thisguy

my folks are out of town for a month and my sister's got herself officially hitched. so i've been living alone for the past couple of weeks with only joel for company.

tonight after many kind invitations from my godmother, i had dinner in the house i spent a chunk of my childhood in. tasting familiar home-cooking, using familiar cutlery and basking in a vibe that brought me way back in time to simpler days. i really should spend more time there.

after dinner i kind of hung out with my god-brothers (technically my god-cousins) who are about my age when i used to practically live in my godmother's house.

time seems to sometimes stand still in places familiar, yet somehow, decay has a way of setting into the most static of circumstances.

tonight i was Pip at 23, standing in Miss Havisham's house, remembering days past in a place that still looks and feels the same after all this while, even though the events that have passed through it have changed everything.

jian came over today to imbibe, harrass joel and naturally we ended up jamming. it was good to have things fall into harmony. music makes sense when all else fails. when i told him that these days i feel as if music just doesn't do it for me, i don't think i earnestly meant it.

it's been awhile since i last felt anything at all.

aside from mild disappointment in a number of instances, the only other emotion i've had lately is quiet pride for work done well and recognised.

"it's been so long since i've been running by myself"

---

my shopping list seems to be spilling over... by the end of this weekend i aim to acquire :

• a new belt
  
• dinner/evening shirts
  
• new soles for my shoes
  
• or new shoes
  
• a dark plain-ish tie
  
• swimming bermudas
  
• casual bermudas (i'm not sure if i'm getting this right...)
  
• good bargain books from the atria warehouse sale - i think i overspent here, considering that i haven't even touched the books i bought in karachi, but i'm consoling myself with the fact that they were just too cheap to resist and i'll be giving two of them away as christmas gifts!
  
• a christmas tree - as per family tradition, first year's bonus goes to buying the family a christmas tree. am a little disappointed with the ones i've seen so far, though...
  

i hate shopping for clothes... it's so hard to find stuff i like that fits and doesn't blow my stressed out year-end-christmas-wedding-season budget.

on top of my shopping i also need to bring joel to the groomers', fix a burnt ceiling fan (don't ask), clear/dry/iron my weekly laundry load and squeeze in time to get some weekend work done. tell me again why weekends are *special*?

---

media wishlist :

music : 9 crimes - damien rice
movies : borat - cultural learnings of america for make benefit of glorious nation of kazakhstan

break-ups, relationship mess and weddings somehow found their way into thisguy's packed weekend. having spent too much time dwelling on the sordid, surreal and sweet, in almost equal measures, i don't feel too inclined to write much more on these topics.

instead, i'll celebrate the shallower side of my weekend - spent ticking things off my shopping list.

am also bracing myself for a full on week at work, a company annual dinner to survive and a mad dash to clean up the mess i've made in the house before my parents get back in from the states. i miss my smaller accomodations - where vacuuming and mopping used to be a 30-50 minute affair. instead now i've got a living room, three toilets, 2 bedrooms and a staircase to take care of. it doesn't help when your housemate is a slobbering, fur-dropping, adolescent kid who only wants to run around and play.

culprit!

(written offline sometime between lunch hour and back-to-work-time)

there's nothing like being left on your own in a fishtank to finally free your thoughts. by fishtank, i mean that i'm in a glass room in a client's building, where i'm supposed to scrutinise (through various reports and stacks of documents) the inadequacies of a reputable organisation.

but in a room like this, i can't help but feel that i am being observed as well... not that there is any mistrust, but i suppose people are curious as to why i'm here.

it's been close to a year that i've been living my life as a corporate professional. winging it most of the time with snatches of freshly gleamed information and about as much confidence as a RM50 tie and GBP35,000 education can give, i've been brainstorming with senior professionals, telling organisations how to operate and perform better, growing a freshly acquired caffeine adiction and contributing as part of a machinery of checks and balances within the financial services system.

how've i been doing? apparently i've met expectations and exceeded some too. some work that my team and i recently put together was recently appraised by a partner in a middle eastern practice who mentioned that no one in the whole of the gulf could come up with more impressive material. i took this as a fairly good compliment, the track record of middle eastern consultants not-withstanding.

and so it is, that my efforts in juggling various side projects, social life and family commitments, not to mention waking up every morning to face rush hour traffic is well worth it. i really am in a good mood most mornings as i catch snippets of the morning radio show and marvel at the buildings that adorn the city i work in.

year one down, now what's next?

parental units are back and joel's been evicted. he's had a rough week and a very bad grooming session. it's been a hectic hectic week for me too with crashing deadlines, especially after i found out i'll be :

away the whole of this week on training in some high up place.

