29 January 2005 1:08 a.m. stupid is when you encounter a paper jam in the self-service xerox machine and run away without telling the worker about it. angry is me when i want to use the machine and discover the mess you'd left. i don't understand how medical students can be so dense. Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy - found at Nilesh Babu Patel. You're A Bad Man, Aren't You? by Susannah Breslin Hominid inbreeding left humans vulnerable to disease Suze - how does the IRS determine one's religion for them? is the person then required to show proof of that religion?
big bright sun
the aftermath of a morning spent playing hookey
waking dreams: part 2
irony - mum had stayed back at school late one afternoon to finish up some paperwork. she'd gone out for some air or whatever when 2 girls ran out of the toilet screaming about a flasher. before mum's incredulous eyes, a man sauntered out of the said loo and walked off as casually as though it was the most normal thing in the world to go into a girls' toilet during school hours.
mum followed him, of course. knowing the school compund as she does, she knew he was looking for an exit (aha), and she also knew that the only one available was the front gate; and then he'd have to get past the guard then.
along the way, they passed by one of her students, who plays football. he was called upon to join the "chase", which he duly obliged, even though he protested that he wanted to answer the call of nature. this bizarre little entourage grew by three when they passed the canteen and mum met more footballers.
eventually, they cornered the man at the volleyball court. the school guard had been alerted by one of the girls, and he appeared with one of those lasso-on-a-pole things usually used to catch snakes. i guess trouser snakes also count eh what.
right, so the fella was collared and marched to the corridor outside the afternoon supervisor's (AF) room, where she was expected to deal with him. this woman, according to mum, is the dumbest turd to be shat into the teaching profession; or this world even. there are teachers like mum whom students recognise and greet 5 years after they leave school, and there are people such as AF who don't possess the slightest stick of common sense but insist on pushing her opinion on others anyway. i think we all know someone like that.
AF: what's this?
mum: we caught a flasher. he was in the girls' toilet.
flasher: can't a man take a shit in peace? (no, he really did say that)
mum: this is a SCHOOL. you are an OUTSIDER. and you do not use girls' toilets.
AF: okay, i can handle this. tell me the whole story.
mum: we. caught. a. flasher. call the police.
AF: okay, tell me everything from the beginning. i can handle this.
mum: call the police (you stupid cow). stop wasting time.
flasher: i was just taking a shit...
schoolgirl: *whispers to mum cos no one trusts AF* he was in a stall with the door open and he was touching himself!
mum: are you calling the police or not?
AF: aiyah, i can handle this wan lah!
mum and students: fuck this, we're outta here.
before she went home, mum got two of the burlier male teachers to stand guard on the flasher while AF decided exactly how she would handle it.
the next day, mum saw the guard and asked him what happened.
guard: *shrug* he got away.
mum: WTF.
guard: AF told me to take the lasso off cos it would have been undignified to leave it on.
mum: WTF... okay. did she call the police?
guard: no.
mum: *blood boils* and then?!
guard: somehow he escaped from messrs A and B. itu orang kan badan besar... macamana tu? (they were big-sized fellas... how'd he get past them?)
mum: i'm surrounded by idiots.
later in the day, she met AF and suggested that the two girls who saw him should be sent to the counsellor, and AF said, "aiyah, nevermind lah, they can handle it!"
have i told you how mum is a model of restraint? i offered to buy her pepper spray or a cattle-prod or a billy club or all three just in case the fucker made a reappearance, but she turned me down. i guess she'll use her mega-decibel voice on him then.
