I'm Not Asleep, My Eyes Are Just Closed

Books 1. Komarr; A Civil Campaign; Diplomatic Immunity - Lois McMaster Bujold . My precious babies have finally arrived after many weeks on the seas, and I can now look lovingly upon my collection of books. After all that unpacking of my worldly belongings, there's nothing I like better than curling up with a favourite book (or two, or three). The above titles are the last three in the Miles Vorkosigan series, which chronicled the life of one Miles Naismith Vorkosigan; a stunted, accidental covert ops operative extroadinaire, better known among his peers as 'that hyperactive little shit.' Miles is no ordinary person. He is the son of a formidable Admiral (known as the Butcher of Komarr), in a previously isolated military-mad planet with a phobia of mutants. Born with brittle bones due to poisoning from a bungled assassination plot against his father while his mother was pregnant with him, Miles grows up a little warped but survives a painful childhood with a burning drive...

Just before midnight last night, my Dad calls me over from my semi-permanent habitat on the living room sofa to come and read his essay. It is only one page, he cajoles so I wander over to the dining table and plop myself in front of his laptop. The title of the essay, unsurprisingly enough, is about the environment but my eyes bugged out when I read the first line, "Coming of age at 26 and flipping to the centrefold of a Playboy magazine in the library of my university....." WHAT?!? I couldn't process the next few lines as I tried to twist my brain around the fact that MY DAD had read Playboy . Which was stocked by his university library. What kind of university is it anyway? Why the surprise, you say? He is a man after all. Yeah, but you don't know my dad. He is the biggest, straightest, most child-like nerd in the world. He gets a kick out of reading scientific journals not ogling over glossy pages of women's titties. Anyway, before you think my dad has decid...

I'm not sure if it's just that time of the month or the side effects of the prednisolone that I have been on, but I have been absolutely ravenous this past week. I can't go four hours without feeling like I have to eat again. It doesn't help that I have been repeatedly watching Supernatural's Hollywood Babylon where Jensen Ackles stuffs all kinds of naughty food down his impressive maw. What is it about the way that man eats that makes me salivate with hunger?

After Episode 17’s angst and heartache some weeks ago, the boys pitch up in Los Angeles for a little rest and recreation. Naturally, they don’t just relax like normal people do, but start investigating rumours of a haunted film set. Sam may have the patent on the Super Special Puppy Dog Eyes , but this episode gives a glimpse of Dean being the real puppy dog. He just wants to roll over and have someone pat him on the back and tell him he’s doing a good job. Awww, he aims to please, this boy, don’t matter if it’s the boss-man or the ladies. Sam is looking subdued here, mainly because he had to put down his own dog-lady (woof!) recently. Also whenever Dean plays the doofus, Sam has to be the straight man and act all prissy and serious. I kinda feel sorry for Jared Padalecki, always having to play the wet blanket. He does look better and better, physically though, what with him having a bit of a tan going on and walking like the long-legged, broad-shouldered beefcake that he is. He makes ...

Today is the first day that I have been pretty much pain free, ooze-free and not flat out on my bed hoping that I could get at least a few hours sleep without feeling like my skin was on fire and trying to crawl off my face at the same time. It's not ideal to fall ill at the weekend, but thanks to a 24hour society in this part of the world, I got to see a doctor on a Sunday afternoon, since hanging on for one more day to see my mum's dermatologist was too much agony. The doctor I saw at the medical centre looked like she was about my age. She made a lot of noises about the condition of my face and tut-tutted in horror that I had survived for two days with it. Believe me, sister, I was hanging on by a thread there. I think I was possibly the only one at the clinic who looked like I needed to be there. Doogie Howser didn't dare give me any steroids since she felt the extensive facial eczema needed a specialist's attention but she gave me a course of antibiotics instead. I...

