Thursday, December 22, 2005

All I want for Christmas is...

.......Two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear... no, actually. Why should I have the inclination to participate in the rampant christian propaganda commercialisation of Christmas?


But let us, for the sake of faith in a better future for all(and me, especially), wonder what I want for Christmas.

In the spirit of zen and the abandonment of non-essential material objects, I wish for:

1. Perfect self-discipline and no more procrastination in my life.
2. The persuasive communication skills of Steve Jobs.
3. Luck and opportunity.
4. 4% body fat.
5. An even stronger upper body and the flexibility of olympic gymnasts.
6. For my dad to get a huge raise and the long-delayed acknowledgement from his backward Chinaman company.
7. The ability to reverse dunk a basketball, two-handed(or a 44-inch vertical leap).
8. The ability to climb 7c(5.12c, or 'very fucking hard' for you non-climbers) by the middle of next year(and to be able to do a one-arm pullup by the end of January).
9. To finally master French, and brush up on Japanese.
10.To meet, have a great time with, and charm the hell out of SailorGirl again.

And for the hedonistic, sinful, materialistic list, I wish for:

1. Feta, pecorino, and parmesan cheese; prosciutto(italian ham); capers; red wine and balsamic vinegar; saffron; 1kg of loire valley truffles; codfish, trout and smoked salmon; fresh basil, rosemary, thyme, and oregano; a perfect cut of pork tenderloin; osetia caviar; and a huge magnum/jeroboam/nebuchadnezzar(=20 regular wine bottles!!!!) of a 1990 Moet & Chandon Grande Cuvee.

Great ingredients = Great food.

Great food + Great booze
= Happy, satisfied friends + happy, satiated girls lusting after the cook :)


2. A good cast iron griddle, copper pots, and a Wusthoff knife set, to replace my non-stick pan, stainless-steel pots and carborundum-steel cleaver and cheap knives. Oh, and a stainless steel pasta strainer. I don't wish for much. Just the essentials to cook great food.
3. A two-week snowboard holiday in Argentina in May, and a dive trip to Sipadan and Mabul in September.
4. A Canon Eos 5D with a super-wide-angle lens, to create magic and enrich the lives of those who hunt for beauty.
5. A new, superfast desktop PC with a 30-inch Apple Cinema display.
6. For my business plan to finally get funded.
7. Flying lessons.
8. $10,000 gift certificate for books at Borders/Amazon.com.
9. An American Green Card.
10. A 2006 Yamaha YZF-R1 motorcycle(or a second-hand Ducati Monster 600 if that's too much to ask for).
11. A Ferrari F430(Why not?)

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Sacrifice:
Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.


For This
<---
to become

This
-->
--------------
Give up this
<--
and eat this
-->
Bak kut teh, Bread Talk pastries, fish and chips, Filet 'o' Fish, roti telur, banana-leaf rice, ham, bacon, curry mee, fried kuay teow, white rice, beehoon, ice cream, cookies, carrot cake, tea lattes......
Instant oatmeal, steamed fish, chicken breast, omega-enriched eggs, salmon, muesli, skim milk, and vegetables, whole-wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, fruit, orange juice, lots of plain water. No salt, no oil, no cigarettes, no alcohol, no sugar.
Strength training 3 times a week, basketball every evening, rockclimbing on Fridays.
Worth the sacrifice?
You bet.
You're stronger, faster, healthier, happier.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Definition: Stupid

I dedicate these post to that amazingly fetid, intellectually-challenged, cranially-deficient over-evolved moss terrorising my roads: the KL driver. To celebrate the upcoming holiday season, it is with humble delight, great joy and lots of love that I wish to say:


FUCK YOU.
.......and yo' mothafuckin momma.... as put so succinctly by social activist, musician and poet extraordinaire, the late Tupac Shakur. Seasons greetings and hope you have a happy new year. I humbly request that you reflect upon your exalted life thus far, and contemplate what irresponsibility it must have been for your whore of a mother to allow your retarded father that first kiss. You are an accident of nature, an unfortunate series of events that began with your illegal conception and ascended into pure insanity of another level the moment you were granted a driver's license.
Please do the responsible thing and stop this vicious cycle. Admit your illegitimacy, recognise the absence of logic in the cosmic order at your continued existence, and do everyone a favour by off-ing yourself. To ensure poetic justice, I recommend running yourself over with your own vehicle. It would be a brilliant end to a long, legendary career in stupidity.
Drivers in the Klang Valley are the most inconsiderate and dangerous bunch of people to ever tread the earth. I am of the humble opinion that they, along with the greedy, monobrow-ed, grunting neanderthals(who like to guzzle coffee paid by other people) at the Road Transport Department should be inserted head first into a wood chipper, gassed, or otherwise killed with the minimum of fuss.
You fit the definition in the title if you regularly behave thus:
1. Not using your turn signal when changing lanes. I don't care if you're already straddling the dotted line and you're in front of me, slowly attempting to nudge your nose into my lane. I will not let you in. I don't care if you're a harassed lady driver with two noisy children in the back, the driver of a huge MPV/SUV that is trying to bully me, or just a regular idiot Mercedes driver. I will drive you off the road before I let you in. That is not how you should occupy the space in front of my car. There is a stalk on your steering column, on the right for Japanese makes and on the right for European for you to INDICATE to someone that you wish to do so. Do you understand, boy? Or do you need me to explain it to you in baby talk?
If you have the temerity to give me a dirty/aggresive look when I accelerate and squeeze you back into your own lane, you shall have the opportunity to experience firsthand the exquisite visual pleasure of my middle finger.
Is it so hard to signal? If you stop reading here and immediately skip to the next paragraph, I shall know that you are one of those infernal drivers. You think that it's not important right? Well, you are a brainless, inconsiderate piece of dogshit. If you drive a Mercedes Benz and still do this, then you are a double piece of dogshit. I hope and pray that on a lonely road one day, a situation occurs that necessitates the deployment of ALL 8 of your airbags(and you are not wearing a seatbelt).Proves that your money was ill-gotten, and not the fruit of education and superior upbringing. Morons, all of you.
A variation of this is the idiot who indicates only after he's started to turn, or indicates the wrong direction, i.e. left signal and turns right.
2. Motorcyclist who rides in centre of road. Self-explanatory, I presume. Some even dare to ride in the fast lane, insistently oblivious to the backed-up traffic and the irritation of the driver directly behind them. Please stop doing this. I do not mean this personally, but your vehicle is slow. Please ride in A SINGLE FILE in the leftmost end of the leftmost lane, where you belong. I know you also pay road tax, but I pay more than you do, and you're blocking my road. Actually, you don't even pay road tax anymore if you're riding a small bike.
The next time you see a motorcyclist riding like this on the road, please encourage him to use the left lane with a liberal, generous, unbroken tone from your horn. Those with loud ones are especially encouraged to do this, even after he has changed lanes and given you the dirty look. Feel free to run him over if you're feeling pissed too. I really don't mind. Hell, go ahead and sodomise his wife, just remember to tell his children why you're doing it, to put the fear of God into them and make them responsible drivers when they grow up.
3. Lane hogging/drifting. I get a little annoyed when people do this. You know when some idiots drive half-in-half-out of his lane, so he in effect takes up two lanes? You know when some of them even deign to drive at the incredible, mind-warpingly quick speed of 0.0001km/h? They always look panicked and then try to accelerate in indignant self-righteousness whenever I take up the slack space in either lane(which they thought couldn't fit a car) and squeeze through at an amazingly dangerous(they think), horrifyingly large speed differential, say 40km/h faster than them.
And then there's the moron who thinks he can just drift into your lane whenever he's taking a corner. As I flip off the drivers with a friendly smile, I contemplate the possibility(because he's driving a big car) that his forefathers were wealthy people, and there's a secret society(like the Illuminati) consisting of all these rich people who acquire and aggregate power and money for the supreme goal of...... buying every square inch of road in Malaysia so that they can drive as they please. Hallo kawan, ini pandu kereta lah! Bukan main masak-masak. Pundek..... Is it any surprise again that the biggest perpetrators are the drivers of Mercedes-Benzes and Toyota Camrys? Just because they bully people that they don't bribe in everyday life, they think they can do that on the road too..... Oh, right. Never mind.
Sometimes you have hogs in the fast lane, who might be chatting on their mobile phones, or are uneducated in road manners, or just plain stupid. They drive slowly while traffic piles up behind. I think we should be kind and not bully them, because these are usually disabled people who are blind and deaf, and didn't your Pendidikan Moral teacher teach you to 'bertimbang rasa'?
How do I know they're disabled? Well they usually don't respond when I turn on my high beam and lean on my horn. That's why I have a scalpel in my glovebox. After I force them to hit a tree and they're unconscious with blood loss and severe chest trauma, I pull them gently(bertimbang rasa mah) from the 'well-engineered, amazingly safe, feature-packed, powerful and affordable' (cinta kepada negara) Proton, and use my scalpel to carve "please use the left lane. Thank you."(bersopan-santun) into their foreheads.
I have SUCH high morals. No wonder I got an 'A' for my SPM.
4. You slow down at on-ramps. You are an even bigger idiot than I imagined. If you care to notice the next time you are driving, properly designed on-ramps(the ramp that connects to a main road, i.e. the road from a "hentian sebelah" to the main highway") always slope downwards, and have plenty of space before they merge into the next lane. Why are they designed thus? Ask any civil engineer, and he/she will explain that it's to make it easy for you to accelerate and match the speed of traffic on the main road.
Why then, why in the whole wide world, does every motorist slow down at the bottom of the on-ramp and attempt to turn out immediately into the next lane? Oh, because you're careful.....
you going at 60 km/h while traffic is going 110 = careful?
"NAH!" *gives you finger*
The on-ramp has plenty of space for you to pick up the speed before joining traffic, you morons. You join traffic at the same speed that they're travelling to avoid accidents. It's also considerate if you don't force the car in the next lane to brake sharply or having to take any other evasive action.
I'll leave you to contemplate the four major indicators of stupidity. It doesn't matter if you've committed only one of the reprehensible crimes listed. It still means you have the IQ of a slug's foreskin, are totally disposable, and would be better off put to sleep in a kind humane manner(bertimbang rasa again) like slitting your throat with a rusty blade or bludgeoning with a sledgehammer.
Merry fucking christmas.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Metrosexualisation

