06T20:35:00.000+08:00

I spent Thursday night contemplating quietly (is there any other way?) a reading of an interview with Steve Shapiro on Tom Peters' site.

Steve's book - Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW has just been released and I must say that his main idea, expressed here:

"we should have a sense of direction and let life unfold naturally, rather than trying to force it down a particular path, which is what we typically try to do. This will allow you to have a much more experiential view of life, allowing life to come to you. You will meander and weave, and change direction as you find the things you're really passionate about."

may not be new but there are ideas that resonate with me.

It's great timing too - perfect way to start a year.

iGallop

2006-01-05T21:57:00.000+08:00

Just below my office, Osim got their fattest salesman to demo the incredibly vulgar iGallop.

The thin ones got the other gigs, but the fat one gets the horse.

I have to witness rocking rolling mounds of flesh on my way to lunch.

Which explains why lunch since the New Year is, in a word, rather subdued.

Elizabethtown

2006-01-04T21:40:00.000+08:00

As Roger Ebert says in his review about Elizabethtown, "this being a Cameron Crowe movie, there is a great deal of music in it."

I always look forward to a Cameron Crowe movie, especially to the music in his film.

I'm reminded of Secret Garden where thanks to the incorporation of movie dialogue from Jerry Maguire, a perfect song is raped and defiled.

I am upset but there are sadder things in my life.

Consider this:

She’ll let you come just far enough
So you know she’s really there
She’ll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She’s got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

And weep.

Why I Am Single (The Short Version)

2006-01-03T10:45:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, on MSN Chat, I was typing furiously away when instead of using the word unhappy, I unconsciously typed "married".

But it was sent before I realized the error.

Sent, captured, imprinted, recorded.

Condemned.

Now you know why I am single.

Comics

2006-01-02T21:24:00.000+08:00

I spent $173.03 on comics today.

If you have some time to spare, I'll even tell you why I did it.

People say I am a dreamer (but I'm not the only one) and it's true.

I used to have a vivid imagination. Now it's gone stale and rather sad.

When I was younger and I had problems sleeping, I would fantasize (insert your own joke here) and that would do the trick.

Lately, I seem to be recycling the same fantasies and have problems creating new ones.

And it's worrying.

Truly madly completely.

I was madly in love with comics in the mid-80s. Part of that enjoyment was having another good friend who loved comics. We would visit one another and read each other's collections and think of alternative stories and line-ups of the supergroups (e.g. Should Spiderman be in the Avengers, etc).

We read many comics and we knew our stuff really well. And so much knowledge meant we had a fertile ground for our imagination to work.

I must say reading comics was one of the best things to happen to me. Since then, I have always been one of the more active contributors to ideas in group situations. I dare not say they have always been good but there have been some outrageous ones.

I'm hoping for some more outrage in my life and I'm turning to comics. Yes, the National Library has a great collection. But not really the mature titles. No. Which brings me to Kinokuniya today where I bought the following:

Ex Machina Book 1 and 2

"The first volume of the Eisner Award-winning series featuring Eisner Award-winners author Brian K. Vaughan and artist Tony Harris. Set in our modern-day world, EX MACHINA tells the story of civil engineer Mitchell Hundred, who becomes America's first living, breathing super-hero after a strange accident gives him amazing powers. Eventually Mitchell tires of risking his life merely to maintain the status quo, retires from masked crimefighting and runs for mayor of New York City, winning by a landslide. But Mayor Hundred has to worry about more than just budget problems and an antagonistic governor, especially when a mysterious hooded figure begins assassinating plow drivers during the worst snowstorm in the city's history! "

Fables Vol 1 - 6

"Where do fairy tale princes and princesses, beasts and beauties go when happily ever after is over? New York City, of course. After a dreaded foe known only as "The Adversary" drives the "Fables," as they call themselves, away from their ancestral homes, they have no choice but to establish an underground community in the heart of Manhattan. Careful not to draw undue attention to themselves, they are self-governing, with a Mayor and a policeman all their own. Above all they must not reveal their true nature to the "mundanes" of their adopted world. As our story opens, Rose Red, fairy tale princess turned New York party girl, has gone missing, her abandoned apartment a trashed and bloody mess. Fearing the worst, Red's fraternal twin sister Snow White, deputy Mayor of Fabletown, and Bigby Wolf, its chief constable, are determined to find out who among their fellow exiles is responsible for the gruesome deed . . ."

Testament #1

"From the imagination of best-selling author Douglas Rushkoff (Coercion, Club Zero-G), one of the most iconoclastic and acclaimed minds of our era, comes a series that exposes the "real" Bible as it was actually written, and reveals how its mythic tales are repeated today. Grad student Jake Stern leads an underground band of renegades who use any means necessary to combat the frightening threats to freedom that permeate the world of TESTAMENT — a world very much like our own. They employ technology, alchemy, media hacking and mysticism, discovering a modern threat that has its roots in ancient stories destined to recur in the modern age.With intricate, darkly detailed art by Liam Sharp (THE POSSESSED), TESTAMENT takes place in an unapologetically uncensored Biblical universe, chronicling the grim confrontations between humans and their angry gods. Those horrifying encounters full of murder, magic, monsters, sex and sacrifice, echo the forces at work beneath the surface of today's high-tech and highly ideological conflicts."

There's a lot to read. But it's all very promising.

At least I imagine it to be.

2006

2006-01-01T23:35:00.000+08:00

2005 wasn't great.

In the beginning, it felt like one of those shirts you buy thinking it will look good on you. Only to maybe wear it once or twice and losing it to the wardrobe.

I have too many of those shirts.

Like I had too many of 2005s.

But maybe years aren't easy to classify like vintage wines. Of course, it's easy to say a particular year was great or wasn't. But you don't really have the benefit of hindsight.

When the years pass you by, great things don't look so great and bad things don't look so bad.

Still, one should resist mediocrity and hope and dream.

Here' s to a great year.

Style

2005-12-15T08:51:00.000+08:00

I am not a stylish man.

No.

I had my haircut yesterday. The most stylish thing I did at the barber was to greet an old man who came in with an "As sala'amu alaikum".

Ok, the old man had the Islamic greeting, i just said hi.

As for the barber, I greeted him with my usual "i want it short. Natural" routine.

And he gave me slopes.

Last week, I ordered 3 T-shirts from Threadless.com, hoping this will make me stylish.

How stylish can you get with T-shirts - without spending a bomb on cotton?

