11 August 2005 12:23 p.m. if you're curious about smoking but daren't inhale, you could stand outside your house. or take a ride in the ferris wheel at the UM funfair. hopefully it'll be open by the time you get there. or maybe it isn't because of low visibility... you know what, malaysians are complaining about this haze like we're the only ones who smell like wood smoke. and i bet the thais and myanmar and laotians and wherever the hell the haze has spread to think they're really special too.
perspective
stuff
OMGWTF the convocation ceremonies are this week! hello traffic jams and clueless parents. also greasy, badly cooked fast food and half-hearted desserts at the stalls set up by the colleges. i think i will give my camera a workout today, hoho, although deep down inside of me within my soul, i am afraid of crowds.
getting to the KL convention center was a little adventure in itself - we thought it was located to the front of the KLCC mall whereas it was actually facing the park, i.e. further inside. we approached a security guard to ask for directions and he must have been fielding the same question all weekend, because he said, "you see that guy i was talking just now? follow him, he's going to the same place!"
so we followed him. all the way up to the next security guard at the information counter.
going to an IT fair is a great way to get your toenails broken. i did wind up with a totally edible-looking pen/flash/thumb/handy/whatever's next, toe? drive from Storm, but only after going from one stall where the guy told me, deadpan, "Kingston finish 3 hours oredi lah." and to the stall set up by the very outlet i got my pc from. what was that people say about distance and irony?
you know how you see something even more desirable than what you already have, right after you buy the latter? i can't decide whether it's because i don't have it, and can't have it (because i can't afford) it, or whether i'm mad at myself for not spotting it earlier.
in this case, it's a handy drive that has a skin made of the same material as the nokia 5210 in blue or green with angels or santa claus on the front. it's much nicer than the skins that PenDrive offers, where their banners had the caveat in very small print and on the last line - "pen drive sold separately".
a moment that will forever stand out in my memory inside my head - we were looking for a seat in the food court when a group of young girls walked past us. as i scanned for an empty table, i heard this, "mumble mumble mumble... BUKKAKE?"
you never quite appreciate the concept of solitude and space until you've taken a train on a sunday night. then you wonder where all these people came from and whether they're getting off at an earlier stop from yours so that you might get a seat for at least 5 minutes because you're knackered from having been on your feet most of the day (and having your sandal-shod feet tromped on by sneaker-wearing clods) and there are actually big beefy guys telling the commuters to line up nicely and not surge forward when a train arrives so that others would have a chance to disembark and then it all goes to pieces when a train does arrive because you're swept in by people on the fringe pushing forward and crushed into a carriage against a guy whose deodorant obviously didn't last the day.
03 August 2005 2:44 p.m.love without pain isn't really romance
who thinks up these things? Royksopp.
even though i thought he should be in carpet slippers at the rate he was shuffling around the stage when Audioslave played in Cuba, Chris Cornell still has it in him. i know this because there was this scene in the video for Your Time Has Come where he's sitting on this bench in John Lennon Park - he looks at someone off-screen and he has this fierce look in his eyes that assures me that all will be right in this world. or something like that.
yes, i am having another listen to the album. it doesn't hurt as much, so maybe i'm numb?
newspapers like to describe my neighbourhood as an affluent one. i suppose we're being watched, then, for our own safety. you know, in case anyone decides to launch a suprise stirke against us and block our access to malls and all that. how else would you explain a military plane flying only about 500 feet over our house at 9 last night? or the time when i went to pick bro17 up from school and a grey, fat-bellied aircraft swooped past, only about 200 feet above us?
01 August 2005 12:48 p.m.who has time to read anyway
i pick at the scabs of my discontent, and read it a verse at a time, because any more would have me seething in a jealous rage.
and this is for people like Suze.
27 July 2005 8:37 p.m.everyone's a critic
i drove to downtown KL with mum this afternoon. the highway we used was monitored by ITIS. up till today, i'd always assumed the their signboards were only good for announcing their website and the traffic situation around the city. today, i happened to glance up, i saw this -
ATTENTION: MAN 1819. you are jumping queue... You (the audience) get to see the world from their (the actors') viewpoint - through their eyes."
as opposed to through their nose, i suppose.
this just occurred to me - given the way Irvine Welsh writes, how will he know if he's made a spelling mistake?