I am slowly- but inevitably - turning gay.

Symptoms:
1. I cook. Better than most girls. Shite.
2. Thanks to my attentive, feminine but temperamental love slave,I now know the difference between cleanser, toner and moisturiser. Oh shite. Just shoot me and be done with it(for your information I still use only facewash though. No, it's called FACEWASH, and that's the most you'll get me to admit).
3. I can dress amazingly well if I want to(uh-oh).
4. My skin has miraculously cleared up. I've even had guys compliment me on my skin. The skin of a person who could have been nicknamed "moonface" or "volcano" while at school.
5. I read everything. A LOT of everything.
6. People compliment/deride my fit physique(oh shite!!!!).
7. I'm so tolerant of homosexuals and their choice of sexuality that I don't even care whether someone is gay or straight anymore.
8. A girlfriend has laughed and said I look gay.
9. I have short, neat hair.
10. I insult girls. They like it(UH-OH!!!!)
11. I have worn my florid red Mambo hawaiian pants out in public with pride. I'm seriously screwed....
12. I still like pretty girls, but nowadays my first urge is to make friends with her and hope that she has a shining personality(can you believe I said shining? ohmygod *said in pondan voice and flutters fingers*)
13. I am an aspiring architect/designer. Oh shite oh shite oh shite.


Please save me, my friends. Please! Once I start to pierce my ears and smile a lot with perfect white teeth and develop the ability to have interesting conversations with strangers, it's all going to be over. I'll start fucking men. Today at Borders, I caught myself reading one cookbook and another on how to serve food with a flourish. And I only took three books.

I'm feeling so desperate that I'm not going to bathe for a week. I'm going to Svenson's tomorrow to implant hair between my brows, then I'm going to buy lots of red meat and beer, and watch premier league football while fucking a random girl I picked up and calling her whore and slut while we're doing it.

Shit. I almost said fucking her in the butt......

This is vaguely related: Sheng Jon told me a story yesterday about an acquaintance of his fucking a transvestite(or pondan for you homophobic buggers) in the butt, only to withdraw and see a fucking TAUGEH(bean sprout) stuck to the end of his dick after he was done...

HELP!!!!!!!!!

Random Hilarity

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Hypocrisy

hy·poc·ri·sy (-pŏk'rĭ-)
  • The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
  • An act or instance of such falseness.

Petroleum companies pretend to worry about the environment by taking out full-page ads in newspapers, magazines, and even National Geographic, featuring their "commitment to the enviromnent", their promises of "renewable energy sources" and "a better future".

I heave in utter contempt at this. The master of these propaganda is a certain Dutch conglomerate that caused the Exxon Valdez disaster, an environmental catastrophe of epic proportions.

It's like a rapist cuddling the woman after he's finished sodomising her.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Everyone's trying to kill me......

....... or at the very least, spend extra energy and effort in ensuring that I become fat and die young. God forbid that I ever achieve my dreams of leaping 44", compete in a triathlon, bench press 150kgs, or most abhorrently*gasp* have 6% body fat. I am a little afraid of their behaviour.

Why this fear? Well, I have an overwhelming, undisguisable wish: To live forever.

So far so good.

But it hasn't helped that I get derision, sarcasm, and sometimes volatile disgust when people get to know of it.

I don't even bother telling my friends about it, since I've received enough scathing remarks from just attempting to eat well and exercise. Some of them insert snide remarks about how "fit and good-looking" I am, while they're "fat and ugly, what girl would want me?" during regular conversation, for no particular reason than to give me a good dig. Others would deride my diet and say they'd rather die than live like me. I once got a "diu........ drink milk ah? What the fuck is this?" just for minding my own business and declining the offered coca-cola.

Sheng Wai tries (and fails) repeatedly to drag me to go drinking and whoring so often that I don't even need to say no anymore. He just asks and then we continue with whatever we were talking about. He's like the little devil on my shoulder, persistently hacking away at my moral fibre.

Relatives have commented(in barely hidden sarcasm) about my efforts and hard work in keeping myself in the peak of health. "Why you eat so healthy wan?*sneer*" has been uttered more than once, in a tone that suggests that I should be punished for not stuffing myself with lots of carbohydrates(the Asian way) and everything else oily and "tasty".

"Hei-yuh...... Like that oso cannot eat?!? You're so skinny. EAT LAH!!!!!! EAT!!!" my grandma would exhort(actually shout at me) in loud teowchew.

"jiak jiak jiak jiak jiak. ei........ lai lah. jiak jiak jiak......" *lots of food gets dumped on my plate by my granduncle while scolding me kindly in teowchew also.

"ei finish it lah ok?" Says my kind-hearted jee king(My mother's brother's wife)
"i'm full liau."
"Neeee-ver mind lah! Little bit more only. OK?" and proceeds to scoop all the leftovers onto my plate. After all, since I'm so fit and healthy, it wouldn't hurt for me to eat all the oily extras would it? THEY have to watch their meal intake since they "have high cholesterol".

Yay. Khai Tzer the Garbage Can.

I've also had "I'd rather die than eat that" thrown in my face when I refer to my preferred diet of unprocessed carbs, lean meat and preferably steaming or grilling.

"What? Gym again? Enough lah... You're fit enough already."

