RACONTEUR-ESQUE SCRIBBLINGS

Ok. The word "quality" probably stretches it a bit too far, akin to bestowing yourself the nickname Rapunzel when your hair barely surpasses your scapula, but I'm sure you get my drift... a lower frequency of posting inadvertently assumed to be well thought out and crafted posts. How far it is from the truth... Sigh. So here I am, taking the blogging bull by it's proverbial horns, doing the best I can to get back to somewhat regular posting - preferably every other day, training my mind to view things from the left hand side of a tightly closed box (whatever that means), appreciating the amusing stuff that happens on a daily basis and documenting them no matter how daft. I will try to avoid rants as much as I possibly can, though... unless they're in the form of haiku. Therefore, while we may lack quality, which I am fervently hoping will not be the case for too long, here's to a tad bit more quantity (does a crazy toast with a giant blue water bottle and...

With the immense quantity of information floating around these days, it would be surprising indeed if you were not exactly aware of what is going on around you unless you purposely shut yourself out, something which is possible but unlikely, or is it impossible but likely??? A case in point is the recent, never-ending string of natural disasters that have happened, the latest being the massive earthquake that crippled Haiti. Now, certain quarters may say that recent events indicate evidence pointing to how we are nearing the apocalypse or something along those lines, anyway, but when you think deeply, are we realising the existence of these natural disasters in alarming numbers because we are more aware and more exposed to up to the minute news? It seems much more likely, I'd say. Besides, the Earth has never exactly been the most stable planet, and probably never will be either. But I digress... In the past week or so, the people of the country have been stunned into almost ...

Books and memes happen to be two of my favourite things, books in the real world, and memes in the virtual world, and therefore, I had pilfered this meme from Trav's Thoughts. The rules are simple enough and seem pretty fun.  1. Find the nearest bookshelf of your favourite reads, cookbooks, tech books, magazines. It doesn't matter. This will work for all print media. If you don't have seven books lined up on a shelf, grab the first seven you see around the house. (I had to modify this a bit seeing that my books are  a) practically everywhere or  b) may cause an avalanche with attempted removal from the cupboard they're arranged in (term used very lightly),  which led me to pick the last seven books (fiction) I read (they're in a box) arranged in the order they were read. I have also eliminated about 3 books because they're from the same author - went on a mad Roald Dahl marathon recently) 2. Book #1: Turn to page 21. Read the 21st sentence (you may hav...

"They really need the money" so said fellow blogger and the informant of all things financial, Zewt . And although it makes sense to a certain extent (you need money to run a country, naturally) the whole thing seems a bit unfair... as though you're being punished. At least that's the way I feel... It's been awhile since the budget was announced (I wasn't exactly in the country then, and after that I got a tad bit too busy to review it) and there was one thing among a few that people were generally unhappy about. However, despite the numerous complaint letters sent to the papers (mainstream media, alas - sniggers), they had not backed down from the decision to charge every credit card holder a service tax of RM 50 for each principle credit card they have (not necessarily used) The thing about credit cards is that they're convenient... especially for people who don't fancy carrying around cash. If you look at it, RM 50 may not seem like a huge amoun...

"Will the police check all blogs?" my mother asked the other day as I was sitting on the floor doing something which I can't recall now. Now, that is a classic example of 'borrowing' things to worry about. Mom has always viewed this particular hobby of mine with apprehension because she probably thinks that I sometimes don't know when to keep my mouth shut (which is true sometimes, unfortunately) and I occasionally do exaggerate to her about what I want to write, just to annoy her (like how I used to purposely support the team playing opposite Liverpool when I watched football (or soccer) with my dad) About a few days before mom asked me that question, they had announced on the news (seriously, my mom watches too much news these days much to my horror) that they were conducting checks on contents in blogs and would make arrests if the contents incited hate or were throwing blame on certain parties for a string of what could possibly be defined as planned h...

It would be very, very interesting and beneficial if I could form a bond between myself and the laptop using my ponytail as we seem to constantly live in the utter hopelessness of disharmony. Silly notions aside, the idea for this concept was naturally 'borrowed' (although the bond should logically be between objects that are animate instead of inanimate) from a movie that has seemed to have gathered fans like a famous football player. The cousins, sister and I had watched Avatar at the very beginning of the year, as usual hoping that the crowds would have dissipated by then, but as luck would have it, it was not to be... we got our tickets alright, but it was insanely close to the screen, which I suppose we didn't mind at the end of it. Now Avatar has a particularly intriguing concept... an alien planet by the name of Pandora (Pandora's Box, anyone?) similar to Earth, with inhabitants similar to us (but so very different at the same time - language, their view on l...

I just realised that giving death threats to a thumb drive or pen drive or whatever else it's called is as futile as chasing away a man (or woman) eating tiger with a "shoooo" and a wave of the hand. That said, a trusty old pen drive (5 years and counting) which had been working just perfectly fine yesterday evening (until 6:45 pm) has decided to close it's curtain on me. The only thing it tells me is that it is not formatted and would I like to format it now? I don't. All I want is for it to open so that I can e-mail something very, very important which took me a few good hours to complete to my boss! So, if there is anyone out there who knows how to retrieve the data that refuses to show itself... please help. Thank you... (trying my best to not panic) Edit: I got a lead from a friend on Facebook, but there are still some hitches, as in the software tells me that the documents are still there, somewhere, but I'm not very clear on how to 'rescue...

So it's 6 days into the promising, untainted white cloth that is the year 2010, the only problem being it seems to lack something vital, which in turn makes it seem like a drab grey cloth with frayed ends as opposed to the fresh clean one. I took the last few days of 2009 and the first few days of 2010 off (it was the weekend, after all), a kind of reprieve from the real and virtual world, a chance to shut down the brain, take a break from the blog and the internet and just do as I like (I did have some 'homework' to do, unfortunately and quite a number of errands to run) hoping that by the time I had to return to work, I'd be fresh, awake and ready to take on tasks that come my way with enthusiasm and gusto. Instead I find myself back to the way I was before I took my break, exhausted, worried and now I'm wondering where the hell did my 'getting back into the groove' get to. I suppose it's the fact that the moment you come back you realise your next...