The open box and a caterpillar

It's March! Time for another story about the jing bang!

Twas many years ago, in March when 3 people were out to celebrate their 19th birthday together, marking the end of their teens and all other things, and the beginning of some things for some people.... hehehehe.

Anyway, to make things easier (not only for the reader but also for me), I shall refer to the people involved based on initials... Amongst the girls were D, M, C and me, and the jim bang consisted MS, N, V and R. Birthday people were D, MS and me.

It was a cloudy afternoon on the day we planned the 'birthday party'. D, M and I got at the meeting point on time, with our cute lady like umbrellas in tow.... C and R was supposed to meet us at the location, whereas MS, N and V were supossed to meet us at the meeting point but were nowhere in sight at the stipulated time...

The cloudy day begin to show it's true colours by showering us with an unwelcomed drizzle followed by rain... not a storm, but just some rain. It would have been welcomed withopen arms on any other day...

So, there we were, waiting under the shade of the bus stop, accompanied by a stranger (If i'm not mistaken, the 'stranger' took theatre with some of us...) As the drizzle continued, the 3 of us got into a discussion as to how late our other friends would arrive at our meeting point. We went through an elaborate discussion as to how none of them would have an umbrella to get them around, trying to figure out how they would actually arrive, when would they arrive and the list went on. As far as I could remember, this conversation went on, practically non stop, providing ample entertainment to our stranger who happened to stay glued to his spot even after the rain had stopped into a mild acceptable, walkable drizzle once again...

Finally we see our friends, walking in a single file under an open cardboard box. It was indeed an interesting sight... something I'd remember for life. At that moment, our stranger decided to leave.
It was then M realised that our stranger was interested in knowing who our friends were...

Rock rocks

People's taste in music is subjective, or should be. You could be a fan of gangsta rap as well as golden oldies at the same time. Many people don't even go for music genres... they listen to anything that is available and enjoy all kinds of music. Some people have an eclectic taste. I say cool :)

But then again, why do some people look at rock music as though it is the worst thing that was ever created? Take for instance the recent banning of black metal music here. OK, I admit that I'm not a fan of black metal, heck i don't even know what it sounds like and, nor can I name anyone else who might be a fan of this particular type of music. I'm just assuming that this music is placed under the category "ROCK". How does anyone expect anyone to 'grow' if they are not exposed to everything in this world? I feel it is up to the individual if they want to listen to a particular type of music or not.

Another thing that has been bugging me is why do people have to wonder as to how some people enjoy listening to rock music. They think it's noisy (err... guitars and drums are musical instruments, hence they make noise) and the singers scream (how else are you gonna make yourself heard over the 'noisy' guitars and drums?) My question is what's wrong with that? Some people's noise is other people's music!

Yeah... rock songs may at times be a bit unsingable to, but they do provide good entertainment :)

Technologically unsavvy

People always say that things change for the better. I beg to differ. Advanced technology is fine, but at the rate new technology emerges from the depth of some super genius' brain, it is getting to be quite a pain.

I recently read the Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy. It was a pretty enjoyable book. Oh well, that's an understatement... i enjoyed the book immensely, but since that is not what this post is about, I shall leave it at that. What caught my attention was a sentence from the book which more or less stated that humans (or earthman) were fascinated by digital watches. Digital watches! That was ages ago... It was quite alright for the author to mention digital watches at that time, because the digital watches remained pretty much unique for some time which eventually enabled the book to become famous and remain so till today. But what if someone decided to write a book today concerning the latest technology, say 3G phones... sooner or later they'd get dated, and by the time the book gets published... those reading it might wonder why was the author so backdated.

It's maddening how your PC or laptop becomes outdated within months... It's annoying when your newly bought cellphone (extremely up to date at the time of purchase) gets replaced by some new technology no one could have dreamed of just a few months back. Or you're holding back on your purchase of a digicam because the megapixels keep getting higher and higher and you're wondering what the limit could be.

November 07, 2005

Another birthday story

Today reminds me of the time when my friends and I made a CD for a friend on her 21st birthday. Honestly, the CD was something we put together, but the whole process of “the making of the CD” provided me, if not all of us a sense of something to look back and remember and have a good laugh about.