Even my mom, who's health conscious, has told me "We cannot totally don't eat oil wan!!!" in exasperation/desperation when I suggested gently that we leave out the oil in steamed veggie. "Your body needs oil!" I didn't want to explain that we get enough of 'hidden' oil from fish, nuts and other obscure sources and just finished my meal(it was delicious btw) with that extra tablespoonful of oil

It seems like every other person cannot stand the fact that I want to live healthily. Peer pressure and media suggest that a supremely fit 23-year old should be out "clubbing"(whatever that means), drinking and smoking. It's cool. People tell me,"Dude. You're cool. You shouldn't be worried about eating healthy and all that. That's so Uncle. You should be out clubbing and shit, you know?"

But of course! Why didn't I think of it? *slaps head* There's nothing cooler than 'trying' to dance with a semi-hot girl(because you're too pussy to hit on the hot ones) by grinding into her side while she ignores you, or drinking yourself into an unconscious stupor with horrendously overpriced alcohol. You can count me out. If you want to destroy your kidneys, do go ahead, and make sure you drink more than your liver can handle ok? And do that before you think about having children, so we can avoid your lemmings genes spoiling my pristine gene pool, thereby ensuring the survival of homo sapiens.

Most young chinese males have an overpowering need to prove their manliness by demonstrating their ability to imbibe and by deriding those who decline to do so. What the fuck is that?!?!? Any idiot can pour liquid down his throat. I can drink you under ANY day, but I choose not to. What does it prove?

Come challenge me to basketball or driving fast, then we'll talk. I'll even take you on in a strength contest, or if you really want to, we could just unzip and compare penis sizes(I'd have to uncoil it from around my thigh first). That would be a test of manhood. Of course I'd win(my nickname is tripod and that's why I walk funny) but neither of us would die of liver cirrhosis after.

It's funny when it happens to you. And I've had this happen to me the fitter I become. I dropped another 2% body fat and gained another 2kgs of muscle recently, and the efforts by my detractors have doubled.

My older relatives(like my grandma) mean well. To them, it's good to be fat and round since they've experienced starvation during wartime and it's such a blessing that their grandson will never have to be thin.

But in the case of others, I suspect it's a mixture of peer pressure, a lack of health education, and the need for someone else to conform to their status quo. They don't want the hard work of getting fit, and it's a prickle on their conscience whenever someone else is. Better that you fit into my nice perfect normal world of average mediocre not-too-fit people than I work my ass off to fit into yours.

Honestly, other than with my immediate family, I don't give a damn. You can eat all the over-fried, over-salted trans fats and processed carbs you like. Hell, if you're visiting, I'll even cook you the best ever roast duck/pork knuckle stew you've ever tasted while I eat my oats and steamed chicken breasts. It's not some health nazi thing. It's just my choice. I don't lecture you about eating healthy. Why should you lecture me about giving up that mutton rendang?

Support me a little. Please. That's all I ask.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Books 'R' Us.

My reading list for next week

Do you know what's better than having a new book to read?
Having more than one new book to read.

You know what's better than having more than one new book to read?
Having more than ten new books to read.

Remember! envy is a cardinal sin! Have a good weekend.

Cat Shit, Fuck (episode II)

I screeched to a halt in front of the tutor's rooms, went in and saw two pretty Indian girls with young, radiant faces looking up expectantly.

Mmmm...... :) I thought to myself.

"Miss Nisha?" I asked uncertainly, looking from one to the other.
One of them laughed and covered her mouth. The other pointed to her.
"Khai Tzer?" She laughed again.
"Yes..." I put on my best formal-looking good boy polite look. Never failed to impress strangers.
"You don't recognise me ah?" 'Ms. Nisha' said.
"I.... don't think so." I squinted a bit and thought that she looked familiar.
"I'm Nisha. We were in the same Alpha(foundation year) class together."
*Dumbstruck me just stands there agape like a stupid fool*
"Uh... flubber blubber blubberbjilinumlaiyalk...." I said.
"HAHA. Sit down. sit down. It's so nice to see you again!!"

Here's the absurdity of the situation:

I have an academic advisor who was a former classmate in a degree course that I technically haven't finished. So I'm a student, and she's faculty staff.

Now that's not so absurd on its own(After all, I'm sure it happens quite often in university with people extending their courses). You'll need a little background in order to understand how I suddenly appeared in a real-life rendition of a Franz Kafka play:

5 years ago, I was a motherfucker. The absolute most prank-playing hyperactive button-pushing authority-defying noise-making disruptive freshman possible. I had just entered university, and due to an unscheduled, mind-switched-off crazy moment during orientation week(that I will not elaborate upon), I was probably blacklisted by the security department, and practically every freshman of my year knew who I was even before class started.

So then we were assigned to different groups(of about 30 students) according to the results of an English aptitude test that all freshies had to take. I know for sure that my group contained all the cunning linguists and verbal magicians, because I was in the same class, too. On the first day of class we had to choose a class monitor(glorified photostat coolie), and guess which infamous person got nominated and won overwhelmingly?

Yes. Guilty as charged.

This did not in any way detract from my purpose in life at that time: To rule every social circle I joined, and to have as much fun as possible.

I succeeded in both. The year 2000 was probably the best year of my life. In the context of the classroom however, my being class monitor did not prevent me from causing havoc at all, especially during English class. Double entendres and scathing public pranks were the norm in my group(incidentally group #6, which was naturally renamed Group Sex by us), with almost everyone an immensely intelligent and talented (albeit attention-seeking and scandal-loving) individual, especially the guys.

Everytime we were invited by the lecturer to give our opinions on something, everyone would wait in anticipation for the fun that would undoubtedly ensue. The topics would invariably be steered to sex by all and sundry, with discourses on the advantages of being female(multiple orgasms) to public debates on the sexual prowess of whichever male classmate looked most vulnerable that day. This happened during actual lessons! In avowedly chaste and Muslim Malaysia! In a class taught by a young, very pretty lady! I don't remember the lecturer ever finishing her teaching plan for the day.

During a project involving presentation skills, my group presented Hairgra(viagra for bald men, I kid you not) and I even dressed up in drag for a skit once. We were whores for novelty and shock value, and I was the worst one of them all. It got so bad that whenever the lecturer asked for an opinion and I invariably raised my hand, she'd give me a "please khai tzer, don't do this to me" look. And when she reluctantly pointed to me and I'd stand up, you would hear giggles from the girls and sniggers from the guys interspersed with "nah. nah. Sure come again wan." and "look at him, he's going to start." I am not exaggerating.

So that brings me back to THIS story. Nisha was hands-down the quietest person in my group. Among such loud, colourful, unsavoury characters, you could say that she was almost invisible, even among the girls. I don't remember speaking more than 10 sentences with her during that year.

So naturally I'm feeling funny now. The irony was my intention to show my most charming self today to a former Group Sex classmate. I even dressed up and worried my nuts off about being late, stepped in cat shit and almost drove a mid-level executive off the road, all to impress my academic advisor. It would DEFINITELY not work with Nisha. She has seen first hand all the shenanigans, lurid outbursts, and unspeakable behaviour that I've exhibited in class, and for an entire year too. I gave up and just plopped down into her offered chair, not knowing what to say. Compounding my embarrasment was the fact that I didn't even recognise her. It was awkward to say the least. I looked longingly at the window and quelled my urge to jump out the 3rd floor in shame.

"So I've got to evalute you...." Nisha said with a kind of embarrassed voice. Imagine the quietest girl in your class evaluating the most prolific outspoken happening one. It's weird isn't it?

"Sure. sure. Go ahead. Do you have to like, ask me questions?" I asked with a huge smile.

"Yes. It's just for the faculty. I have to do this, you know........?" She tried to explain. Nisha felt bad, which she shouldn't have, but it was reflex, I suppose, at inflicting bureaucratic pain on a friend.

I told her no problem and reassured her and said ask away and promised to myself that I'd be the nicest person to her today since she was so nice to me and I almost didn't remember who she was.

So she asked questions like do I have co-curricular activities on campus, how many subjects I was taking, etc. etc. Basically questions that didn't apply to me since I was just waiting for the university to let me graduate. I answered her the best I could, the urge to come up with 'creative' answers not even appearing once. I told her what my situation was like and that I was already doing mobile applications at a tech start-up.

