pulp fiction

flatliner of a day

2006-06-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

today has been a seratonin-low day. I am definitely short on the happy hormone. thought to myself that I would really like to take the next five days off and vegetate at home. squirrel up in my rathole room and read Slaughterhouse Five and whatever else I've got lying around with fancy colourful covers and/or strong recommendations from trusted friends with taste. play Robert Downing Jr on endless repeat then when I get sick of it, play the triumvirate of yo la tengo, arto lindsay and belle and sebastian. if in the mood, throw in some radiohead or portishead to bring me to the verge of swallowing a shotgun barrel. metaphorically, of course. wake up my dogs when they're sleepy in the late mornings and wrestle them on the couch and get dog fur up my nose and in my ears and actually derive perverse amusement from having done so. the five days must be absolutely free of responsibility and reproach. if I can take my brain out and store in one of those regenerative tanks in which they stuck Luke Skywalker after he got mauled by the ugly giant snow creature, even better. I would take no phonecalls nor would I entertain emails. The only way to get to me is over a beer -- which must be Yebisu, Kirin or Boddingtons -- over at Blooies or some other bar where the bartender greets with familarity or already knows what I'm going to order. I might take some time to get a haircut even though my hair is already short and trimmed, but I find the sensation of sharp metallic objects combing through my head strangely therapeutic. I would like to chat with strangers who don't know me and therefore expect nothing, so there's no need for pretence or for tiring mind-games. just fire-and-forget.

but of course, none of the above is possible. just a daydream of someone who has to go to work in seven hours.

lazy afternoon with my type

2006-05-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Over Sunday night post-tennis drinks, J asked me what my type was. While my answer then tried miserably to give form to that necessarily amorphous creature, I think the following might be a better stab at my mythic type:

Clutter. 50s Americana pod-mod cream white TV that didn't work made for a coffee table on top of which piled heaps upon heaps of non-descript magazines with non-descript beautiful people on the covers. Bookshelves lined the walls and on them, the surreal, the existentialist, the comic and the epic stood back-to-back in no particular order. Somewhere between Kafka and Pramoedya, she squeezed in a Soviet-era wind-up clock--4:15. hands frozen in place, immortalising a spectacularly unpeculiar moment, perfectly straddling both the absurd and some unnamed historic consciousness.

At the centre of the room, she's squirreled up in her egg-tart couch that is really a cross between a bean bag and a chair [ten dollars only. she bought it off a cafe she had only been for the first time and loved, but found that it was closing in a weeks' time, so she brought a piece of it home. lovely -- once she scraped the dried-up roach remains from beneath the cushion]. The book she was reading fights for resting room on the bridge of her elfin nose with thick, plastic black-rims, behind which hide usually coy, playful globes currently in a restful sleep. Her scraggy fringe falls across the forehead carefully dishevelled. Ordered chaos, organised mess.

In one corner not already conquered by the hordes of books and magazines, an old stereo belts out Nina Simone, serenading noone in particular. Noone seems to notice either. Yet, somehow the rhythms evoke a pastiche atmospheric that is at once fabricated but also comfortingly familiar. Like home.

Chris Martin and I will not be friends

2006-05-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

Coldplay are extortionist bastards. one hundred sixty eight dollars for free standing tickets!? uh uh. no thank you, you can sing to gwyneth alone, I want nothing to do with your sugar-coated faux angst. what do millionaires have to cry about anyways?

(Flashback: A winter's night in NY in the not-so-distant past. Outside, the streets are a noir-ish grey: you could almost hear Orson Welles lurking behind the corner in a trenchcoat. Elliot and I are in St Mark's Bookshop on East 8th [hope I'm getting this right.. my memory is a murky mess] browsing through pretentiously intellectual reading material, like too-cool translated Japanese fantasy lit disguised as 'postmodern discourse', but it's forgiveable. We were at that age when it was our prerogative to pretend to be someone else. The riffs of 'Yellow' hum themselves into the air, punctuated by the occasional intrusion of the rain whenever the door swings open momentarily to let another wannabe in or out. Of course, we didn't know it was called 'Yellow' then, but the freshness of unabashed Brit rock in a country where radio served a stale staple of bling beats and whiny pop rockers reeled us in instantly. The rest, as they say, was not history, but rather the shared experience of all who went to college at the turn of the millenium. Wasteful Internet decadence at its height: We Napster-ed Coldplay.)

So much for nostalgia. I'll have to KIV my Coldplay concert plans, especially since I had been unusually extravagant last month.

The sad thing is, our sunny island rarely gets any remotely good bands doing shows that I always feel compelled to go even if it was something I only marginally like. Coldplay's good because it stirs up warm fuzzy feelings for old times' sake, but it's not really the footstomping, fistpumping kind of 'good' nor is it clever or witty enough to excite my inner geek. Every now and then, we get a Franz Ferdinand, and every inch of your soul, every particle of your being is charged with such frenetic excitment and you feel like frankiestein waking up to the smell of morning. But then it ends and you hang around, hover, stick your hands in the pockets and kick the dust off the ends of your sneakers while humdrum Oasis and Coldplay come and go and you wonder if you should just go because there's nothing else.

My next frontier is the local indie scene. I went to an Observatory gig last year but noise rock, symphonic or not, wasn't quite my thing. Cafe Cosmos or Timbre, anyone?

Drivel

2006-05-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

what an exciting Monday. S is almost dead (again). ET is on the verge of civil war (again). and M looked like it was gonna blow--well, no one really knows for sure, but Channel News Asia claimed M erupted this morning, sending the office into pandemonium before we realised that Asia's numbah one news network was out-of-step with the rest of the world (again)-- turned out M was just farting out voluminous smoke.

Those who don't have a clue what the Acronyms stand for: Guess. It's not that difficult.

Other earthshattering news at work: F is joining the office. Of all the major disasters that could've happened today, none can match up to the one that actually did. F embodies everything I am not: serious, hardworking, and actually successful. The only consolation I take is that he's got a Third-Reich combover and a cheek-mole that looks almost cancerous. F is one of those types for whom the universe obeys a separate logic and alien laws of physics. If you cracked a joke, he would think you were trying to criticise him. If you confessed ignorance, he would assume you were testing him. Welcome to the world of the over-serious and hyper-intense. Where "take it easy" is gibberish and "relax" only muttered under the breath in quiet shame.

Worse, this fuckwad is taking the cubicle next to mine. Maybe I should seal off my workspace with a hanging duvet.

Started on another Jap dorama tonight. Idolatry is the opiate of the modern-day single young adult. Who needs a social life when the companionship of the fabulous and the fantastic can be realised at a mere $15 (plus ten percent discount at selected Poh Kim)? And the art of idolatry is at its most refined in the Japanese dorama. No need for convoluted plotlines revolving around epic family power struggles or boardroom battles. No chockablock kimchi kookie convulsing on her faulty facet teardrops either. What you have instead is cheeky cool or spunky cute --a polished pop fantasy tailored for those who pride themselves on being different but succumb ultimately to better packaging anyways. Love it.

An actual quote from a Tokyo University law student (saw this on TV years back): "When I grow up, I want to become like Kimura Takuya."

BACK

2006-05-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

After not writing for a good two months, I'm staging a comeback that's inspired by Po's confession that he actually bookmarked my blog on his browser. [ah. the little things that keep me going.]

so why haven't I been writing? for a chockful of reasons that always invalidate themselves upon enunciation: ranging from the usual-- "I've been swamped with work, up to the neck, you know!"-- to the pathetic-- "Other people's blog so much better mah. I write so lousy, malu!" -- to the sad-but-true-- "Sian. nothing to write about. brain is dead."

In any case, if you're reading this, it means you're one of the faithful who still check this page for updates in spite of seemingly perpetual disappointment. So... thanks.

I'm going to take this entry as a warmup for the revival of my blogging days, so I won't be rattle off endlessly about my thoughts/feelings/musings/life or lack thereof for the last 8 weeks. Will instead just pretend that all of that didn't happen and start afresh on a blank slate. so stay tuned ok!!

quirkyalonemyass

2006-03-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

this site is almost cool:

http://quirkyalone.net/qa/index.php

Beneath its pseudo-intellectual celebration of self, its really just loneliness repackaged. smells like a bunch of over-grown former gen x loners thumbing their noses at people in relationships for 'settling'. Friendster for people too proud to admit they need Friendster. pwah.

Maybe I don't understand -- I did only score 70 on the 'Are you quirkyalone?' quiz. That makes me quirkytogether: Possessing aspects of quirkyalone-ness, but still somehow find myself in a coupled situation every now and then.

What's Your True Colour?

2006-03-02T09:06:00.000-08:00

Puay Lim, your true color is Orange!

You're a bold, confident orange. A warm, powerful color that indicates a strong, welcoming personality, orange is the mark of people who are social and extroverted by nature. Vibrant, with an upbeat attitude, you have a bright, inviting demeanor. Energetic and fun-loving, you're a real friend-magnet. Your easy charm and unassuming manner make you the sort of person people want to meet and get to know better. Well-rounded and fun to be around, you enjoy helping others, so it's no surprise that orange also symbolizes attraction. Orange is an extraordinary color — for an extraordinary person.