I like to think I will be more stylish if I live in a temperate country since I can't bear to dress up with my abnormal sweating condition.

But one can dream - women, fame, fortune and normal perspiration.

Wedding

2005-12-12T13:10:00.000+08:00

I am a coward in many ways, none more so than having to attend a wedding alone.

Thank God for Mr. Tan and some old friends from Grace.

Wedding was simple and unpretentious. They didn't try too hard and just got it going. No long boring speeches, no tears, no nonsense.

Nice setting- the Garden at the Hyatt.

By the way, I am not too impressed by the Hyatt. The toilet signs were in English - male, female. It's a hotel for goodness sake - not everyone knows English. The toilet doors look great but it's hinged in such a way that it looks occupied even when its not.

The lift was terrible. We forgot to press the floor we wanted and they took us down and up and down again and wasted 5 minutes of our life. Some woman got in, wanted to go a few floors down but took some time to get the security key to activate the floor.

Terrible terrible design.

But the wedding was cool.

japan

2005-11-29T10:29:00.000+08:00

i'm looking forward to japan.

at this point, i think anywhere except singapore will be welcome.

but cold japan is particularly appealing.

japan is a strange place. so much beauty and yet it can be so cruel, perverted and scary.

she has not come to terms with the past.

i'm like japan in my ways. i'm beautiful at times and monstrous as well.

i honestly don't know whether old painful things are in the way. i think not but the brain tells you lies. the sandman tells you lies.

but lies have profund truths in them so let's not despise these lies.

why are lies truthful?

because of hope.

and the desire for beauty, rest and completeness.

the world revolves

2005-11-28T13:32:00.000+08:00

it gets tougher and tougher each day.

lacking the courage to kill myself, i pick up the pieces and struggle on. i want to say i'm depressed but it's a dangerous word and i dare not use it.

it's shameful because i have many things, many things to be thankful for. but not enough to want to live, linger and love.

i don't feel sad, i just feel empty and void. listless and aching.

will a woman make me feel better? probably. for a while. but life lasts longer than a while. too short for some and an eternity for others.

when technology enables us to live long lives, that will be the end of humanity. We will no longer be humans, not Gods either. but strange, shallow shells with withered flesh. and a heart full of emptiness.

Writing

2005-11-24T12:04:00.000+08:00

Writing has become difficult lately. I'm becoming more aware of the fact that I am a lousier writer than I thought myself to be.

I am reserved. I keep many thoughts to myself. I think better than expressing myself. I have difficulty speaking up. I have problems letting myself go. I want always to project a confident, on-top-of-things image when I am really falling apart inside.

I always thought I was good. Now, I know I can't be any worse.

I need rescuing.

everydayness

2005-11-23T13:45:00.000+08:00

how do you make everyday interesting?

first of all, do you have to be an interesting person? can a boring person make everyday interesting?

maybe a boring person don't have to live any day interesting.

maybe i should be a boring person.

what if i already am?

The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

2005-11-22T12:32:00.000+08:00

"Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid of love, I who love love? Why am I afraid, I who am not afraid? Why must I pretend to scorn in order to pity? Why must I hide myself in self-contempt in order to understand? Why must I be so ashamed of strength, so proud of my weakness? . . . Why was I born without a skin, O God, that I must wear armor in order to touch or to be touched." -
Eugene O' Neill

"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two hundred proof grace-of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel-after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps-suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started.... Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case." -
Robert Capon

"Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our need, a joy in total dependence. The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his need. He is not entirely sorry for the fresh need they have produced." -
C S Lewis

"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. ... It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!' . . . If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance." -
- Paul Tillich

"A Church that will not accept the fact that it consists of sinful men and exists for sinful men becomes hard-hearted, self-righteous, inhuman. It deserves neither God's mercy nor men's trust. But if a Church with a history of fidelity and infidelity, of knowledge and error, takes seriously the fact that it is only in God's Kingdom that the wheat is separated from the tares, good fish from bad, sheep from goats, a holiness will be acknowledged in it by grace which it cannot created for itself. Such a Church is then aware that it has no need to present a spectacle of higher morality to society , as if everything in it were ordered to the best. It is aware that its faith is weak, its knowledge dim, its profession of faith halting, that there is not a single sin or failing which it has not in one way or another been guilty of. And though it is true that the Church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinners at a distance. If the Church self-righteously remains aloof from failures, irreligious and immoral people, it cannot enter justified into God's kingdom. But if it is constantly aware of its guilt and sin, it can live in joyous awareness of forgiveness. The promise has been given to it that anyone who humbles himself will be exalted." -
Hans Kung

"Several years before his death, a remarkable rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, suffered a near fatal heart attack. His closest male friend was at his bedside. Heschel was so weak he was only able to whisper, “Sam, I feel only gratitude for my life, for every moment I have lived I am ready to go. I have seen so many miracles during my lifetime.” The old rabbi was exhausted by his effort to speak. After a long pause, he said, “Sam, never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder and he gave it to me.” -
Brennan Manning

"For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but who in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God's existence that we want but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God's presence. That is the miracle that we are really after. And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get." -
Frederick Buechner

"I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of the mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut that little nerve.
Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth that I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks.
"Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks. "Yes," I say, "it will. It is because the nerve was cut."
She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles. "I like it," he says. "It is kind of cute."
All at once, I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I [am] so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works. "
- Richard Selzer

"He who is alone with his sins is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, not withstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from their fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!" -
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The devil dwells in the urge to control rather than liberate the human soul. One can hardly live in these closing years of the twentieth century without realizing how the forces of control have gathered. . . . We stand by a dark forest through which fearful religious and political leaders would force us to pass in single file through their exclusive pathway of righteousness. They want to intimidate us, make us afraid and hand over our souls to them once more. Jesus saw such shadowed forces as the corrupters of the essential nature of religion in his time. They are no less so all these centuries later."' -
Eugene Kennedy

"Reason demands moderation in love as in all things but faith destroys moderation here."-
John McKenzie

"I was seized by the power of a great affection" -
Deep South saying

reading plan - 2006

2005-11-22T11:37:00.000+08:00

i'm embarking on a ten year plan to finish the top 100 books of all time, "as determined from a vote by 100 noted writers from 54 countries as released by the Norwegian Book Clubs".

for 2006, i wanted to do Dostoyevsky first, having read so much about him and never actually read him. so i might as well do all the Russians.

What do you know? They are exactly 10 Russian books in the list.

Perfect.

1. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor M Dostoyevsky)
2. The Idiot (Fyodor M Dostoyevsky)
3. The Possessed (Fyodor M Dostoyevsky)
4. The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor M Dostoyevsky)
5. Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)
6. Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
7. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
8. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
9. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (Leo Tolstoy)
10. Selected Stories (Anton P Chekhov)

Pray for my soul. If i can get through Anna Karenina, War and Peace and Crime and Punishment in one year, i can go through anything.

full of shit

2005-11-22T10:50:00.000+08:00

friends are full of shit.

actually people are full of shit.

really, I'm full of shit.

over the weekend, i was mad with the Jew-hater and the Man-hater.

now, i feel a bit better, especially after meeting up with mr. tan, who is lost like me, but can figure out where most libraries are and where 111 ends.

i heard from mr. tan that the Man-hater is upset with my email. cos i called her self-centered. it's ironic cos it's a self-centered letter to a self-centered person. anyway, there were other things i wanted to say but i held back.

i shouldn't have.

the truth is hard to take.

i have known her for years but it really very sad because I don't really know her. i think none of us do. maybe because we are men.

i thank God i have no romantic interest in her (can't say the same for some other fool), although i have thought about it. but we will bore each other to tears and early deaths.

the jew hater is another old friend i don't know well. but there is less sadness here, not because he's a guy but because he's just off the charts. i didn't turn up for the group meeting cos i know i was pissed enough to shoot my mouth at him.

he and his Possible Girlfriend (mr. tan's brilliant words) are undoubtedly meant for one another, whether the sponge cake tastes delicious or not.

i just have this feeling that the cake in question, and the tastebuds involved, is simply, like me and my friends here (except the esteemed mr. tan)

full of shit.

a tribute to mr tan

2005-11-18T15:11:00.000+08:00

mr tan is a good friend of mine. good because we can talk, connect and see each other when we have no one to see.

that kind of good. not the other kind when we will die for one another. but you'll never know. because that kind of good is a good way to die. so we might die for another, but not so for the sake of the other person but more for the sake of a better way to die.

i try to remember narratives- the adventures of tan and lim. i'm sad to say that these stories aren't exciting. they are not even sad. they are merely happenings, like the wind blowing, clouds drifting, birds shitting.

i remember in jc days, walking with a group of people towards buona vista mrt, engaged in a conversation with mr tan. i cannot remember what we talked about, but i know we talked and somehow connected.

i remember in jc days, at pre-hip plaza singapura, mr. tan once took some drinks, leftover by strangers, mixed it and drank it.

what balls.

i remember him in worship, playing the guitar, in school, by the sea at marina. his own unique way of showmanship - as if playing was a sport he physically enjoyed.

i'm stuck to find narratives involving both of us. there are none significant. but there are fragments enough to piece together something.

the lack of spectacular narratives may mean that we are losers. allow me to speak for myself - i'm a loser, not because i lack narratives which i do but because i struggle with meaning, with purpose, with results.

i lack want.

mr tan is a good man. in a sad way, so am I. it's a sad sad truth - if somehow we were a little less than good, we will live far more interesting lives.

its frightening, the world we live in.

but let me salute you mr. tan. you're a good man and i'll be the judge of that.

Job interviews

2005-10-29T14:19:00.000+08:00

The Electric New Paper :

PERSONNEL directors from 100 corporations were asked to describe their most unusual interviews with prospective employees.

A job applicant challenged the interviewer to arm-wrestle.

Candidate explained that she could listen to the interviewer and music at the same time.

Applicant fell and broke arm during interview.

Candidate ate her lunch during the interview.

Applicant said her long-term goal was to replace the interviewer.

Candidate said he did not finish school because he was kidnapped.

Balding candidate excused himself and returned to the office a few minutes later wearing a wig.

Applicant said if he was hired, he would tattoo the corporate logo on his forearm.

Applicant interrupted interview to phone her therapist for advice on how to answer questions.

Candidate slept during interview.

- Spotted by Maureen Koh

Beginnings

2005-10-27T23:07:00.000+08:00

I moved my blog from cometopapa on the 21st Oct 2005.

The reason I moved - to remove the pressure of getting people to read or rather to get away from the disappointment of people not reading.

Why do I need that so much - probably the blog is the only way I'm connecting with people. It's talk, hang out, socialise all in one bag.

I feel like this is a new beginning. I sense myself moving in a new direction. I am yet to be exhilarated. I like to think I'm quietly confident. But words are meaningless at this stage.

I'm sleeping now. I hope to wake up -I can't say that everyday. I like to die peaceful, in my sleep. I feel like I've left nothing undone. Maybe except to bring my mom travel a bit more and for her to be a believer. Of course, I now have Milou- that naughty dog. Horny like hell.

New direction. Better, stronger, faster. Come quickly. Make haste. Bring love.

Think outside the box

2005-10-21T18:00:00.000+08:00

Alexandros Evangelou Xenopouloudakis

2005-10-20T16:19:00.000+08:00

They will declare: Every journey has been taken.
You shall respond: I have not been to see myself.

They will insist: Everything has been spoken.
You shall reply: I have not had my say.

They will tell you: Everything has been done.
You shall reply: My way is not complete.

You are warned: Any way is long, any way is hard
Fear not. You are the gate- you, the gatekeeper.
And you shall go through and on...

--Alexandros Evangelou Xenopouloudakis

Age of Intensity

2005-10-19T19:48:00.000+08:00

We're in the age of intensity, according to Sally Hogshead.

What that means I don't know yet cos I haven't read her Radical Careering. But her ideas are found here if you want to read.

I did a career test at http://www.age-of-intensity.com/. Got a score of 120 and was told:

1) Beware average
2) Pull rabbits out of hats, even when there are no rabbits and no hats
3) Jump, and a net will appear

Good radical career advice, don't you think?

Want to be a radical careerist? Consider this, from the author:

"Think back to those times in your career when you've performed at your absolute best, when you blew past expectations and quite simply kicked ass. That's when you were a careerist. A careerist is somebody who takes action to become the most powerful, valuable, and fulfilled version of themselves. Careerists want to kickstart momentum, attack bigger possibilities, and get excited about Monday mornings. When you put that kind of action into your career, it becomes a verb: "careering." Hence the name of the book, Radical Careering. "

Time all-time 100 Novels

2005-10-19T16:53:00.000+08:00

Time magazine released their list of the best 100 novels.

