-

The last day of work was……restful. Today the Divine Sprinkler of Irony must’ve broke and been sent for repairs since no predictably unfortunate twist of fate happened my way. =)

No huge crowds no fire no someone getting decapitated, which usually happens on days like this, (because in almost any instance in my sorry life you’ll find something most unfortunate happening to me at a most unfortunate time in the most unfortunate of circumstances-yeah, revel in the self-pity). Instead I got to laze around, talk shop with Johari, drink excess Ice-Blended Chocolate with excess chocolate sauce, sketch a bit, reflect on life in general.

Very fuzzy.

It was one of those contented rainy days—all you wanna do is curl up on the couch with a good and a steaming mug of cocoa at your side…. Once or twice you’d take a break, watching the rain trickle down the windowpane listening to 93.3’s crooners, or sit back on the sofa drinking in the melancholy of a Hayao Miyazaki movie.

Motley crue.

Around four Danny dropped by with his more-twin-than-cuzzie cuzzie and finally, after 5 days of squinting at menus and blob-things I assumed were people ---finally, I got my glasses back. Idiot Danny. Thanks a lot for the favor when I could’ve just gone to Perling Mall to collect them myself which would’ve took like ten minutes, but nooo you had to have a great idea like all your other great ideas and have KX who was working at Eyesmate pass it to me through you but you were busy for the next five days since Monday (which is when I got them repaired) and whut the freud I was blind for the whole week, thanks a lot Danny.

==.==;;;;

That night a horror flick by the Pang brothers' assistant director was on (called, terrifyingly enough, “SCARE YOU TO DIE” ) and everyone, even the stragglers in aisle 3, were engrossed in it, so powerful was the soundtrack.

Dina was doing the typical teenage girl thing—covering her face with both hands but still peeking out through her fingers, gasping theatrically and shutting her eyes whenever anything vaguely disturbing came onscreen (or when the musc approached a crescendo). Thomas treated us all to french fries and onion rings, everyone crowded round table B2 together, Mira dimmed the lights, and a makeshift cinematic experience was born right there in that little café.

*cue strings*
*from Psycho*

The movie was fun, more entertaining than scary really. It was 11 when I finally knocked off, the show sans commecials lasting about 2 hours. At any rate we all did something somewhat fun for a change. No overtime tough, worst luck.

Dina asked me to draw her something to remember me by. A memento of our times together, being harried by customers, getting in each other’s way, taking turns to slurp excess blender juice (as disgusting as that sounds) and generally evoking a feeling of---what's the word--- esprit de corps?

So anywho here it is:

Spent the most time getting her pose and dimensions right, but even now it still looks weird. Is it the butt cheeks?

Not pro at all. =(

In other pics, say hello to my little friend:

Who knows how long he (she?) has been up there, weathering strong winds and bitter rain to spin patient doom for flies. Noticed him (her? it?) a few days ago in the copse of trees just outside the café but only after bringing along my telephoto lens could I catch him(dia la) in such detail. No point clicking to enlarge, fyi.

Father Gabriel

E. called up at an unearthly hour. Turns out he'd tumbled from his cloud into the waves below; 'twas all I could do to pull him out of the murky depths, albeit into the same solitary boat as I.


Enough amateur allegory for today. Been keeping mum about a lot of things lately---Not least the secrets people keep unceremoniously dumping on me. Do I really look like the priest at the other end of a confession booth? Give me some respite, you cretins! Guh.





I call it "Gossamer Melancholy". Not the most poetic of titles, I know. In fact it kinda reminds me of the (insert acronym here) scan they use to look at 4-month-old foetuses, 'cept this one's in glorious technisepia. Sorry for the blurrity; I don't have tripod la. ==

Objection!

The ipod is screwing up my sense of hearing.

Not in the usual sense of having my ears blasted off to Mars by lack of discretion in the volume control dept.

They're messing up my sense of pitch. It seems the louder the volume gets, the higher the pitch, and as such, the converse is also true. Playing songs at bakground noise level, I found, drops the pitch by a semi-semitone or two. Oh c'mon, that ain't so bad. Sure it's not, if it didn't also screw up my vocals and guitar tuning.

Now everything I warble is flat. >_<


Holding on to patience wearing thin..


Yesterday's rain brought a shower of fresh challenges, bungled mistakes (how does one foul up a foul up anyway?) and barbed reunions.


Daniel and the gang crashed by asking for some debate help. I told them Arena but no one could find it on Youtube; I told them Phoenix Wright but they hadn't even heard of a Feenicks, let alone played the game. So they were sent away empty-handed, but not before we made full use of the premises to lepak in high style (which in this case is as low style as possible).


Ahh, if only Kristel were here.

The a in gabs right now stands for apathetic.

Headbanging to Champagne Supernova while experiencing an anaemia-inducing nosebleed = #34 on the list of weird, inadvisable, or downright idiotic things to do without thinking about it beforehand. No gory details but suffice to say the moon was painted a crimson red that night.