28 January 2005 10:31 a.m.waking dreams
you know life is going back to normal when people get murdered by other people instead of cruel gigantic waves.
my life has all the components needed to make a movie. the following serves to illustrate it.
crime - we went to Sri Hartamas for dinner last week. it's one of those up-scale neighbourhoods with narrow little roads. we drove past a place called Saffron and saw a bunch of people gathered at the entrance. it looked like one of those scenes where some guy is defending his lady's honour. as our car passed them, i saw a woman turn away as if to cry. we parked the car across the road and i asked if we'd be eating there.
dad: no lah, the people at Saffron always cause trouble wan. and there are so many indians there.
me: *nodding sagely* yeah, because they're so different from the indians you drink with at the pub, aren't they?
after placing our order, dad asked the proprietor of Aunty Nat (which is the nyonya restaurant beside Saffron) what had happened.
her: dia... er, ada orang kena rompak kereta. (there was a car robbery.)
us: ooh!
dad: rompak kereta? dia orang kena rompak ke kereta dia kena curi? (car robbery? someone in a car was robbed or was their car stolen?)
her: dia orang turun kereta mau masuk restoran... ada orang bawa pisau rompak mereka. kereta dia kena rompak lah! (they parked their car and were heading to the restaurant [Saffron]... when someone pulled a knife on them. and made off with their car!)
dad: wah, kereta apa? (wah, what car?)
(i think it's a malaysian thing to be more concerned with the loss of property rather than the safety of those involved)
her: BMW 7 series.
us: OMGWTF.
lessons in humilty - someone was kicking the back of my seat in the cinema. so i turned around and eyeballed the malay guy behind me and asked him, in a very cold and brusque manner, to stop doing so. he didn't answer, but i was sure he'd gotten the message, so i turned back to the screen. the kicks came again, and they were harder even more frequent.
damn, thought i, damn useless melayu idiot being so typically spiteful when he's not allowed to do something. this time, i glanced over just a bit longer to ascertain just who it was being so rude and omgwtfiamsoembarrassed it was a chinese girl over on the right side of the row the malay fella was in, testing the lifespan of her fucking heelies.
thick-faced person that i am (more so because i'm pms-ing, ha), i told her off, and meekly apologised to the innocent fella, who was gracious enough to nod in acknowledgement.
fyi, the movie hadn't started yet, so it was good to get the drama out of the way so soon.
useless trivia - did you know that there's a player on the french rugby team whose name is Nicolas Brusque? i wouldn't want to be the one to put ants in his pants.
25 January 2005 12:49 p.m.*insert witty title here*
yes, i know it's a cop out thing to do, but you can't really blame me for it, what with the weather being the way it is and the fact that diaryland's been down for a while. i don't think i'm actually taking naps so much as i'm going into heat-induced comas.
did anyone hear the one about how having cold drinks with your meals can lead to cancer? yeah, the cancer in my brain accounts for the filth i spout - I'M ALL ROTTEN INSIDE, LIKE JOHNNY.
anyway, there's been a death in this house. no, a lizard didn't get trapped between the sliding doors again, but the earthworm that lived in my bathroom has died. i don't know how it got there, but i've seen it from time to time, making its way through the spaces in the tiles on the floor, meandering from one crack to another. now that i think of it, it might have come from the dirt that i wash out from between my toes, haha.
i know it sounds like a weird sort of pet to have, but it was so amazingly low maintenance - just add water. it was like a plant that moved, only it was not as greedy a venus flytrap. alas, i stepped into the toilet one morning and there it lay, curled up like a piece of string. goodbye.
dad is a 50 year old kid a.k.a. filial piety, my ass
i hate it when he comes home late after a round of pubbing with his "mates" and makes himself supper and wakes up the whole damn house when he does so. it pisses me off to have to clean up the mess he makes after soup from his noodles splashes onto the glass-topped table. and he dares to complain about how "messy" the house is. fuck him (but no thanks).
14 January 2005 8:33 p.m.my inbox is a choir
but it's in dire need of rehearsal - the cacophony is deafening.
in other news, i received yet another chance to whore this blog - Blog search directory. you can do it too!
(real post to follow soonish)
12 January 2005 10:16 a.m.i'm telling you this even now
so yesterday i was all set to go to the varsity book store to check on some books for bro21. as i sat in the car with the air-con blasting the non-existent wrinkles off my face and trying not to touch any of the metal fixtures that had heated up in the sun, i got a call from bro16.
"did you come home to get anything just now?" he asked.
"no," i said, feeling guilty because i'd only left the house at 11, and it was about 3 p.m. right then. "why?"