Birthday presents were always a hard topic. Budget, the person involved’s likes and dislikes, time factor, and who was going to do the purchasing….oh yeah, and keeping the whole thing a secret from the person involved (the worst part of the whole experience but it was worth every effort when you see the genuine look of surprise on the person’s face – either the secret was really well kept, or the whole gang, 12 in all are deserving nominees for best actresses)

Collecting bits and pieces of songs we sang from the time we met, not to mention singing it to the microphone to be recorded was not an easy process, as I found myself choking with laughter; and at the same time trying to block out the funny memories, which spurred the creation of those songs. Worse still was when a bunch of us had to sing and one of us accidentally letting out a suppressed giggle would result in us having to redo the whole piece, and more laughter will follow suit…

Hmmmm… another memory from the CD included me and another friend calling out the birthday girl for lunch so that her boyfriend could go over to her house and sing on her housemate’s microphone. What was so abnormal about this was that we hardly went for lunch, as we mostly woke up after lunch time, one of her housemates had to skip lunch although she was awake to accommodate the boyfriend’s singing, and due to unforeseen delays, some of us had to keep her away from her house until he had finished singing and got out of her house. The best part of it all was she never suspected a thing. Good for her!

Humpty Dumpty Love Song

This song has been on my playlist the past few days. All I can say is that it is
one of the most heartwrenching songs I've ever heard, right from the lyrics to
the music accompaniment and down to the melancholic voice of the singer.
It is such a sad, sad song, but a really good one although it can make you
utterly and hopelessly depressed.

Now that I've stated the obvious, I rest my case.

The Humpty Dumpty Love Song

all of the king's horses and all of the king's men
couldn't pull my heart back together again
all of the physicians and mathematicians too
failed to stop my heart from breaking in two
cos all i need is you
i just need you
yeah you got the glue so i'm gonna give my heart to you
i had a premonition
a movie in my hand
confirming my suspicions of what i would find
it followed me to l a
down to mexico
came in through the back door at the start of the show
still all i need you
i just need you
yeah you got the glue so i'm gonna give my heart to you
oh was a perfect day
oh in a perfect way
you know something had go
you left me high
you left me low
now as i lie in pieces and wait for your return
the sun upon my forehead it burns baby burns baby burns
an eye on all my horses
you've slept with all my men
i'm never gonna get it together again
still all i need is you
i just need you
yeah you got the glue
so i'm gonna give my heart to you
yeah you got the glue and there's nothing i can do
yeah you got the glue so i'm gonna give my heart to you

by travis
from songlyrics101.com

In search of the Masnaut

The Americans call em Astronauts, the Russians call em Cosmonauts. So we should join the bandwagon and call our future space bound person something so we'd sound original. My suggestion is Masnaut. Why not?

Although Mas does not necessarily signify space: note astro and cosmo... I unfortunately couldn't come up with anything better. Angkasanaut?

For the sake of a surprise

I've been thinking a lot about things that happened a few years ago, especially friends' birthday celebrations. I remember the secrets, the drama and the lies that went with the surprise... hahahaha, weren't those some good times.

This story goes back as far as October 1999. It was on a Friday night, the eve of a friend's birthday and we, (3 of her pretty close friends decided to surprise her with a banner). If I'm not mistaken, she kinda requested for a banner, in one of our previous conversations. Understandably, we had many of those conversations, and remembering the exact details can be a bit difficult.

Yeah, on Thursday and Friday afternoon, the 3 of us set to work. Don't exactly know what excuse her roomate gave her for her absence from the room, but 3 of us huddled in my room with the doors locked equipped with lots of paper, colour pencils, markers and tape and pretended to be the Van Gogh's of the new millenia (near enough - although our art wasn't that abstract, nor beautiful; none of us being talented in that area.... sigh).

Well, on Friday night, at the future birthday girl's request - 3 of us went to pray at the nearby temple - another friend was not exactly well and couldn't go - and this actually threw our carefully laid plans into a disarray... the banner could only be put up after she returned from the temple but right before midnight - i think, for the surprise to have a full effect.