Out of the 100, I have read only 7.

Was surprised to see Watchmen on the list, the only graphic novel to do so.

Saw the Absolute version which cost like $120 at Kinokuniya last weekend.

I find another list, with a more international flavor, more authoritative:

The Top 100 books of all time

Out of that 100, I have 6.

Local telly

2005-10-18T23:35:00.000+08:00

I came home early because my mother had a sudden craving for pizza.

She doesn't want to call and she couldn't finish anyway which was why she needed me.

Apart from fufilling my duties as a filial son, I wanted to come home to catch Extreme Japan and Tiramisu.

Actually, I came home early to see Erica Lee in a white bikini.

Anyway, Extreme Japan wasn't extreme at all. It was more like Boring Tame Japan. I still don't understand why they can't be at Yoyogi Park when they were at Shinjuku. (Probably because they were there during weekdays)

Tiramisu was not much better. Looked pretty and all that (all our local shows seemed to have the same DP and colorist who only use the same warm tones) but the script and story wasn't any good. One moment that spoilt it all for me was when the aunt was scolding her nephew for not paying enough attention to his restaurant. She was implying that the reason was due to his father (probably dead). That was really clumsy and reminds me of all the bad Channel 8 shit.

At the end of the story, we see Sharon Au asleep on the male lead's shoulder. Thought I saw the same thing in Chase (at least in the trailer).

Maybe we have the same scriptwriter writing our scripts. Isn't that brilliant?

Mediacorp is really a strange animal. As I blog, it's showing ABC's Eyes. A strange decision considering the network cancelled the series and only showed 5 episodes in the US. Hmm, unless they managed to get their hands on the rest of the season's episodes, which some would have been shot. Of course, I have seen all 5 episodes already in April and it's good.

I hope Erica and her white bikini appear soon before I experience more Stay Home And Cry Tuesdays.

(Added: Also, check out the tasteless, horrible product placement for Marigold HL milk in Tiramisu. Ugh! )

Television is so yesterday

2005-10-17T23:24:00.000+08:00

Television is so yesterday.

Last week was the release of the video iPod.

Nothing new except the deal to make available episodes of Desperate Housewives and Lost the next day after broadcast.

Creative has been able to play video on their portable devices. Problem was the content wasn't too attractive. And as they say, content is king.

With BitTorrent, many of us have been watching current episodes of US television instead of waiting like 6 months later or never for them to hit the local airwaves.

This is kind of bad as well as it means I'm watching more television than I should.

As I blog, the television is tuned to a special recap episode of America's Top Model. Other programmes like Lost and Desperate Housewives also have something like that before their season finale. So you can watch the recap and the finale and won't miss much.

Plus you can always read Television Without Pity's detailed recaps of each of the episode.

Advertising on television is in danger, which explains why product placement is plain crazy nowadays.

Prata Woman

2005-10-14T08:50:00.000+08:00

Just the other day, I was drafting an email (which is really an important part of my work, if email wasn't invented, many of us will be out of work) to my Australian colleague.

I wrote "him" in the email and then I realized it could be construed (a strange word) as sexist. So I had to change to "her".

I was reading my previous post and I realized it said "Prata Man".

Do Prata Women exist?

In this day and age (I have to be really careful here), where it's openly understood that a woman can do a man's job (equally well or better but never worse), I have not seen a single Prata Woman.

There's an Assistant Prata Woman at Suntec City's Congress cafe. She takes your coupon, puts your prata on the plate and smiles when she feels like it. But no doughing, no flippin', no greasy hands.

In other words- not an authentic Prata Woman.

I think I'll like to marry a Prata Woman - someone who don't mind getting her hands dirty, who's good with her hands and who can make me 2 extra crispy kosong pratas in the morning (only when she feels like it, of course).

If it's not too much, I hope she makes a smashing curry.

Interns R Nuts

2005-10-14T00:04:00.000+08:00

The International Producer told me today about her Digital Media Intern.

This 3rd year Digital Media Intern studies Avid (editing software) and Photoshop. Very cool. Very industry-standard. Great.

So International Producer ask Digital Media Intern to take a file and create an Alpha Channel.

What's that? Digital Media Intern is clueless.

What's that? International Producer is helpless.

I am very amused.

Digital Media Intern not knowing what an Alpha Channel is like a doctor not knowing how to give an injection, prata man not knowing how to flip and Milou (soon to be castrated) not knowing how to get it on with Miss Watsons.

Digital Media Intern goes out to shoot footage of an advertising signboard at the bus stop.

She comes back. International Producer watches footage. She sees Digital Media Intern's reflection. Asks why?

Digital Media Intern's brief answer - Purposely one.

Digital Media Intern also pulled off another amazing feat. She shoots with the video camera turned 90 degrees sideways.

Purposely one.

Annalakshmi

2005-10-11T16:45:00.000+08:00

Annalakshmi, the vegetarian restaurant is a great concept.

It's pay what you like. In fact, it's "Eat what you like & give as you feel".

I pay $10 everytime. Some day I might try $2, just to see the reaction of the cashier but I'm sure he won't even blink.

They have been around for a while, so I'm sure it works, even with funding from The Temple of Fine Arts.

Run like a charity, it doesn't feel like a charity. The ambience is cozy and almost lavish. The food is always very delicious. It's also one of those buffets that keep replendishing their food. I was there till 2 and the food kept flowing.

They are advocates of vegetarianism. But they are very easygoing and so you don't feel like they are pushing an agenda. But definitely not easygoing enough to serve chicken masala.

They also promote Indian fine culture, with scheduled dance performances in the evening.

Some of the staff may look a bit ruffled when they find out you don't have a reservation but otherwise they are quite helpful.

There are many lessons we can learn here that can be applied in our organizations:

Values-driven
Soft advocacy
Motivated staff (volunteers)
Non-profit doesn't mean cheap
Non-profit doesn't mean low quality

I love to see their bottom line.

No cuts

2005-10-10T08:49:00.000+08:00

This is probably the coolest thing any film producer ever did.

You might know Hayao Miyazaki, or at least his films - Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke.

From the Guardian:

"In 1997 the director signed a distribution deal with Disney... His refusal to grant merchandising rights means that there is no chance of any Nausicaa happy meals or Spirited Away video games. Furthermore, Disney wields no creative control. There is a rumour that when Harvey Weinstein was charged with handling the US release of Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki sent him a samurai sword in the post. Attached to the blade was a stark message: "No cuts."