so yea. my life is on hold for a week while the "administrator" upgrades my "software". will resume human mode on friday.

meanwhile - if anyone can tell me where i can get a fibre optic lit christmas tree for under RM200, and a suitably expensive but value-for-money wedding gift for two, please leave a note. thanks.

as usual, i'm really looking forward to the end of the year. not because it's been particularly bad or anything, but - you know - just to get it over with. next year's itinerary is one to look forward to and i'll tell you why maybe later - like - next year.

work is frantic at the moment so excuse me if reports of my demise spread - as the saying goes - they've been wildly exaggerated.

i'm cool with the doubling up and crazy workload and deadlines though. why?

coz i'll be taking my first unadulterated week off (this year) during the christmas week!

whereupon - hopefully - i'll be :-

• updating/refurbishing this blog
• finally getting my travelogues done - (got renewed motivation from nyx's hanoi travelogs)
• clear up my hard drives
• take a quick roadtrip alone somewhere remote and not too faraway in malaysia
• throw a post-christmas party
• redefine my goals in life
• spend some time with my dad
• finish watching four seasons of the west wing
• paint seremban a little redder than it is right now
• determine how to link the items 5, 7, 9 and 10 together

quite a long list of KPIs attached to geekery, wholesome activities, soul-searching and random stuff - all needing to be addressed before year end.

as with many of this year's events, i never got around to writing about it here, but a couple of weeks ago i went for my first company annual dinner.

if you want to know how it went, read justin's account of his one here.

mine was at the same hotel, just different company, probably different food, a week or so earlier, different people but similar (if not more) rowdy behavior from my department. also - we pretended we were auditors too.

good tactic - when you're drunk and inappropriate behavior is imminent, never give out your real name or place of work. if only i practised this more often...

so it's been 2 years since we were sitting on that fence in westminster watching london revel.

and it's been a year since we were gathered at bahir's place in the city watching the valley revel.

tonight will be relatively quiet, and i've decided that i am ok with that. sobriety should be embraced gracefully every now and then.

if you haven't already noticed, i've not been "in the zone" as far as writing is concerned. but i'm determined to put out a decent post before the evening is over.

without further ado, i'll let the sentimentality take over -

thisyear found thisguy;

• participating in the production of one of Malaysia's most exciting new local films
  
• getting lowballed by some bastards in the industry (and some outside the industry)
  
• gaining weight in penang
  
• setting up house for the kitten in seremban
  
• riding camels in karachi
  
• scoping thai chicks in bangkok
  
• tomb raiding, playing erhu and guzzling amok and angkor beer in siem reap
  
• hitting on hooter girls and sipping s'pore slings with an englishman in singapore
  
• singing queen anthems with the mafia and guzzling speedy's wild boar curry with jon in cherating
  
• chilling, brokebacking and getting super wasted in pangkor
  
• drinking beer topless with the five families and upgrading my software with colleagues in genting
  
• scaring suburban passers by at oktoberfest with the lousiest indian drinkers this side of the city
  
• migrating this blog then losing half a year's worth of journal entries
  
• catching up with old friends and struggling to re-establish ties (didnt do so well in this department)
  
• buying a new christmas tree for my family (it's a symbolic thing)

i don't think i've worked harder ever in my life before, yet i seem to have squeezed in a crazy amount of play too. to top that all, i got my best ever new year's present - my first promotion! (no raise yet though)

if you've stopped by to read this, drop a note and i hope you've had a good year and an even better one to come.

if you've had a shit year, go visit this site, and thank god for not having it as bad as saddam.

am due back at work in 7 hours.

:(

had a smashing 12-day break, infused with alcohol, emo-ness, tim-sum, food, computer games and good conversation.

even cleared up my room a little. but didn't read as much as i'd like to. i think i read more pages of the books i've acquired recently in the bookstores i bought them in. didn't wash my car. i did squeeze in a trip to the gym and church though.

i swear i had more pensive thoughts to write down here tonight. but i'll let a post i wrote 2 years ago speak instead.

