I'm Not Asleep, My Eyes Are Just Closed

Yaaaaaamm senng!!!!

2011-12-12T13:36:00.000Z

Weddings can be nice events. Weddings can leave you with a nice warm 'awww' feeling. I enjoy a well edited slide show presentation of the happy couple throughout their lives as much as the next person. (Key phrase here is well edited, people). But weddings can leave me feeling a little blue. Especially when you're there on your own. And when the guy next to you at the dinner table asks you why you're not married yet. And asks old how you are. Ffffffffuuuuuuu----

Reflection

2011-10-22T19:48:00.000+01:00

I haven't posted ANYTHING in a while. Well, that's what happens when Facebook gives you the opportunity to bleat whatever shit you have in your head without the need to form proper sentences.

Also, I haven't really had the inclination to write anything. There's a scale to these things. Sometimes frustration and anger inspires you to write and write. But there comes a point where your frustration wearies you to the point of numbness - where writing does nothing but dig up all your problems for you to sniff over. So, I shut up. Because to write about it became like complaining and I wasn't getting anywhere with it. Also before that I dropped into a misery-hole of the mind where no creativity came forth and any energy I had was put into getting up every day, putting a smile on my face and going to work and doing what one has to do every day to be human. I also decide one day to not be so introspective about everything. I tend to direct energy inward (o gawd, I sound so like I've been to American therapy - but that comes from watching too many American TV shows), but for many months I've been trying to do something different - like going to the gym. Instead of going around and round in my thoughts, I thought it would be better to go round and round on the treadmill instead - focus that negative energy outward etc etc. Which gave some very good results by the way. I was getting overweight and depressed, and going to the gym was my social life for a while. It got me going someplace else besides just traveling back and forth between work and the house. And once you get in the habit of exercise, you remember that adrenaline rush, and how good it feels, to be a healthy animal ready to take on the world.

I wouldn't say I'm completely cured. My episodes of darkness and light come in cycles but I like to think I learn a little something in every period of darkness, and each subsequent period is never as dark as the one before.

Kindness

2010-12-10T09:33:00.000Z

Every experience one has had adds a little spot of colour on to the background of the personality one is born with.When a childhood is spent in a rough-and-tumble household, when the school-age years is spent in a competitive environment, when one learns throughout young adulthood to rely on oneself to achieve one's own goals and to feel the consequences of one's own decisions, one develops a certain attitude that is self-centric. I ponder my own problems, I make my own decisions, I take action on those decisions alone and I accept the results of those actions.

I find it far easier to get angry at an injustice, or to face a fear as a challenge, or to extend kindness to a stranger. It is far harder to comprehend the wants and needs of a loved one; the emotions are too complex. It is harder too, to find yourself at the receiving end of kindness, to suddenly realise that someone finds you deserving of kindness and compassion. It is not that my self-esteem is so low, it is just that I do not think I have done anything to deserve it. All I have done is what I know I have to do, out of what I feel is right. How strange to think that others have noticed and admired my actions. How strange to have others speak with concern of the potential mistake that I will make in my future. How strange that it is not a close friend or family that is concerned for my future happiness, but someone who would have nothing to gain from my emotional well-being.

It is enough to make one come undone, to have tears prickle at the corner of my eyes. I have been fortunate in many things in life that I never expected to be shown sympathy. Suddenly I find someone feeling sorry for me and going out of their way to be kind to me.

It is too much.

The Prodigal Daughter

2010-10-12T07:02:00.006+01:00

So I haven't posted in a while but not as long as I thought since I didn't think I posted anything at all this year. But I clearly did in March even if it was just to curse at my work conditions.

Aaah, work.... who doesn't curse and moan and whinge about how shitty their work is or how much of monster their boss is or how they have got the nastiest bitch for a colleague? Yes and I did plenty of that on Facebook but as more colleagues and cousins and aunts get added on my friend list, venting on Facebook has become less attractive really fast. And no one wants to be that asshole who puts everybody off by spewing vitriol on their status updates every day.

And so I turn to you o Blogpost, to once again give vent to my bitter, misanthropic feelings about the human race in general without the repercussions one gets from the hurt feelings of friends one hasn't spoken to in years.

Updates soon.

Fuck

2010-03-30T01:56:00.001+01:00

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Fucking shit.

I'm sick of this fucking shit.

If I wasn't such a stubborn bitch with a motherfucking ego, I'd have quit this stupid gig.

Fuck.

Random shit that random people have said to me

2010-03-16T11:52:00.003Z

From a patient in a ward:

"Doktor mesti belum kahwin lagi kan?"
"Ya, belum. Kenapa?"
"Sebab muka doktor ceria je."

From a patient in clinic that I hadn't seen in a while:

"Waaah, doktor sudah gemuk."

From an Air Asia flunkie at the departure gates:

"Are you pregnant?"

From the lady sitting next to me on the plane:

"Kamu kerja kilang ke?"

From a colleague:

"Ko ni poyo."

Thanks everyone, I'll be here all week.

Dean who?

2009-10-06T12:59:00.002+01:00

Lee Pace is adorable.

Just fucking adorable.

End of.

Is this ironic, Alanis?

2008-04-13T01:41:00.002+01:00

More accurately, it was just incredible coincidence.

I had just given a talk that Friday morning at our hospital's Continuing Medical Education programme, which is attended by any hospital staff available, including the hospital consultants and the hospital director. It went down well, I think. I put lots of pictures which I hoped would prevent anyone from falling asleep.

So I banged on for half an hour about ectopic pregnancies, about how it is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester, the various ways you can treat it and other problems that could present similarly to a ruptured ectopic, i.e. a twisted ovarian cyst.

I was having a well-earned breakfast later when A&E called, saying that they've got a possible ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Ah, dammit. I swallowed the rest of my Pepsi (yes, I know, a carbonated sugary drink for breakfast, bad girl, bad girl) and made my way to emergency.

There was a lady writhing with pain, holding on to her left side. The lady says she hasn't had a period for three months and a urine test confirms she is pregnant. Her abdomen is tender and I think, uh, rupture.

Here is our RM20,000 scan machine which nicely shows a 12 week old baby spinning around in her uterus. Uh, not an ectopic then. Oh, but here is a huge ovarian cyst on her left side. Oh yes and come to think of it, the fact that she was writhing on the bed rather than lying still with the pain should have pointed out to me that her problem wasn't an intra-abdominal bleed.

Anyways, everyone made jokes about how funny it was that I was talking about twisted ovarian cysts this morning and now I've got a patient with one, and I went 'Ha ha ha' and carted off the lady to the operating theatre.