The director chortles. "Actually, my producer did that. Although I did go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts." He smiles. "I defeated him."

Harvey Weinstein is a fiercesome, powerful man. To send him a samurai sword with "No cuts" is just bloody brilliant.

I'm proud to be Asian.

Milou the happy dog

2005-10-09T12:20:00.000+08:00

Milou pulled off a Houdini yesterday. He found a way to slip off his choker and merrily went about tearing my house apart.

I came home to find a very messed up pee tray and mothballs in the shoe cabinet missing.

You don't have to be a CSI to figure out the dog ate them. Since then, Milou has been excreting great balls of shit instead of the usual tubular turds.

Other than that, he looks fine.

Lately, Milou has taken to licking big time. He licks everything - furniture, crate, people, penises (his and mine when he's on my lap).

Of course, I stop him, you clowns.

I find it disgusting when he licks me cos his thing comes out. It's very strange.

But come to think of it, if I were to start licking a girl, my thing would react.

Of course, this means Milou is gay.

Stanford Institute of Design

2005-10-05T10:08:00.001+08:00

I've been extremely keen on design thinking recently.

The Stanford Institute of Design or d.school seems like a great place to study design thinking. I see it mentioned many times while researching on the Internet.

Go see the napkin manifesto found on the bottom of the main page.

I found a reading list here. Someone added Gerald Zaltman's How Customers Think which I enjoyed tremendously.

Next on my list is Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind. Check out a podcast with him here.

La Bamba

2005-09-30T22:43:00.000+08:00

Movies are too expensive nowadays.

$9.50 on a weekend is probably $4.50 too much.

I remember a time when I paid $3.50 at Orchard cinema. I was 11 then.

Orchard cinema was one of my favorite theatres then. Among the films I watched there were Ghostbusters, The Woman in Red, Dead Poet's Society, Good Morning Vietnam, La Bamba and Ishtar. I'm sure there were more but that's all I can remember now.

Some of the films that made a great impression in my childhood were La Bamba, Ghostbusters, Dune and Top Secret.

La Bamba was really special.

As we speak, I'm listening to The Best of Ritchie Valens which is always very strange as the soundtrack which I'm so fond of was performed by Los Lobos.

I didn't know then but it didn't matter. The music was amazingly good. It was one of the films that you'd pay to see it again - just for the music.

Till now, Donna is one of my favorite love songs. I still remember how he would sing to her over the phone and it's really a sweet sweet scene.

The acting by Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales was intense. Esai's performance as the tortured, self-destructing brother was especially mesmerizing.

The other thing that worked for me was the sad ending. Till then, I haven't seen many films that end on a down note. The fact that it's a real story makes it a lot more poignant.

I saw another telemovie about Buddy Holly, who died in the same plane crash as Ritchie (of course, you know this). It wasn't half as good but That Will Be The Day is another extraordinary song.

In recent years, I haven't seen many movies like these. I did enjoy Almost Famous very much and That Thing You Do much lesser.

Toilet GaGa

2005-09-26T11:58:00.000+08:00

If Tan Pin Pin's Singapore GaGa has taught me anything, it is to pay attention to the sounds surrounding us.

To listen. To absorb. To appreciate. To live.

Being the obedient Singaporean I was brought up to be (although some say that my upbringing was an abysmal failure but enough talk about the A Levels), I have since learnt to listen.

To absorb. To appreciate. To live.

So here I was. In the toilet. At work. (This is problematic as it implies I work in a toilet but no, although at times, the shit hits the fan, if you get my point)

And a big Caucasian man comes in. He pees.

I work in a cosmopolitan office. And big Caucasian men are everywhere.

Oh my, the sound of his pee is deafening.

Having recovered from the shame of my hushful, lightweight act, I was thinking how interesting it would be if we listened carefully to the pee of different nationalities.

I'm sure this will make a most interesting documentary. After all, I'm sure some will find this a most absorbing subject.

To appreciate.

Naturally, filming this will pose some challenges. Wisely, I will not film this at work as I'm sure many of my colleagues will not find this conducive to workplace harmony. I will say this, shamefully- art will have to make way for the monthly pay cheque. I need to keep my job.

To live.

Soulless and unpersonal

2005-09-24T23:50:00.000+08:00

From Hornby's A Long Way Down. Hits the spot, don't you think?

"People go on about places like Starbucks being unpersonal and all that, but what if that’s what you want? . . . I like to know that there are big places without windows where no one gives a shit. You need confidence to go into small places with regular customers — small bookshops and small music shops and small restaurants and cafés. I’m happiest in the Virgin Megastore and Borders and Starbucks and PizzaExpress, where no one gives a shit, and no one knows who you are. My mum and dad are always going on about how soulless those places are, and I’m like, Der. That’s the point."

Apology to self

2005-09-24T08:18:00.000+08:00

Note to self:

I'm sorry for not blogging. I've been busy. But it's no excuse. How do you become a writer if you don't write? I'm being ridiculous. No, I am ridiculous.

---------------------------------------

Hmm, it's funny how I started with "note to self". Isn't a blog your very own note? Guess, I've been writing for people, rather than writing for myself. Writing for laughs, when I should be writing for progress, for truth, for peace.

---------------------------------------

I've busy being a leader. I've stepped up some weeks ago, agreeing to lead a team of volunteers to run a website that inspires youths to dream big, take action and live the dream.

It's been a while since I was a leader. At least in the official sense. Can't say I don't enjoy it but means there are things you don't do as much as you like to. Like reading and reading and reading.

I guess I don't do very much.

I was working on 2 presentations yesterday and finally committed many of the thoughts that have been swimming around my head. Writing is indeed powerful.

I can see clearly now.

On paper, it looks great. It feels great. Is it great?

Still, on paper, it looks great.

One of the message I'm getting out is how we work in the organisation. Our working principles is to empower, act and reward.

This is consistent with our objectives - dream big, take action and live the dream.

In dreaming big, we are inspiring our community to believe that nothing is impossible as long as we put our minds to it. We are empowering mindsets.

In taking action, we are saying dreaming isn't enough. It's time to act. So act now!

In living the dream, we are recognising the importance of creating the future now as well as the importance of reward in learning. We want to reward those who have taken action. A rock star wannabe who has taken action will be given a backstage pass to a concert and if possible, follow a singer for a day to see what a rock star's lifestyle is.

I want to empower the team so that we can act fast and decisively and reward them. With praise, with food, with strong, good, honest feelings.