All the while I couldn't stop smiling because it was so nice to....... well, not see a familiar face since I didn't recognise her at first, but meet with a former classmate. There was an instant familiarity at meeting an old friend that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling.

"So Khai Tzer. How would you rate your presentation and communications skil.... Oh, never mind, I know about your communications skills. They're excellent!"She gave a short laugh and I had a good laugh at that, but I was embarrassed all the same. I didn't think talking lots of cock in class constituted the ability to communicate, but who was I to dispel the myth? :)

So anyway we chatted for a while after that, I asked about her Master's programme and how was tutoring like, and then I left, happy to have met her that day.

All the way during the drive back, I was shaking my head to myself and repeating endlessly,"Fuck man.... fuck. Fuck man..... what the fuck." and banging my palm on the steering wheel. I'm still mortified that I didn't recognise Nisha. What kind of friend is that?

Fuck man..... fuck.

And now I've got to wash off all this #@$(***#)_)))@#$&&&#&!!!!-ing cat faeces from my car. Fuck.

All cats should be shot.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Cat Shit, fuck (Episode I)

This is really what happened today. I will tell everything that happened as it happened, no exaggeration or embellishment because this story is too real to be faked. Please ensure that you have strong abdominal muscles before reading. God played another joker card on me today.

I made an appointment to meet my academic advisor today. Why meet my "academic advisor"? It's a long story involving my lazy ass, an ill-executed transfer to Cyberjaya for my final semester of my degree course, and bureaucracy conspiring to ensure that I graduate one year late even though I'm not taking any subjects. Long boring story. Short form: Technically I will graduate one year later than my peers, despite not having to go to school.

And the university has this policy that I must meet with a lecturer/tutor assigned as my academic advisor(AA) once every semester. I did not know about this, until the email I received from Nisha, my AA, yesterday(Tuesday), informing me of this new policy. I sent her an email intending to make an appointment for two days later, but for some reason I made an appointment for today(Wednesday) at midnight Tuesday. The appointment was made over email, and since it's sent to my yahoo mail, I realised, too late, that I had to check it every hour or so in the morning to see whether she's free today(what a pain!) and the worst thing is I don't have to go to work today but still have to get up early.

So anyway Bob the Builder tried to wake me up at 8 today. I knew I wasn't working, and thought to myself,"Hey I can still be on time if I wake up at 12, since I told her after 2.00pm." I had a long night doing research and was pretty tired. So I got up at noon and poured myself a bowl of Muesli and HL milk and luxuriously enjoyed myself as I booted up the PC. Miss Nisha said I could come see her at 2.30.

I thought, hell, I'll be a nice guy today. Today I will dress my sharpest and bring my A-Game. Totally charm and impress my academic advisor. Shouldn't be hard since she's female. Probably young, too, since she's just a tutor. No harm doing so, right? It wouldn't hurt to have someone on my side in case there was another unseen bureaucratic snafu in the future. An academic advisor, no less, someone whose job is to advise and help me.

As I was plotting all this, I was still in my PJs with mussed up hair that I haven't cut for two months (regular hairdresser in Kluang. I haven't gone back home to Paloh for two months and I don't trust strange people with scissors). I lazed around, read the papers, surfed a bit for stuff totally unrelated to work, basically was a bum, until I saw the clock. 1.45.

Oh well, I'm only meeting her at 2.30. And it's a slow half an hour's drive. No problem.

So I continued lazing around until I realised it was 1.55. I had only 5 minutes to take a bath, brush my teeth, shave and get ready.

For some fucked-up reason, the logical part of my brain did not work this afternoon. Intellectually I knew I must arrive early to give a good impression if I want to charm someone, and I knew that to make it on time now, I had to take a quick bath and hurry the fuck up or I'll have to speed to Cyberjaya. But something went nuts in my noggin and I kept having the need to dress nice, so as to impress. In fact slippers were de riguer on campus and wearing a pair of sneakers meant you were the neatest guy in the world.

But nooooooooooo, spastic me insisted as I lathered myself happily in the shower, despite the fact that it was already 2 o'clock, I absolutely had to do the GQ thing.

I came out of the shower at 2.06, still having the time to preen in the mirror even though I never do that(what the fuck happened to my brain, I don't know). 6 minutes late.

I hurriedly rubbed myself dry and threw open the doors of my closet. Ooh. Let's see, now. Let's go with the grey flat-front wool slacks today. Sexy sexy. Worn with the black sweater, I once caught that tall long-haired Sarawakian-Christy-Chung-Lookalike checking me out.....

*what the fuck!! Like you care when girls check you out. Somebody injected you with oestrogen or what? You're late you idiot! What's with all the fashion nonsense. It's time to go NOW!!

I feel weird typing this, because even as I'm recalling what happened play-by-play, I don't believe I behaved like this. I don't give a shit how I look usually, and I'll happily wear shorts and t-shirts whole day long, because usually it's hot and long pants make you sweat. But at 2.06 this afternoon, I became like the gay dudes on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, fussing over colour co-ordination and 'accessories'

*Buyelkkkk. Vomits and keels over. Dies of confusion and mortification*

*WHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAATTT the FUCK!!!! It's 2.10. FIVE minutes late if you speed. So hurry the fuck up you idiot!!!

It still hadn't registered that punctuality and reasonably neat clothes would impress more than being tardy and dressed like a gay gigolo that just walked out of the latest Armani catalogue. I took my own sweet time putting in contacts, getting my nice oversized aviator shades like a good gay dude, and proceeded out the door with my money clip instead of wallet(because, get this, even as I was 15 minutes late, I remembered that the grey slacks were form fitting and it would spoil the line of my trousers if I used my billfold. Besides, money clips were cool. Somebody, ANYBODY, please just shoot me). I strode out the door with my carefully disheveled hair, cufflinks, nice shirt, and looked for my 'nice' shoes.

Then it hit me.

*You fucking moron!!! 15 minutes late lah!! Just get in the car lah pundek! You dress like Tom fucking Ford also no use liau now!

"Ohfuck ohfuck ohfuck......" I repeated to myself in a panic as I grabbed the nice shoes from the box, and ran towards my car wearing a pair of old slippers, intending to put on the nice shoes when I arrived. You would have been impressed seeing how fast I locked the gate and RAN to my car which was parked a distance away.

I jumped in, slammed the door shut, threw my shoes into the passenger side footwell and twisted the key. Before the engine caught I had released and twisted it again, as I knew it almost never started on the first try and some weird logic said to save time and just turn it again.

It started. I rammed the lever into first gear and tore off down the side alley of the housing estate, speeding past my neighbour's MPV down the narrow alley with barely a foot of clearance on my right side and my left tyres literally riding on the pavement just next to the drain.

As I turned out at the next junction, the smell hit me like a ton of bricks. That smelly, all-invading, disgusting acrid stink of animal faeces.

diu.................

I probably didn't notice it before because I was too busy concentrating on not driving into the drain. It was too strong to be caused by an outside odour. I sniffed a few times to confirm(buelk) and turned my clutch foot(the left for you non-drivers) up to see a wet slimy patch of yellow shit already embedded into the treads of the old slipper and smeared all over my clutch pedal.

Colourful swear words were brought to the fore of my mental processes like cars off an assembly line, all the while interspersed with the constant background semi-panic of being late, a dull resigned frustration, and the feeling that I'd better not tempt fate and say that this day could not get any worse.

This time I was truly committed. I swore, and I meant it, that I would kill the cats who continue to shit outside my house. I asked my dad about this before, but he thought I was joking. When he comes back from Australia, that's the first thing I'm going to pester him about. Not how was your trip, not was Tasmania nice, not did you get any nice pictures, not wah, barossa valley 1996 bin 505 what a vintage!!... but dad, what's the easiest way to make a cat die a painful horrible death.

All cats should be shot(but that's another post).