I can't believe I even wasted five minutes of my life to do this quiz. Sycophantic drivel is just not my cup of tea at 1am after a 16hr work-day. I rather be Agent Orange -- caustic to the point of pain, but you just can't make it go away.

(torch)light at the end of the tunnel

2006-02-24T23:18:00.000-08:00

After what was possibly the Worst Week ever -- screwed by RL and all Bosses down, going home at midnight every day, finding out that Jack stuck a really big bloody spoke from behind, and Oasis Thursday (which I can't even remember exactly, but just woke up knowing that I had messed up AGAIN) --

I get a letter in the mail telling me I've passed my nikyu Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

It's not much, but a hundred dollars more a month means I can now afford a few more pints of beer to help get through my drone-y days. Anyone up for a Heineken? It's on me.

Nine years on

2006-02-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

Supper conversation tonight:

End-of-the-world Scenario: You're 35. You're still in the civil service. You make 7 - 8k a month as a Deputy Director. You work unearthly hours - you eat, breath, hell you shit work. You might be married, you might not be. Chances are, you still live with your parents, and if you don't, you live in a crammed rathole. You meet up with your friends. Those guys you knew from school. Those who began just like you did, two feet on the ground and teeth-grit determination. Difference - they're lawyers, they're i-bankers, they're consultants. They took that path you never knew. Never could know because those bastards had you by your balls.

You'll remember that nine years ago, when you first broke into the "late twenties" bracket, you had supper with these guys at that corner coffeeshop that served cheap but good Teochew porridge into the wee hours of the evening. These days, the disparity slaps you in the face. Worse, it's a bitch slap. You didn't realise that nine years ago, they were already making twice what you made every month. Now, they were making thrice or more. Compound interest added, these guys were living the stuff of dreams. Your friends, yes those real people, made it into the tv while you were still on your second-hand couch with coke stains and bits of potato chips tucked deep in its recesses. No point channel-surfing, bozo.

But the clincher is that you know the fight's over. They rung the bell while you were out stone cold on the arena mat. KO. Game over. Go home, loser. You never stood a chance for the first six rounds because you were blindfolded and had your wrists and ankles bound and were told that it was actually good for you. What a load of bull-crap.

Addiction

2006-02-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

Do you remember those campaigns against smoking, drugs and glue sniffing when we were kids? We all remember emaciated youths with their ashy insomnia-induced eyeshadow and cosmonaut expressions on tv or even the walking life-size cigarette buds fishing the nicotine-hooked with their well-not-so-subtle literal fish-hooks. Or what about the proverbial ball-and-chain perpetually attached to shadows of real persons for whom escape is but a word that belongs only to Alice in Wonderland and other Adventures. We remember these so well, yet one wonders why no one ever bothered to warn us of addiction (which to some extent, has become an affliction) that affects more people than the usual vices and exercises an effect far greater and more devastating than the rest?

“I wish I knew how to quit you.”

That one line in Brokeback was at once pure popcorn Hollywood cheese at its finest, and also a singular moment of emotional resonance. A friend of mine has fallen recently into these all-so-familiar trappings of person-addiction. Not just any person, but the fearsome ex. Ex-date/gf/benefriends/frenefits/fuck buddy, call it what you want, it’s the ex. Ex-addiction is worst kind of person addiction.

You suffer without reprieve because in this particular person, you re-discover the joys of connecting. Connection. Connectivity. Yep, that’s right. The feeling you have when it’s effortless to converse (not speak) with another. When you don’t necessarily have the same ideas or views, but exchanging them is a source of incomparable pleasure and satisfaction. When you actually feel for the other’s misfortunes and unhappiness as if they were your own. And conversely, you revel in the other’s triumphs and felicitous fortunes without any ostensible benefit to yourself. But you suffer without reprieve because while you think you developed a certain affinity for this other, you cannot and should not expect reciprocity. Because once upon a time, you did so and that expectation consumed you alive. So you fight it. And in doing so, you fight yourself. You refuse to piece together what the individual neurons in your brain and your nerve endings in your skin are processing in fragments. It cannot and should not be. Every brush of the arm is an affront to your sensibility. Every smile must be counter-intuitively rejected.

Why not walk away? We would if we could. But choice is illusory. Most of the time, we’re stuck in a masochistic rut. Just sniffing and sniffing away at our addiction.

Happy

2006-02-14T05:26:00.000-08:00

Flippant flubberoos followed by
Manic cackle
hi ho ha ha ha hoo!
Howling in prefab delight
Just like these words
distance, dilute, dissolve
meaning
this not That.

Spherical objects

2006-02-09T04:59:00.000-08:00

Revolutions. The idea that life tumbles around like a bowling ball. The finger-holes, two beady eyes across a cherry mouth agape, are apparent for no more than a second before they roll away from sight. Then here they are again starting again from the crest of a rotation. And then gone again. And here again. And back again. Top sinking to Bottom. Repeat. Here turning into There. Repeat. High turning into Low. (The funny thing is, the Bottom-Top, There-Here, Low-High transition is always so abrupt, so sudden. A moment of blurred consciousness, then we are happy once more.)

And so it is. I wake up to find that what had been done unto me I had done upon someone else and done unto me again. We can be such shapeless creatures, dependent on only our relationships with another. One moment, the power is in our hands, and we dictate the terms of what's going on. We make the rules. We control the pace. We have possession of the ball. (Soccer, you fool, you can't kick around a bowling ball. It hurts.) The other can only watch, trying to anticipate, but ultimately falling flat on the arse.

Then with another, we don't even realise we've been backpedalling for the last ten steps. We pander to the other. We read entire generations worth of meaning into the most insignificant of gestures. How pathetic. But yet. Happy. Was this how it was for the one we don't pause to consider (yes the one with the ass on the ground)?

Mars versus Venus

2006-02-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

Saw this on TV today:

Women in Taiwan are paying hundreds of dollars to have mashed up swallow droppings smeared all over their faces in the name of beauty. Apparently, swallow-poo face masks are the new cure-all for complexion problems.

Read this on the cover of a book titled "The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Never Grow Up" today:

Women have loved them, married them, left them and survived them... BUT no woman can resist them!

(The first page of the book then quotes the New York Times: "(this book) proposes solutions for what is considered a severe psychological problem amongst men"

Final score: Men - two! Women - ZERO!

Pretence

2006-01-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

it's really sad when you realise that someone you know (and might actually give half a damn about)is dead-set on self-destruction. it's painful to see that someone try so terribly hard to adopt the facades of alternative personalities just to escape being the person that someone actually is. it must be even harder to be that someone. i can't imagine what it must be like to hate yourself so much --- 'chronically unhappy', that's a phrase a friend used recently.

There comes a point for the observer, however, when the curveball comes hurtling right back towards you and you are suddenly struck by an extraordinary moment of doubt --- did you ever know who this someone was? maybe this person was not who you thought he/she was, but the vessel of false habits that you see before you. you think that it's all a show, but really, the show is all there really is. Maybe, but still pretty goddamn sad anyways.

Ultimate Cubicle

2006-01-02T22:35:00.000-08:00

I want this next Christmas:

http://www.ideo.com/dilbert/

Visitations

2006-01-02T19:07:00.000-08:00

It's been a pretty surreal NYE weekend. Despite doing pretty much nothing (apart from wasting 2 hours standing in line at MOS and then 'partying' til 4), the end of 2005 was no short of surprises. here's to name a few:

i) Blast from the Past I - got an email from Kayo! though we chat every now and then on IM, hadn't heard from her since I reinstalled the hard-drive and dropped IM from my online habits. was nice to know she's still alive and kicking (and going to Egypt!!) end result: I reinstalled IM.

ii) Blast from the Past II - phonecall from NY! Bush, Elliot, James and Laurel rang up. drunk, no doubt, but still good. they made me promise to visit NY sometime in 2006 then hung up on me to flirt with some chicks they picked up from the bar. (Laurel claims she did all the legwork for the boys. surprise surprise...some things never change.)

iii) Blast from the Past III - SMS from Eugene! bastard SMSes from Taipei airport on his way to HK before heading back to Tokyo to wish happy new year and stuff. just saw him two months ago, but good to hear from as always. hope all's going well with Mrs Robinson.

iv) Blast from the Past IV - news from Po!! so Sara runs off to HK and discovers the Po-ster. apparently the ass is coming to Singapore for the whole of Feb and didn't even tell me!! I'm gonna whoop his sorry ass when he gets here.

and that pretty much rounds up the whole college gang of friends! all in a weekend's work. pretty amazing. makes up entirely for my own sorry weekend - I sat at home to read and watch DVDs (but oh my god have you seen Zatoichi? have not had such fun and senseless violence in a long time, but Team America was tasteless and stupid and shitzer porn is just not funny even if it's just playdoh and even less funny if you're watching it with your parents)

so that wraps up 2005. here's my customary list of new resolutions:
i) win the lottery
ii) if fail to do i), plan for alternate career
iii) write something frivolous and get paid for it
iv) visit NY and my degenerate friends
v) reduce credit card bill by half
vi) shed the fat and rediscover the corners of my face

First Day of Work in 2006: my computer has been declared a "gone case" and needs to be "re-cloned".

