we've just had unwelcome visitors - two guys came and tapped insistently on the gate with a pen till i went to the door. if there's anything more obnoxious than persistent tapping on a metal gate, it's Jessica Simpson's new video. tapping pisses off your neighbour's dogs too, and their barking annoys me even further.

so, the guy with the pen says something, but is drowned out by the dogs (dude, you're not very popular, get a clue and LEAVE please). it sounds like, "*drowned out by the dogs*... can you come out?"

HELL NO. didn't your mother tell you anything about talking to strangers?

the following ensued (the man started off speaking cantonese and i spoke malay all the way) -

A = me
M = man

A: what you want?
dogs: *bark*
M: hi, we want to ask some questions.
A: *assume it is a survey* not interested.
M:*garble garble garble*
A: hah?!
M: can you come out? i can't hear you over the dogs.
A: NO. CAN I HELP YOU.
M: please come out, the dogs are barking really loud. (really? i had no idea)
dogs: *bark*
A: NO. WHAT DO YOU WANT.
M: is this a chinese house? **
A: *half-lying* no it is not.
M: *points to the pakua over the door* but i thought it was a chinese house.
A: THIS IS NOT A CHINESE HOUSE (THIS IS A BRICK HOUSE).
M: we want to ask some questions.
A: ask lah.
M: we want to see your gas tank. ***
A: um... NO.
dogs: *bark*
M: can we see your gas tank?
A: NO. why do you want to look at my gas tank anyway?
M: oh... we are doing an inspection/survey.
A: no, you cannot see my gas tank.
M: well, maybe you could let us in?
A: NO.
dogs: *bark*
M: but we need to inspect your gas tank!
A: i'm not letting random strangers into my house!
M: well... could you bring your gas tank out then?
A: (foher;vhfdu;gegerbvjfuckyounuttersgoijeghf&^%#&%!!!) i'm not going to carry out the bloody heavy thing just so you can see it! BYE.

end.

now -

1. who would want to inspect gas tanks, and why?
2. even if they were legitimate gas-tank inspectors, they didn't identify themselves or their organisation - something even faux-charities do when they sell you badly-made soft toys.
3. they never read newspapers about charlatans and impostors gaining entry into people's homes that way and robbing them issit?
4. what the fuck does the inhabitants' race(s) have to do with any fucking inspection? what, chinese use more petronas and indians use more paraffin stoves and malays make more wood fires ah? what?!
5. can i call the police on them?

** door-to-door strangers always ask this question - "is this a chinese/indian/malay/muslim/christian house?" i don't see what bearing it has on anything, considering we're all countrymen and shit. besides, you don't need to be chinese to have geomancy items around your house. anyway, fuck you, you door-to-door strangers.

*** this is a very obvious ploy to gain entry into a house to rob/rape/both/vandalise the gas pipe so that the house-owner has to buy a new (and very overpriced) one from the cheat.

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18 June 2005 12:48 a.m.
oh no

i wanted to step away from the PC for a moment and i wanted to type "brb!". the thing is, i didn't have any chat programs open at the time.

pretentious instalment #732980472 - a lyric from Bleed Like Me is like a half-remembered dream (every thing you thought you know, baby, is wrong; every thing you thought you have, baby, is gone... and so forth).

now i expect a malaysia square if i ever go to the UAE.

two states have agreed with the proposal to hand out free condoms and needles to drug addicts, but only to married Muslim drug addicts. way to alienate the rest of the group, you geniuses. how many drug addicts are married in the first place? well, okay, how many of them stay married? there's no telling. this calls for an in-depth study, with contracts and money and shit.

i read a blog entry where the writer was indignant over people getting cheated in some roadside game. he wrote that someone should call the police. do it yourself, you fucking wanker.

i wonder about The Guts Effect - has the reader himself ever fainted while reading it aloud? story here (DO NOT EAT WHILE READING THIS) (by Chuck Palahniuk - now you know what to expect. sort of).

edit - i swear, i snapped out of my stupor when i got to "corn and peanuts". that is all.

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16 June 2005 8:23 p.m.
cathartic-type malarkey

once upon a time, i wrote fanfiction. after all of three stories (and some desperately pretentious haiku), i stopped. i've never fully explored the reason(s) for it, but i think i convinced myself that fanfiction was only a phase.

yesterday, fanfiction.net sent me an e-mail, notifying me of a review one of my stories had received. the reviewer regretted that i hadn't written anything else after that. to my surprise, i agreed with her. it's also pretty cool being compared to Yusof Haslam, and knowing that my fic kicks his "fic" to the kerb (yes, i know who Yusof Haslam is).

all this time, i thought i'd only lost interest in the matter. however, the shameful truth is that i've just been too lazy to write an actual proper story-type thing with a plot and character development and shit. plus, everyone just wants to read plot what plots (PWP) anyway. but really, making an effort at anything wasn't something i wanted to do at the time.

*cue non sequitur rationalising of laziness to fill up space*

i suppose the fandom turned me off it in some ways, although fanfiction is a means of relating to the canon with other fans. still, the fangirling turned me off (yes, i know i'm guilty of it too, but i have a point here somewhere).

well, okay, i don't know really. i think my inherent loner-ism made me leave when the fandom became larger. everyone wants to feel special.

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14 June 2005 1:21 p.m.
*thwap*

please, all of you, stop doing cover versions.

has anyone seen Jessica Simpson's cover of These Boots Are Made For Walking? and, erm, the JS site has some song thing going on when the page loads, so speakers off, people!

angela, you cry, you wrote 'seen' instead of 'heard'! surely you're mistaken! no, i am not. i am never mistaken. not even when i am presented with a picture of Christian Bale wearing nothing but his BatGloves (tm).