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the tragic truth behind new years day

...is the fact that, despite the numbers on the chart changing, everything ever really stays the same. no fresh starts for anyone. unless you've earned it, or deserved it by some divine blessing, you're pretty much stuck where you are.

new year's eve was more or less a repeat of last year's swim in a sea of people. except this year, the ocean of revellers seemed a whole lot bigger and i was pretty pooped out after the cooking session earlier that evening.

perched on a flimsy "balcony" in the middle of westminster, with two very drunk, rambling girls, ck, hy and her boy, we sat and watched the firework smoke clear. no new year's kiss, no poignant revelations, nothing much to show for all the bright lights and thunderclap explosions.

i had been planning to start a complete makeover of this site or maybe rearranging the furniture in my room. but i couldn't think of a good enough reason to go through the whole painstaking process. somehow, maybe superficial changes might mask the fact that nothing's really new afterall, but the changes i really need right now, involve a whole lot more effort and fate than a countdown and fireworks.

in any case, here's a toast to 2004. like a kiss with a hot chick with bad breath, i'm grateful for what i got, but it was unpleasant to say the least and i'm f*cking glad to get it over with.

-020105-

"It is impossible to step into the same river twice. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
- Heraclitus

it's funny how i read that line while sitting on a makeshift swing, a log tied to a tree, swaying over the sands of a beach in pangkor island over the weekend. it was from a milan kundera book i happened to bring along in an attempt to figure out a few things and eventually finish reading what i started almost a year ago.

we found our way on the island after a bout of spelunking, multiple breakfasts consisting of toast, half boiled eggs, begedel, milo and ming court (behind excelsior hotel - so i remember) dimsum. it was a trip to bid rohan farewell and come to terms with another piece of youth lost to the real world (if there really is no such thing, how come we can't seem to ever lose sight of it?).

through the drunken events, go-karting and flippant conversations that ensued, i couldn't entirely get over the sense of melancholy at the back of my head. perhaps that would be why after 8 cans of beers and a very successful round of bluff, nightmares still plagued my sleep.

i've been to the island many times since childhood, to fish, heal wounds with family, welcome new family members, contemplate regrets with friends, flirt with girlguides and now, to say goodbye.

i can only wonder what the next trip there will be for?

i've yet to get my head around the past couple of weeks - its flurry, darkness and haste - but somehow this blog must move on.

while i sort out my stories and pictures, lemme plug the perfect pre-chinese-new-year reading:-

nyx's series of posts on liondance trivia -read them and astound your drunk friends and bickering relatives with newly reaped knowledge on the subject.

really enjoyed her posts since i've been fascinated by lion dances since i was a kid. my godparents even bought me my own mini-lion dance kit. wonder where it is...

sitting on a gaudy red couch in a serviced apartment somewhere in the middle east - just lost a long journal entry post to the depths of cyberspace.

my meat shwarma dinner just got delivered.

was planning on writing a travelogue-esque post but i've been writing so much about the country i'm in, i'm a little sick tired of it - i'd rather write bout anything else.

while checking out this girl's blog - recommended by nyx - i came across the term "elevator speech" - trust the MBA wielding community to come up with a phrase for everything yuppies do.

i'm pretty bad at it - those minute long conversations with clients who pay you to spend time with them or colleagues whom you get paid to spend time with. yet given the profession i'm in, it's something i have to learn to pull off better. still, it's like pillow talking with one night stands - not really my thing.

anyway, more randomness some other time. i'm hungry.

excuse the bad pun above. :p

multiple projects, deadlines and client management - that part you dont really want to know about. so i'll get right into the other stuff.

fell ill on my third day in the desert also my braincells have been used up to remember the (arabic and non-arabic) names of 20 or so managerial personnel within 3 days so excuse me if the chronology of these events is off kilter. its a little hard to arrange the flood of thoughts and moments that've been passing through thisguy'slife the past week, so i'm just going to record them in a random list.

woke up one morning after a flu induced deep sleep to find the windows blurred by the after effects of a sandstorm. it's funny and interesting how this is a land where the terrain can shift itself around, washing away blood, ideologies and time. yet some of the tallest, most remarkable structures are now being built - to permanently stand and mark out the shifting sands.

despite being one of the more stubborn amongst my peers in terms being drawn to malaysian life and wanting to live there long term, earlier this year i started toying with the idea of migrating someplace else. over homecooked dinners at two malaysian households displaced to the desert recently, i got a first hand look at what migrant life is like again. the free-er lifestyle and better money offset by displacement and subtle isolation - stuff to keep thinking about for now.

we got stuck in the soukhs yesterday. the narrow street stalls that were closing shop got us lost in the belly of the city. stumbling to find our way back to the main streets we walked through alleys where black shiite flags were hung high, pictures of holymen and possibly freedom fighters adorned some of the archways. basically pretty unerving stuff, even though both of us were born in predominantly moslem countries.

we found our way out safely, although paranoia kicked in at one point i thought we'd next be seen on a breaking news channel.