No comment

2005-12-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

Usha just dropped a note complaining that she hasn't been mentioned in this blog. so there. Thanks for reading, though. It's pretty gratifying that some of my friends actually bother to read this damn thing. How about some comments, fellas? Notice how most other blogs carry comments? no matter how unfunny, stupid, critical, irrelevant, miss-the-whole-point, annoying-to-the-point-that-if-you-wrote-that-for-me-i'm-gonna-come-right-over-and-kick-your-sorry-ass?

This blog has had TWO comments so far and they were both spam from some spam-bot. haven't had any more comments since I activated the spam blocker.

Here, I've come up with a few ready-to-use comments below. Any takers?

"from your writing, you must be a 6 foot tall bronze Olympian god. you wanna hang out sometime?"

"you are so unfunny you must be insecure. Get a Penis Enlarger today!"

"i hate self-conscious writing."

"somehow irony only works when other people use it."

"you remind me so much of (insert famous writer/singer/actor/any kind of good-looking celebrity/but no ex-lovers please)"

"you are a f***ing genius. come write for New Man/Mens Health/Details/Esquire/GQ right now! - The Editor of Pseudo-gay magazine that straight men secretly read"

"you are a f***ing genius, no one at a good magazine wants you but you can come write at Maxim/FHM/Stuff! - The Editor of Alpha-male magazine that celebrates boobs and ass and be damn proud of it"

so how about it people? comments please? say something, can or not?

blabber

2005-12-07T04:26:00.000-08:00

bosswantsthisotherguywantsthatcaughtinbetweendunnowhattodophone
isringingemailsunreadtensofthousandsofthingstodoandnotmuchtime
leftheadisspinningspinningspinningspinningandspinningspinninspi
nnispinnspinspisps..splat.

I am this close to a meltdown.

Before Sunrise

2005-12-06T07:24:00.000-08:00

Trip to Dili, Timor-Leste, 26 – 30 November 2005

My maiden voyage to the newest country on the planet. For work, of course. Nevertheless exciting. (Trivia: Did you know Timor really means “East” in Bahasa Indonesia? That makes East Timor literally “East East” – a tautology, in other words. Timor-Leste is no better: Leste also means “East” in Portuguese. My favourite remains the little-known Timor Lorosae, which in the pseudo-magical native tongue of Tetum, poetically heralds the birth of “Timor Sunrise”.)

Impressions: My experience calls to mind Hotel Rwanda (horrendously overrated film, by the way). For four days, I live in a hotel also unimaginatively named after the country: Hotel Timor, which also happens to be the only half-decent business hotel in the entire city. Just like the movie. From my room window, I can see dusty asphalt roads pockmarked with potholes perpetually filled with muddy rainwater. White SUV/Land Cruiser types with the thick black neutralist letters UN emblazoned on their doors make up the bulk of the Dili traffic. Behind those doors I would inevitably find an American/ Western European/ but probably Australian treehugger in his or her thick black neutralist sunglasses and well-worned khakis behind the wheel. The Timorese themselves are out in force on the streets. Mostly young ones. (“They can’t find work. But actually, they don’t really like to work either,” my know-it-all driver Jose informs me.)

On my first day, I take a ride around town to feel Dili out. The city is a sad story waiting to be told. Many buildings in the city center are hollowed out from the destruction of the civil war. Overgrown with vegetation, roofs are absent where roofs are supposed to be. So this is dilapidated. Suddenly we halt and a hearst passes us in the opposite lane. (“We respect the dead here. Even the President would stop his vehicle as a mark of respect.” This Jose dude is amazing.) We drive up Monte Bisi (sp?) On the gentle slopes of the hill, young teenagers are hacking down emaciated saplings from an already arid landscape. (“People are so poor they steal from the trees. They are stealing the wood to sell in the city.”) Up on the hill, a lone Timorese man sits contemplatively on a makeshift lookout point – two fallen logs neatly straddle a nook in the ridge edge, while an ancient acacia tree gives kind shade from the scorching sun.

Yet in this picture of seeming desolation, Dili is the deserving capital of Timor Lorosae – the sunrise that is brought forth by the children of the country. Jose, for one, suffers from an extraordinarily infectious hope. Hope that there is hope for his country. He shares his thoughts with me one night over a couple of beers by the beach. His manner is modest and understated, yet full of conviction. He is not alone either – there are many who share in his belief in magic. (“Have you ever wondered why Xanana (the President) never got caught? They say that whenever his enemies surrounded him, the clouds would gather and a storm would appear out of nowhere.” I point out that Xanana Gusmao was indeed captured at one point during the war. “Ah. You see, he let himself be caught. That was when he realized that the symbolic war was more important than the war itself.” We can only envy the unassailable logic of the hopeful.)

Timor's very own Thoreau

2005-12-06T06:26:00.000-08:00

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta's home outside of Dili

Re-birth

2005-12-06T06:05:00.000-08:00

Part I

2005-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

He lowered his guard, but he shouldn't have. It was always better to have the wall up. That's what his father told him. That's what his friends told him. Hell, that's what all those stupid magazines he wasted all his time on and don't worry mum they're all trash and I don't believe a word they say yea right but right now they were right all along, weren't they? His old man, his friends and his stupid magazines.

When did he begin to take the wall apart brick by brick? He can't quite place when but he remembers when the light first broke in. The first couple of beams were so shy, coyly peeking through to see if the coast was clear, but they weren't too careful, awakening in a sleepy glow specks of dust that hadn't known their own shadows in years. Once they were sure though, the rest broke relentlessly into the territory of the unlit. He had to reacquaint himself with long forgotten warmth. When was the last time...?

(tbc)

ok bitches

2005-11-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

I'll make this real quick for the benefit of those who actually read this space to find out how their dear old friend is doing. we'll do a real quick Top Ten events of the past two weeks:

(drumroll please)

10. I have not gotten shit-faced in the last two weekends. (okay that one saturday I wasn't really drunk. Sleazy, yes. Drunk, no. Fair?)

9. I have gone back to the office for two weekends consecutively. Don't get me wrong. This is no badge of honour. I abhor working on the weekends.

8. I have finished The Corrections. It took me a while, but I've done it! First real book since I started work. That would mean...five months. Might be a record. But it's a wickedly fine book, so read it!

7. I am an old man's personal slave/bitch/dog/'liason officer' for five whole days. Yes, I am getting paid for it.

6. I'm falling out of my running routine. Have run only twice in last two weeks, and swam once. Let's not even get started about the tan. Another week and I'm gonna look like Darth Vader without his mask.

5. I find out that all the preparation I worked painstakingly hard on for some really important guy's meeting with another really important dude that turned out to be a 'hey how's it going' idle chitchat bullshit conversation by the vending machine between the two super-important-dickheads. oh and they only talked for 2 minutes.

4. I have been rediscovering the pain of public transport. (For reason, please refer to no.2) Sat opposite terribly chatty ugly woman who rattled away non-stop at terribly uninterested ugly man in the train tonight. The real world is too harsh. I need my TV and all my beautiful TV-people in their beautiful TV-world.

3. I hang out with Murayama Yoshi. My sleazy buck-toothed Japanese friend from college days tells me he is now dating a nurse (D-Cup, he says) whom he's getting engaged to next year, AND a 20yr old college student (E-cup, he assures me ever-so-proudly) at the same time. I point out that a)he's 27 and he really shouldn't be cheating little girls; b) cup sizes don't make for exceptions.

2. I survive my second car accident in two months.

1. It's complicated. (Actually it's not.)

2005-10-31T19:37:00.000-08:00

Dinner and Dance 2005. Yep, that's right. Thats me in the Stormtrooper helmet. From left: WJ, Diana (definitely looks like she's smooching the helmet. I can't remember), me, devilish Ken and Denise.

Peter Pan-ism

2005-10-31T19:28:00.000-08:00

Went out with some old friends last night. When I was telling a new friend about it earlier in the day, she thought I was hanging out with geriatrics. I clarified that they were friends that went back a long way. But after last night, I was beginning to think that the line between the two definitions of 'old' in the case of these friends was fuzzier than I'd thought.

I was one of only two singles last night. There were ten of us. Four couples. The conversation around the table went from golf to apartment furnishing to wedding planning. I think I was fairly reticent (which is pretty unusual, you'll know if you know me) the whole night. I only spoke at length on a couple of topics that strayed away from the main body of adult-talk (that sounds so wrong). For one, I volunteered an unsolicited sales pitch on the soon-to-be-released Xbox 360—“this machine’s going to revolutionalise gaming and entertainment!!”—to a largely unenthusiastic audience. Oh did I mention we were drinking wine?

Which really led me thinking about my seemingly stunted development. When did I get left behind in the great game of growing up? These were all my peers I had spent the better part of my life with—all the way from secondary school, junior college, army, college and back in army again. Somehow, they had all matured into stable, regular-income lives with predictable weekends and sedentary sports, while I was still frolicking my free time away, usually inebriated, and unconscious if not. The little boy in me never got tucked away. Hell, I bloody look like one.

Where do people of my flock end up? I remember this one line inscribed on the inside of a Pulp album cover: “It’s OK to grow up – Just as long as you don’t grow old. Face it.. You are young.” Sometimes I suspect I might just have taken it a little too seriously. Is it such a bad thing? For now, I shall revel in my perpetual youth.

Did you know...