I was barely out of theatre when that dastardly Emergency Department called again. What do you think it was about? Yes, a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, no shit.

So, it was a pretty hectic day what with nothing going right in the labour room. I missed lunch and dinner and ended up with bad gastritis. I was in theatre again that night and was feeling really bloated and gassy. So much so, that I did not stop farting. It's not the kind that you can stop, it just pops out. Really, it was quite embarrassing.

Some doctor dude was once worried about farting in the sterile environment of the operating theatre. Would it compromise patient care and lead to higher rates of infection? So he did a little experiment. He farted directly on to an agar petri dish, then farted again through his trousers onto a different petri dish. The result: a small amount of bacteria grew on the first dish, but none on the second.

I think that was a nice symmetry to the day. I started out being all solemn and scholarly at my presentation and 18 hours later I'm thinking of farts on a petri dish. And the anesthetist was talking about his balls.

Mmmmmm, so nice to get some sleep.

Scanners

2008-04-04T10:58:00.005+01:00

I've been having a disturbing number of flashbacks lately.

I'd eat in a restaurant and think of the time I ate there with my Dad.

I'd hold another woman's baby in my arms and think of the time when I held my own niece and she'd hug me back.

I'd listen to Rufus Wainwright and my heart would clench with nervousness as I'm reminded of the long car drives to work in the Emergency Department.

I'd drift off to sleep only to wake up with the remnants of a nightmare where I'm endlessly sewing a patient's uterus.

I went into work one morning and heard about my colleagues bad on-call. Instead of feeling sorry for him, I was frightened and nervous the entire 24 hours that I was on-call. I had a horrible feeling that there would be more deaths and the dying seeping onto my day from yesterday. I barely slept that night, even though nothing more than a ruptured ectopic pregnancy happened.

Some days you wake up and you have an awful feeling that something bad is going to happen. Some days you go to work and wait for the day to end so you can go home and bury your head back in bed.

Some days you snap at patients and their ridiculous refusal to give you a straight answer. Why come to a doctor if you won't let them help you?

Some days you snap at your colleague for being so bloody annoying and infantile.

Then there are days when you are just wistful for something you can't grasp at. You are not unhappy with the people around you, yet you wish for your loved ones to be closer.

Maybe because you are older and you no longer have the young's sense of immortality. Maybe because you are in a new town and all you long for is for something more familiar.

This is not a toy

2008-03-07T20:32:00.001Z

I hate my new stethoscope. It looks like a vagina. And I see enough of those on a daily basis without having a plastic replica of it hanging around my neck.

Having lost the stethoscope which I've had since I was a first year medical student, I ordered one through a friend who bought it at the hospital medical shop. Get the new high tech, light weight one, she says. It comes in all sorts of fun colours.

I think I'll buy the usual Litmann Classic, I say. I've always used that one and I quite like it.

No, no get this new one, it's much better.

Besides looking like a vagina, my new stethoscope comes in a range of cheap- looking plastic swathed in a strange disco glitter which somewhow manages to look drab as vomit.

I hate whoever's taken my old stethoscope. It's got my name engraved on it but that hasn't stopped them from saying "Ooh, I'll have that then."

Death to the stethoscope stealer!

Are you in the mood?

2008-02-10T23:55:00.000Z

The setting: Busy day in the Infertility clinic

The characters: One clueless doctor, one nearly thirty nulliparous lady

Doctor: So, Mrs. X.... (rustles some paperwork). The treatment we have been giving you has worked, your hormone levels are now normal. (beams proudly at patient). It's now up to you and your husband to get pregnant.

Mrs X: Oh....

Doctor: Yes. Uh, how often do you and husband have sexual intercourse?

Mrs. X: About 10 times a month.

Doctor: That's about 2 - 3 times a week. Not too bad. Just keep on doing, what you are doing then.

Mrs. X: But doctor, I have no desire anymore! What do I do?

Doctor: (Although has always considered herself fairly open about sexual matters and can make sex jokes in front of her parents, suddenly finds herself flustered.) Well, uh, you do what you normally do... what you did when you first got married...uh, we don't have any female Viagra.

At that moment of time, Doctor could not think of any decent ways to suggest to patient on how to get herself off, what with Doctor herself hardly being an expert in the uh, practical department. A doctor does not need to have cancer in order to advise paients on the treatment of cancer, but you do understand, of course, that some things require some personal experience in order to talk about it without sounding like an idiot.
-----------------------------------------------
Setting: Labour room

Characters: One male doctor, one woman in labour

The scene: Tiny woman, with cardiotocography monitors strapped to her very pregnant belly, writhes about on the bed with the pain of each wave of contraction, kicking one of the nurses in the belly in the process.

Male doctor goes to see patient to gain consent for a Caesarean section. As doctor leaves patient' bedside, Woman in Labour says in high-pitched voice, "Ooh, that doctor's very handsome."

Now if only Woman in Labour would meet Mrs. X.

It's not destiny, just a rabbit's foot

2008-02-05T22:56:00.000Z

I had forgotten The Winchesters for a bit (well, they left me first!), what with other obsessions taking root and then me moving town and starting a new job and clocking up to 100 working hours a week.

Thankfully, the hours have eased a little and I haven't passed out in a coma everytime I come home so I get to spend a little more time with my favourite brotherly duo.

The first epsisode of Season 3 was a disappointment to me, honestly, when I watched it a few months ago, and it made me run back to my new television hero, Dexter Morgan from the equally terific TV show Dexter (why is it terrific? Because the hero is a crime scene investigator for the Miami Police by day and a serial killer who chops people up at night. Woo!)

But on this recent vacation I've had the chance to get reacquainted with the Supernatural guys and forgive me for losing the faith the first time around because aren't they just the most adorable couple of wise-cracking, world-saving hunks you ever set eyes on? What?!? Am I missing the plot of the story completely? Or am I just losing the plot?

Will Lanky break the devil's deal that will take his brother's life? Will Bendy ever wipe that smirk off his face long enough talk to his brother like a person? Can the Winchester brothers send every last demon they accidentally released back to hell? Or will they die trying? We'll just have to see, won't we?

Clothes maketh the man

2008-01-31T17:10:00.000Z

I was on a plane home and was making small talk with the lady who sat in the same row as me. I'm not one for chit-chatting but you know it's one of those things when you are on a plane: it would be rude and perak not to say a few words to your immediate neighbour. Especially since I had just climbed over the her lap to get the window seat.

Neighbour: So, where do you live in KL?

Moi: I live in Subang actually. I'm on leave from work, so I'm going home to see my parents.

Neighbour: Oh, so you work in a factory here?

Moi: (trying to keep a straight face) Uh, no.