still, this is a country where

- my apartment cable network has more phone-sex channels than actual programming.
- where there actually is a church right beside a mosque
- you can get a couple of pints of guiness on tap in british styled bars
- you get calls at night in your room phone asking if you "want lady"

yet a few blocks down, away from the luxury cars and migrant workers, there're entire neighbourhoods that look like downtown basra.

despite me counting the days till i get home again, i'm quite fascinated with this city.

anyone who's ever seen a blue october video will understand when i say - grown up straight men with eyeliner shouldn't be allowed to appear on tv.

so perhaps its a new phase of emo-disease i have. first i confessed to having a weakness for my chemical romance, now its blue october. wtf. it's those damn violins/mandolins in that Into the Ocean song. (since when do songs get their own wikipedia entries?)

---

my colleague's flown off, leaving me all alone in this nice apartment in the middle of the city, in the middle of the desert. i've got stacks of dvds and downloads to get me through the weekends so this is going to be the best solitary confinement i'll ever have. the kitchen and fridge is stocked - pasta, instant noodles, precious pork sausages and even stuff like onions, garlic and sauces - all ready for my cooking whims.

tomorrow i aim to venture into the desert to see a tree that's somehow survived in the middle of the desert dunes. i hope my trusty toyota saloon car doesnt get stuck. in any case, if you don't see this blog updated soon, please do send a search party and look out for a lost chinese boy clutching onto his mp3 player and water bottle.

this business trip away, although putting my social life in paralysis, has given some good time to catch up on some reading, side projects (check out thecicak's new look!) and chatting with friends from different time-zones. i've also finally gotten around to downloading some new music. a little late, but i'm really getting into muse's new album - too bad i missed out on their kl gig. oh - speaking of gigs - shakira's performing in the region. bless those hips - they really don't lie.

slow day at work which kind of picked up towards the end - doing a job where your productivity and value add relies on the cooperation, coordination and camaderie of other people is really challenging, but when things work, its also extremely cool - gratifying even.

had the urge to sit in a cinema since i've been sulking because i'm missing out on the release of 300, in pursuit of happyness and mukshin back in kl. so right after work i delayed dinner even though i was hungry and checked out the local cinemas here. a ticket costs RM25, crazy right? i'll have to wait 2 weeks for 300 to open here, but apocalypto was showing, so i caught that instead. pretty well crafted movie, but didnt really see the point of it all, perhaps because i was expecting more of an epic storyline.

---

i think one of the main reasons why i like travelling and displacing myself so much is so that i can find my centre again. (random aside : did you know "centre of gravity" is a now buzzword in the management consulting lexicon?) i've been doing quite a bit of thinking - about my life thus far, choices ahead, parents and loved ones. it's quite nice how this quiet space away from home has opened up pockets of time for me to spend entirely on myself yet i still find myself thinking of all the other people i could be spending time with.

---

so i made my trip out into the desert, took a detour to the south tip of the country where a mega development project is underway - to build luxury property on reclaimed land in the shape of a cluster of islands in the sea. nothing much was built yet, so the nicest thing there was just a model of what the project would look like.

made my way back up and on a whim, i went out to touch the Persian Gulf. the seaside here stretches on for miles and shallow water seems to go on for a few hundred meters. didnt get to see any fishermen tho.

when i finally got to the place i was looking for - the tree of life, it was almost perfect for picture taking. i was disappointed that there aren't any sand dunes around in the desert here. but the tree itself is picturesque, set on a little hill amidst an otherwise barren landscape, its leaves were tiny and some of its branches scooped down into the sand then back up again, like bamboo shoots.

after seeing it for myself, i think i understand why this tree has become a tourist attraction. its beauty lies not in its symmetry or shape or colour, but there's a sense of strength you get from it. no wonder people say it has the qualities of eternal life. it gets beaten by wind and sand and sun on a daily basis, but for 400 years, somehow it has survived and found sustainence for itself to remain on that hill.

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i was just having some random thoughts while eating my dinner alone at the food court. over the past couple of years, i've surprised myself at how much i've been able to take on - how i've managed to get past the crises within and around me. i don't think i could have done it quite as well if not for my roots, sustainence and faith. if you're reading this and you're going through your own crisis, i hope you too find your ground and hold on till its over.