2005-10-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with Ashraf online last night. Through the random twists and turns of conversation, I learnt a curious piece of titbit information: that the word “serendipity” came from Horace Walpole’s Persian fairy tale Three Princes of Serendib and “Serendib” was an old name for what is known today as Sri Lanka.

The trusty Wikipedia tells me:

Serendipity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For other uses, see Serendipity (disambiguation).

Serendipity is finding something unexpected and useful while searching for something else entirely. For instance, the discovery of the antibacterial properties of penicillin by Alexander Fleming is said to have been serendipitous, because he was merely cleaning up his laboratory when he discovered that the Penicillium mould had contaminated one of his old experiments.

The word was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754, from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip. (Serendip is an old Persian name for Sri Lanka.) The episode in the story involves a case of spectacular abductive reasoning (as used by Sherlock Holmes), which later leads to unsought "serendipitous" rewards from the king.

Origin of the term
The fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip is based upon the life of Persian king Bahram Gur who ruled the Sasanian Empire from ca. 420-440 AD. Stories of his rule are told in epic poetry of the region (Firdausi's Shahnameh 1010 AD, Nizami's Haft Paykar 1197 AD, Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht 1302 AD), parts of which are based upon historical facts with embellishments derived from folklore going back hundreds of years to oral traditions in India and Tales of the Arabian Nights. With the exception of the well-known camel story, English translations are very hard to come by.

In the camel story, the Three Princes use trace clues to precisely identify a camel they have never seen (lame; blind in one eye; missing a tooth; carrying a pregnant maiden; bearing honey on one side and butter on the other). This result of abductive reasoning is not what is meant by serendipity (the discovery of something NOT sought). Because of their cleverness and sagacity, they are accused of stealing the camel and are about to be put to death by Bahram Gur. Suddenly and without anyone seeking him out, a traveler steps forward to say that he has just seen the missing camel wandering in the desert. Bahram spares the lives of the Three Princes, lavishes them with rich rewards and appoints them as advisors. These rewards are the unsought (serendipitous) results of their sagacious insights.

Pretty serendipitous discovery, I think.

This is why you can never tire of the internet. It’s the Serendib of our times. Except we’re never really looking for anything at all. We are all trivia junkies who get high on ‘I’m feeling lucky’. The one thing I liked best about William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition was its open acknowledgement of the place ‘google’ held as a verb in the contemporary lexicon. I suspect ‘wikipedia’ will make it there soon too, though two more syllables makes it a tad more difficult to roll it off the tongue.

Next stop: Did anyone ever wonder how bats poo-poo while hanging upside down? Heheheh.

Crimson Room

2005-10-25T02:05:00.000-07:00

The internet's finest (prob unintended) expression of Samuel Beckett. You gotta love the bad English too. There is no strange thing.

www.fasco-csc.com/works/crimson/crimson_e.php

2005-10-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

Second Link. Caught in the act: (from left) Tim, Raj and a shameless TH smiling for the camera

Diplomatic Relief

2005-10-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

Best soundbite from KL (aka Project X):

We're driving across Second Link after being caught in the Friday jam for the last hour. While stuck in the traffic, the three clowns who happily are my colleagues TH, Tim and Raj, were chugging beers in the passenger seats, so when we finally get through the Singapore checkpoint, all three are whining like babies about their exploding bladders. So I drop them off at the side of the Second Link expressway for rapid relief.

Back in the car.

Someone: Scarly the Malaysian customs stop us for peeing at the side of the expressway.

TH: Saya orang diplomatik!

Raj: You cock. That just means you're a diplomatic person.

Reality-check

2005-10-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

I've got the second Franz Ferdinand album (recently pilfered) playing on the computer. I've got Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections tucked away in the front pocket of my work bag. I drive a Corolla Altis. I get my hair cut at Supercuts. I have two dogs I love and whom hopefully love me back. Every morning, I get up at 7.30am and go to work. It's a job I don't hate but also don't love. Every Tuesday I run. Every Saturday I swim. Every Sunday I play a little tennis.

Have you ever felt a pressing need to make a checklist of everything about yourself, just to make sure you're still there? Think of the cliched pinch on the cheek to check if you were dreaming. Except this is more like digging your nails into your eyes to check if you were awake. Okay I'm being dramatic.

There's this Faye Wong song:
(Blogger wouldn't display my carefully selected Chinese font. argh.)
xing3 bu4 lai2 xing3 lai2 hou4 hai2 shi4 fa1 dai1

Somewhere sometime I think I de-railed. Don't imagine it to be like a massive affairs like one of those Amtrak disasters where the train's fallen over on its side and passengers are desperately climbing out through the windows. The picture I had in mind was more like a constantly turning wheel that's run outside of its groove. It's still running but every day, every second, it just runs a little bit further away from the original groove. Zoom out. The wheel's just one of many, so this little mishap has been allowed to run unnoticed. And it probably will continue surreptitiously so for days, weeks and possibly years to come. For now, the whole engine doesn't just depend on this one wheel anyways. Who cares. But somewhere inside, you can't help but have this nagging suspicion that someday, that wheel is just going to run an inch too far out and everything might just come tumbling down.

Did you see Fight Club? Did you read any Chuck Palahniuk? He thinks its consumerism. Mass culture. Tv. Advertising. Production lines. Newspapers. Perfect replication. Duplication. He think its all of these that makes us numbly awake. I think of Murakami.

Anality now!!

2005-10-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

I did it again today. Yet another stupid mistake at work. I actually CHECKED. I did, and I didn't see the mistake. If there's one thing worse than making a careless mistake, it's making one when you consciously tried not to make one.

Self-doubt.

It creeps in when you're not looking. When I woke up this morning, I felt pretty good about myself. An hour later, I'm in a waking nightmare. One stupid mistake, fine. Two, you're careless, you should watch it. Three. Four. Five. Six. I've lost count. I'm pretty sure my boss has too. Credibility lost. I'm an idiot. He thinks I'm an idiot. I think he thinks I'm an idiot. Same difference. It all adds up to the same thing:

Self-doubt.

It's a battle I've fought for the better part of these almost-25 years. Confidence versus doubt. Every conscious deep breath taken to steady the drumming of heart against chest. Every conscious decision to not tear away at my fingernails. Every time I've told myself I could do it and taken a leap of faith. So easily undone, apparently.

What does it take to acquire a meticulous eye? I never thought I'll say this, but what can I do for a little anality? Stuff it up, please, if you know what I mean. If I'm going to survive (let's not even talk about thriving), I'm going to need it.

2005-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Accident (plus Prologue: The Chinese Invasion)

2005-09-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

Ok. Here goes the second attempt at reviving my almost defunct blog. I KNOW I haven't blogged since July. I just spent the last hour blogging when I finally finished and then promptly lost the entire entry. Why? Well thats a question I would really bounce back to bleeding blogger.com. Can somebody please tell me why my default blogger.com page is entirely in CHINESE. Chickadee China the Chinese Chicken. My desktop is a victim of the Chinese invasion. Now, I know I'm Chinese, but that doesn't give blogger.com the green light to assume that I'm Chinese and can read Chinese, because frankly, I CAN'T.

I think those last couple of sentences broke some obscure record on number of 'C's in one breath. Anyways, I must have clicked on some button that I thought read "Publish Post" in Chinese but really meant "Junk this piece of crap", so thats how the story goes.

gosh. I hope that first paragraph right there doesn't qualify as seditious comments.

back to serious business.

THE ACCIDENT September 16 2005 (well I guess if you really wanted to be technical about it, it would be September 17. 1am in the morning)

I just drop off Eugene and Eriko at the Swissotel Merchant Court. It's pouring buckets. I'm pretty fatigued after not getting a good night's rest for the entire week. I'm cruising along Hill St at about 50 or 60 when the taxi (it's always a taxi, isn't it?) in front pulls to a stop to give way to an ambulance pulling out of Hill St Fire Station. I slam on my brakes...and this is where my memory is pretty fudged, but as best as I recall, the brakes don't respond the way I thought they would and WHAM! Car crumples into the taxi. My bonnet's crushed like an accordion. The passenger side door doesn't open anymore, and I scramble out of my car, thinking that it was going to blow any second.

Standing in the rain, I think I took a momentary break from my shell shock to appreciate the melodrama of the situation. Drenched, stunned into silence, with made-in-Bangkok Toyota junkheap before me. To sum up in a word: surreal. Something I had often toyed with in careless daydream or fretted over in anxious paranoia had actually happened, but nothing had gone the way I had thought it would in my imagination. No life flashing before my eyes. No fear. No pain. No blood. And in my world of messed up priorities, the first thought that came to my mind: No car for the weekend. Dammit.

In retrospect, I have one thing to say. I am so thankful that I am not the only person I have to depend on. I mean, if this self-centred, immature, spoilt brat that is myself was all I had to count on, my sorry ass is so screwed (pardon the graphic metaphor). In the seconds before full-blown shell shock set in, I managed to sputter out over the phone to Wenni--whom I figured to be the only person still awake at that unearthly hour, and serendipitously turned out to be news broadcaster non pareil--that I had gotten into a bad accident. Before I could say Chickadee Chinese Chicken (yea it's still on my mind), I had my friends all ringing me up to see if I was okay. I think I owe you guys big time. Seriously, THANKS. Not just for the concern, but more importantly, I think you guys really helped to put things back in perspective. That maybe, just maybe, the fact that I was still alive and breathing with my legs intact was more important than not having a car for the weekend. Sometimes, it's strange but it takes someone else to say the obvious and slap you back into the real world. so yea, if you guys ever get into an accident, just give me a ring, I'll gladly lend my car.