Ah fall off the pan, ma knees splashing ontae the pishy flair. My jeans crumple tae the deck and greedily absorb the urine, but ah hardly notice. Ah roll up mah shirt sleeve and hesitate only briefly, glancing at ma scabby and occasionally weeping track marks, before plunging ma hands and forearms intae the brown water. Ah rummage fastidiously and get one ay ma bombs back straight away. Ah rub off some shite that's attached to it. A wee bit melted, but still largely intact. Ah stick it oan toap oay the cistern. Locating the other takes several long dredges through the mess and the panhandling of the shite ay many good Muirhoose and Pilton punters. Ah gag once, but get ma white nugget ay gold, surprisingly even better preserved than the first. The feel ay the water disgusts us even mair than the shite. Ma brown-stained airm reminds us ay the classic t-shirt tan. The line goes up right past ma elbow as ah hud tae go right aroond the bend.Despite ma discomfort at the feel ay water oan ma skin, it seems appropriate tae run ma airm under the cauld tap at the sink. It's hardly the maist extensive or thorough wash ah've had, but it's aw ah can stand. Ah then wipe ma arse wi the clean part ay ma pants and chuck the shite-saturated keks intae the bowl beside the rest ay the waste.
- Trainspotting.
21 July 2005 8:54 a.m.the only thing i know to do
the electricity supply to my road will be cut off from 10 a.m. today till 7 p.m. tonight for upgrading works. i foresee chaos at the traffic lights. i imagine myself blogging until the lights go out.
the primary school down the road has begun evacuating their students, putting them in a huge bus. or maybe they're going on a school trip. but there are private cars coming out of the school compound as well. i have my suspicions.one and a half hours to go.
it feels like the end of the world.
20 July 2005 10:19 a.m.attack of the ents
we went to a place called Boathouse for dinner last night. it's a quiet little restaurant that offers tasty food in servings smaller and prettier than you're used to (if you were me); at prices higher than you'd expect. it does sound iffy, but i haven't had tiramisu of the likes of theirs before.
we had just been seated when another group of diners happened to see a long-lost friend. cue one harpy shrieking, "wah, long time haven't see you ah, you beech!"
eyes all around swiveled to look at the yahoo, and mum shook the newspapers she was reading and stared disapprovingly at her. conscious of the general disdain, the little urbanite was subdued for the remainder of her meal, although she punctuated conversation with the occasional burst of obnoxious laughter.
you know the sort of laugh i mean, right? it goes "HAHAHAHAHAAA wow my friends are so erudite and funny the whole world has to know".
anyway, the restaurant provides crayons for patrons to use while they wait for their meals (the table "cloths" are huge pieces of paper). as i watched dad and bro17 compete to draw the most comical turd, and bro22 scribble chemical equations (what is he, some kind of chemistry student? oh, wait, he is), i could only think of this story (if you've already heard it then it'd be a damn waste of my time, but fuck it) -
once upon a time, there lived a little tree in a big forest. this poor little tree was an orphan, and spent all his time wondering who his parents were. the other little trees constantly taunted him, saying he was a son of a birch, or sometimes, a son of a beech.one day, he finally decided that he had to know, so he mustered the courage to ask all the big tall trees around him if they knew his parents.
"do you know my parents?"
"have you seen them?"
"am i a son of a birch or a son of a beech?"unfortunately, none of them, not the fir, the elm, the maple neither the alder nor the juniper could tell him who his parents were.
he was very unhappy, and was gloomily wondering how long he keep up this exercise in futility when he spied the oldest tree in the woods - a wizened and bent old oak, the one tree he hadn't talked to. so he put on his most polite voice and addressed the elder.
"sir," he said timidly, "i am but a little tree in a big world, and the one thing i would like to know is am i a son of a birch, or a son of a beech?"
the old oak tree merely stared at the little tree, not answering. time ticked by, and the little tree began to think that maybe the dutch elm disease had already spread beyond salvation in the old boy. he was about to thank the oak for his time when he spoke.
"hmmm....," he rumbled. "come closer."
the little tree did so. the oak peered at him for a long time. finally, he said, "yes, i knew your parents."
the little tree was very excited, and asked who they were.
"well," said the oak tree, "it was a long time ago, so my memory is fuzzy. i'm not sure if you are a son of a birch or a son of a beech, but your mother was the finest piece of ash in the whole forest."
hurray for the british trees website homepage.
19 July 2005 11:09 a.m.i'm sorry
i know i have to have an entry with some substance at some point, but i need to get my head around the concept of Koo-ki Sushi first.
and ooh, Weezer's new album were panned. Rick Rubin was the producer, as he was with Coming Out of Exile (Audioslave). i knew there was a pattern somewhere.
16 July 2005 1:08 p.m.viva la revolución
i like filler posts, they allow me to put up links for no reason at all, such as the one for Glasgow survival (whose links open in a new window), and sexy losers, which is yet another comic featuring many teh sex and stuff your parents want you to never know.
did you know that Unleashed (starring Jet Li in what pseudo-reviewers like me claim to be his most vivd and expressive performance EVAR) is set in Glasgow? i was waiting for Sick Boy to run across the screen at one point. also, now that i've read this, i wonder why the thugs were waving handguns around instead. maybe it's just me opening my buttcrack.