On our journey back from the temple - this was a 20 minute walk which was very refreshing, she complained of sleepiness. Me and the other friend exchanged alarmed glances as she was supposed to be awake to get her surprise, and I proceeded to tell her that we should get some ice cream when we reached the dorm area hoping that it would keep her sleepiness at bay, and to give ample time for my roomate to help with the placing of the banner outside her window.

After the ice cream, we proceeded to my room first, as to give a signal to my roomate about our return... then my roomate put up a show telling us how sleepy she was, and we went on to the birthday girl's room to discuss about something (some weird package she received from our guy coursemates)After some time, her other roomate pulled her curtains close as my roomate had gone out to put the banner outside the window. It was kinda wierd because the people in that room never closed their windows before actually sleeping, so the question obviously popped out from the birthday girl, and the response from the roomate was utterly hilarious; "the cats outside are ugly".

It was awfully tiresome trying to tear her from the window and keep her awake at the same time, and also to prevent her from finding out in the midst of preparations... but it was quite unfortunate that the banner was still askew when she saw it, still not completely set up... The surprise was spoiled, and her other roomate was in disbelief as all our plans had turned the other way round, as it was impossible keeping her away for prolonged periods of time

Instead of getting wished "Happy Birthday", she received an "I hate you!"

Originally posted on May 14, 2005

Where has the nasi lemak gone?

It's been awhile since I had my last dose of nasi lemak, which shall be referred to as NL from now henceforth. It has been that long that I can't remember when I last had a plate of the favourite breakfast.

Anyway, as I was saying... the absence of nl from the breakfast menu is not by choice. Firstly, the lady who sells NL at the entrance of my neighbourhood has gone AWOL eversince the fasting month in October last year. Has her sale of NL the past few years elevated her finances to levels that render her sale of NL to be not necessary anymore? Or has she moved to another neighbourhood? And then of course there's another choice where I could get my NL cravings fixed - that is at the tuck shop at work. However, since the original lady had returned from confinement and took the shop back from some pretty useless assistants, the NL sells like hot cakes (extra hot - not like before she left), but I'm always too late.

Ah, this is madness... here I am on a Sunday morning wishing the NL lady would make a sudden appearance, but she does not. So I blog about NL instead and think of fellow NL fans who might be deprived of it.

February 05, 2006

I need some sleep

My body is here but my mind has drifted away.
It has been away for a long time, now. I am slouched on a chair typing this post because I want to, but the mind refuses to work properly.

See, this is what happened:I'm currently quite sleepy but I know for a fact that when I actually go to bed and try sleeping, I will not be able to do so. That has been a common occurence for the past few months. In the sleepiness, I think of this song which i quite like... aptly titled I need some Sleep by The Eels. It's a simple song with simple verses but i just wanted to check out the lyrics so that I can post it here. Copy and paste, you may say... ha ha ha.

Guess what? Thought that it was quite a strange occurence though that I could not find the lyrics to that song (the artist may not be popular... [here anyways], but it was part of the soundtrack for a movie that was) And then, I notice that I typed the artist as the ells and didn't even notice it. (at the bold underline area which asks "did you mean ....?"

The song: I need some sleep by The Ells (just kidding; The Eels)
I need some sleep (how so very true)
You can't go home like this (i'm at home already)
I try counting sheep (never worked... the brain gets more active)
But there's one I always miss (see, I told ya that the brain gets more active)
Everyone says I'm getting down to low (No one says so... but it may be true)
Everyone says, "You just gotta let it go" (No one has said that to me:))
You just gotta let it go (same as above)
You just gotta let it go (same as above)

I need some sleep time to put (too lazy to add comments here... )
the old horse down
I'm in too deep and the wheels (and here...)
keep spinning round
Everyone says I'm getting down to low
Everyone says, "You just gotta let it go"
You just gotta let it go
You just gotta let it go
You just gotta let it go
You just gotta let it go
You just gotta let it go ( I need some sleep)

Lifelessness... you just gotta live with it!

February 10, 2006

Theories and analogies

So, there is this person I know who has a certain tendency to theorise, categorise and stereotype others based on their ethnicity, choice of career, etc. Not exactly a bad attribute, instead I find it to be quite interesting.