---

on a totally unrelated note - who the heck is mika? they've been playing this grace kelly song on radio here and its stuck on my playlist now.

rot that is.

i feel like my body, my mind - is rotting from the inside - such is the malaise of the three day weekend here in the desert.

after a brief sojurn back home, i found myself back on a plane once more for another month. stocked up on dvds, (babel, the queen, pan's labyrinth and syriana) which I'm determined to not watch all at once.

rediscovered the simple pleasures of cooking, cleaning and ironing. but after a trip to the gym and the pool, i'm forced to realise how i've been rotting my body away the past couple of months. i'd like to say this is going to motivate me to undertake further trips to the gym, but the reality of it is - i hate solo physical activities.

then we come to the mind rot - i've just joined facebook - social networking's most highly evolved perpetrator. i've also built myself my own google homepage - i highly recommend you get yourself one too - it soothes control-freak tendencies and is the niftiest thing since email.

anyway, food is on the way to my doorstep. gotta put some clothes on. wtf.

a hearty arab-styled delivery dinner and french hip-hop finds its way onto my tv screen. black men, rapping in street french makes for some really surreal viewing. but like they say - even cursing in french feels like wiping your arse with satin.

the idea of having this blog was to record as many moments as possible (with the proviso of it not having an impact on my career, reputation etc.) but i feel that i've been leaving too many moments out. i'm losing my ability to link things together. that's what happens, i guess, when your life gets too random - occuring in different time zones, with different groups of people/social settings. if i attempt to recall and talk about things in sequence, in a manner that makes sense, it all becomes too verbose.

i suppose the only way i can record -

• the delay/cancelation of my flight home which left me close to shouting at airport counter people (despite one of them being one of the cutest asian girls i've seen in a while)

• being put on business class by accident - the champagne, conversation with business class passengers (there's a reason why they're a class above the rest of humanity) and service

• the four really special days back home

• the blurry, dreary flight back to the desert

• the many many excellent episodes of west wing (stellar screenplay writing!) i've been absorbing

• the nights out with fellow countrymen out here in the desert

is to just bullet point it, in the manner above. hopefully each bullet point will suffice to trigger more vivid memories as they occured. i wonder if i'll grow old and end up bedridden for the last few years of my life, clutching printouts of these journal entries wishing i took the time to write more...

hmm.

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aside : how come the sight of scarlett johansson kissing bill murray is 100 times sexier more acceptable than her kissing justin timberlake?

in less than 72 hours i should be back home again.

2 months fly by, but instead of feeling comforted, i'm quite scared at the speed time can fly. opportunities missed, moments that never materialised and presence that was never quite tangible enough - slip away like that.

there's not alot to do here in the desert, but i've tried to be as productive as possible, learning new things from people i'd never have crossed paths with if it wasn't for this overseas posting. i'm nearly through the entire series of West Wing - picked up new words, ideas and lessons - who'd have thought you could take home this much from a tv series?

i didn't really go out as much as i thought i would. didn't manage to get that unique taste of local life here. so i don't think i've experienced anything more than the average expat, disappointing.

in any case, i'm set to spend another two months here. will try to squeeze in more travelling and perhaps play host to visitors (if things work out).

---

touch down thursday, back to work friday and off on a much needed break from saturday till monday - woohoo! then after that i anticipate a swamp of work and wedding co-planning. don't know when i'll have the capacity to update again and post some of the photos i took last weekend by the beach. just for fun (and self indulgence) i'll put up the most poseur looking one i have first.

it was windy!

i'm bushed.

it's been several days now surviving on too little sleep and too much activity, scrambling around, dodging cars and city jams and tricky clients and sister's wedding plans and friends and pressing commitments colliding together. to top it off, my ration of coffee, water, proper food and internet has also been intermittent.

today was the clincher though. multiple trips in and out of the city, illegal u-turns and a colleague's punctured tyre really took its toll. god bless 15 minute power naps tho. then at 12.45am, i find out my car's been leaking brake fluid, and there's a rat of some sort living in my airconditioner (in the house, not the car).

yet, while all this is going on, at the back of my head, behind the thousand other things jostling for my attention, there is a worry and dread that overshadows all the other shit that's around now. it feels as if i'm holding my breath underwater, for how long, i don't know...

random asides :-

• i am so shite at finding my way around the city
  
• spending money is hard, especially when time and ability to obtain more money is finite
  
• watching videos of hot chicks projected on a 5x5 foot surface in your bedroom is f*cking awesome
  
• wedding singers/bands are f*cking weird people
  
• how is it that hare krishnas maintain their vegan diet and alcohol abstinence and still manage to seem so happy??

another long day tomorrow. at least i've got dinner and drinks on the company's expense to look forward to.

everytime i'm having a tedious day in the office, or when i'm bored in the middle of a pointless meeting, i find myself teleporting back to better days and better times.