At this point, some would say that I should have puffed out my chest, turn up my nose and say in my haughtiest voice, "Hey, saya doktor tau!"

Truthfully, it would be more embarrassing for me than her if I did say that. Not that there's anything wrong in being a factory worker, and I'm not so full of myself that I'd get offended if people don't lick my arse and say, "Ya Tuan Doktor" every time they see me.

I was rather bemused though, because it just drove home the point that my mother used to make - that I don't always make an effort to look nice when I go out.

But dear God, doesn't looking groomed 24/7 consume such a lot of energy and brain power? At least I'm always clean. I may have been wearing a baggy purple t-shirt and frayed jeans a size too big for me cinched in with a belt and selipar Jepun, but by God those clothes were ironed!

Noiseless

2008-01-06T11:35:00.000Z

Being in the operating theatre is like being in an oasis of calm. It's a blessed escape from the bustle of the wards where people shout from one end of the ward to the other.

There are no visiting hours in theatre. It's infathomable to me why many people think that going to the hispital to visit sick loved ones is a good oppurunity for a fun day out with the family. God, I hate screaming kids. I can hate them but I hate the parents more for neglecting to teach their kids how to behave. Rolling around in a tantrum on the ward floor and playing with your grandma's cathether bag is NOT acceptable behaviour!

If Scotland has made laws banning parents from smacking their kids, can there be a law allowing us to smack the parents instead?

The other good thing about being in theatre is that you can pretend to be doing IMPORTANT things when you are actually swinging your feet having a cup of coffee waiting for the next patient to roll in.

Ah, yes, everything is clean and orderly in the operating theatre. No misbehaving children and the patients are either too frightened too kick up a fuss or unconcious.

Even colleagues appear a lot more palatable in theatre. The surgical masks we have to wear are very forgiving. It hides a multitude of sins. The eyes tend to be a person's most expressive and attractive feature, so exchanged pleasantries across a patient's unconcious body adds to the congenial feel of the operating theatre. Although there is some disappointment when a person takes off their mask and you go, "Oh damn, not so hot after all."

You gotta stay sharp

2007-11-18T14:15:00.000Z

This week I celebrated my 28th birthday.

This week I was accidentally stabbed with a needle contaminated with the blood of a patient with Hepatitis B.

It was all going so well, I thought. The patient had already been screened for HIV and venereal disease and she was in the clear. What are the chances that she would be positive for Hepatitis B?

Well, 100% as it turned out.

I wasn't terribly upset at first. It was a small nick that didn't bleed much, though it surprised me enough that I yelled in the operating theatre. Everybody froze when they realised what had happened. My colleague felt bad for accidentally stabbing me with the suture needle. As I pointed out, it was an accident. I was double-gloved and we were all following the correct procedures, so it was unfortunate that I got a needlestick injury.

What pissed me off was the attitude of the staff when I was trying to get all the various forms filled out and sent off to the correct persons. Their primary concern seemed to be that I was being a pain for fucking up their pristine no critical incidents status. Because they were on duty when the accident happen, their names were on the incident report, but that was it - just their names. I don't know why they were making such a big fuss about it. Staff here have such a fear of being asked for their names. It's not as if any of them were going to be hauled up for questioning for what was in fact an ACCIDENT. I was the one who got the needlestick injury. If anyone needs to be worried about anything, it's fucking me! You lot can go screw your bloody statistics, you fucking cows!

Hopefully, things will work out fine. I had all my vacinations done prior to going to medical school and my last antibody check in 2004 showed I had immunity to Hepatitis B. Still, I have several months of screening to look forward to since one negative result in HIV and Hepatitis B tests does not mean you are in the clear.

I just hope that that lady doesn't have some other funky disease that hasn't been screened for.

Things I would like for my birthday

2007-11-11T12:02:00.000Z

1. The limited pressing new Delays EP ‘Love Made Visible’. Only 2000 copies available, aacccckkk!

2. A new set of headphones – my long-serving and long-suffering JVCs are falling apart.

3. All the episodes of Dexter that I haven’t seen. The longer I go without any new Dexter the higher the chances I will go to Television Without Pity and ‘spoiler’ myself.

4. World peace.

Nah, just kidding.

If you haven't heard from me in a while........

2007-11-11T11:58:00.000Z

5058

It’s mocking me.

It has been 5058 for a good half an hour now. Surely somebody must be working behind there. I see people moving about but no change in the queue number.

I am number 5079.

Welcome to the Immigration Department.

5059

I’m bored out of my skull. I’ve read through three different newspapers, including the classifieds, the ingredients on the gum wrapper and all the notices on the information board. (My gum contains sodium stearate which I have never come across in chewing gum before. This is also an indication of how bored I am that I actually bought gum to chew.)

5060

I’m out in the lift lobby calling the hospital to say I’ll be at least another hour an a half. That is actually wishful thinking on my part but I hope to get my papers sorted today.

A dozen men in chains march past accompanied by two immigration officers. Both of them are carrying batons. Somehow, they all squeeze into the men’s toilet. I wonder if they get their chains taken off.

That reminds me. I need to pee myself.

5061

You would think that with Malaysia celebrating 50 years of independence this year, us Peninsular Malaysians wouldn’t need permits to stay and work in East Malaysia. (Although, come to think of it, didn’t Sabah and Sarawak gain independence in 1963 instead of 1957 like the Peninsular?)

But here I am, waiting with a whole bunch of non-Malaysians while I await permission to reside and work here for more than three months. Hello, I am an alien again. Beam me up, mothership!

Note: To anyone who knows where exactly I am now, please don't mention the town I live in or the hospital I work at or anything that may hint at my location in the comments box. There are not many big towns in this part of the country and not too many hospitals either. Malaysia isn't a very big place and people gossip like crazy and you know how sensitive Malaysians are about the slightest perceived insult to themselves. So for my peace of mind and the sake of my future career, please DON'T mention where I am. Your co-operation is most kindly appreciated.

The return of the hottest brothers on television

2007-10-03T11:00:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, I had no idea how I was to survive the end of the Supernatural season. First, there was the anxiety over whether there would be a third season. When confirmation came through that there would indeed be more of The Delectable Winchesters, I couldn't believe how long I had to wait for the next season.

But the television heart is resilient - it finds other ways to fill the void. It limits its visits to the Supernatural website and slowly weans itself off The Brotherly Medicine. It finds other television shows to like, other forms of entertainment to obsess over.