I knew, at that moment, that today would be another of those cosmic joke days. The Great Kahuna in the sky does that to me sometimes, when situations so absurd occur that you cannot possibly believe it to be coincidence.

I couldn't believe that on the day that my brain's logic system went haywire and made me gay and late, I had to step in shit and get that acrid stench in my nose for the entire drive to Cyberjaya because there was no way I was turning back to wash it off and make myself half-an-hour late instead of 15.

I shook my head and gave a resigned, cynical laugh, and wound the passenger side window halfway down to reduce the stench.

But of course that would totally mess up my hair, which I spent an entire minute arranging in careful messy spikes. *Alanis Morrisette's Ironic playing loudly in background*.

Proof that it was cosmic joke day: TRAFFIC JAM. At 2.20pm on the LDP towards Cyberjaya. It was IMPOSSIBLE. But there it was: really heavy traffic on a road that you can speed on during rush hour. I almost cried in frustration.

And then, as if God was teaching me a benevolent lesson, a police Waja flashed its high beams from behind as it bore down on me with stupendous speed. I dutifully dove into the left lane as the patrol car braked hard like an AhBeng speeder and tailgated the ponderous SUV in front, still flashing its headlights. Once it overtook me I quickly eased back into the right lane to follow the speeding AhBeng police.

The speed limit on the LDP is 90kph, and the police car was doing 130 easily when it flashed me. The traffic was barely crawling along at 50 or 60 before he came along. But as the vehicles saw the blue lights and white paintjob, they guai guai(obediently) went into the left lane. Nobody fucks with the Police RAJA DI MALAYSIA..

Except for me. The AhBeng in uniform had caused traffic in the right lane to clear, and he was thus going at least 100kph(My kancil's speed limit). I said to myself fuck it and followed the patrol car as it sped down the road. If he's in such a rush he won't have time to stop me and ticket me, furthermore I'm speeding behind him, and thus don't cause trouble at all.

Traffic cleared up after the toll and I just stepped on the loud pedal. Maximum. Hantam saja. Until I arrived at the first serious bend in the road.

There's an off-ramp towards Cyberjaya that has 3 wicked corners. Wicked sharp corners, and one of them is off-camber and blind. Most people take the first left at 50 or 60 and brake hard as they enter the corner like the dumb amateurs that they are, and then they really slow down for the first right because it's uphill and it's the off-camber one.

I drove it like I was racing, watching for braking points, apexes and fastest constant speed radius. I whacked through the first left at 90kph(in a Kancil!! The tyres screeched and the car understeered). I even accelerated once I cleared the apex. I peeked and saw 100kph before I braked hard and heel-toe downshifted to 4th gear to get enough torque to claw uphill in my puny 660cc car. As my speed bled off to about 80kph, there were 2 slow cars in the right lane and an even slower car(probably going 40) in the left lane negotiating the tight blind right corner.

The slower car(in the left lane) was being a regular stupid malaysian driver like all the other 98% of you who don't signal and think they own the road, and was driving with his right-side tyres in the right lane. I don't understand stupid fools like that. Just because it's a corner doesn't give you the right to ride someone else's lane. And so he was holding up the two cars in the right lane with his inaptitude/inconsideration.

There was half a lane left with him riding the right lane, and I could easily squeeze through in my Kancil and with my superior dynamic spatial abilities, but I generally don't do that, as it would be quite traumatising to the idiot. Imagine if you were an Alfa romeo hogging both lanes and suddenly a Kancil overtakes you on your left when you thought it was impossible as there was no space left. But this time I had no compunction being a bastard. I was late and he was being inconsiderate. Plus there was the stench of cat shit. Easy decision.

So as we entered the corner, I downshifted and blasted through on his left(with nary an inch to spare) at 80kph as he inconsiderately drifted into the right lane. The (middle manager executive position probably) idiot who thinks he can drive(he can't for nuts) just because he has a powerful car predictably swerved into the right lane in panic. I smiled in satisfaction and watched him indignantly try to chase me through the third corner with his powerful Italian automobile. Unfortunately for him, the ability to buy horsepower is not connected with how good a driver you are. I wasn't interested in brinksmanship on the road, but I was definitely interested in not arriving too late, and thus he disappeared in my rearview mirror. Poor guy probably committed suicide wondering how the fuck he couldn't chase a refrigerator on wheels with his Alfa. Good riddance.

So I was already 2.35 pm by now(five minutes late) and I
  • haven't arrived at campus
  • found a parking spot
  • put on my shoes.

The first two I could do nothing about, but the last one...... Boy oh boy oh boy, you're not going to believe this. I have this socks that have little toes like gloves, it's a huge pain to put on as you have to stuff each and every toe into the proper toe-let. Negotiating another of Cyberjaya's fast corners at full speed(100kph) and with my almost-bald kancil tyres literally screeching(I kid you not), I raised my left foot from the soiled clutch pedal, kicked the dirty slipper away, leaned my left arm forward to steer with my left bicep(!!!) and fumbled blindly as I used both hands to put on that complex sock onto my left foot. I felt like Mr. Bean when he brushed his teeth and changed his pants on his way to work in that classic episode.

Life does imitate art. I caught the steering just in time from careering into the bushes and a truncated life for me(what the fuck? Is it worth getting killed for 10 seconds saved) and gingerly arranged the toes to fit in the proper 'holsters' with my left hand. I succeeded as I swung past a slow-mo Perdana in the right lane. I don't know how afraid the driver would get if he/she knew I was steering with my arm.

It was time to repeat with my right foot, but this was more complicated, since I needed to be pressing on the accelerator pedal; It was easier with my left foot as I didn't need to depress the clutch pedal when going at full speed. What did I do? Thaaaaa-t's right folks! I used my LEFT foot to press the right pedal, at full speed, as we were going through a particularly nasty series of off-camber bends, while I steered with the inside of my left elbow and my face flush to the horn, trying desperately to put on my inside-out right sock while avoiding the disgusting yellow faeces that was all over the carpet, AND this stupid motorcyclist who was going 40kph in the middle of my lane. I bent my body to one side to steer the car into the next lane as I half-managed to put on the sock and tried to violently stuff it inside my shoe, just as the DHL traffic light loomed in front and I had to brake hard.

I released my left foot with a jerk....*notime no time no timenotimenotime i'm going to hit that Accord*, desperately fumbled my left foot into the right slipper and depressed the clutch as I stomped on the brake pedal with my sock-clad right foot. I did not hit the Honda Accord. The blood was thumping in my head, the stench of cat droppings assaulted my nostrils mercilessly, and I had almost been in a million accidents in just 10 minutes. It was CRAZY.

I could hear God's booming laugher in my head.

I parked my car, 7 minutes late, jumped out and ran to find Ms. Nisha.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

My First Fight

The barely healed scratches from basketball
I can't say I haven't been in a fight anymore.

At the ballcourt near my place, sometimes we get older dudes/uncles joining us kind gentle little boys in playing ball.
They play tough and rough, like it's a real game instead of a pickup.