10am, suburban housing area in klang valley, boy scouts' oddjob week : we used to go round the neighbourhoods near our school to do oddjobs for folks on weekends to raise funds for the troop. washing cars, teaching tuition, bathing dogs and cleaning out aquariums for signatures and token amounts of money. the mornings used to last so long, somehow. we'd be sweaty but enthusiastic, and try to avoid doing too much hardlabour. we'd try to pick the houses that had nice cars and possibly a cute teenage girl or two. it taught us a lot about humility and teamwork but was really hard work - i don't know why, but given the choice, i'd gladly do it again.

3pm on a cloudy afternoon in the shade by the poolside. this was during this chinese new year - i had music streaming from my earphones and a good book about strategy on my lap. kid cousins running around and some bikini clad chicks adding to the scenic splendour of the infinity pool. the perfect state of idle.

there's a pool in a newly built condo right outside my project room window at my client's office. tempting me like a motherfucker every afternoon after lunch when i'm sat down working on a dry assessment report.

sigh. at least i've got my earphones on and this music to take me halfway there.

---

i've written before about how my outlook on life is influenced by dicken's great expectations. it was one of the first classics i read as a boy. i've just had a quick lunch with an ex-mentor of mine. one of my first bosses, whom i trusted and confided in when i needed some strong advice. he had a hand in helping me get my present job. yet, over our quick catch-up session, i'm not sure if my sentimentality and dicken-esque naivette is a huge liability to myself. let's just say, the lunch was free, but came with all the requisite "hidden charges" attached with the proverbial free lunch.

also, i find the characters i come across, are as unpredictable as those in the book. people i find myself instinctively distrusting, have surprised me with their honest insight and truths. and people i always thought i could trust, have let me down with their strategic indifference and apathy at different points of time.

it's funny how i've gone through life quite confused most of the time.

---
covent garden - for whenever i want to revisit

bristol '03

i've just spent over 3 hours watching entourage episodes. wasting time is easy.

would've gone on all night, but hairy's ariving on a plane tomorrow at 7am.

here's part of what i wrote earlier - never got around to finishing it.

---

i've got 30 days.

30 days to use productively in my solitary state. well not so solitary, since hairy will be coming over to spend the long weekend here.

what can you do in 30 days in the desert? hermit life can be cool. honest. extract yourself from comfort zones, let your thoughts grow louder and the confines of your head and imagination start to stretch beyond what you normally experience.

i have two goals for this month. we'll see how much progress i make towards them.

-

the past 30 days was used up really well. my family and i threw a wedding for my sister. it went better than what we expected and is probably the biggest, most crazy thing we've done as a family. also managed to wake up for two doggie day outs on two sunday mornings. will post photos and such soon.

---

found this anecdote on the net today -

A guy was seated next to a 10-year-old girl on an airplane. Being bored, he turned to the girl and said, "Let's talk. I''ve heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The girl, who was reading a book, closed it slowly and said to the guy, "What would you like to talk about?"

Oh, I don't know," said the guy. "How about nuclear power?"

"OK," she said. "That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow and a deer all eat the same stuff... grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?"

The guy thought about it and said, "Hmmm, I have no idea."

To which the girl replied, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don''t know sh*t?"

hairy's crashed out after bouts of mojitos and weird trader vic's concoctions. me? i'm just soaking in the moment. we stumbled out from the bar to the beach - where the city skyline was etched out like a neon painting fixed firmly to the desert sand - whilst stars from a million lightyears away glimmered like chinese whispers in the night sky. beautiful.

it's been an awesome week.

leaving was hard, but hairy's trip here has been a lot of fun and made the whole occasion memorable. if he hadn't flown in from london, i'd prolly have spent this week holed up in my apartment focusing on the genius of ari gold and johnny drama.

friends. company. soulmates. all the money in the world and there's nothing that can replicate the feeling of sheer comfort that goes along with friendship.

hairy, you've had a bit too much rum to drink, but when you sober up and read this - i hope you know i fucking appreciate this.

ps - you drink like a girl! :P

do you ever catch yourself in moments of pensiveness - struggling to recall days passed?

i've been keeping online journals for a little over 5 years now. its getting harder to put entries together nowadays. to indulge in the utter vanity and self-indulgence of putting up fragments of my life here. sometimes i feel that i keep writing because i'm afraid that when i stop, the remembering or the need to remember will stop too.

today marks an immensely important occasion in my life. i've just been told - i might be an uncle real soon...

hope to see you soon little little one.

sure i can do a pretty good feasibility analysis for whether or not copper companies should invest in new technology, or whether or not islamic banks should invest in regional busineses or whether or not local tech companies should divest parts of their business, but i'm actually really shite at decisions in terms of my own personal finances.

how do you choose between these?

do you go for the things you NEED, or the ones that you WANT or the ones that'll only happen once in a lifetime?

will it be a...


canon g7



black 80gb ipod



weekend trip to cairo, egpyt



car

or
a return trip to the states in january '08 to meet someone really really special?