Anthony Robbins talks about primary questions. My primary question is now this : How can I empower my team?

I'm reading Bill Jensen's Simplicity. He wanted to find out the question that most employees would like to ask in handling changes in a company. 60% of the questions was among Jensen's Change Behavioral Communication Model:

Why change?
How is this important and relevant to me?
What do you want me to do differently?
How will I be measured and what are the consequences?
What tools and support do I get to make this change?
WIIFM -- What's in it for me? And for us?

The answer was tools and support. People wanted to the "right tools, right time, right way" so that they do less and focus more.

So empowering people is a great way to work. I need to work hard on getting them the tools, the budget, the people to run our programmes.

Like I said, it looks good on paper.

It's up to me to make it happen.

Crying

2005-09-20T07:32:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I cried.

That was before I watched Cinderella Man.

It isn't a typical come-back movie. Still, it is moving. I cried several times.

Like the Great Depression, the transition from riches to rags was swift and ruthless. It wasn't explained. We were not forewarned.

It just came.

The film resonated with me for several reasons.

A silent, suffering hero. That's what I try to be. Already I'm silent and somewhat suffering. Not too sure about the hero part though.

A man of integrity. Guilty again - of not being the man I want to be, of not being the man I almost is.

The love between a man and wife. Not partners, not friends, but the love between a man and wife. In sickness and in health. Till death do us part. Cliches yes. But let not words get in the way of life.

I pause to remember the devastating scene of the provision shop owner at the deathbed of his wife in Khoo's Be With Me.

A great depression. A loss of jobs, no food on the table, work with hands. And God is where?

The film had such an impact on me that I went straight to the bookstore to look for the biography of James Braddock. They had only the book adaptation of the movie which is usually almost always a spawn of Satan.

The Central library has a copy - a biography, a real book.

I was hoping to cry again at the Emmys. No such luck.

These days, a man has to buy a ticket to cry.

a perfectly useless afternoon

2005-09-13T22:47:00.000+08:00

“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”
- Lin Yutang

I know how to live.

Do you?

Hornby Excerpts

2005-09-12T21:12:00.001+08:00

Read these excerpts from Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down.

Delicious.

MARTIN.

Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block? Of course I can explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block. I'm not a bloody idiot. I can explain it because it wasn't inexplicable: it was a logical decision, the product of proper thought. It wasn't even very serious thought, either. I don't mean it was whimsical - I just meant that it wasn't terribly complicated, or agonised. Put it this way: say you were, I don't know, an assistant bank manager, in Guildford. And you'd been thinking of emigrating, and then you were offered the job of managing a bank in Sydney. Well, even though it's a pretty straightforward decision, you'd still have to think for a bit, wouldn't you? You'd at least have to work out whether you could bear to move, whether you could leave your friends and colleagues behind, whether you could uproot your wife and kids. You might sit down with a bit of paper and draw up a list of pros and cons. You know:

CONS - Aged parents, friends, golf club.

PROS - more money, better quality of life (house with pool, barbecue etc), sea, sunshine, no left-wing councils banning Baa-Baa Black Sheep, no EEC directives banning British sausages etc. It's no contest, is it? The golf club! Give me a break. Obviously your aged parents give you pause for thought, but that's all it is - a pause, and a brief one, too. You'd be on the phone to the travel agents within ten minutes.

Well, that was me. There simply weren't enough regrets, and lots and lots of reasons to jump. The only things in my 'cons' list were the kids, but I couldn't imagine Cindy letting me see them again anyway. I haven't got any aged parents, and I don't play golf. Suicide was my Sydney. And I say that with no offence to the good people of Sydney intended.

MARTIN

I'd spent the previous couple of months looking up suicide inquests on the Internet, just out of curiosity. And nearly every single time, the coroner says the same thing: "He took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed." And then you read the story about the poor bastard: his wife was sleeping with his best friend, he'd lost his job, his daughter had been killed in a road accident some months before.... Hello, Mr Coroner? Anyone at home? I'm sorry, but there's no disturbed mental balance here, my friend. I'd say he got it just right. Bad thing upon bad thing upon bad thing until you can't take any more, and then it's off to the nearest multi-storey car park in the family hatchback with a length of rubber tubing. Surely that's fair enough? Surely the coroner's inquest should read, "He took his own life after sober and careful contemplation of the fucking shambles it had become"?

Not once did I read a newspaper report, which convinced me that the deceased was off the old trolley. You know: "The Manchester United forward, who was engaged to the current Miss Sweden, had recently achieved a unique Double: he is the only man ever to have won the FA Cup and an Oscar for Best Actor in the same year. The rights to his first novel had just been bought for an undisclosed sum by Stephen Spielberg. He was found hanging from a beam in his stables by a member of his staff." Now, I've never seen a coroner's report like that, but if there were cases in which happy, successful, talented people took their own lives, one could safely come to the conclusion that the old balance was indeed wonky. And I'm not saying that being engaged to Miss Sweden, playing for Manchester United and winning Oscars inoculates you against depression - I'm sure it doesn't. I'm just saying that these things help. Look at the statistics. You're more likely to top yourself if you've just gone through a divorce. Or if you're anorexic. Or if you're unemployed. Or if you're a prostitute. Or if you've fought in a war, or if you've been raped, or if you've lost somebody..... There are lots and lots of factors that push people over the edge; none of these factors are likely to make you feel anything but fucking miserable.

Milou's girlfriend

2005-09-12T19:55:00.000+08:00

Milou has a new girlfriend.

She cost $7.90 from Watson's.

While stocks last.

As we speak, he's banging her.

I came home, the first day they met, and my mom told me this:

His thing came out.

What thing?

His thing. When he's on top of her.

I didn't fully understand this till one day while he was licking me. To my horror, I saw a extended red shaft.

It ain't pretty.

Milou's only 5 months old. Guess that means he's reached puberty.

At least one of my mom's boys is getting some action.

ass like that

2005-09-06T09:27:00.000+08:00

Today, Miss Fat Ass came to sit next to me and nearly crushed my flesh, bone and marrow.

She made the wrong part of me go, in the words of The White Poet, doing doing doing.

She was hard but I was so so off, that you have no idea.

Fat people should be aware of their fat asses. I am so I'm really conscious who I sit next to in buses. I typically shy away from fat asses and really big people (who aren't fat, they are just big). But I do deliberately sit my fat ass down beside selfish people who occupies 2 seats with their puny asses and bags and don't like to move into the inner seat despite crowded buses. Like thin attractive people, I use my body to my advantage.