Be With You

2005-07-11T01:08:00.000-07:00

In my long hiatus, I've gone from books to films in a big way. I actually finished three books in NZ--Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, but after starting work, I've been so tired (ever the root source of lazy, isn't it?) that I've turned to film instead for my brain's gym workout. Most recently, I saw this Japanese film Be With You over in Cineleisure. I wonder if it's really been so long since I last succumbed to melodrama that I've lost my cynical immunity to tearjerker cliches, for I swore, if I hadn't been in a public place (and watching together with a female friend--the auto-reflexive male machismo kicked in) I would totally have been reduced to kleenex solvent.

Be With You dir. Nobuhiro Doi

To sum it up, Be With You is an entire Japanese drame (do-ra-ma) condensed into a 2hr movie, complete with all the requisite scenes of people getting run over by automobiles, drenched in the rain, running from point B to point A to catch person B just in time before B disappears...you get the drift. Except that BWY is all of this and more. What differentiates this film from all the usual run-of-the-mill soap opera is the incredible chemistry between the two leads and the childlike naivete through which the tale is told (it is no silly contrivance that the film is framed within the reminiscience of the story's boy narrator Yuji).

By now, the relentless machinery of marketing has already informed the world countless times over that the lead actor and lead actress of the film, Shidou Nakamura and Yuko Takeuchi, fell for each other while filming the movie. While some may treat this as tired trivia, there is no doubt that their real-life attraction to each other translated to great effect in reel-life. When shy and awkward Aio (played by Nakamura) offers his jacket pocket to the hesitant Mio (Takeuchi) to warm her hands, we are infected with a warm fuzziness that is not unlike a fleece blanket on a cold night, mug of cocoa in front of a campfire on a wintry evening outside, a girlfriend's cuddling against that hollow in your shoulder. For those who still spend their weekends wondering when and where they will meet that special someone, the film, replete with moments like this one, gives momentary relief--a flirtation with love, if you must. In the vocabulary of Japanese film, there is no need for long, passionate French kisses or naked gymnastics (think Mr. and Mrs. Smith). All you have is a raised eyebrow, a nervous twitch of the lip, a stolen glance and that is all it takes to convey a romance far more convincing and affecting than in most summer Hollywood blockbusters.

Yuji, the young son of the ill-fated couple, is a pivotal figure in the movie. Not simply the prototypical wide-eyed Japanese cute kid, he also takes on the more important role as the narrative voice for the story. It is important that the movie is told through his glassy-eyed perspective, for it is only through a child's ignorant innocence that the story's absurd conjurations can be so utterly believable. Fairy-tales were made for children after all. However, it is also because we see the couple's story through the child's eyes that the pathos is made so much more powerful, for who can stand that thought of letting the tragedy of loss befall a child (not least the prototypical wide-eyed Japanese cute kid)? Needless to say, our heart-strings are stretched like a bungee cord, given reprieve only to suffer repeated and continued stress. Let the floodgates open.

Watching this movie is a cathartic release. In two hours, you would have lived through your childhood, your first love, your first loss and your first child all over again. And unless you're a heartless bastard (or just a damn si-ai-mien-zhi guy like me) you will definitely cry your heart out. bring kleenex? no way, bring a towel to dry your eyes and a pair of shades to hide under on your way out.

2005-07-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

OSIM triathlon 2 July 2005. Thats my friend Tapioca on the left.

2005-07-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

spelunking Power Rangers (From left:me, Peter and JJ)

2005-07-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

My leap of faith

2005-07-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

NZ. This is closest I have gotten to the divine.

back in the game

2005-07-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

I'm BACK. yea, I know. it's been slightly more than two months. I think the only right thing to do in this comeback entry would be to do a quick run-thru the last two months. It's like one of those life-flashing-past moments or rather, one of those MTV montage clips where twenty thousand different images flicker past your eyes at a hundred frames per second, leaving you sensorially overwhelmed, but subliminally satisfied. Think A Clockwork Orange.

May:
the month of May marked the closing pages of a chapter in that book that writes itself we call life. but it was an ending in style. one final fist punched into the air, before the fireworks dim and fade away. May was ORD. but more importantly, May was the NZ trip. one whole month in possibly the most beautiful land on this planet. well, it definitely was the most beautiful place within the realm of my experience. whether it be the rolling amber hills of wine country Blenheim (complemented with a splendid glass of Pinot Blanc), or the perfect blue curtain skies backdropping the beaches of Abel Tasman, or the evian-clear glacial crevices of Franz Josef, or the snow-capped hills and valleys of Fjordland hiding coyly behind skirts of morning mist...NZ had it all. It was also in NZ that we packed in enough adventure to last for this lifetime. whitewater rafting, ATV riding, tramping, fly fishing, and the two best--bungee and spelunking.

1. First off, bungee. My god. what more is there to be said? Leaping off from a platform suspended 134m above a valley, 8 seconds of free fall. Time came to a standstill. Was I scared? Hell yeah. Up in the platform, a hifi blasts Linkin Park at 80megadecibels, enough to blow your eardrums but also rocket your adrenalin level all the way to the moon. I shuffle my bound feet (was this how our great grandmothers felt with their crushed toes forced into those baby shoes?) obediently towards the edge. An enormous hand rests reassuringly on my back. the hand belongs to the man who operates the bungee. wait, he's no man, he's a giant. A giant with giant hands and a booming voice--his presence gives you the confidence that you're not going to die like your heart, mind and five senses plus keeps telling you, but his presence also tells you there's no turning back. Not with that hand against your back anyways. The voice of Zeus thunders from behind my head "Ready? On my count. 5.."
I take a deep breath.
4..
I can do this.
3..
Linkin Park dribbles into silence. Transition to next song. Wait, what the $#@? I can't jump without music!
2..
Wait wait I'm not ready! But my screams of protest don't break the sound barrier beyond my mind. My mouth lets out not even a whimper.
1. GO!!
I jump, trying to remember to keep my head low and my feet high. Was my form good?

Time literally stops. (I am reminded of the scene from Manhattan when Woody Allen stops time to comment on everyone else standing in line)

and then I plummet to my pseudo death in time accelerated plus one, and experience...
liberation. so this is what birds feel. lucky them.

Did I mention I'm acrophobic?

2. Next, Spelunking. The name of the cave adventure we signed up still remains unclear to me. In one pamphlet, it read The Lost World Epic adventure. In another, it said The Ultimate Lost World. In any case, you get the idea. this was The One. The Keanu Reeves of Cave Adventures. (actually, it might be more appropriate to call it the Tom Cruise even though the Matrix reference will be lost, but Tom DID do this adventure TWICE. I'm not kidding you.) we rappel 100m into an enormous limestone cave system. tunnels, underground rivers, waterfalls. it's a whole new universe down there. Decked out like Power Rangers (skin tight black wetsuits and knee high white gum boots, go figure), we embark on the adventure of our lives. We (JJ, Peter and I) swim, rock-climb, duck under waterfalls, make blind drops of 5-7m into pitch darkness, submerge and glide through underwater sumps, spidercrawl through straw-thin crevices and cracks. And the whole way, our guide Russell threw in a free physical geography lesson as well, showing us fossilized whale remains and clam shells in the cave walls. 4 hours worth of traipsing through the caves later, we find ourselves in a spacious cavern. We turn off our head lamps, and bear witness to a miracle on earth. thousands, no, millions of glow-worms light up the cavern ceiling like stars in the nightsky. This is the closest I will ever get to space. I am speechless. Who wouldn't be?

June:
I spent the month of June going to work for the first time and prepping up for the Osim triathlon coming up first thing in July. Nothing terribly exciting, to be frank, except maybe the terrible culture shock of work in the first week. though mentally I was fine, my body was completely thrown out of sorts. incredible fatigue, then diarrhoea and headaches, but I live and survive, so I'm still standing. My colleagues are great. I knew two of them before going in. One from Columbia and the other from ....well...one very long and drunk night at some party. (If you guys are reading this, sorry heheh. I won't elaborate any further) My immediate supervisor is hyper neurotic and metrosexual extreme (I spied bodybuilding.com email in his hotmail inbox) but he totally saved my ass in my first mess-up at work so I am thankful. Plus, he's actually quite funny la, behind all the weirdness and that muppet snigger. (hope he doesn't read this)

Fast Forward to July!!

The OSIM Triathlon:
I spent the last two months training for this and I'm totally psyched. Ok, fine, you caught me. I was in NZ in May, so maybe not really two months of training. But I ran in NZ! 6 times, in fact. 6 of the best runs ever. In perfect weather, against perfect scenery and breathing perfect air. Alright I'll stop gushing about NZ and get back to the OSIM tri. Everyone warned me about the open sea swim and I wanted to get a bit of practice before the actual event, but somehow, the deadly combination of sloth and poor time management got the better of me. I arrive early at East Coast with my gang of fellow foolhardy tri-wannabes (army friends who want to have "one last burst") all completely green at sea-swimming. We sit in the stands before our race and catch Tay Ping Hui and Joanne Peh running through the finish line. Doubt creeps in and we wonder why we didn't sign up for the Mini race instead. Who needs bragging rights anyways?