"in the confusion and the aftermath you are my signal fire

no, i won't wait forever..."

it's already been a long week. and tonight after failed attempts at reviving my braindead state, i looked out the car window at a beautiful crescent moon and a bright bright shining star nestled beside it. the only two clear lights in the sky tonight. aligned perfectly together - what blasphemy microsoft pantbrush can be - when compared with the real deal i saw tonight.

only god knows this degree of beautiful.

i've picked up this weird habit problem recently. it would be fine if i just mentally undress hot chicks like other normal guys, but, i've found that since maybe a year or so ago, sometimes when i spot a hot chick, -ok this is gonna sound weird- i find myself picturing her old.

i don't know why - i do NOT dig old women ok. on the contrary, it usually turns me off if it's too easy to picture how a hot chick looks when she ages.

anyway, hopefully this goes away - or is it just a sign that i am aging as well?

there is one girl who i find pretty difficult to imagine growing old - and yet - that's exactly what she's doing ...

been listening to a rather certain type of music lately. if you've heard them you prolly know how i've been feeling the past couple of nights. nothing dramatic. just accumulated slices of doubt, pensiveness and melancholy - just because.

augustana - boston
the perishers - pills
rogue wave - eyes
explosions - your hand in mine (goodbye)
deathcab - sound of settling
johnette napolitano - scientist
teresa teng - the moon...

maybe i just feel like a broody teenager again.

i haven't been tagged in a while - so before i start writing bad poetry, here's a meme.

4 Jobs I’ve had in my life
one : consultant camel jokey (paid well)
two : research assistant in a management school (paid really well)
three : cinema grunt (paid shite)
four : air asia call centre voice (paid commission)

4 movies I can watch over and over again
one : S'kali
two : transformers : the movie
three : before sunrise
four : the matrix and animatrix (first one - with the hot animated chick)
(there're prolly a whole lot more movies i could (and have) watch(ed) over and over again - star wars, sepet, crouching tiger, in the mood for love, ninja the wonder boy, batman begins, etc.)

4 Places I’ve been on Vacation
one : venice (the best)
two : rome
three : paris
four : cambodia (the best company)

4 Of my Favorite Dishes
one : steamed white pomfret
two : lasagna
three : ramli burgers (is it a dish? this really shows my culinary sophistication innit)
four : anything with onions/mayonaise/cheese/runny eggs
you really can't ask a malaysian to pick ONLY four dishes as favourites

4 Places I would like to Visit
one : london (with my godfather - if he were still alive)
two : egypt
three : new zealand middle earth
four : borobodur

4 Most overused Words
one : me!
two : discount?
three : f*ck/c*nt/ti*u/b*tch/p*ssy!
four : busy...

4 TV Shows I like to Watch
one : Grub Smith's travel shows / Borat's cultural learnings
two : Entourage / Friday Night Lights / The West Wing
three : theSimpsons / South Park
four : BBC World News / The Daily Show

4 Bloggers I am Tagging
one : huiyi
two : jujette
three : jonvantango
four : lyn

everybody look what's going down...

• najib's been named in the altantuya trial

• hamas matyrs "mickey mouse"

• glasgow airport is attacked

• two carbombs found in london

all this while brown's administration is barely a few days old, princess diana's memorial, gay pride and wimbledon going on - and it's also a few days before the anniversary of the 070705 bombings.

it's a mad world.

i've given up figuring things out. instead, for the most selfish of reasons, i hope these events don't escalate - and cause delays to my flights back this thursday...