"mummy's drawer has been forced open lah. the wood is broken."
cue reckless driving all the way home (well, as recklessly as i can drive anyway).
when i got home, bro16, accompanied by a flat-headed screwdriver; had made a fearless reconnoitre of the whole house.
he'd called every one of us home, and as we waited for the police, i realised that people just can't not touch anything when they're not supposed to - mum went through her drawer to see what was missing.
well, i was never attached to it anyway, so the loss of the jewellery doesn't affect me. it's my stolen petty cash that pisses me off - there was enough to buy a few cd-s there.
yeah, okay, this is how i'm coping. i'm glad none of us was at home, or was arriving home as the break-in occurred. i just can't help wondering what would have happened if i'd skived yesterday - would our stuff have been safe, or would i have had unwelcome visitors?
the Taman Tun police arrived after a while and took down our statement - the guy who filled out the report had really cool writing, cramped lines with baroque fluorishes and all that. i'm tempted to graphologise him right now, but that's just be me avoiding the issue. they went through the house too, looking into my room and mum's room and wondering how the thieves got in. they paid no mind to the psychedelic panties lying on the chair.
when the report was done, they told us that the police from the Brickfields branch would be arriving shortly to conduct a more thorough investigation, and then they left.
the Brickfields police showed up in due time (i guess they were battling traffic too). only one of them was in uniform, while the other two wouldn't have looked out of place at Pertama Complex* (PC).
the man in uniform stepped onto the porch, looked into the house and turned to me.
"macamana dia orang masuk?"**
i said i didn't know, and he stepped into the house to look at the crime scene.
potential PC denizen #1 carried a bag for forensic stuff and wore Ray Ban-esque shades. he, too, looked into the house before saying, "macamana dia orang masuk?"
"macamana dia orang masuk ah?" said his colleague, who was checking out the roof.
they took a few pictures of mum's drawer with the broken latch and asked us if we'd lost any keys before (we have). that was nasty, because then every visitor we'd ever had fell under suspicion; our part-time maid included.
i left after the police did, wearied by all the suspicion and speculation. our neighbours are useless, pah. i went to a mall, if you must know.
it was about 6 by then, but i didn't mind being caught in the traffic. i never thought i'd find congestion to be comforting. just then, some police outriders sped by, clearing traffic for someone important.
i've been herded off the road for the comfort of royalty and ministers before, but none of them ever had a rear-guard on a superbike, whose passengers were the baddest ass motherfuckers i've ever seen - they were dressed completely in black leather, and it had been made to fit; not like those cheapo faux-leather stuff you find in place like Pertama Complex***.
gloves too. bad ass. i bet they had sawed-off shotguns under those jackets. BAD ASS. it was something out of a movie, i tell you. or maybe i was overawed.
BAD ASS.
* a down-market shopping centre which sells bootleg footie jerseys and the like. smells like piss too.
** how'd they get in?
*** i have a complex about that place - it's full of shifty-looking characters, and it smells like piss.
please, allow me...
this moment of idiocy. being a sino-bidayuh, i have to check the race box that says "lain-lain" when i fill out official forms and stuff - it just means i'm other than the holy trinity of chinese/malay/indian.
there's a potential for a rant here, but i think i've done that; albeit incoherently. the point is, i've always wanted to go all game-geek on the person handling those forms, and exclaim -
"I am Not like the Rest Of You... I am Other."
and then i will sweep majestically out of the office, leaving the room filled with hushed awe, but more likely filled with bafflement. and then they will look at the form i'd have filled out, and realise that i spoke the Truth. and then they will nod reverently, saying, "it's true, She is Other." phwoar.
say, what else can you nod other than your head?
consumer interest installment #2324214 - Dutch Lady kiwi fruit yogurt has more fruit in it than Nestlé kiwi fruit yogurt does; and it costs 10 sen less.
p.s. - courtesy of Warrenellis.com: Porn Happy. the phrase stops making sense if you look at it long enough.
p.p.s. - Snoop Doggy Blog? OMGWTFBBQLOL (read the fine print).