The race begins at 10.30. We're in the second wave with our girly white swimming caps. When we dive into the water, the race turns into a slugfest. Dog-eat-dog out there, every man for himself. Everyone's free-styling, but breast-stroke is the automatic weapon of choice whenever a fellow competitor draws too near for comfort. Feet make contact against goggles, against noses, against face. You just hope you're on the feet end of the equation and not the face. Ten minutes into the swim, my inner demons are having a board meeting to try and convince me that I am about to drown.

I emerge from the water about twenty minutes later, but I'm half dead. I spot my OCS buddy waving at me from the gallery (I didn't know he was coming) so I put on a brave front and mask the fact that I am on the brink of collapse. This turns out to be a good call because the photos they take of me at this point show a tired but determined me running out of the water. Ahh. A picture is worth a thousand words in a well-garnished story that remains to be told and passed across generations of my very first tri. heheh. I hop on the bike and sprint off into the cycling leg. Like real. My idea of a controlled pace is a snail in the race. The whole world overtakes me, including this guy on one of those rusty old bikes with a basket in front. "Good job" he says as he passes me. I wanted to give him the finger. Smug bastard.

Almost an hour on the bike (yea, that's how slow I was), I transit into the run. Well, it really wouldn't be right to call what I was doing then running. It was more like a half-jog. I've conveniently discarded all the pictures of myself in the running phase. They betray too much of the half-jog. My legs feel like logs left over from Christmas and dumped in the garage to dry out for seven months. My inner demons have raised the stakes by this time, their meeting was pretty successful and they were staging a hostile takeover. My mind run numerous scenarios ranging from me tearing the race tag off my singlet and walking away, to me taking a quick shortcut when no race official was looking. Somehow, I manage to amble my way across 5km and reach the finish line. I have my pals to thank for this. Couldn't have done it without you guys. One proud moment: the announcer reads out my name 100m from the finish line. The crowd cheers in support. I revel in my split second of pseudo fame.

I go back home, lie down, and don't get up for the next two days.

2005-04-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

number9dream by David Mitchell

number9dream

2005-04-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

number9dream by David Mitchell

I was quite hesitant to read another book by Mitchell after reading his debut novel Ghostwritten some years back. Then, I was at the peak of my contemporary Japanese literature craze, having read much of Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto. I looked for pulsing Tokyoesque cityscapes cluttered with buildings and offbeat creatures, human and subhumanl; noir-ish adventures that dived into the backalleys of national psychodrama; unlikely yet redemptive and very much endearing love stories that cleared the way to new futures. Ghostwritten was all of these in part but holistically none of them at all. Overly ambititous as a first novel, it read unfocused at best and you never quite settled in comfortably enough to care for any of the principal characters from Mitchell's global montage before you were forced to jump to the next. Yet, number9dream, Mitchell's second effort if I did not get my facts wrong, is everything Ghostwritten was not. Dizzying and dazzling all at the same time, this novel weaves a story around you that is exactly what the title promises--"the ninth dream begins after every ending"--a cryptic postapocalyptic dreamworld as ethereal and Dali-esque surreal as the John Lennon song of the same name.

number9dream opens with the protagonist Eiji Miyake arriving in Tokyo to search for his biological father whom he has never met, having been abandoned along with his twin sister Anju when they were born. He sits in the Jupiter Cafe, opposite a towering monolith known only as the PanOpticon building, on top of which his father's lawyer Akiko Kato has her office. Before you know it, however, the opening chapter runs you through several expositions of vastly differing genres, from sci-fi wham-bang to pulp fiction political intrigue, only to reveal them as false introductions, fantasies in Eiji's wild imagination--this is merely a taste of things to come. Once the reader launches fully into the world of number9dream, Mitchell repeatedly takes the reader twisting and turning through the alleyways and cul-de-sacs of the Tokyo urban labyrinth. Eiji encounters the yakuza, hacker nerds, modern geishas, WWII suicide torpedo pilots and even one particular Debussy-crazy pianist geek Ai with whom he falls in love. The almost madcap adventure constantly surprises, but never disappoints, just let the momentum of the writing hurtle you through a dream you wish would never end.

The success of the novel lies in its terrific blend of myth, superstition, tech-fiction, detective novel, love story and most of all, growing up. Eiji is the anti-picaro in a picaresque novel--timid, shy and always fumbling into situations, he somehow endears when he never fails to fumble out of them as well. And for those who have an interest in the novel's social relevancy, behind Eiji's personal odyssey, of course, lies Japan's national conundrum with its troubled past. Just as Eiji has to lay his tumultuous past to rest before he can construct new possibilities with his estranged mother and Ai, Mitchell calls for his adopted country to put the ghosts of the past aside, so as to look ahead for new futures. After all, that is what it means to grow up, for Eiji as well as for the national polity. In the novel, it is therefore no surprise that he picks a seeming champion of wartime heroism, the kaiten suicide torpedo pilot, to voice an acknowledgement of defeat and wrongdoing. Eiji himself, upon finally meeting his irresponsible father in the end, casts aside resentment and chooses to let sleeping dogs lie.

At one point in the novel, Eiji meets John Lennon in a dream and questions him on the meaning of the song. John replies that number9dream was in fact meant to be a sequel to Norwegian Wood, but while he initially meant for the song to signify harmony, he decided to forsake that salvation/enlightenment for Norwegian Wood's brand of loneliness instead. I am certain Mitchell intended number9dream to be a kind of sequel to Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. Murakami's novel was very much about memory and forgetting, losing and forgiving as well. That novel was a love story between the past and the future, each embodied in a ghostly, fragile maiden and spunky, energetic college girl respectively between whom the protagonist had to make a choice. In number9dream, Mitchell transmutes the choice into Eiji's growing pains and I think in this way, he achieves a more coherent and affecting story than the former. Where Norwegian Wood divided what the author saw as two paradigms of history neatly into black and white, Mitchell's novel strikes a far more subtle chord: After all, at the very end, the novel leaves us still cheering on for Eiji to finish the metaphorical race, for the ninth dream has only begun.

Blooie Phooie

2005-04-25T00:30:00.001-07:00

I was going to write about this in the last post, but I think it deserves a posting all of its own. Admittedly last week wasn't all that bad. On Wednesday night, I drag Dani out to Blooies for beer and chow--after all that was going on, I figured I needed some quality weeknight company. So we find ourselves back at our one-time favourite joint, and we're greeted by this waitress we've never seen before. Denise (she tells us her name after we ask for it a little later) turns out to be the strangest or rather, quirkiest, ordering experience I've ever had. I'm not saying she's not ISO9000 but if there ever is a service awards ceremony, Denise deserves a whole new category to herself. Her attention-grabbing assets notwithstanding, her mind works in a wondrously curious logic. Here's a sample of the conversation:

Me: I'll have the chicken gumbo please.
D: We don't have that anymore.
Me: Oh okay, that sucks. Lemme see... what should I get then....
(I flip through the menu for a minute, but can't make up my mind.)

D: Why don't you get the nachos?
Dani: We've had the nachos before.
D: What about the wings?
Dani: We've had the wings before too.
D: The wings are really good. You gotta have the wings.
Us: uhhh....
D: You didn't like them? The wings are great.
Dani: Well..they were okay.
D: Get a burger.
(I flip to the burger page)

Me: Okay okay, I'll have the cheese burger.
D: (looks doubtfully at me) You sure?
Me: What's wrong with the cheese burger?
D: I wouldn't get that. Get the mushroom, bacon and cheese burger.
Me: I can't. It's too fattening. I need something light.
D: Get a salad.
Me: I hate salads.
D: You're right. Salads are no good. Get a sandwich.
Me: (turning to sandwich page) Alright. enough fuss. I'll take the dory sandwich.
D: I don't know about that.... Get the mushroom, bacon and cheese burger.
Me: It's too fattening! I'll take the BLT.
D: Too boring. Get the mushroom, bacon and cheese burger.
Me: Fine Fine! I'll take the mushroom, bacon and cheese burger. With the Blooies special fries.
D: Which ones are those?
(I look at the menu. They only have one type of fries: the Blooies special fries.)
Me: The ones with the special spice?
D: Oh...those... right. (walks two steps away then turns back) Actually, get the Cajun Chicken Burger. It's better.
(Dani and I are wonderfully amused.)
Me: Okay okay. Just get me whatever.

Halfway through our meal, we notice Denise has gotten herself a ginormous plate of wings. I guess the wings REALLY are that good. You have been forewarned, get your ass to Blooies now!

Afterthought
Oh I forgot to mention: later in the evening, she gets off work and joins Dani and me at our table. We are chatting about Eye for a Guy 2's debut episode that same night and Denise promptly informs us that Rachel "FHM Bikini Model" Lee is her cousin (explains soooo much...) and that she shares the same initials as Denise Keller. Don't even ask.

2005-04-25T00:30:00.000-07:00

My room post-Heater explosion.