I dreamt I had a crick in the neck. Then I woke up to find the dream had come true. In the most excrutiating way possible. I think I need one of those neck braces you see car crash survivors sporting. It's that bad. >_<

Guh. Blue funk rules my state of mind as of this moment in anarchy... You know you've sunk to a new low when you start listening to Paranoid Android on Youtube. And you're liking it. =_=;




A smell in the form of light. I wonder if in another dimension people see smell and hear taste?



Paradise Lost looks to be a cracking good read.

Stinging repartee

Subhash - come again? o_O
://Mina - Do ita shimashite~ ^^
Eric - same one i used for the pic everyone's trying to guess =P
Jo - the camera adds 10 kilos, gadget girl.
RM800 holder - hakuna matata =)
Eric - brilliant deduction, captain obvious.
.//Mina - wrong, and wrong again. xD
Wen - *devours brains*
char - really? lol
siang - comment replied.
Subhash - try again. =P
ev - why don't you do SPM twice then?

Chestbursters!

"There are precious few at ease
With moral ambiguities
So.we.act.as.though.they.don't.exist!"

-The Wizard of Oz, Wicked OST

Lol.


I've come to the dubious conclusion the all evil is selfish desire, and all good that is not tainted by said selfish desire is just social glue anyway.

(I can't find a more cohesive statement than this. Sorry. I'm not a word maestro, despite assertions to the contrary)

Won't elaborate. Think it out yourself.

I've been trying to find an instance of kindness/compassion/altruism/ that doesn't fit into this description myself. Ditto with evil.

I'm still searching.

Random fact of the day:

#6 I do accents quite annoyingly. Brit, Russian, Chinapek, Jamaican, Aussie---you name it, I emulate it. Some accents are trickier though, like Irish, which always melts to Indian in my mouth. =S

*Yawn*

Amazing what a full night's worth of sleep can do for you. ^-^


And it took me 18 years to figure this out, no thanks to 11 of them being forcefully evicted out of bed at the crack of dawn, packed off to the torture cells (yes, they are) while the rest of the civilized world was still sleeping.


Which incidentally gives me the random fact for today:



#5 Pull off my shoes and you'll notice that on any given outing I'll be wearing two different coloured socks.





Call it laziness or a maverick's propensity for weirdness, but I usually have no time before going out to be picky choosing socks at the sock box, which in any case bears more similarity to a jumble sale at soxworld (if soxworld ever holds jumble sales) than couples stuffed in one of those capsule hotels in Nippon desu ne.

Woohoo, another witch out of the wardrobe. Now it's time for some Ueki.



Till lunar eclipses play hide and seek with earwigs~


EDIT

I was gonna leave this post as it was but after 15 minutes of staring at the screen it looks really naked without a pic so--


Enjoy. You'll never guess what this is.

How random is the probability of getting a random chance?

Pulled another all-nighter last night. Typically ironic that all the randomly interesting thoughts come to you when you're doing chores or in the shower or trying to sleep but sitting in front of the pc castrating your butt comes up with zilch.

So yeah, while my body was craving sleep, my brain kept me up all night. Again.


Since I'm up I might as well get some tags done. Actually it's just same the one tagged by different people, namely Stef and Grace. Two tags in a week. How's that for bad karma?

@_@

Directions: Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog or a note on
Facebook with sixteen random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the
end choose ten people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment (”you’re it”) and to read your blog. You
can’t tag the person who tagged you. Since you can’t tag me, let me know when
you’ve posted your blog/note, so I can see your weirdness.

Sixteen. Hell if I'm gonna do that twice.
IN fact I'm so lazy I'm only gonna put them up at a time, starting with this one:


#11. I always sneeze twice in a row.


Everyone seems too lazy to do this part:

+Minna (free ticket out of writer's block)

+Eric (you'll only ever be reading mags at home anyway)

+Charmaine (spread the love!)

+Esther Lian (I know you're too busy to do this but I just love to annoy =P)

+Esther Lim

+Julia

+Subhash

+The Iconoclast

Four peeps I know and four I don't. Not bad for a balancing act.

1.45pm now, time for bed.

Goodnight world!

Of Oranges And Mahjong Tiles.

Probably the best part was when they broke out the peepers in volatile springs, which hardly made for good pollen riders.

Or when Spongebob burst out of the freezer singing the national anthem.

Hold on, that was me.

Yesh, I wash sloshed. Three glasses of Absolut downed with 100+ of all things. Bit of lime smoothed the tipple though stauchly refused to believe I was drunk till the telltale lack of coordination on my stumble to bed. Oh wow, I'm dru-- (!)

Later in the afternoon, the picturesque chinese mountain on my head and an amused Ash told me I had crashed spectacularly into the banister. Woot me. Spent the rest of the day nursing two headaches instead of one, bugger.