Time flies when you're having fun, and lo and behold, it is now October and the first episode of season 3, entitled The Magnificent Seven, will be airing in the US tomorrow, the 4th of October. My 'ardent admiration' for Supernatural has faded a bit but I am keen to see what happens next. How will the Winchesters dig themselves out of the hole they've dug themselves into? How much ragging will they get from the other hunters about how they stupidly released a whole bunch of demons into the world? Will the two new lady characters fit into the Supernatural world or are they just going to be annoying bints, because that's the only way TV knows how to portray strong women? We'll just have to see, won't we?

There's a little video recap on the CW network website and it has the brothers in all their cheesy, mullet rock glory, for those of you who have need of a little reminder of what has happened so far. Oh but if you're in Asia and watching Supernatural on AXN, you might not want to be spoiled since we're only up to Folsom Prison Blues at the moment.

September 2007's list

2007-09-30T13:50:00.000+01:00

Music

Editors - in the days when they wore loose jeans

This month has been devoted totally to the awesome goodness that is Editors (not the) whose addictive tunes and passionate delivery have made me swoon in musical delirium. Thanks to the fan forum on the official website(yes, yes, I go to forums now, let’s leave it at that) and their plethora of hardcore and tech-literate fans, there is an abundance of live footage and live recordings of the band’s performances for one to covetously download and savour. (Especially when yours truly has little chance whatsoever of seeing them live).

So, when I'm not skulking on the interweb, I'd be enjoying some of the gems below:

1. Fall (live video recording Pukkelpop Festival 2005, Belgium; London Calling 2005, Netherlands)

On record, 'Fall' is hypnotic, morose and almost ponderous. Played live, it’s a different animal altogether – intense and oozing dangerous sexiness that climaxes into a frantic scream of guitars.

A favourite version is the one at Pukkelpop in 2005. The band is all decked out in black, there's moody blue lighting everywhere. Vocalist Tom Smith stares fiercely out to the crowd, Russell Leetch nods in a trance to his bass, guitarist Chris Urbanowicz (looking like a cherubic Johnny Depp)mutters to himself and bites his guitar, Ed Lay strains while he bangs his drums, then everybody goes mental at the outro.

Special mention goes to their performance at London Calling where Tom gets so excited he head-butts Chris in the chest, and gets promptly shoved away by a non-plussed Chris. Brilliant.

2. Open Up (B-side 'An End Has A Start' - single; Bonus track 'An End Has A Start' - Japanese album edition)

The opening guitar chords sound like any other ordinary indie song you might have heard before. Then the piano kicks in, signalling to you that perhaps this one might be something different. When Tom starts singing, you start paying attention. Then a simple upbeat drum track gets your foot tapping on its own. By the time the hummed chorus and mournful guitar pealing in the background is in full swing, you are definitely hooked.

Tom's voice never really lifts out of the lower depths that he sings in but the sombre tone intoning 'Chin up sweetness, there is a space in my heart for you' makes it seem all the more honest.

3. Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home (B-side Blood - single, 2005 edition)

Another brilliant example of how you don't need to have words in your chorus to make it recognisable - just the beautiful pealing of Chris' guitar, genius boy that he is.

4. Colours - (The Back Room cuttings)

One of the more cheery and direct Editors songs from The Back Room era, in my opinion.

5. Crawl Down The Wall (The Back Room cuttings)

6. Forest Fire (B-side Blood 7" vinyl 2005)

7. Release (B-side Munich 2005)

Books

1. Drinking Midnight Wine - Simon R. Green. There are books which I adore and cherish like old friends and never get tired of reading again and again. There are some that I am awestruck by. There are many that I am indifferent to and likely would not be able to tell you the ending of the story a week after I read it.

And then there are the rare occasions where a book will inspire such hate that I curse the author for the time of my life that I will never get back. This is one such book.

Why do I hate this book so much? Well, let me ask you - Have you met a person who in the first second you meet him (or her), you think he's alright but in the next five minutes you find out in agonising detail what a total dickwad he is and you are surrounded by his sycophants who think he's the dog's bollocks but you can't escape because your boss has got you nailed to the floor to brown nose this tosser and short of chewing your leg off, you have to stand there and listen to him go on about what an absolute hero he is?

No? Well, how about a novel peopled by a bunch of useless and purposeless wet blankets led by a protagonist so annoying and whiny you want to punch his smug face in even if what you'd be doing is essentially punching a paperback novel? What about a plot so ridiculous that even in the unreal world of the fantasy genre you find it hard to suspend your disbelief?

Absolute garbage!

This exercise lark is harder than I thought

2007-09-27T23:45:00.000+01:00

I should have known better than to attempt anything too strenuous considering my family's general history of mishaps when we get too enthusiastic over sport. Sure we may have arms and shoulders that look like they could comfortably haul rice sacks by the ton but we're actually fragile weaklings that break under the threat of a little light gardening. Coz we're city kids and we have no idea what the name of that tree is or what kind of salad we're eating or that is the sound of a frog croaking and not somebody's screwed up car horn.

What do you mean go play outside? Do you want me to get run over by a car? Cycling is suicide. There is also the chance that you I could fall into an open drain, like my brother once did, subsequently cutting his head open.

I'm not even 30 yet and I can feel my body falling apart already. That's the consequences of physically abusing your body when you're younger and thinking you can get away with it. Yes, you may have bounced back but you find you're paying for it now. The sad thing is I lead a pretty healthy lifestyle compared to some of my peers at university and at work, who once claimed to get pains in her liver every time she drank too much. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs. My only vices are caffeine binges and a tendency to obliterate all junk food in sight when I'm in a bad mood.

It's been nearly a year's on-off attempt to try and get healthy and I haven't reached my target yet. (Slow and steady, yeah?) On the plus side, I haven't had any problems with eczema eating up my face and hands. On the downside, all this exercise I've been doing has resulted in an outbreak of MASSIVE ZITS. I'm not exaggerating, they're huge. I spent several days telling my sister to stop looking at my zit, one which sat so conspicuosly under my nose. It's fairly disgusting really - I rarely seem to be rid of a pus-ridden face.

I was in the 10km Shah Alam run the other day. Fifteen minutes in and I thought, "Fuck me, this is a mistake. I'm not going to make it." Nobody told me Shah Alam was full of bloody hills. I thought it was a flat former industrial estate filled with roundabouts. Soon, I was being overtaken by runners who were flagged off 5 minutes behind me, then it was the grey-haired oldies going past, next the school kids skipping along and at one point the disabled. And I don't mean the people in the wheelchairs, I mean this dude with polio zooming past me.