The Happiest Week of My Life

2005-04-24T23:51:00.000-07:00

whoa. it's been a while since my last post. well, I wanted to write about the worst week in my life, but I didn't want my blog to become all whiny so I stuck the week out and got myself over feeling down before posting again. I'll do a quick recap of the week's happy mishaps though:

1. The Pager Incident
Can anyone explain why the SAF, ever at the forefront of technology with its newly acquired Apache helicopters and fancy rifles that shoot around corners, still insists on using pagers to contact duty officers in the case of emergencies? While on duty a week ago, my antique personal communication device beeped twice (yea that's right...*beep* *beep*... everyone jump to your feet at the sound of that earthshaking alert chime) to a surprise GSOC test page, and surprise surprise, I didn't hear it. 45 mins after the page, they decide to call me on my mobile to ask me why I didn't respond to the pager. Of course, they contacted me immediately on my cellphone. Define absurdist comedy. Who said Kafka wrote fiction?

I might have to sign seven extra duties for not answering the page within 5 minutes. Hurray for this country where paranoia is the principal instrument of control.

2. The SOC Incident
On the second last day in camp before I begin clearing my leave en bloc, Clement and myself, the final vestiges of the old Republic collide head-on with the closing deathgrip of the new Empire. Too accustomed to the former system of conducting exercises within the brigade, we went ahead with the conduct of SOC training on Wednesday morning without the Supervising Officer being present. In the days of old, our usual Supervising Officer, OC Capt Joseph, was NEVER around. Two words, "Carry on," ruled the universe. Not anymore. The new Emperor has decreed that we reformed ourselves as a professional fighting force. Unfortunately, our Supervising Officer on Wednesday, Lta Alvin, hadn't quite caught on to the times: "Carry on," he said, and now we await the collateral damage from his downfall. I see Darth Jackie (our RSM) doing the Sith hold on Alvin. Alvin doesn't stand a chance. Mercy be on Clement (I guess he should be an Ewok) and myself (I fancy myself as Han of course...hehe).

3. The Water Heater Incident
It is true that this part of the world has become increasingly susceptible to earthquakes, tsunamis and all sorts of natural disasters. On Tuesday evening last week, the water heater above my bedroom ceiling inexplicably exploded, raining gallons upon gallons of water, and with it--death and destruction, onto my room and all its precious hoard of books, cds, magazines--my lifetime's worth of cultural collectibles that make up that strand of meaning that is myself. In an instant, my room is transformed into a disaster zone. The next few days resembles a minor rescue effort. Sun-dried artifacts are stacked in disorganized fashion: clothes piled on dictionaries; underwear sitting on cds. On the bright side, the upheaval has let me unearth heaps of unwanted garbage now finally disposed of, after sitting inconspicously beneath treasured junk for years serving as makeshift labyrinths for covert mosquitoes.

4. The I-Turned-My-Car-Into-the-Curb Incident
Self explanatory.

Immediately after Item Number Four on Friday night, Dani, who is sitting next to me in the car, discovers that I'm not all too upset and finds it rather puzzling. I explain to him that my recent run of gorgeously bad luck and poor timing can only point to the way up--meaning, I think I'm going to find myself a hot chick real soon. The law of karma says what goes up must come down, and vice versa. I tell Zhirui this same logic on Saturday morning before we go biking in Sentosa and he points out that if I got run over that morning while on my bike, I would definitely get a supermodel girlfriend in no time.

I almost get my right foot crushed by a careless driver reversing in the parking lot that same morning. Chiling Lin, here I come baby!

Tokyu Hands

2005-04-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

it's a beautiful saturday morning and I really should be outside biking on Bukit Timah with Zhirui, or windsurfing, or working out in the club gym, or playing tennis, or ..., or... BUT I'm stuck at home instead staring at my stigmatized hands. I have only myself to blame.

My hands got torn apart first on Thursday when I took the new Starboard Formula 175 out for my virgin run and I got blown away by the wind and suffered one of those uphaul trauma episodes. Stuck somewhere around 300m off the coast and drifting rapidly towards Bedok jetty, I tugged and tugged on the uphaul rope, slipping and sliding all over and off the board uncountable times, as my hands first blistered then tore. Desperate, I even tried swimming back to shore, lugging the board and the ton-of-bricks 7m sail behind me, but it was quite futile. This was when I discovered the miracle of human survival instinct. I swear that the body musters reserves of energy you never knew you had in times of crisis--I gave the uphaul one more go and thankfully managed to sail myself to the beach.

That was Thursday, and my hands really weren't that badly hurt, but then came Friday. Heading down to the beach once more, I was seduced again by the howling winds and the possibilities of the new board and sail; ignoring my wounds, I hopped onto the board for one run, just one run, I told myself. Bad bad mistake. I got barely 100m out when I decided to turn the board around and head back. Wind whipped the boom out of my hurting palms and the sail fell again into the water. Back to the uphaul fight. I yanedk on the uphaul rope with all the life left in me as I see blood and pus oozing out of my hands. I almost screamed.

So now, I'm sitting in front of my computer wondering at my own stupidity. Was supposed to have gone salsa dancing last night with Usha and Celine. It didn't happen--we got intimidated by this one guy who looked like psycho nerd from Full Metal Jacket dancing to moves from some 80s Footloose/Flashdance variant, the whole time we were there at Xen Bar, this dude was completely fixated on his own reflection in the mirror and dancing vigorously to himself. Oh, did I forget to mention the rapid multiple pelvic thrusts? Scary. Salsa did seem pretty fun, however, with all the hand-clapping and foot-stomping and hip-shaking. It was dance oomphed up with sexual innuendo, with the couples exchanging furtive glances and the occasional suggestive brush of hand against back or waist. Just as advertised on the Xen Bar website, "the dance floor is filled with couples dancing in close proximity, with the maleâ€™s knee in between the girlâ€™s legs. It is like being transported to the Caribbean Island where no one wants the night to end. This is probably the only club where a male can be this close to a total female stranger without offending her." Now we know the target clientele. Anyways, it was a good thing in the end we didn't have to dance last night. I was quite worried about the pus shooting out of my palms onto whoever's hands I would have had to hold while dancing. I was actually running all the possible scenarios through my mind. here's one:

Girl A and Me dancing to salsa beat
A: how come you're wearing white gloves? you think you're michael jackson har?
Me: umm. my hands get cold easily.
A: ....
(in the middle of a spin)
A: EEEEE! there's a splotch of blood on your glove!!!
Me: don't worry!!! it's just dried up pus, not blood. not lai ang la.
A: eh Sanchez! get this guy away from me!

I imagine if there had to be a bouncer at a salsa club, his name had to be Sanchez amd he would have greased up hair and a curly moustache.

P.S. I got the title of this post off a Japanese dept store. I never quite figured why they called themselves Hands, but it's neat.

2005-04-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

Dayang diving crew. From left: Joe, me, June, Thomas, Hooi Boon and Horst

Dayang Dive

2005-04-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

So I finally find the time to write about my weekend dive trip to Pulau Dayang. It was my virgin dive trip and honestly, I don't think I'll be exaggerating if I say it was one of the best trips I've had. Though there were no bikini beauties in my dive group (save for the big-boned girl on the same boat from Yap Hsiang's Liquid Room X'mas tete-a-tete whom I sadly failed to recognize until it was way way too late...ack, nevermind, she was squat anyways. *sourgrapes*) there was a real synergy within our group dynamic--I noted, however, that it was a strange confluence of three boss-subordinate pairings: Horst and boss Joe from BetaSquared, Thomas and boss June from Frontline Premium, and myself and AO highflyer Hooi Boon (well, he's my boss, sort of, being higher up the slave chain of the civil service) We got on really well with one another in spite of the vast cultural differences: the angmohs and their unyielding American accents versus Thomas and June's equally stubborn localized ones complete with the frequent lapse into mandarin or hokkien altogether. Then my seeming boss and me caught inbetween having to switch between the two frequencies with our flexible mish-mash tongue. At any one time, we were either engaged happily in a joint effort to introduce exotic local cuisine to the anymohs or equally united in chorus in urging June to conquer her deep-seated fear of the sea. At the end of the trip, though the angmohs were still terrified of our unforgiving culinary habits (out of courtesy, I'm sure they would deny it, but I saw those wide-eyed looks before they swallowed--just like on Fear Factor) and June never passed the course having flipped out on her last two dives (woman, if you're reading this, you gotta calm down!!) I think we would all agree that all of us had the grandest time right down to that last supper in JB.

Oh I almost forget to mention Raymond our crazy dive instructor with the crazy hairdo. We probably owe a lot to Raymond for the experiences we had on the trip. First of all, his driving. This sonofabitch drives like a madman high on speed and crack and ecstacy all tossed into five pills mashed up and snorted right into his nose. On the straights to Mersing, in pitch darkness, he tore down the road at about 150, overtaking relentlessly by cutting into the opposing traffic lane--it was only a dual carriageway--at one point even dashing ahead of five cars plus one bus around a blind corner. (I quote June after the ride from hell, "eh. you last time Formula One driver har?") I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep through it all, in spite of the giveaway sensation of my crown jewels floating in midair with every jump the minivan made. Second, the faceoff with the trigger fish. We're on our third dive of the trip when Raymond gets attacked by this fearsome little bugger. Fiercely territorial creatures, trigger fish are little terrors with razor sharp fish which hesitate not to attack all trespassers. So Raymond pulls out his diving knife and engages in a sort of underwater swordfight with this one trigger fish. Now you would think this would make perfect action film material, except it was really bordering on comical because Raymond was nothing like the prototypical action hero. Crazy bedhead hair spiking out in every conceivable direction, and a tummy that could hide a baby kangeroo with ease, add to that his cheeky wide-mouth grin baring his two rows of pearly whites and his bushy unibrow, Raymond was more like a diving version of Doraemon. Now imagine Doraemon fending off a little ferocious fish in an underwater swordfight and you get a mockery of James Bond's deepsea action sequence with sharks.