I know I'm cheap.

Anyway, we were at the back row. The most astonishing thing was when the guy next to her got off, she didn't give an inch and our asses were stuck till she got down at Lucky Plaza.

Lucky me.

a mystery

2005-09-05T12:51:00.000+08:00

Consider this quote, from George Orwell:

"All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery."

I dare not call myself a writer, but let me claim all her qualities.

There is something most mysterious going on with me.

As it is mysterious, I do not have a clue to my predicament.

If I can call this a predicament.

What I know is I'm finding myself more and more in agreement with Absurdism.

I'm pushing, dancing, puffing and soon I will break into pieces.

And so will you.

Little Red Dot

2005-09-01T08:41:00.000+08:00

"It shows that even a country that has been likened to a "little red dot"can make the world sit up and take notice."

I'm weary of cliches.

Someone described Singapore as the "little red dot" for the 231,789 time today.

And I mean Today.

It's crazy.

Why do people write like that?

In another article, Catherine Lim describes us a society that does not read.

A society that does not read does not think.

A society that does not think get others to think for them.

A society that gets others to think for them repeat what others say.

A society that repeats what others say is guilty of cliches.

There is no worse cliche than a little red dot.

No time for the mediocre

2005-08-30T10:26:00.000+08:00

I'm reading Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why, among other things.

In Amazon.com's review, the writer explains Bloom's sense of urgency as a result of his old age and therefore has no time for the mediocre.

I am 31.

Last week, at the Esplanade library, I picked up Laws of Attraction, apparently a romantic comedy starring Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore.

I was deciding between that and Hou Hsiao Hsien's Good Men, Good Women.

You could have told me this, but I ended up wasting 90 minutes of my life watching the very poor Hollywood comedy.

Maybe it's just me. But whenever I see a new book/DVD in the library, especially a fresh virginal one, I tend to just want to grab it. Devour it. Smell it.

Do you smell that? It's a new book, son. Nothing else on the world smells like that. I love the smell of new books in the morning.

To plagiarise Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now.

Thanks to my nose, I end up reading and watching contemporary work that is as soulful as the new Supreme Court Building.

I have less patience for bad food though.

Last night, I was at Pizza Taglio. I understand the name and its facade will undergo a revamp, with BreadTalk buying their way in.

Let's hope their food and eccentric service will go away forever and never come back.

There's been too many bad experiences lately with food. Drinks even.

What about people?

Don't ask.

Thank God for books. And Milou.

two items sold at Blush!

2005-08-29T15:45:00.000+08:00

Name ANY two items sold at Blush!

I'm taking part in a Discovery Channel contest.

I'm into contests nowadays.

I'm into winning all my life.

I'm disappointed most times.

Anyhow, I was embarrassed to put in bra and panties. They might appreciate something more technical.

So I Googled "Blush Singapore".

The first hit I got was:

Welcome to Jurong Birdpark, Singapore Bridal Fair - A Touch of Blush -The first time u kissed, your cheeks failed to... Visit Singapore Zoo website · Visit Singapore's Night Safari website ...www.birdpark.com.sg/Main/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

Somehow, it seems related but I'm not sure how.

So, Blush does not have a web presence.

I put in sleepwear and panties instead.

And blushed like hell.

Life and Times of Michael K

2005-08-26T13:15:00.000+08:00

''Let me tell you the meaning of the sacred and alluring garden that blooms in the heart of the desert and produces the food of life. The garden for which you are presently heading is nowhere and everywhere except in the camps. It is another name for the only place where you belong, Michaels, where you do not feel homeless. It is off every map, no road leads to it that is merely a road, and only you know the way.''

"I have become an object of charity, he thought. Everywhere I go there are people waiting to exercise their forms of charity on me. All these years , and still I carry the look of an orphan. ...They want me to open my heart and tell them the story of a life lived in cages. They want to hear about all the cages I have lived in, as if I wre a budgie or a whilte mouse or a monkey.... When my story was finished, people would have shaken their heads and been sorry and angry and plied me with food and drink; women would have taken me into their beds and mothered me in the dark. Whereas the truth is that I have been a gardener, first for the Council, later for myself, and gardners spend their time with their noses to the ground...."

"It excited him, he found, to say recklessly, the truth, the truth about me. 'I am a gardener,'..."

200th post

2005-08-26T11:25:00.000+08:00

As I understand from Blogger, this is my 200th post.

For this special occasion, I will encourage myself to write simply.

And to write well.

I am not there yet. But I will get there if I work hard and think straight.

As a gift to you, I like to introduce the BBC News style guide. It is full of good advice and juicy details (e.g. the difference between an embassy and a High Commission).

I thank you for reading and your interest in my life.

Milou sends his greetings.

Educating Milou

2005-08-25T14:25:00.000+08:00

Milou is a dog.

As such, he does not speak. Neither does he understand what we say.

Except for "No" and "Sit" (so far).

But my mother has high hopes.

She speaks to Milou everyday in a smatter of English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

Not just a few words but more like a long monologue.

She evens appeals to Milou's rationale.

Just now, television was on - Animal Planet. Mother played with Milou. Strange jungle sounds came from the television. Milou startled.

Mother: (in Cantonese) You see, it's a bad bad world outside. So, you must behave yourself. (in English) Good boy, no biting.

Astonishing.

Burmese TV

2005-08-23T10:42:00.000+08:00

Great news for Burmese friends here.

If you have seen Burmese television before, you know how depressing it is.

Especially the news.

In a heavily controlled media environment, the newscasters read directly from a script in front of them. They are not allowed to ad lib and nothing must be added to the script.

It's funny how when you're traveling, you switch on the television to somehow counter the loneliness.

In Burma, you will rather switch off the television cos it can be really depressing to watch the news or the really cheesy music videos.

Then again, the hotel I was at (Summit Parkview) was showing the VideoFashion channel.

Naked boobs and all.

You can argue that Burma has a more liberal media environment than Singapore.

By the way, I love a hotel with table tennis facilities. In Burma, the Sedona has a great room with mirrors.

Nintendogs

2005-08-22T14:38:00.000+08:00

This is one of those games that makes you want to buy the Nintendo DS.

According to an article in Wikipedia,

"The game has been well received by critics, and in the May 2005 edition of the notoriously unforgiving Famitsu magazine, Nintendogs received a perfect 40/40 score. Only four other games have attained this score"

And yes, they have a King Charles Cavalier version.