Halfway through, my hands started to swell up to scary proportions so much so that it started to ache. I can only assume that my venous circulation wasn't up to scratch - arterial blood goes in, venous blood gets stuck. Freaky. I managed to finish however, though this one took me 15 minutes longer than the previous 10km competition I did. I did get a medal in the end (YES!). Okay, it may be nothing to get excited about since the top 100 in every category gets one (and I vaguely heard the run offical telling me to hurry up because it was the last one) but I've never won a medal for any sports before, so I'm pretty chuffed about it.

Anyway - I HAVE lost some weight. Woo hoo! Give us the points, bitch!! I've managed to fit into trousers that I had put aside because they were getting too tight and now, even those are starting to fall off unless I wear a belt. Ha ha ha, I might have to get a new wardrobe soon. Well, my mum tells me to get a new wardrobe anyway because all my clothes are shit, basically.

August 2007's list

2007-08-29T18:11:00.000+01:00

Books

1. Cloud Atlas – DAVID MITCHELL. I must have bought this book somewhere in 2005 in Waterstones’ and left it to collect dust since. It still has it yellow ‘Buy 3 for 2’ sticker on the front cover; an impulse buy, a book I bought to make myself feel better. I finally picked it up two weeks ago and haven’t been able to put it down since.

The book opens with the diary of one Adam Ewing, an American making a hazardous journey across the Pacific in the nineteenth century. Things get a bit hairy for the God-fearing Ewing as he crosses paths with criminals, cut-throats, warring Maoris and an alleged brain-eating parasite.

Ewing’s diary ends abruptly on page just as I was wondering if he would survive with brain intact and we skip next to a one-sided correspondence from an impoverished, bisexual rake to his ex-lover while attempting to compose his musical masterpiece in 1930s Europe. Again, his breathless biting story stops short and we move on to three more subsequent characters, each many years in the future of its predecessor, each with a different story to tell but all somehow connected to every character previous to it.

I’m not normally enthusiastic of novels with so many characters in disparate story lines but David Mitchell brings such depth and atmosphere within pages of each new chapter that it’s hard not to get sucked in almost immediately. Every character comes fully formed and each new environment so convincingly realised, it was easy to imagine myself smelling the snow in Sonmi-451’s post-apocalyptic future or the ink and sweat in a 1970s newsroom.

A true page-turner, a delight from start to finish.

2. Life of Pi – YANN MARTELL. It seemed like a scene set for a quirky comedy – a shipwrecked boy adrift on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orang-utan and a 450 pound Royal Bengal tiger.

The first half of the book certainly seemed to set the scene for it: a rather quaint telling of how our eponymous hero received his name, his devout following of 3 different religions simultaneously, much to the consternation of his parents, and an idyllic upbringing in an Indian zoo. All these quirky vignettes lull the reader into the pleasing world of Pi Patel until the second half of the book when Pi gets shipwrecked and things don’t seem amusing anymore, especially when you are told in the beginning that this tale was inspired by real life events.

A bittersweet quaint story that twists into horror in the end, yet leaving you terrifyingly awed at the story of one man’s will to survive.

3. Never The Bride – PAUL MAGRS. After reading the two books above, Magrs' offering seemed incredibly simple and child-like by comparison. Actually, no, it is simple and child-like with plotlines you could see a mile off. His ageless mysterious heroine comes off rather flat and uninspiring while the various 'dastardly villains' feel like they could have walked off a Scooby Doo set. Maybe that was what Paul Magrs was aiming for but I didn't see the funny side of it.

Music

1. An End Has A Start (album) – EDITORS. It’s hard to comprehend why critics label Editors’ music gloomy (Nick Cave singing about love – now that’s gloomy). Editors might sing about death and cold-blooded mammals but their upbeat drums, power-packed basslines and hopeful sentiments surely transform their morbid subject matter into punchy pop-rock.

Their debut album ‘The Back Room’ was full of concise singles with catchy hooks, obscure lyrics and stark one-word titles like ‘Blood’, ‘Bullets’ and ‘Munich’. In AEHAS, the single word titles have morphed into phrases, the lyrics have become less opaque and the insular tunes have evolved into expansive anthems. A bit of piano tinkling has been thrown in to the mix but the catchy hooks are still there. Together with Urbanowicz’s trademark guitar sound and Smith’s heartfelt baritone swooping you off your feet, this is unmistakably a product of Editors.

The songs here may not necessarily grab you instantly but soak in on repeated listens and lodge in a corner of your brain till you find yourself singing about hospitals while walking in a park on a beautiful sunny day. Not that I mind at all because the Editors are beautiful and they make beautiful music. And there’s an elf in Editors, which makes them infinitely more lovable.

The only gripe I have though is that in their effort to sound bigger and more open, some of the enigmatic tension palpable in their debut is missing from this latest album. A bit of a shame since it was the aura of mystery surrounding them that made them infinitely more interesting to me. It’s a bit like a friend suddenly telling you unexpected things about their love life. But I suppose you can’t be insanely successful and still be secretive. That’s just being difficult. So I gave myself a big slap and enjoyed the album for what it is – which is friggin good.

Favourite tracks: Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors, An End Has A Start, Bones, When Anger Shows, The Racing Rats.

2. Logic Will Break Your Heart (album) – THE STILLS. My love for 80s-tinged pop hasn’t entirely abated which is why this 2004 release by Canadian band, The Stills, has slowly become one of my current favourites.

It's a rather mellow affair, interspersed with catchy poppy tunes but it has enough good tracks to keep you interested. 'Still In Love Song' is a good sing-along made more interesting by the ascending bassline in its chorus, while 'Allison Krausse' sounds uncannily like a cross between Badly Drawn Boy and an early era Radiohead B-side.

Like any good pop album, its theme is love and its pitfalls, evident by its rather delicious album title, Logic Will Break Your Heart; five words which for some reason I find aesthetically pleasing. The jilted lover in the album is never vitriolic but at various moments, cutting(The sordid way her loaded phrases infiltrate your skull in 'Gender Bombs'); defiant (I hate my best friends in 'Changes Are No Good'); stumbling drunk in 'Animals and Insects' and suddenly clear-headed (Loving you is a black hole in 'Ready For It').

Favourite tracks: Love and Death, Still In Love Song, Allison Krausse, Animals & Insects, Yesterday Never Tomorrows.

3. Neon Bible (album) – THE ARCADE FIRE. I feel a bit of a dunce listening to this band, as I don’t quite get all the musical cleverness that they are purported to have. There are some bands’ records that you fall in love with, and then there are some that just intimidate you into thinking they must be good… or else. Neon Bible falls into the latter category. There are a few interesting tracks here but I think I’ll leave the doom and darkness for now.

Stand out tracks: Black Mirror, Keep the Car Running.