Usually we end up losing the game if there's an uncle on the other team, because other than the fact that a lot of them are former state players who can't jump anymore but shoot as accurately as Robin Hood, I don't really fancy pushing and shoving older people who are weaker than me. It's just a game after all. And there's a built-in instinct to defer to my elders, call them "Uncle" and grant them goodwill when there's a conflict. Most of the guys feel the same, so unless we get an uncle on our team(in which case they'll mark each other and cancel each other out), we usually back off and let him do his thing.
About two weeks ago there was this uncle on the opposing team. He was half a head shorter than me, and played the uncles usually do, rough and tough. Only he didn't play fair, and gave me the scratches you see in the picture above. I can pretty much reach the rim, and he would give me a long rake down my forearm whenever I went up for a layup and he couldn't reach my height. Notice that all the scratches end about the level of my knuckles. He couldn't reach higher. After the first scratch, I came down and told him in mandarin,"Come on uncle. No need to be so rough lah. It's just a pickup game."
"BASKETBALL MAH!! LIKE THAT ONE LAH!!! What?!? Sure got accident wan mah! Haiya!"
I was a bit peeved. I know accidents happen in basketball(look at my nose closely in my profile picture, it's bent to one side because of a rogue cannon shot), and I also know that his amateurish scrape was malicious rather than accidental, intended to discourage me from rising up against his tiny stature and layup against him. I was also a bit irritated at his tone, because he not only didn't apologise, he spoke in a loud tone of voice that seemed to insinuate that I was an amateur and scratches were normal.
The next layup he banged sideways into me after I cut past him. I shouted a loud "Foul!" as I landed. The guys gave me raised eyebrows. I never got pissed.
"WHAT? WHAT? THERE'S NO FOUL!!! HEIYER.... *cynical laugh and shake of head*"
"Relax uncle. You fouled me. You hit me sideways."
And then he scratched me again.
And again. And he pushed me around like I was nice to be bullied.
I let him push me like I let everyone else push me. I don't think it's nice to use my strength when I already have speed to compete with everyone else, especially in a casual game. I didn't mind the shoving around, it was the scratching that had me a bit annoyed.
And then he scratched me one last time.
I decided I had enough, thought the whole thing through calmly, mostly regretting that I could no longer tell people that I had never been in a fight, and then I shoved the ball right into his chest, HARD.
"What? What?"He said in a clipped, intimidating Uncle voice with his hands apart, chin raised, and chest puffed up in an aggresive manner.
I laughed inside, put on a furious look outside, and calmly punched him right in the face. HARD.
He crashed to the ground as the entire playground erupted in a loud "whoah!"
Calmly and without waiting, I jumped onto him, pulled his lapels with my left hand, and punched him repeatedly with my right, not too hard to injure, but hard enough to make him grunt in pain.
I pretended to be worked up and really pissed off as the guys dragged me off him.
"YOu..... YOU BEAT PEOPLE WAN AH!?!?" He shouted indignantly, holding his (uninjured, well, except for the first punch, but it was too nice to resist) face and climbing up.
"Yalah you! Faster say sorry to uncle lah! Where can beat people wan?" My friend S berated me in a loud tone of voice, a twinkle in his eye.
I made to rush at the uncle again, with a pretend furious look on my face(I was laughing my ass off inside) and he stalked off the playground(I think he would've run if the guys weren't holding me).
After he left, S said,"Hehe. Nice one man. I also feel like whacking the old bastard already."
I grinned back at him and said,"I bet he's not coming back anytime soon."
I'm proud of my first fight:
  • It was in the face of blatant and repeated aggravation, which I tolerated more than I should have.
  • It was perfectly planned and executed, modulating it so that I didn't hurt him, just reinforce the idea that bullying young men when you're almost half a century old is not a good idea.
  • I landed a perfect punch, a really satisfying thwack to his cheek, when the nearest I've come to a fight was sparring with protective gear in a gym with a boxing friend of mine.
  • He couldn't return even one hit on me. All the scratches I got were during the game.

And MOST importantly,

  • I was not angry, and in perfect control of my emotions when I decided to act as I did. I'm super-proud of that. I could have been a total barbarian and rearranged his face, and most people would not have faulted me for being so, but I managed, in that tense situation, to make sure that I didn't even bruise him. Just short sharp jabs to the face that hurt for the moment.

I regret having to resort to physical violence though. It's a sign of weakness when the only way you can get a message through is to hit someone. I was brought up with the important lesson that I must always defend the weak and never to pick a fight with anyone smaller than me. And so before that fateful evening two weeks ago, I have never been in a fight. I have never taken advantage of my physique to bully anyone(other than my sister when I was younger, but sisters are for bullying, but I love her and watch out for her too).

I've boxed a bit for fitness, but I'm gaining an interest in mastering streetfighting and maybe muay thai to protect myself and my loved ones if I have to, but I hope fervently, torridly, desperately that I will never never ever have to raise my fists and inflict violence ever again. Ever.

I told this story to Sheng Wai and Ong, and SW immediately started fantasising about joining me the next time someone tried to bully me. He wanted to work the guy over with a steering lock "after you whack him up nicely". I tried to explain to him that I wasn't telling the story to encourage him to whack people, but his eyes had already glazed over imagining how he was bashing someone up.

He said,"Ya. ya. Shouldn't whack people.... but next time if you see him on the street you just drop everything and rush at him lah! Sure he will run one!" I give up.

Ong started chuckling and shaking his head, probably couldn't believe that I would bash someone, let alone a 40-year old man. He knew about the story of me being cut in standard one, when this hyperactive kid decided I was a nice target and cut me with a pocket knife a few times. When my dad asked me why I didn't squash him(I was the biggest in my class then), I said,"because you told me I cannot beat someone that's smaller sized than me!" So Ong understood my rationale, but still couldn't believe I would whack an Uncle.

The other day when I retold my story to Haan Chiang and Sheng Wai was also there, his fist started to bunch up as he started fantasising about whacking up defenceless people 6 to 1 again.

"No. No. Where got fair. Whack uncle liau somore want 6 whack 1 ah? Aiyoh...."

"No-mah. Must teach him a lesson mah!"

*Sigh* I give up.

Warning to all aggressive Uncles, do not cross Chow Sheng Wai, he will run you over with his Waja, work you over with his steering lock, and then call his gang and smash you. Then he will go to your house and seduce your daughter(and your wife, if she's pretty enough). I hope I haven't 'inspired' him, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Butter many privates! Fuck to fry the cow river!

Thanks CK. This is probably the hardest I've laughed today.

My good friend CK sent me this link yesterday. It's a forum discussing the English translation of Chinese menus - Real Chinese tailok China. It's hilarious.

http://chinese.cari.com.my/myforum/viewthread.php?tid=429512&extra=page%3D1

In case you don't read mandarin, they translated buttered toast - or "niu yu duo si"(duo si being the phonetic translation of 'toast' in mandarin, and is represented by the characters "many" for "duo" and "soldier" for "si") into "butter many privates". In case you don't understand the subtle joke behind the more blatant one, the translator chose to be smart and replaced 'soldier' with 'private', which is actually a more accurate meaning of the chinese word 'si'. The funniest thing is he knows his english, and because there are 'many' of them, hence the plural and the word 'privates'.

Go see for yourself. I'm laughing my soldiers off.

Monday, December 05, 2005

"Hey! Old friend! Got some business wanna share with you......"

FUCK. OFF.

I'm not interested, so you can take your puny little dick, stretch it so it reaches your asshole, and go fuck yourself.

Do I have "victim" tattoo-ed on my forehead?
Is there a big huge invisible "cheat me and take my money" stamped on my face that only I can't see?

I don't think so.

Let me take a stand here. And let me make my stand known to you... people.

Anyone who tries to sell me unsolicited goldquest, lampe berger, any other "MLM" shit, insurance, credit cards, or anything that involves getting a commission out of you screwing me will cease to be my friend, and henceforth be persōna nōn grāta in my world. Let's refer to this person(usually male) as a "MLM whore-cunt bitch".

Let's put it into context. A cockroach, by my definition, is the only thing in the world that I hate. It is a despicable organism that does not continue living once I catch sight of one within my living spaces. The "MLM whore-cunt bitch" is barely one notch higher than a cockroach.

If you were my friend before you became an MLM whore-cunt bitch, then I will grant you more face than you deserve, for this once, and refrain from anything else but merely ignoring you once you bring up the word "MLM" or "insurance". However, you will have used up all your prior goodwill with me. You will henceforth cease to be my friend. Continue your selling and I will treat you as I would treat any other stranger.

If you're just a passing acquaintance/stranger, you are in trouble. I will make a personal effort to destroy your mental health and your reputation. I will insult you to your face, make you feel uncomfortable by questioning your morals, ethics and the way your parents brought you up, and make you believe that I will blatantly seduce your girlfriend. I will use psychological techniques to invade your personal space, lower your self-esteem, question your abilities and induce suicidal depression.