So yea, the dive trip was really an adventure on all counts. We saw cuttlefish, puffer fish, lots of clown fish living in anemonae ala Finding Nemo (did I even mention Raymond's 'confirm can impress girl' underwater bar trick of putting a clown fish in his mask?) schools of barracuda and other fish. I have to admit, ever since coming back from Dayang, I've been thinking of diving all week. I really can't wait to go do my advanced. Thinking of doing it in a couple of weeks, hopefully I'll be able to! I'll post a group shot in the next post.

2005-04-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Never Let Me Go

2005-04-13T03:36:00.000-07:00

I finished Kazuo Ishiguro's new book last weekend, but haven't had time to sit down and pen down my thoughts properly in a post. so here it is.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

"My name is Kathy H. I'm thirty one years old, and I've been a carer now for over eleven years."

The opening sentence of Ishiguro's latest work sets the enigmatic tone that characterizes much of the novel which keeps readers guessing at the mystery behind an old English boarding school and the children who grow up there. Yet the novel is least of all a mystery novel. Who is Kathy H.? What is a carer? While questions like these hover at the back of our minds as we dive into Ishiguro's fantastic fictional imagination, the answers merely serve to set the scene for what turns out instead to be a haunting elegy to memory and loss, and most of all, an exploration of what makes all of us tick as human beings. The novel is framed within the reminscing narration of Kathy H--from start until the end, we float from one memory to the next in a patchwork of anecdotes from first Kathy's childhood and then her adult years. Ishiguro's words refuse to let you anchor yourself to any firm grasp of reality as we know it, but instead passes you from one uncertain moment to another, each moment pregnant only with the particular emotional significance as Kathy remembers it. What actually happened in each instance becomes secondary to what the memory of each moment signifies for Kathy in the present. As a consequence, the novel is a dreamworld of emotions stemmed in pieces of memory, which we as readers soon discover to be the root of everything important.

The novel centers itself around the relationship between Kathy, her best friend Ruth and Ruth's boyfriend Tommy. The three grow up in a special boarding school, Hailsham, and then leave together after graduation into their mysterious careers as carers and donors. I won't give away anything in this review, but it suffices to say that their lives as they know it is precarious at best and the story follows the three young friends as the fragility of life itself confronts them face-on when they come to terms with love and loss. The tale told is extremely moving at its climax but the most remarkable achievement here is when we identify with the characters through their seeming soap opera antics--childish disputes, jealous fall-outs, teenage insecurities--for their very real sense of humanity. The irony then of the surprise ending (again, I won't reveal anything) is therefore even more powerful by virtue of this understanding.

The house of cards that is Kathy, Ruth and Tommy's individual identities which Ishiguro carefully constructs using memory as his primary device in the entire novel is a clever play on our interpretation of human nature. Is memory all that makes us who we are? Ishiguro poses this daunting question before pulling the carpet below us right off our feet. The novel, in the end, leaves us with no definite answers, but like any good armchair book for a contemplative evening, sets our cell matter to hard but worthwhile work. In dealing with ideas of memory, Ishiguro ventures into the intimidating and, as some say, fluffy sphere of postmodern thought, but I highly recommend Never Let Me Go for anyone who appreciates good serious fiction.

Pre-diving

2005-04-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

its two hours before I head to Dayang for my first proper diving trip. how exciting. the entire week's theory and pool sessions have been building up to this. mmmm white sands. mmmm fish and coral. mmmm bikini chicks. I wonder if that seeming stewardess in those ultra trendy cute bikinis from the pool sessions is going to dayang tonight as well?? heh. okay viewing pleasures aside, this week's venture into diving has been nothing short of rewarding. Stanley from Big Bubble's scary as hell but I like him. He's spent a good part of his life pursuing his passion, travelling all over the world to dive and I'm pretty sure he doesn't regret a single bit of it. I'm dead envious. I want to look back someday and be able to say the same for myself. For a start, I'm glad I'm finally working down my Post-It list from two years ago. I drew it up when I first came back from college in 2003. This is what it looks like:

TO DO IN SINGAPORE:
Fishing Trip
Learn how to ride motorcycle
Scuba Cert
Rock Climbing Gym
Biking Trails/ Night Cycling
WRITE WRITE WRITE

heh. let's see, we did that fishing trip to the kelong end of last year so the first one's done. SAF bike course covers the second one, so now I can ride illegally without a license when I visit dodgy Third World countries. Will be halfway through the third after this weekend (I think I'll consider myself completely done only after getting Advanced Open Water). Still struggling with my inner demons for the fourth--should I go it alone once more or wait til I find kakis before I confront the daunting climbing walls again?? Checked out some biking trails last year but have yet to embark on the mother of them all--Bukit Timah, I'm sure I'll do it sometime soon though. As for the last (all in caps, mind you), this blog accounts for that, I suppose. yippee. I think I'll draw up a new list. Here's a prelim draft:

TO DO:
Master windsurfing with hard sails and funboards
Go to Vietnam Full Moon Beach!
Run at least twice a week
Climbing (argh!!!)
Go to Krabi
Conquer Kinabalu
Play tennis regularly
Another fishing trip (deepsea on a boat this time!)
Dive at Sipadan and/or Manado
READ READ READ
WRITE WRITE WRITE!
* Find a girlfriend who looks fabulous in a bikini

This new draft list looks pretty daunting. I think it looks good, it should keep me busy for the next three years (until I get posted overseas). I put the last one in asterisks because it borders on fantasy. The key word is 'borders'. hoo-ah.

2005-04-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Memory of Running

2005-04-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

Hey ho. I finished Ron McLarty's The Memory of Running this morning. In the good vein of most blogs in the world of blog, I'm gonna try and do a little book review for this post. so here it goes:

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
Good ol' Smithy Ide the protagonist of this debut novel by Ron McLarty is the prototypical American suburban loser. He's in his forties, fat (actually, he's obscenely fat. man tits and enormous ass, he's got da works.) and drunk half the time. He has a day job at a suburban toy factory, making sure that the arms and legs of SEAL Sam go to their right places on Sam's torso. In his free time, he sits in front of his TV munching on pretzels and chugging beer. The book begins with a freak highway accident which claims the lives of both his parents, and the discovery of his long lost sister's death in faraway LA county (Smithy lives in Providence, Rhode Island). The sudden loss jolts Smithy off his couchbound ass into a journey across the vast country on a rusty old bicycle in a quest of sorts to reclaim his sister's remains. At its heart, The Memory of Running is Forrest Gump on a Beatnik Kerouac adventure. Smithy is absolutely endearing as that guy nobody really bothered about. The honest portrayal of his high-school insecurities are at once familiar and funny--scoring a date with one of the pretty girls for junior prom, only to find himself abandoned on prom night itself; trying to impress his sister's gorgeous psychiatrist with self-fashioned war stories (he got a Purple Heart because he was shot while peeing)--Smithy fumbles through his early life with a complete lack of finesse but with absolute self-awareness. As he gets older and slides into slobdom, his degeneration earns our heartfelt sympathy. The key to Smithy's salvation (as well as the book's affective-ness) is his unwavering loyalty and love for his psychologically unstable sister. In spite of her repeatedly vicious betrayals (though unintended), he never fails to manage their sibling relationship with surprising strength and patience. The weak link in the book (debut novels simply seem to always falter in some way or another) has to be the feeble love affair between Smithy and his crippled neighbor and childhood friend Norma. Norma's inclusion in the novel just pushes the novel across the line from subtly affecting personal redemption story into afternoon soap opera. If you can disregard all the chapters which wander into the Norma subplot, however, Smithy's bicycle ride from East to West and all the strange but funny and believable crazies with their own stories to tell that he meets along the way makes for an enjoyable lazy afternoon read. No brain teaser here, but this one will definitely make you laugh and even tug at your heartstrings while at it.

2005-03-31T21:46:00.000-08:00

Me, me, ME!

How does this work?

2005-03-31T21:13:00.000-08:00

I'm trying my luck again in the blogging universe. Why? nah, it's more like: Everyone's doing it, so why not? herd mentality, conformist, copycat, weak willed, succumbing to peer pressure, call it whatever you want, I'm here again. I'm pretty determined not to let this one degenerate into angsty bitchfest though, I think it's time to get over all of that. I took a nice picture of myself earlier with my new Olympus Mju-mini. What on earth is a mju anyways? I just thought that Korean actress cavorting across the gorgeous European cityscape in the Mju ads was really cute (what was her name again? she's the sassy girl, that's all I know). yea yea, I know, I just bought into the fantasy--the fetish more than the product, but you know what, it's worth it. I picked a nice colour too, white--isn't white the new black? (damn. I didn't intend for it to sound so pretentious) All thanks to Apple with their Ipods, Ibooks, white's become all hip these days. one day, I'll get myself a white vespa. enough of my consumerist drivel. here's my nice photo of myself.