4. Closer (single)- TRAVIS. I thought Travis were dead. I thought they couldn't write more of the same plinky-plonky gentle tunes without the world at large losing interest. But they wouldn't be Travis if they didn't write pretty melodies that sneak up on you and make you tear up now, would they?

The first single off their latest album 'The Boy With No Name' is one of those dastardly songs. Starts off all nice and samey then when Fran Healy's crooning chorus kicks in, you'll find an involuntary smile cracking across your face. And you'd probably go 'coochie coochie coooo!' to an ickle baby too even though you promised you'd stab yourself in the eye first before you'd ever do such a thing.

Oh and please don't watch the video as well because Healy's smiling eyes and dimpled face would make you wanna sell your gas-guzzling car, wear flowers in your hair and sing 'Kumbaya'. Oh what the heck! They're just too darling for words. Let's just listen to the record and be happy and smile at everyone all day.

Stardust

2007-08-28T18:00:00.000+01:00

First of all, apologies for the embarrassment of bad poetry in the past 3 posts. Let's just say, I was seized by the Poetry Fairy and found myself so enthralled to its charms that I was unable to write any coherent thought in plain English without spraining myself. Having said that, I did derive a surprising amount of pleasure from writing poems - quite giddy, in fact - but I'm afraid my muse has left me for now.

All has returned to normal. Almost. Hee.

*looks dreamily out of moon-lit window for the flicker of Poetry Fairy's wings.*

Nothing so prosaic

2007-08-21T23:15:00.000+01:00

How can one compare
A giant to an elf
One is broad and full of hair
And the other short of self

A giant’s grasp can make one gasp
His sweetness lies in his strength
But the elven charm will pierce any mask
And make one smile at length

A perfect set of ears
A delightful manner of man
A refreshing lack of smirks and leers
The elf over the giant, that is my plan.

Author's edit: I would like to dedicate this poem to my baby sister Maryam, who is sober, for planting the seed of 'Elf Lover' in my brain. It was next to impossible to resist it taking root and morphing into the above.

Author's note: Elf love is not in anyway related to Lord of the Rings or any other fictional elves in the fantasy genre.

Disclaimer: No elves were harmed in the making of this poem.

More bad poetry ensues

2007-08-14T16:19:00.000+01:00

In his blue-green sea I am lost
in fanciful dreams
of sleepy melodies
and promised ecstasy.

An ode in code

2007-08-12T21:26:00.000+01:00

Sounds from the ether
Drifting to earth
A guttural growl
A bass note that shivers.

Swim in the depths of its windows
Delight in the flash of pearls
Sweet planes of its face
Peak through its golden forest.

Its slightness made big
By its dance across the stage
The long reach of its hands
Dream of melodies in its sleep.

It's a video extravaganza!

2007-08-02T12:03:00.000+01:00

Because I am extremely bored and am itching to write something, anything, but have nothing new to say, I've posted some videos of live band performances that have been doing heavy rotation in my playlist in the last few months. (Yes, ever since I got a relaible broadband connection, plenty of time on my hands and gained internet literacy).

1. Outsiders - Franz Ferdinand on Later with Jools Holland (not quite sure which year it's from though) but fecking hell are they brilliant in this. Thing is with Franz Ferdinand, they always look real sharp and cool, then they add that drum orgy at the end with 7 drummers coming in and beating the hell out of the skins. They've played with up to 12 drummers at festivals but this one is fantastic as well.
Posted by Elanorrose.

2. Alive - Pearl Jam at the Reading Festival in 2006. Still one of the best anthems Pearl Jam has ever done. Absolute classsic. Looks soooooo bloody good, wish I was there, but I wasn't, so bummer. The crowd looks absolutely amazing, stretching out to impossible lengths. Even Eddie Vedder was visibly stunned by the strength of feeling from the audience, so much so that it looked like he cried at the end. And he's only been doing this for like 15 years! Also, I think it's awfully sweet when he says at the end, "Thanks for staying safe."
Posted by HarryStottle.

3. Blood - Editors at the Pinkpop Festival in the Netherlands in 2006. I heard this song being performed on TV (but not this particular festival)and it made me go, "Eh, who's that? They sound good." Good and different - what a relief to hear a male singer singing in a lower register at that time. So gloomy and moody too, yet easy on the eye.
Posted by anubysath.

4. Modern World - Wolf Parade performing somewhere in Toronto. Love the album version but equally love this rockier, faster live version that the guys play. KJ's favourite, Spencer Krug, is the one alternating between two keyboards on the far left.
Posted by adangca.

5. One Night Away - Delays in a fan's living room in Muswell Hill in 2004. The lucky resident won a competition from NME and got Delays to perform in her house. How bloody jealous am I? Aaarrggghh!! Anyway, video quality is a bit dark but sound is pretty good and the band are on form with one of their sweeter songs. No electronic wankery and minimal falsetto warblings.
Posted by mjlaw9909.

Freedom for Mama's Girl

2007-07-31T14:18:00.000+01:00

My sister KJ goes on a five week long trip through the 'wilds' of Europe today. She'll be with friends part of the way and on her own at other times.

With her inquisitive and open mind, I know she'll get the best out of this trip and she'll come back with lots of funny and amusing anecdotes to tell the family.

I hope she doesn't get the runs like she is wont to do while travelling.

So, may all your flights and journeys be safe.

Hope the weather stays this good.

Hope your feet won't give you too much trouble.

And..........

Aren't foreign words funny?

God bless KJ, come home safe.

Take your heart from your sleeve

2007-07-30T16:09:00.000+01:00

Broken rasp.
Eyes you can drown in.
Teeth.

I've heard it said that the people one is physically attracted to look a little like oneself. Makes sense, especially if you're the sort who's so in love with yourself you'd look for a partner with your own 'good looks'.

What do you look for in a partner?

Oh, it's one of those questions, is it? Like, if your house is on fire what would be the one thing you would save? Or would you choose to be extremely beautiful or insanely clever?

You're avoiding the question.

Mmmmmm.... I'm stalling.

Is it that hard to answer?

It's not a frivolous question. I would like to give some serious thought to it because I am a serious woman. No, don't laugh.

Sorry. I guess that's what comes from asking such a question to an obsessive pedant such as yourself.

I think.... I will take that as a compliment.

Well?

Sigh. What do I look for in a partner? Well, it's changed over the years. I used to have a check list of desirable qualities before I realised you can't squash people into boxes.

What was on this check list?

From the physical point - tall. Or at least taller than me, which narrowed the field quite a bit. Erm, a nice smile - men look less forbidding when they smile.

You think so?

Depends how they do it though. Not the smarmy, sleazy, "Hi, cik adik!" smile. I also went through a stage I couldn't stand a guy with long hair. I needed to see ears, I don't know why. Now, I'm not too bothered either way, though I think the only guy who looks better with long hair is Eddie Vedder.

Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam fame?

The very one.

Getting on a bit, isn't he?

But still atrractive though.

Anyways, what about the non-physical qualities on this list of yours?

I don't think I had much on that part of the list, besides him liking to read. A list is rather superficial in its purpose and the making of such lists renders a person two-dimensional.

So what do you do?

What do you do? You trundle on, I suppose. Try not to have any expectations or prejudices. Easier to say than do, I admit. Especially when you're on the lookout for any potential nutjobs.

You don't like the crazies?

Not when they're crazy 24/7. I had a guy stalk me for a whole year once. Made me skittish. However, I think everybody should have a streak of crazy in them. Makes them unpredictable and interesting.

Do you find that attractive?

Sometimes. Attraction itself is rather unpredictable and ineffable. You can't always exlain why somebody attracts your attention. It's a bit magic, I think. Like ankles.

Eh?!?!?

I was once attracted to a guy because of his ankles.

That sounds..... rather strange.

Well, I liked him a little bit before. He was one of those artsy-fartsy types that I never thought I'd be interested in. I thought my type was the clean-cut, straight-laced, scientific guys. Then one day I saw his ankles while pushing a fridge up the stairs and I had the strangest feeling come over me. Like the whole of my chest had dissolved into a puddle at my feet.

He was pushing a....? I'm not even going to ask.

My point is you can put down all sorts of criteria and caveats for your 'perfect soulmate' or whatever it is you want to call it but one day when you least expect it, 'ankles' can happen to you.

'Ankles'. That is your wise word of wisdom.

I never said I was wise. That's the only analogy I can come up with. Though I suspect I have a fetish for joints.

*feeling rather faint at this point* Joints?

Wrist joints in particular. And hands. Damn sexy.

Wrist.... hands.....

Well, think about it. Your work and your interests or hobbies partly shape who you are. And you pursue those interests and execute your job using your hands. So your hands somewhat reflect who you are. Unless.... you were born without hands. Then you'd have to look elsewhere.

Ri-i-i-i-ght. So did things work out between you and Mr. Ankles?

Nah, didn't even start.

Why?

My incompetence at flirting. The fact that he wasn't interested.

Tough luck.

*shrugs* I got over it.

So you haven't got a list anymore?

Well, I wouldn't say that was entirely true. I think everybody's got this picture at the back of their minds of how their perfect partner would look like.

Describe him in three words.

Someone who is kind. Passionate. Someone with integrity.

Not looking for hunksome? Buff? Rich?

Those would be a bonus. But what it all boils down to is respect. Whether I can respect him and him respect me. I don't think I could fall in love with somebody I didn't respect.

That's the first time you've used the word love in this entire conversation.

I know.

You were hedging before.

I feel awkward saying it. Even now.

Why?

Because it feels false. Like Posh Spice talking about politics. Or The Queen saying how much she likes The Sex Pistols.

Why do you think it's difficult for you?

I can give you all sorts of reasons. Familial upbringing. Cultural conditioning. Great expectations. Being a control freak. An unwillingness to be vulnerable.

So you're willing to change now?

I can't say. Truth be told, I enjoy being a hard-assed cynic sometimes. People don't walk all over you that way. But I'm willing to be more tolerant and forgiving now.

I'll believe that when I see it.

Yes, we all make promises we can't keep. But I'd like to believe, I have to believe that humans have a great capacity to love and be loved. To have compassion. If only we allow ourselves to.

Even hard-assed cynics?

Even hard-assed cynics. Because if we didn't, we'd be twisted, shrivelled, joyless things and we'd find no meaning and purpose in life. There are some places I don't want to go.

You've come over all philosophical now. What's gotten into you?

Oh I get like this from time to time. I take stock of my life - see what I've made of it. I might rabbit on about bands and hunky actors and TV shows but even I get tired of being shallow sometimes. You appreciate fun more when you've had your fill of serious. And vice versa.

So you've had your fill of fun?

Specifically, I'm tired of not having worked as a doctor. Yet, I'm strangely afraid to start again. It's that whole inertia thing. You've found yourself in a rut and it takes a lot of effort to dig yourself out of it. And I think I miss the connection.

What connection?

With patients. With colleagues. Feeling connected to the larger world. Feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself. That what you do has meaning for someone. It goes back to the whole love and being loved thing. We all want to feel connected to each other in some way.

Even unsociable people such as yourself?

Even little old me. We live in a fractured world. We all try to grab as many connections as we can.

But some of your bleakest moments were when you were 'connected' to people. You were in some pretty black moments in the past two to three years.

I never said connecting to people wouldn't hurt. It's not all happy happy joy joy, skipping through the park. People can frustrate, hurt and betray you. You can feel hard done by. You might find yourself crying in the car on the way home from work. Or worse, breaking down at work.

Like you spectacularly did when you were a house officer.

Yes, but that was strangely liberating. And it made everyone else open up as well about how miserable they were, especially the other house officers. It wasn't unusual to walk in on somebody having a cry in the ward office or the supply closet. It's good to have a good cry once in a while. Not as a tool to use against others but as a way to let your frustrations out.

Better out than in, as you always say.

Indeed, because if you don't, you end up going loopy or being nasty to people around you. Worst case scenario you end up being taken off by the men in white coats or killing yourself.

Jeepers.

It's been known to happen. There's always a few in every graduating year.

Best not to get too connected then, huh?

No. There's nothing worse than not feeling anything. Take it from me, you don't want to be robot-girl.

So, do you feel better at letting all this out?

Yes, I do. My head feels a lot clearer now I've had this conversation.

You have conversations with yourself a lot?

All the time, my friend. All the time.

My mother would be a disco bunny in another life

2007-07-29T16:05:00.000+01:00

Don't choke on your karipap. It's hard to imagine a woman who had always given me the impression that 99.99% of music is an assault on her sanity would be getting jiggy with it with the punters down at the local club. Oh God, that image has already given me a headache.

My mother can't drive and she frequently complains of the music I put on the car stereo so I had kindly burned two CDs worth of songs by The Carpenters (which I know she likes) and things like The Beatles' Yesterday and Beautiful Maria by Los Lobos to play in the car from time to time. But two days ago, I took special delivery of double A-side single Lost In A Melody/Wanderlust by who else, but Delays, and The Mother freaked me out when she said, "I like this song. It's catchy."

To hear what The Mother developed a liking to, click below.

Lost In A Melody (Tom Middleton Cosmos Remix) by Delays. Rough Trade Records (2004)

Oh and the other day, she asked, "Why don't you play that president song anymore?"