Suze, you shouldn't watch it because you might break something in outrage - i've never seen so much self-whoring since the last time i saw a Christina Mariah Beyonce Mariah Christina Mariah Britney Mariah soddit hip hop video. and then you have to consider the actual meaning of the song.

i wish i'd switched the sound off because she's whinier than Britney Spears and looks sluttier than Christina Aguilera, but i am a masochist; and i would't have this post if it weren't for her and her bright red, dust-dusted calf-length hooker boots, glossy gaping mouth and desperate, predatory eyes. also, madam, that is the absolute worst catwalk i have ever seen. if you must insist on being all in our face like that, the least you could do is do it right. Janice Dickinson would like a word with you.

do you think i'd write a retraction of an earlier post if i were to listen to Out Of Exile again?

Manolo's shoe blog. Manolo rules.

p.s. i just wanted to write "Christian Bale wearing nothing but his BatGloves (tm)" really badly. excuse me.

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09 June 2005 11:16 p.m.
i hate had to clean my room

"we'll be free of this one day, fellas."

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08 June 2005 8:42 p.m.
how not to spend your school holidays

this is a monumental waste of time. you're supposed to come away feeling awed and impressed at its cleverness, but it's actually toxic to your enjoyment of the mall-going experience.

on the other hand, such exposure would only serve to make one stronger, and gives one the impetus to get up and do something. plus, you'd have to go up and look for it when you could be looking at hideously expensive clothes. it just drives me crazy.

i hope the reader would have, by now, caught on to the message, otherwise i would just have to go over there and hit you one more time, which is something i don't want to do again, okay?

the french movie festival is going on right now! ad hoc censorship will take place where appropriate. the audience may feel free to interact as they see fit with the sounds of a building female orgasm (but cannot see), because loud moaning, gasping and squealing and creaking bedsprings don't turn me on at all, oh no.

seriously, while Les Choristes was fabulous and elegant in its heartfelt simplicity, you'll have to watch If I Were A Rich Man (Ah! Si J'étais Riche) if you want to see the heaving bosom of one Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, who doesn't look at all like Gillian Andersen.

p.s. - there was a bookfair at megamall as well. the Nanyang Siang Pau had an exhibit on photos that were never published because the editor considered them too gruesome for the public. among them were pictures of an elephant with its trunk sawn off, and various accident victims bloodied and broken in death.

the thing is, why show them now, or at all? it was horrible and everyone who viewed them was hushed and came away feeling subdued; but there was no empathy, just guilt that we were all in a thrall of ghoulish, voyeuristic fascination.

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07 June 2005 1:21 p.m.
see here now

alumna! (aside from the comments, naturally)

ok, i might be jumping on the bandwagon here, but maybe she should be the guest of honour at the next gathering instead of some dodgy professor type, haha.

and - The Music! their second album (Welcome to the North) is out now, though it burns a hole in your pocket. it's better than Audioslave though.

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04 June 2005 10:37 p.m.
a green grocer's revenge: tales from the crypt edition

why am i posting a picture of the durian belanda (literally meaning "dutch durian") that was rotting on my kitchen counter? why, in the midst of all the shit we call modern civilisation, did i put up this off-putting, loathsome image of a fruit that looks more like a decaying tadpole-slug curled up on itself?

well, it's more memorable than listening to Audioslave coming Out Of Exile.

why can Adam Levine of Maroon5 sound like both Jay Kay Jamiroquai and Erykah Badu, yet not sound as derivative? why can Good Charlotte get away with pulling a U2 while you don't?

because i loved the first album, it is thus very hard for me to admit that the second album isn't very good. in fact, i will steel myself to say that it's only marginally average. sure, the first single - Be Yourself, is stuck in everyone's head right now, but how much of it is due to sheer brilliance, as opposed to relentless airplay and a very nice video where they look all muso and make me spontaneously ovulate serious?

i mean seriously, you're supposed to be a supergroup - you're not supposed to sound like a watered down Pearl Jam (we had that Scott Stapp guy Creed for that, and also those Disagree peoples). did you crumble under the weight of expectation? did you wait too long to get back into the studio? is there any way to explain how you can sound as heavy as you used to do and yet come across as hollow?

there is a lot of bombast on the album, yet it's as if the band doesn't have the same conviction as before. while it's true that Tom is still brilliant, even his solos sound dated and, dare i say it, predictable. after the initial shock of dismay had worn off, it degenerated into a game of "how many influences can you spot in one song?" if there was a name-check track, you can be sure that Placebo and Bon Jovi would be included among the likes of random country and western singers.

i fast forwarded my way through the album, desperately searching for something to latch on to, and i'm a person who listened to the whole AFI album (i forgot which one) before never playing it again. while there were a few bright spots, e.g. Man Or Animal, The Worm (which comes perilously close to having points deducted because of the pretentious sounding title), it is ultimately, a formulaic album, and therefore miserably generic.

on the bright side (maybe), it would be a good candidate for the soundtrack to the blockbuster-type movie most malaysians fancy. on the other hand, it means that nothing on the album is even remotely memorable.

i am very upset. this is something Papa Roach would concoct, not you rock monster types. unless you've aged and become rock dinosaurs. the album has dismayed me more than i know, and it shows - this entry is the worst piece of crap i've ever written.

i hear Jamiroquai have a new album out - it's called Dynamite. it'd better be.

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