Can you believe this fuckheads? One dude recently msg-ed me after a long hiatus. I was on guard instantly at his too-friendly tone of voice and at how fast it took for him to ask for my current phone number. Since he was a really close friend once, I gave my number, but I was prescient enough to include the byline "....as long as you're not gonna try and sell me insurance, credit cards or that lampe berger shit".

So today he sent me another message.
"as long as it's not anything you listed it's ok? actually I wanna share some MLM information with you. I am not selling. just like one to one me and you. yumcha and can talk about other topics oso."

He is now on my blacklist. "can" talk about other topics? Do you ask permission from your friends to talk about stuff? I didn't think so. You want to "share"? haha. Wow, isn't that so generous of you. I didn't know your 'company' information was so precious. You know what you can do with it? Thaaaaaaaaaaat's Riiii-ight! Stick it up your butt, that's what.

I'll bet he'll ask me to "invest" in some "business" of his after my company goes global and I'm rolling in cash.

Another time, a friend's boyfriend(whom I barely knew) called me after he graduated with the same over-friendly tone of voice and gave me his name. It sounded vaguely familiar and I even started to feel guilty for not remembering a friend who was so familiar with me. He said hi, he had just graduated could he come visit me at my hilltop home again? I said sure call me soon and hung up.

Then I scratched my head up and down wondering who the fuck was that... MNS acquaintance? Dad's friend's children? One of the hundreds of Youth Exchange dudes? Someone I met at a seminar/competition? Who was it that had come visit my place before? Who?

After a whole day of confusion, I thought of a sneaky plan and sms-ed him, asking him who gave him my number. He said it was my friend, and it all went click.

Of course. She was one of my best friends and had brought her boyfriend along when she came to visit me at my (then) new place. He seemed like an okay guy, but I still wondered how he suddenly became my best friend. We sorta clicked, cause he was surprise, surprise, a senior from my secondary school.

And then he sms-ed me again. "So is next weekend alright? By the way I'm selling insurance now. Have you got insurance yet?"

Oh.

He probably figured out(wrongly) that I was a rich guy after seeing how and where I lived, and wanted a piece of the action for himself.

I told him, out of curiosity at what he would do, that he was always welcome to visit, since we're good friends, just drop in anytime, but I had to let him know that I already had two insurance policies.

He never even bothered to call back, let alone visit. Just as I thought.

Then they struck in legions and battalions, relentless and unforgiving, willing to sacrifice their friends for a few measly bucks and a reputation as money-grabbing cold-hearted materialistic lazy people who wanted to get rich quick.

You've probably had the same experience yourself. Either as a victim or a MLM whore-cunt bitch. If it's the former, I commiserate with you, I do. I know the feeling of not wanting to be impolite and telling the dude to just fuck off. It was deeply offending to my sensibilities, but at the same time, the need to be a person of restraint, superior moral fibre and class overpowered the need to just punch him in the face.

I have no such compunction nowadays. I bet that after they talk to me, they go away feeling like their minds have been violated. I always sit quietly pretending I didn't have fun torturing them after they've decided they didn't want to talk about it anymore, but I did:

After I wonder whether his parents' divorce had anything to do with his need for attention, one of the MLM whore-cunt bitches twisted and turned trying to change the topic. I asked him whether selling these things that cheated people "satisfied" his needs. He tried to change the topic again. Then I wondered aloud if he got aroused when people felt uncomfortable, like I was getting aroused now just looking at him feel like a trapped mouse. And then my left hand started to stray towards my crotch, like I was going to rub myself.

You should have seen the look of horror on his face as he jumped out of his comfy couch at San Francisco Coffee at Midvalley, mumbled some "I've got to go er, somewhere....." excuse, and practically ran out of the place. I burst out laughing and then regaled the friendly barrista with the story after he he saw the guy running out.

It was hilarious. I got a free refill on my tea and one of the girl barristas kept giving me big smiles. Something good did come out with dealing with these MLM whore-cunt bitches after all.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

What a meal!

I just finished what hands-down is the best meal I've ever cooked. Ever.

No, it's not some obfuscated pseudo-French fusion dish with un-pronounce-able names. It was a simple dish of pasta. Yes, semolina flour noodles. But oh, what a meal! I can still feel the bold, VIBRANT, concentrated taste of the shrimp sauce exploding on my tastebuds. My god. It was so good I had to finish the whole damn thing immediately! I actually picked up my camera, then said fuck it this is too good to wait.

I still can't believe it. This is the first time I've cooked something, and later surprise myself with how good it is. And I'm shocked at how simple it was: Garlic, cili padi, green chillies, one tomato, about 20 medium shrimp. THAT'S IT.

Imagine the taste of 20 shrimp extracted into stock and concentrated to less than a teacup's worth of sauce. As I watched the sauce bubble and boil around the cheery green chilli and purple cili padi, I couldn't resist tasting a bit. I was blown away. The taste of umami utterly saturated my taste receptors. It was like someone squeezed the essence of taste into a tiny singularity and let it explode on my tongue. It was staggering. It was awesome. I waited to see what would happen if I let it reduce even more.

The sauce started to acquire a brown, creamy, caramelised consistency. I had another taste and was blown away once more. The first thought that appeared in my head was My god, why did I cook this now? There's no one to share it with me!(It was 2 am in the morning and it was time for second supper)

I poured the frying pan filled with fettucine, soft green chilli, curled up shrimp and the chewy flakes of garlic into a small bowl, threw the frying pan into the sink, and wolfed down a huge mouthful of the wonderful concoction.

Oh, the taste. The texture. The layered flavours!! First the biting heat of the cili padi, then the shrimp sauce slowly saturated your tastebuds with that incredible flavour, the crunchiness of the shrimp, and finally the slightly tangy, amazingly savoury taste of saute-ed tomatoes would creep up and surprise. Oh the joy. At first taste, I knew that this would be an incredible meal, so I squeezed a huge glass of orange juice to go with it.

It went perfectly with the pasta. Each mouthful of incredibly-focused flavour was chased with a gulp of OJ, clearing the palate with the cheeriness of citrus, only to be followed by another mouthful of pungent, spicy, shrimp-infused flavour.

What a meal. What a meal!

Friday, December 02, 2005

I am a pathetic, unpopular, antisocial person.

salmon and crackers

It's Friday night and I'm sitting at home. Subconciously I'm getting this reflexive need to call the usual unsavoury characters and paint the town red, but other than that, I'm thinking of the fucking traffic on Friday nights and decide that staying at home isn't so bad after all...

OH FUCK I'VE BECOME A KL PERSON! AIYEEEEEEEEEEE..........................!!!!

Anyway every few minutes I'm reminding myself that it's okay. People still love you. You won't disappear if you don't go out on Fridays.

Ooo...kay.........

And I have a whole ton of books to read, AND tomorrow is going to be a wild one.

Okay :) That's more like it.

So, to drown my pretend sorrows, I decided on food (alcohol saps my energy, cigarettes give me bad breath, and drugs are so... I don't know, uncool. Women are definitely out because tonight I've decided to be a pathetic, unpopular, antisocial motherfucker).

Grinning devilishly to myself and plotting like Dexter the little genius, I raided the freezer and came out with a hunk of beautiful, frozen, salmon fillet. My aunty looked at me curiously(as it was almost 10pm and they were going to bed) as I thawed the salmon and laughed maniacally as I rubbed salt and ground black pepper all over the fucker. Muahahahahhaaha...

And then I switched on my computer and surprise surprise, I see Elaine online. I say,"bugger me sideways, look who's as boring as me!" and she says,"haha. YOU are a boring motherfucker. YOU are pathetic, unpopular, and antisocial. And a motherfucker. I am leaving the office now to have lots of wild hedonistic, caligula-level fun with beautiful people and may even get so inebriated that I will wake up not knowing what happened last night!"