---
my journal entry on during the bombings two years ago :

it's 11.12 am, thursday morning 7 July. explosions in central london reported on the news everywhere, around 10am. Sky news being the first with updates.

affected places so far are Russell Square (Tavistock square!) where a bus was blown up.

many more (as yet, no confirmation whether related or not) explosions heard in the underground tube network. the underground is now closed while rescuers salvage for survivors.

general confusion, but no panic. cabinet ministers have issued statement but do not report fatalities yet. eye witness reports say many bloody and injured. nothing conclusive about fatalities.

info above was obtained from television news reports. i wandered outside of houghton street and walked to a shop with televisions on the display windows. many people were crowded around it, trying to sift for information.

everything is well organised, police and medical services already working like clockwork. sirens all around and choppers in the sky.

stay tuned for more updates.

not going to make inferences, but today IS the G8 summit.

nothing further to add, so far me and my sister are ok and have texted my parents. mobile lines are now shut.

wow. has it really been 2 weeks since i've been back to homesoil?
it's flown by yet recalling the span of it is quite a challenge - i seem to have squeezed alot into it.

first off - and most recently - the paranoia.

my house was burgled on thursday night while i was out on the usual tomfoolery with colleagues in our usual drinking hole. possibly (but not quite) the worst experience of the year. they took quite a bit. my mom's 30 year old engagement ring, my shisha pipe, my 4 day old canon g7 (refer to the picture, a few posts back) and cash as well as my dad's digital and video camera. a whole load of other stuff too - some of which didn't make sense at all - why take a 3-pin adapter?? no one was hurt though and i'm thankful for that - but i keep dreading that they'll come back- for my guitars or any of the other shit my family's worked hard to earn just so they can steal in the most cowardly of manners.

since then, we've been quite traumatised. i've been particularly paranoid. but with good reason - about 30 mins ago (2.30am) a neighbour rang and told us that the water pipe in our garden had burst - we checked and someone had left it switched on at full blast.

my mom didn't water the plants today, no one - no one in my house touched it.

o_o

i've got a 1.5 meter steel rod next to my bed now. if any of those mother f*ckers want a piece of it, they're welcome to it.

---

too pissed off and tired of my own paranoia to write about the phuket trip, drunken misadventures and how sweet it is to be back home.

some other time then.

i slowed down to avoid running over a boy who was crossing the road near my old highschool. he dashed across the street and turned to look at me midway - we looked each other in the eye and i realised he look somewhat like me ten years ago - prolly crossing that same road - reckless as ever.

i read a list someone wrote online about the things he would tell himself 10 years ago in a letter. if i could sum my letter up in one word it would be ... slowdown...

i am a crunching rock song, driving deep and drenched in D chords.

i am pensive to the point of perverse pessimism.

i am frivolous to fancy and fleeting flirtation.

i am laid out flat on a moving round surface, apparently, i am spinning.

2000 plus years of enlightenment and we've made a science and art out of smoothing things over.

in the world of economics, there're interest rates, exchange rates policies, stock market regulations and credit ratings to manipulate, and voila - another depression averted.

in the world of socio-politics, there're government propaganda, anti-demonstration laws, the universities and colleges acts, mass media censorship and gag-orders to manipulate, and voila - another tiananmen square averted.

while peace and tranquility is well and good, is it really healthy to partake in this much manipulation? how much longer can we pass bad credit around and silence dissent on the ground - before the tipping point is reached - and all hell breaks loose?

you can only smoothen something out if you see the whole picture. otherwise, you're just shifting shit around. sooner or later, a big wave of crap is going to come our way and let's hope short-sighted manipulators are the first to feel the brunt of it.

"...flowers gaze at you, they're not the only ones - who cry when they see you"
- boston

i can't quite put my thoughts tonight in words coz they keep taking on the shapes of mellow songs. instead -

I need
a hundred cigarettes,
a drink of cold water from somewhere new,
to find out what makes her laugh.

I need something to push against

that will push back just hard enough

to keep me up...

while others have been emo-ing around me, left, right and center, i myself am constipated, but not at all empty. i can't separate my thoughts from each other. observations, disappointments, frivolity, analysis, debate, concerns, guilt and emotional support all deserve a mention.

i was going to put up pictures to compensate for the lack of words, but decided that my verbosity needs some salvation.

pictures another day. instead, today - i offer my prayers :

god, give me the strength i need to be of use to my loved ones, to keep my promises to myself and to others and to walk the path you've put me on.

thank you for all your blessings - the sights i've seen, the lessons i've learnt, the love i have in my life and the friends i've made. thank you for filling my days and life with this richness. thank you for your mercies and your forgiveness over our trespasses.

god, watch over the people in my heart, protect them from evil, give them faith, hope and let them know you are with us. god guide me too as i find my way closer to you.

amen

kaiyea (10.9.05), kong kong (17.9.05), little girl (19.9.07), my thoughts, heart and prayers are with you as well.

perhaps it's a sign of confusion with my life, and how hard it's becoming to focus on specific things nowadays, but my dreams have been really weird lately, and the deja-vu moments too...

as