Don't you find it ominous when you make to enter a restaurant and find that somebody's vomited what looks like the remains of a Coney Dog on the doorstep? ---------------------------------------- A lot of new housing developments are called Taman So-and-so. So-and-so is usually filled in with either one or a combination of these words below: a) Jaya b) Bahagia c) Perdana d) Indah d) Damansara e) Heights Or they try and make it sound like you live in a foreign (Western) country by calling things Berjaya Times Square, Central Park, The Troika or Presint (precinct). Oh and the Tour de Langkawi. (For God's sake, does anyone here even speak French? Did they even reach the borders of this country? How the French must be pissing themselves at some jumped up brown people trying to be what they think is sophisticated by giving something a French name). Not only do you have to live in badly planned over-hyped area with poor access, you get saddled with some stupid, inane name that so...

There was a pile of letters on top of one of the boxes in my mum's room, dated throughout the year 1983. Most of them were written by my mum to my dad who was at that time doing his doctorate in Hawaii, while the rest of us were in Malaysia. We had lived in Honolulu since I was about a month old before we returned to Malaysia early in 1982. Not long after that my sister KJ was born and Dad went back to Hawaii to finish his work, leaving my mum to look after a new-born baby and three other boisterous children, aged seven, four and three. At first my mum was shy about letting me read the letters, saying that they were full of nonsense but because I can be a pushy busybody, my mum eventually relented. The first two letters in the pile were clumsily written by my eldest sister. She had clear if somewhat lopsided handwriting. Her letters were filed with tales of what she did at school, how her younger siblings were doing and exhortations to my dad to tell Miss Ojima (who I presume used ...

Yesterday I attended the opening night of Jit Murad's new show, Full of Jit , at The Actors Studio in Bangsar. (His previous show was called Jit Happens...Again. Geddit? Geddit?) It's been a long time since I've seen Jit perform and I wasn't even sure if he did do stand-up anymore so I was interested in how he would fare. He first apologised for having his notes out on a lectern nearby, citing a mild head trauma that afternoon which made him fear that he might forget his lines! Jit started the show by having a go at the latecomers who were still sneaking in, then the people in the cheap seats (where I was at) and then the la-di-da middle class Bangsar crowd. I was tempted to shout “We’re from PJ!” but the house lights were still on in the small theatre and Jit looked like he was on a roll with picking on the audience, so I decided to shut up. Yes, that’s right, I’m only brave enough to heckle from under the cover of darkness. Jit then tries to get the audience stoked, ...

“I saw what was on your computer. I didn’t realise you were this obsessed over Dean,” The Mother says to me this morning. “Wha-h?” Did my mum read my blog? Did I accidentally leave it on in full view? Has my mum been taking secret computer lessons? “That’s a huge picture of Dean on your computer,” my mum continues. Oh. Phewh. Heh, I left my laptop on in the living room while downloading some perfectly legal stuff off the net. Naturally I have a picture of Dean as my desktop background. “He is a handsome man, but I don’t think he’s that good-looking. He looks mean. And perasan ,” she adds. “He doesn’t look mean!” I was incredulous. “He’s got lovely big eyes and girlie eyelashes. Yeah, he might come off looking a bit perasan , but he doesn’t look as arrogant on film. He just doesn't come off too well in still shots.” My mum just sniffed. She’s not convinced. Rewind : It was my punishment for being a lazy couch potato. I was stretched out on the couch of my old apartment in Liverpool,...

Wait, I think I’ve seen this one before: a hot, young male star gets fawned over by several young ladies of dubious nature but one of these ladies is the Hollywood prostitute with a heart of gold and they fall in lurve and swear undying devotion to each other but then he sees her snogging another man and they have a huge fight whereby she runs off in her car and he chases her and then a huge truck crosses her path and she loses control of the car and it flips over and then she dies a horrible death but only has an artistic trail of blood from her mouth to show for it and he weeps and mourns for all he has lost, the end. It’s inevitable isn’t it? They always want to do a music video where they are the hero to the hooker. They never seem to learn that of course she will be bumping hips with another guy BECAUSE SHE’S A HOOKER. But because she’s a slut bitch who dares to look at another guy, she has to die a MOST PAINFUL DEATH for HER SINFUL WAYS. Thus the man will become the star in his v...