Well, well! Now isn't THAT a good way to cheer up a pathetic unpopular antisocial motherfucker like me?


I cried in despair and rent my hair in desperation, wailing and moaning in abject wretchedness, but I managed to compose my e-self and told her "you too" when she said have a good weekend.

The "haha YOU are a boring motherfucker...." part is all melodramatic exaggeration by me. All she actually said was "I'm leaving the office now have a good weekend." I'm a selfish part-time masochist and like to imagine that someone thinks I'm a pathetic unpopular antisocial motherfucker for once. Gives me the excuse to drown my sorrows(WHAT sorrows?! You're just a hungry little bitch who wants to find any excuse to eat!!) with food.

So for a really indulgent first supper, I had grilled salmon fillet with black pepper and get this, Jacob's crackers!!
It's like the last time I got hungry during tea-time, ransacked the supplies cabinet and hacked open a can of abalone. I sliced chilli padi and oyster sauce, and proceeded to stuff myself with RM150 worth of shellfish, JUST FOR A SNACK (no, mummy didn't mind).

I'm thinking, some sad people are eating sardines and crackers, and the luckier ones might have canned tuna or mackerel, but I, I have to be an indulgent little motherfucker and spend time marinading and grilling a beautiful, pink chunk of salmon. My sorrows didn't look so sorrowful after all.

And LATER, for second supper, I'm going to get some really nice siew pak choy, boil up a whole batch of prawn stock and clean a whole bunch of shrimp for..... MAGGI MEE!! And I'm going to dump four eggs into it. Life is goooo..d, mm-kay? *southpark mr mckay voice*

Actually, Friday night home alone doesn't seem like such a bad thing after all.

Aureolae

I had an epiphany the other night.

We were in bed doing the naughty when I suddenly burst out laughing like a jackass.

She was half-naked, surprised, and immediately covered her chest with her hands.

"WHAT?!?!?" She asked in suspicion and exasperation.

I laughed and laughed so fucking hard, not only at the absurd situation I was in and the absolute practical truth of my epiphany, but I was half-naked, suddenly had an image of the Lord Buddha in my head and realised that this was the most ludicrous situation to be in when being enlightened.

"It's nothing," I half-choked out, still laughing like a jackass.

She huffed, looked down and started examining herself, thinking that there was something wrong with her. I had almost stifled the laughter, but burst out even louder when I saw her doing this.

"WHAaAAAAAT?!?!?!?" She almost shouted, confused and obviously finding nothing wrong with herself.

"It's nothing babe. I just thought of something funny. Seriously it has nothing to do with you."

Took me a while to calm her down and get her in the mood again. She doesn't speak English very well, so I didn't bother explaining to her. Good jokes, like a young red, should be appreciated immediately, not explained. Here's what I suddenly realised:

Do you know why there are little bumps around a woman's nipples? It's braille for "Suck here."

WUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *ass falls off*

All or Nothing Syndrome

You know the difference between a racehorse and a pack mule? It's the same as the difference between a Lamborghini and a Kancil, the same difference between the tortoise and the hare: One performs at extraordinary levels for a short period of time, requiring maintenance and is hard to maintain the rest of the time; The other gets the job done quietly and steadily, requiring minimal looking-after.

Are you a racehorse or a pack mule?

Being a racehorse is pretty good. In a short while you become famous, people look up to your abilities, they gaze at you in awe, realising that even at their peak, they will never be anywhere close to you. The girls love you, the men want to be like you, the jealous ones try to break you down. It is all proof that you are superior, and you have a RIGHT to be.

You perform for only short bursts, accolades keep pouring in, you enjoy life and people even believe you are superior to them. They take your temper tantrums and accept your petty demands.

You become arrogant.

If the arrogance rises to the level of over-confidence, you crash. and you burn, badly. What's worse than being spoilt by fame? Being ignored after you're no longer famous. You realise that you don't even get BAD press. You're nobody. A washout. They don't put you to pasture; They drag you out to the backyard, shoot you in the head, and make dog food out of you.

As you're crashing and burning, you begin to see the pack mules in the audience. The slow and steady ones. They've never won any awards, they've never done anything exceptional, but how the fuck did they arrive at the same level as you?!? They've actually achieved things that you thought were beneath you, but are now so hard to touch that you cringe in mortification for envying them that small success.

It is but a matter of time. They understand their limits, broker their thoughts, and plod along, one step after another, until they've reached, if not the peak of Everest, then at least somewhere along the Himalayan Range, at the end of a (to you) endless amount of time. They never aspire to greatness, and are happy and content at every extra modicum of luxury they achieve. You? You've leaped over Everest, and in your overconfidence thought you could command the heavens. You fall, break your limbs, and are left broken in body and spirit in a dark, unknown valley, barely regarded by your former peers and handlers.

I want to be a racehorse with the consistency and ease of maintenance of a pack mule. It is not an unachievable dream. Imagine the greatness one could achieve, and the speed one could achieve it.....

In a world of functional Volkswagens and twitchy Lamborghinis, I want to be a Bugatti Veyron. Fastest time to maximum performance, GREATEST maximum performance, ability to sustain maximum performance easily and comfortably, and so great that possibly no one else is in the same league.

I will be a Veyron.

Need..... Motivation....... *gasp*........!!!!!

It's been a long, hard two weeks in the quest to build a stronger, better body. Situations and friends conspire against me, and the need for willpower and determination cannot be emphasised more.

4 weeks have passed since I felt that twinge in my right knee. I suspect it came from over-tight hamstrings. Didn't provide much of a problem, so I continued jumping and leaping all over the place anyway.

And then the lower back started acting up. No matter, I've eased up on the back workouts in the gym. It allows me to spend more time playing basketball(which isn't really good for building mass) instead.

The stitching on my basketball shoe gave out. I cursed.

The fucking monsoon season is here, and it rains every evening, and some mornings too. There goes basketball.

The right knee twinge became more of a dull aching pain, and the left knee started acting up. The lower back fucking hurts like someone put my spine into the washing machine and forgot to switch it off.

Endorphine and dopamine levels down from the lack of working out, I couldn't muster the motivation to buy energy food. With nothing proper to eat, I started stuffing rubbish down my gullet. Oily, greasy stuff. I had a late-night*sigh* banana leaf meal, a late night burger king Whopper, and for a few days I ate the deep-fried food, oily curries and processed stuff my aunty cooks.

One of my good friends is a certified alcoholic, and spends his days harassing me to go drinking with him. On the same night I ate banana leaf, I caved in and downed two glasses of red, along with a coupla cigarettes to chase it down. What the fuck.....

Mustering a last bit of energy, I dragged myself down to the gym, huffed and puffed my ass off, and barely managed to match my last workout... Oh alright, I cheated a bit. The next day I swore to go buy proper food, and I did.

Still raining, still no basketball, shoe still not repaired, my arms have gotten weaker, both knees giving me problems, and I've got a raging backache. All I've got is fish in the freezer and friends who are determined to make me fat.

I will survive.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

The difference between......

......sluts and bitches:
One will sleep with anyone, the other will sleep with anyone but you.

......The difference between PMS and BSE:
One is mad cow disease, and the other is an agricultural problem.

...... a virgin and a log of wood:
None. Both lie there waiting for someone to work back and forth on them with sharp tools.

......The police and the monarchy:
None. After the PJ police ear squat debacle, the Royal Malaysian Police is now known in China as Polis Raja Di Malaysia.

......being caught cheating on your wife and being caught cheating on your taxes:
If you get caught by the government, they'll want to screw you anyway, and harder.

Definition: A Good Day

Answer: When you chance upon a book sale, end up spending 2 hours browsing, spend only RM120, and leave with 15 books, among them a huge coffee table book about fighter jets, a hardcover biography of amazon.com for only 90 sen(90 SEN!!!!!), and 3 full DC comics compilations. It is a day when you believe and revel in the word "abundance".

Today is a good day.