So that was Thursday night: Talking into the wee hours with Ashley the cuzzie from Ozzie, starting off with existentialism and gradually degenerating into beach huts and cheesecake. Oh the profundity.

The rest was as usual for every CNY since my conception (okay lah, since I was old enough for Power Rangers) :

Mom's side, the divine visitation to.

Lion Dance at the Lokes'. Shooting from outside crushed against curious onlookers made it really dark therein the exceeded exposure. Yahh, still very the camnoob. If you squint you can pretend it's not that bright. =/


Majority of the day spent playing Poker and drawing on each other's faces. With eyeliner no less.

Pics all in Ash's SLR but Becky was magnificent in moustache (and matching goatee!) Nicky got off easiest 'cos he's so good at cards. I on the other hand was everyone's graffiti wall. X/

Gramma's house was crowded as usual. Assorted footwear doffed all the way up to the porch. And that was only half of my dad's side. With odds like that you'd imagine a bountiful harvest (read:angpow moola) numbering in the thousands at least. Think again. It did use to, but that was 10 years ago...my annual windfall is now 10 times as small. Wtf? And just when I was starting to appreciate the extra cash too. (read: splurge to Oblivion)

It's one of those paradoxical things in life when you're red as a lobster from three mugs of Baileys and both thoughts and speech are impaired and its the first time you've ever played mahjong and you win 5 times in a row.

I have the most epic beginners' luck. Except when it comes to Poker. >_<

Introducing the cherubic little wonder, Christine! 4 years young & loves tickling people to bits. (though honestly she could do that just with her smile =x)

Isn't she just so perfectly adorable? =3

[ I told myself I wouldn't put up so many pics but the weak-willed me prevailed. (Ironic, much?) ]

One last one, just because. =3 =3 =3

It seems the older we get, the greater appreciation we have for young 'uns. It was a bit embarrassing and kinda funny to read people's blogs gushing over pics of their baby cousins/sisters/nieces...until I found it irresistable myself. But seriously, isn't she the cutest?

In other news, we (insert bro here) went out with JW and her bros for drinks and a movie on Mon. And you could've told me it was so damn crowded! In the end didn't watch anything for bad schedule times so we just strolled around Kinta City and slurped IB mochas. Not as boring as you might think ;)

Later on went for the customary old auntie discussion at her house at 10; too bad had to break off at 1 'cos everyone else was turning in. *audible sigh* Usually we go 5-6 hours at a stretch and pleasantly surprise ourselves; along that lane of houses Time has a record of zooming, nay, hurtling past us with nary a murmur.

Next year will probably be the last we meet, unless fortune favors the bookish; I wonder if I could keep Hawkings, just for old time's sake. =P

Tataimaa~

Ahhhhh. After a week of internet-deprived torture, I’m back. I’M BACK.

Oh my unyieldingly hard, butt-lacerating stool. How I have missed you.

Now comes the typically gargantuan task of jotting down the previous week’s events---A laborious undertaking at best. The homely feeling is abruptly cut short as the prospect of many nights’ sleepless toil looms.

But wait.

Isn’t the purpose of a blog supposed to bring pleasure to its author? Shouldn’t blogs be just another hobby to while away the time? Where did I go so far astray?


Oh yeah, that’s right. I started reading other people’s blogs. And being the impressionable creature I am, the notion of a cool, flashy and much trafficked blog really appealed to me.

Stupid, really.

Shouldn’t a blog reflect the thoughts of its author? Though it’s said there’s nothing original in the world anymore, the least we can do is to be original to ourselves.

I tried that in a bid to maximize original thought. But isolating yourself from external influences is like a bullet in the foot. How does one get anywhere without a reference point to anchor to?

Here I come up against an ethical see-saw.

In the vein of the “aggression or assertiveness?” balancing act, one must be open-minded and well-read for the stimulation of feedback thought. Conversely, by reading or absorbing so much from so many disparate minds one may be influenced into writing, even thinking like your source material. Doubly hard to resist when you agree, incidentally, with what their sentiments.

This prompts in me a knee-jerk reaction that rejects such impressionist tendencies. No one likes to sound like they’re just parroting their peers. Only problem is, it restricts subject topic and creative flair to limited instances of brilliance—Trapped in a prison of a self-imposed exile.

I fear I will be pushed up against this particular quandary many times more in years to come.

Perhaps the solution would be to take what I must from all these chaotic and conflicting voices and fashion for myself a new voice. Maybe looking at something in a different light, or offering an opinion contrary to the sea of consenting voices, just to get that oft-clichéd “fresh new perspective”.

It’s worth a shot.


*Crud. This was supposed to be my homecoming post. Bah, another ramble gone off-topic.

**Ironic that I consider this a homecoming when I’ve just gotten back from the actual homecoming that was iPoh.

***Not that either is really home in the ultimate sense.