A snippet of our conversation went somethng like this:

Friend: Terra, does your dad work for the government, or is he a teacher?
Me: Huh? Well, not exactly... The place he works in has already been privatised. Why do you ask?Friend: Ha! I guessed almost correctly... Well most (ethnic group) girls I know who did science or engineering had fathers who were either teachers or worked in the government sector. And their mothers are mostly housewives... yours?
Me: Aren't you stereotyping people?
Friend: Yeah, but it's correct most of the time. So, is your mom a housewife?
Me: Yup.

The same person also attempted to 'guess' the occupations of another friend's (No.2) parents... but hit a snag when it came to her mother's occupation. Apparently he forgot to take into consideration that she had mentioned about having a naughty younger brother.

One interesting piece of conversation the 3 of us had involved the solvent wash basin, spatulas and steel mugs.

Friend No 2 and I were washing our spatulas and steel mugs at the solvent wash basin while having a casual conversation on extremely ordinary stuff... and there comes the other friend standing between us and commenting:

"In the old days, women used to chat by the river side while washing their clothes. In the modern day, women chat at the solvent basin" Obviously this statement was met with gales of laughter.

However, the most ridiculous theory by this same person was when he specified that several colours are favoured by certain people based on their ethnic groups, and cited my car colour as an example. I disagree.

I suppose theories like these are pretty entertaining . I remember that I and a few others were also responsible for theorising that all people who went to school (primary and/or secondary) in Johor Bahru had large handwriting... (there was evidence!)

Originally posted on January 14, 2006

Blogs and Bloggers

My own observation on the different types of bloggers on the WWW

1.The daily blogger - This blogger tends to have a post posted on every day, regardless if there are issues to write about or not. These blogs usually can be interpreted as an online diary where the said blogger pours out his or her heart for all to see. Some may consist of what they did in day to day life such as what happened at work/school/home, what they had for lunch and how they feel about the said lunch, or even an apology to readers if they cannot post something long enough to be classified as a post.

2. The random blogger - The random blog has posts that cover any topic under the sun, be it about themselves, their friends, trials and tribulations, stories from the past and present, and maybe future too, observations, etc. They may not be posting posts every single day, but then some of them might. The blog usually has no particular direction, and if I assume correctly, the reason these blogs come into being may be due to the blogger's need to have an outlet to express their thoughts.

3. Kenny Sia - Malaysia's own most famous blogger, posts about anything that catches his attention. Can be categorised as a random blogger too. He has no qualms about discussing some issues that may be misintepreted and deemed sensitive by certain people. Hilarious most of the time.

4. The angsty blogger - These blogs I presume are most probably written by by angsty young people. Yes, life is not a bed of roses, and these people need to vent out all their pent up anger to be able to live life normally. My wild imagination pictures these angsty writers as gothic looking people who look as though they cried the whole night away (while not blogging) with smeared eyeliner... Their blogs are usually titled something like " the rants of...", "the disillusioned..."

5. The poetry blog - Some people like to read poems and collect them, and what better way then to set up a blog just for all the poems they find interesting. Some which I have read mostly just put up the poem and don't say why. It would be interesting to know their personal thoughts and interpretation of the poems...

6. The baby blogger - Ha! Ha! Ha!... Don't be fooled, the blogger is not a baby, but an extremely excited parent who spends their time putting up the baby photos and events that the baby should know about in the future. These hi-tech parents should be applauded for their efforts to show the world how happy they are about their baby... and I'm sure the baby will be so happy to find out that everybody knows about them, has seen them in their nappies, what was their first word, etc (maybe except for the time when they are moody and surly teenagers...)

7. The work blog - Some jobs are interesting enough to be blogged about, such as music video directors.... But I cannot imagine some jobs being blogged about, but then again, anything is possible :)

8. The marketing/Advertisement blog - Unfortunately one of the most boring kind. Aren't there too many advertisements on the radio and telly already, and now we have to put up with this? 'sigh'

9. The adult blogger - You have to be 18 above to access this... and there's tab stating that you really have to 18 and above, so please click on the tab... too much of a waste of time, so couldn't be bothered... but there are some out there which is in the general category. Interesting....

10. The photo blogger - Fans of photography will love this. Unfortunately photos take a looooong time to load especially when you still use a dial up connection. I'll pass...