Day 33

2005-08-22T11:13:00.000+08:00

I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

Milou is too clever for its crate. Actually, he is too clever for me.

On several occasions, I reach home, only to find him out of his topless crate and happily running around, messing things up.

So for a while, I put him under my table, so as to prevent him from jumping out. Soon enough, he has learnt to push the crate so that he can jump out of the opening created.

So I had to try something else.

My mom reached home one day from her Buddhist retreat and called me and asked me why I put poor Milou under the table and a chair with 16 kg weights in front of the crate.

Before I could answer, Milou - the strongest dog in the world, managed to push the 16 kg weighted chair away and jumped out of the crate.

He ran out of the room.

That was what my mother screamed into the phone, with amazement, wonder and some humor.

Welcome back to the real world Ma.

Now we leave Milou in the crate, but he's leashed to a table leg next to it.

Last Saturday, I left Milou alone for 2 hours. Later, my mom told me that she came home to find Milou out of the crate. He was sitting on a chair next to the crate, looking really comfortable. He didn't even bother to get up when my mom came home.

Next up - I'm going to have to dog-proof the kitchen so that Milou can stay safe and have some space when we have to leave him alone for a longer period of time.

Care Bears

2005-08-19T10:24:00.000+08:00

I have a crazy friend who is crazy about the illuminati.

Actually, he's pretty smart.

So how can a smart person be so overwhelmingly consumed by this?

It's a conspiracy.

My theory:

Smart people are smart because they are curious. They have an insatiable intellectual hunger for answers and they are always seeking, asking, probing and irritating what were once their friends.

They have a brain full of intellectual energy that needs to be directed, distributed and drained off. (I feel like that sometimes but we're talking about the wrong organ.)

So smart people here in our land, in order to get rid of all these excess energy, either join the civil sector where they pour themselves into the abyss of bureaucractic meanderings or get rich and jump into the hee-haw bandwagon of consumer spending.

Of course, smart people all over God's green earth do that. But they do have a third option.

Politics.

They can demonstrate, remonstrate, protest, stand for presidency, criticise and make political films.

Of course, we can do all these here. (Even making political films which is really against the Films Act, but nobody in the world really knows the defintion of "political" since its so ambiguously stated in the LAW) . Then again, I'm sure people are looking for more encouraging examples other than those imprisoned, sued for libel, made bankrupt and the maligned.

So then, I don't blame my friend for using the illuminati as an outlet for his intellectual frustrations.

Incidentally, for security reasons, we call the illuminati "care bears" as a kind of code between us. Come to think of it, it's highly appropriate.

The care bears are a safer enemy.

Bloody disappointing

2005-08-17T17:34:00.000+08:00

I took part in the 100 word epic challenge.

Winners were just announced and I'm most disappointed.

Not that I didn't win. Mine was pretentious and weak but really the winning entries were terrible too.

At least, I read better entries. And they didn't win. Nor were they popular.

I hate this American-Idol style of voting. The undeserving always win.

Ok, maybe not Taufik.

My monstrous myths

2005-08-17T17:33:00.000+08:00

She asks first.
Google can disappoint.
Karaoke speaks truth.
Her cat dances.
Better than him.
Her bouncing belly.
His bleeding heart.
The wallet vanishes.
Goodbye online redemption.
Hello Faye Wong.
A fair maiden.

He stays home.
Rising love pills.
Moveable feast’s leftovers.
Yesterday’s resurrected wheels.
Mischievous modern art.
Hollow and howling
His dog unfed.
Puppy no more.
Puberty is cruel.
Behold mummy comes.
All is well.

The steely oceans
Mirror synthetic skies.
All my dreams
Width and breadth
Length and depth
Shifting growing proportionately
Games won today
Are memorised and recycled.
Desire is infinite.
Finite is love.

My monstrous myths.

Lunch Time

2005-08-17T17:15:00.000+08:00

Every lunch time, I see the cleaning ladies congregate to have lunch.

I recognize 2 two of them although they change into their civis for lunch.

I keep wondering why they have to do that. For hygience purposes? Or is their pride responsible?

Anyway, I'm proud that like them, I eat at the cheapest food stall in the Suntec area. It's the food court next to the Rock Auditorium. A plate of chap chye rice costs $2.80 and so far that's the cheapest decent meal I know.

They don't call it economic rice for nothing.

Since having Milou, I've been eating there.

On bad days, it's $2.50 for 3 vegetable dishes and no meat.

Shoot the Dog

2005-08-17T11:25:00.000+08:00

On my good days, I think I'm funny.

Must have got it from Mum.

This morning, I told her to bring Milou to the market for a walk.

Now, Milou doesn't have a dog collar since I don't have a cheque book to pay the AVA $14.

$70 for a bitch.

So my mom refused, saying that if Milou goes out, he might be shot as an unlicensed dog.

Background- my cousin's unlicensed dog was fatally shot by the authorities in the law-abiding, shoot-first-ask-questions-later country known as Malaysia (blame it on the colonization mentality- remember the poor Brazilian man shot by the Brits).

Still, I can't imagine Milou, a small lovable puppy, taking a walk at the neighborhood market, being shot at.

Run, Milou, Run.

Games

2005-08-16T11:21:00.000+08:00

Eye of the Milou.

From a distance, he eyes his toy and without warning, pounces at it. Like a tiger would its prey.

I hope he doesn't think he's a cat.

Anyway, I think he enjoys it and really deep down inside, he's an animal.

At least, I'm glad he's playing with himself and having fun, apart from sleeping, shitting and eating.

2 Sundays ago, I played badminton after a long absence from the game and it felt really really good.

Last Sunday, I was over at the Settler's Cafe playing Giza and Pit. It was my 2nd time there but first time playing board games.

Settler's is a "board game lifestyle cafe". You pay a package fee ($30 for 4 persons for 2 hours). This includes 4 drinks, snacks and a choice from over 200 games.

Giza was fun although some of my friends were less enthusiastic. Pit was overwhelmingly enjoyed by everyone. I won the first round and it was awesome hitting people with The Hammer.

It's a sure sign that I need more fun in my life, which is most definitely lacking. I will have to learn from Milou who is really enthusiastic about playing and having fun.

But I'm definitely bored and frustrated. Perhaps its sexual. Like another single friend, who told me recently in a more subtle way - she's burning with passion.

Really, deep down inside, we're all animals.