11. The Storytellers blog - Some people practice writing on their blogs. Provides free entertainment for readers and the writers get comments that may help them better their skills in case they decide to pursue writing seriously. Some dedicate blogs to jokes, but I don't have any idea if the jokes are theirs or they heard it from somewhere. I must add though that my favourite happens to funny stories which happened in real life.
I think I'll categorise myself as the random blogger...

February 10, 2006

The adventure that wasn't

It's been awhile since I last had a dream. Ok, maybe I did dream, but it most probably happened while I was in a deep slumber that i had no recollection of it at all (Read somewhere that if the dream occurs in mid sleep and if you don't wake up within 10 minutes after the dream is over, then you will never realise that you had a dream in the first place)

Well, last night I had a dream, totally unanticipated, but nevertheless inspiring (me to write this!)

Characters: Friends from all the different stages of life, childhood up to university (sorry colleagues!) But they were all mainly in the background...
Location: A cross between my old house in Taman Raja Zainal (albeit much larger), and some ancient architecture (most probably from one of the ancient history documentaries I've been recently watching but not paying much attention to)
Objects: 1)My car - it was parked in one of the lots in the building but disappeared the second time around. 2) Lots of noise - something from war movies or documentaries

Storyline: The layout of the area was similar to a shopping complex, with the car park at the same level. (A single story building...)

But I can't recall if I actually went there to shop or not... All of a sudden there was some sort of invasion (aliens, or bad guys... hmm something to ponder upon), and everyone had to swiftly but quietly move from corner to corner, leaning against the wall like spies in an adventure flick to the one and only exit from the place (the back door of my old house?) and wait outside on a small slope (Really reminds me of the old house).

Walking in a single file, in total silence, not daring to look up and not allowing ourselves to be seen (the enemies were now obviously inside looking for us... are they stupid or what?). This went on for a while, and suddenly i found myself back in, looking for transportation to flee the area and noticing the missing cars at the same time, and looking for a way out once again... the dream ended here as I had to get up. Wish I knew how it would have ended.
Sigh...

May 10, 2005

A poem by a kidney

Drink 8 glasses of water
I tell you daily!
But you act as if it doesn't matter
Like fitting a hole with it's key
This is a signal, a sign or whatever
It's a warning from your kidney

A tortured 'soul' I am
Through lack of H2O
From pm right up till am
I ask for a favour, you say "No, no, no!"
I'll keep you out of harm
If what I ask, you do!

February 16

Say What?

Have you ever walked into a store, wanting to search for something when you're rather in a hurry, so you try to get some help from the sales assistants and your request gets a blank stare or a huh? followed by a blank stare....?

Not too long ago, I had to search for something at a music store, and naturally I turned to the sales assistant after looking through the alphabetically arranged display and being unable to find what I was looking for. The sales assistance gave 'the look'. I thought he couldn't hear me through the loud music at the store, so I tried speaking up a bit louder.

Apparentlly. he could not understand what I was asking for,

My question was: 'can you help me find (artist)'s cd (title)?

Yes? (I'm positively sure it was a question as the guy made no attempt to get to the rack to look for the cd)

Rephrased as 'can you help me find (artist's) latest cd?

''Oh... (comprehension finally dawning on him) we don't have it'

Pretty odd for a music store as there were about 5 titles in my list and they had none of the cd's in the store

February 18, 2006

Regrettable activities

I used to think that I was a great matchmaker, and some friends were victims of my evil deeds. I just randomly picked 2 people (mostly friends, but friends of friends have not been really spared, either) and matched them up. Most of the time, I informed at least one of them that they've been matched.

One of my victims was this particular girl, X, whom I automatically paired off with guy Y. The thing is, they had NOTHING in common with the exception that they were aware of each other's existence and I knew them too. Of course the rest of my friends caught on with this mad idea and chipped in insane quips like how they were made for each other!

Somehow, somewhere along that time, the both of them had their names referred to as Jack and Jill - and just to annoy her (X, or Jill) the friends used to sing the nursery rhyme of Jack and Jill going up the hill and so on... (The name giving was prompted by the evening of the lantern festival, but that's another story!)

By the way, (Jack, or Y) was totally oblivious to this matchmaking. He was an indirect participant. Come to think of it, I'm glad that he was spared of the knowledge, because as I'm typing this I begin to realise how stupid this whole thing sounds.

Anyway, even after receiving comments from Jill that I'm crazy to even think of matchmaking them, I found an article in the newspapers about the real life Jack and Jill who lived in England many many years ago. They were the inspiration for the nursery rhyme, but their real story was pretty sad, with both of them dying pretty young and all. BUT, how did such an article appear in the papers of a distant country if weren't supposed to mean anything? As my friends and I used to say back then: "it's a sign"...

Notes:1) Nothing happened out of that matchmaking, Maybe the article was a sign, to me :- "give up on your mad matchmaking scheme..."
2) I have since refrained from any matchmaking - all my friends are now safe!

May 14, 2005

The Ghost and the Darkness

Hmm.. many might mistake this as the movie made back in 1996. Personally, I’ve never seen it myself, but the ghost and the darkness here refers to a certain basic math lecturer I had in first year.The funny thing was, math being quite an interesting subject managed to put even the most alert of students to sleep with this woman droning on and on about the subject. This is however, NOT a character assassination of the said lecturer but my own thoughts on the happenings in her classes.

Firstly, her classes were mostly at 11:00 am, time for brunch, so of course a bunch of hungry 18 year olds would need a bite before going for class, therefore, there were obviously lots of late comers to the class, and plenty of disturbances…Secondly, she loved hovering near the bright lights of the projector, thus hiding part of the slide she was teaching from and casting a hilarious looking shadow on the wall.

It curiously looked like a rocket, or shuttle cock or something conical… hehehe… And, it was this shadow that prompted the name giving of the ghost and the darkness – NOT related to the movie, but the title was catchy, and fun…Having her going on for the whole hour was quite painful, because for some unknown reason, she was barely audible (maybe the class was noisy)… and toward 11:50, if you listened well enough, there would have been whispered versions of “auld lang syne”, all dedicated to the Ghost and the Darkness. And yeah, this was more audible compared to her lessons!Note: Was one of the singers ;-)

April 29, 2005

Standing inside a broken cupboard with a math book in my hands

This incident happened way back in 1998. This was a time when the ghost and the darkness had completely lost me, and I had completely lost her… but somehow things around her were always bound to be weird.

In the true spirit of upholding the morality of female students (yeah right…) my residential college decided to hold a talk for all female students living there, and attendance was compulsory. There were rumours that the room would be checked during the talk to avoid truancy.

The problem was, the next day we were supposed to have a math exam and last minute work is what most of us are famous for. It was like living in a nightmare. Anyways, we duly attended the talk and were bored to death, even with the math text book. Sitting pretty near one of the exits, we hatched a plan where at certain intervals, one by one of us would get out and go back to the room to study. And it happened.

Sitting in the room and doing math questions as if life depended on it, my roomies and I heard the door across the corridor slam and a jingle of keys which at that moment sounded pretty ominous – they WERE checking the rooms for runaways!

Horrified, I turned to my roomies and we knew we had to get out from there immediately. Turning off the lights, we hopped out of the open window and I stood on the ledge of the building, holding my breath (why?) while hearing the horrible jingling sound come nearer and nearer, and doors being open and shut. The felo downstairs saw us on the ledge and looked again – most probably wondering at a bunch of girls’ abnormal studying habits.

A little while later the sounds ceased to exist and we went back in and continued studying (tried to - actually) but the nervousness never went off. However, one of us decided to head downstairs and check on another friends room. We had to warn them about them checking the rooms. And it ended up with all of us going downstairs to their room, still with that horrible book in tow.

At our friends’ room, they were all studying without much trouble. We then proceeded to inform them about the happenings upstairs and managed to frighten them also, as we soon began to hear the now familiar jingle of keys and opening and closing of doors. Now there were 6 very frightened people in this room and they had to ledge to hide in. The cupboards! Two of us got into one cupboard – in the dark, and with the math book, and another two got into another cupboard and two others – under the tables, behind some boxes. The cupboard began to creak – not meant for human weight I suppose ;-)

Credits and notes:
1. Title modified from “Standing outside a broken phone booth with money in my hands” by primitive radio gods
2. None of us were caught that night – the sound came from other runaways who weren’t so discreet

Originally posted on June 14, 2005