"President song? You mean Presidente by a band called Kinky?"

"Exactly.I like that."

Who are you and what have you done with my mother?!?!?

Presidente by Kinky. From the album Atlas. Nettwerk America (2003)

July 2007's list

2007-07-24T21:15:00.000+01:00

Music

1. The View From Here (album) – TEMPERED MENTAL. They sounded good, honestly they did, when I went to see them at Laundry at the launching of their debut album a few weeks ago. Good vocalist, banging bass – I shuffled my feet a little – and I bought their album. Hey, it was going cheap at RM20 and I figured they needed to earn a living somehow. But on repeated listens, I realised that I don’t really like music like this anymore. Go back circa 1999 and I would probably be headbanging to their songs, along with all the other nu-metal music that were making waves then, but currently, I’ve gotta say no. Oooh, Tempered Mental might object to me calling them nu-metal but that’s what it sounds like to me. Good effort, but not my cup of tea.

You can check them out on MySpace.

Stand out tracks: Recall

2. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (album) – CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH. See, you need a good name for your band to catch people’s attention and stick in their memories, instead of a meaningless name like Delays (sorry guys, I love you, but your name sucks). Of course having an arsenal of good tunes and internet savvy help your case a lot, but you know, you gotta start with a good name. Then we can focus on how the band sounds like.

A few people have recommended this band to me, including my sister, KJ. But she has this inclination to recommend bands where the singer sounds like they are either yodelling or whining. Main songwriter and vocalist Alec Ounsworth’s voice takes some getting use to. His plaintive mewling put me off initially but you can’t argue with the tunes which have been good enough to displace Delays off my stereo. You might want to skip the first track but there are plenty here to keep you bopping happily.

The band have had a second album out since January, which apparently is worth checking out too but at the rate I’m at, I’d probably listen to it next year.

Stand out tracks: The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth, Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away, Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)

3. Generator (single) – THE HOLLOWAYS. There’s been a lot of ‘The’ bands lately and it remains to be seen how many of them will last. British band The Holloways (Alfie Jackson, Rob Skipper, Bryn Fowler, Dave Danger) are the latest addition and they make an infectious pop contribution with their debut single.

Listen to them here.

Books

Can you believe I haven’t read any books this month? What is the world coming to? Maybe because I’ve been busy listening to music. Didn’t you know I’m a man? You know I can’t multi-task. Being obsessed over a band is a lot of hard work, you know.

Films

1. Borat – Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Oh. My. God. I know people have been pissing themselves over this movie, but I just can’t get into it. I can’t. I’ve had three aborted attempts at watching this and I haven’t managed to finish it at all. It’s too excruciating to watch. I’m hiding my face behind my eyes, I’m forwarding every painful bit and I feel physically ill at every moronic thing Borat does.

It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with British humour, nor with Sacha Baron Cohen’s brand of piss-taking. I watched him when he first started doing short sketches of Ali G and Borat on the 11 o’clock Show, I’ve watched Dom Joly and his giant mobile phone on Trigger Happy TV. I’ve even sat through many episodes of the physical grossness that is Little Britain.

I love Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Have I Got News For You, where Mark Lamarr & Simon Amstell, and Ian Hislop & Paul Merton, would respectively rip into any fool guest who agreed to go on the show. It’s okay to bust your gut laughing at that because you know anybody who went on those shows signed up to be mercilessly ridiculed and heckled. Well, except Preston from The Ordinary Boys, who left his sense of humour at home.

But I still felt that all those people had a chance somewhat, because there was a clue that this was a farce or the guests were welcomed to hurl abuse at the presenters as well, where as in Borat, it just felt like Cohen was taking advantage of simple people who were trying to be polite and helpful.

I had my neighbour for dinner

2007-07-21T22:28:00.000+01:00

My neighbour scares me a little.

I’ve been generally lucky with housemates but I’ve had my share of odd neighbours. There were those fellow university students who would regularly trash their flat and kick down doors during drinking binges. My flat’s front door somehow escaped destruction but doors left and to the right of mine would hang crazily on their hinges or disappear completely come Sunday morning.

There was also the neighbour who jumped across from his window ledge onto mine (and we were three floors up) and banged on the window asking for marijuana at two o’clock in the morning.

There was one that would turn up at our door asking for antiseptic cream. He looked like he had been in a fight and lost. On good days he would barely speak to us because as he later confessed, his girlfriend was a very jealous woman. When the girlfriend was away, he would try to hit on my friend, whose boyfriend lived in the same building as us.

Then there was one who kept having fainting spells one summer, even tumbling down a flight of stairs once. I thought the guy had stopped breathing in my arms when we rushed him to hospital. It turned out that all the fainting was due to the fact that he had stopped eating because his girlfriend had dumped him.

I guess there was always some sort of chemical motivation or chemical inspiration to all those neighbours’ behaviours. Now this current neighbour, I think is rather sinister.

Take his house for example. He doesn’t have curtains. A sign of laziness perhaps, or exhibitionist tendencies or a disregard for aesthetics but that’s not the odd thing. He covers his windows and the sliding glass doors with newspapers. All of them. And they’re not the hastily put up, I’ll take it off when I get curtains type thing but ones that have been painstakingly arranged and taped so not a single ray of light can get in.

It was not easily noticed initially because all the houses here have darkened glass so you can’t see into the houses unless the lights are on and I’m not exactly a busybody. But it’s been nearly half a year now and those newspapers look like they are there to stay.

Just think how it looks like from the inside. I wonder if he’s got bodies stashed in the freezer or something.

Avast!

2007-07-17T17:20:00.000+01:00

I was at the Maritime Institute in Jalan Yap Kwan Seng waiting for my dad to come out of a seminar becauseI needed the keys to take his car for repairs and servicing. So there I was twiddiling with my handbag in the corridor when the doors of the seminar room opened and a whole bunch of fit men in tight, white Royal Navy uniforms came out.

Hubba-hubba!

Unfortunately, my dad came out at the same time and started talking to me. All I could do was stand there with MY DAD while all these hunksome sailors passed me by.

BAH! They're all probably too old for me anyway.

Wedding news

2007-07-16T16:11:00.000+01:00

My dearest siblings,

Greetings from your sister in the homeland of teh tarik and apolitical slackers. I hope you are all well in foreign lands. Thank you all for your e-mails expressing mirth at my having to face the Melaka Mob at a nuptial-filled weekend, while you all get off scot-free. (By the way, I hear summer in the British and Irish isles is pretty miserable right now, and I do believe it is bitterly cold in the Southern Hemisphere, is it not?)

Truth be told, I rather enjoyed myself at the family gathering. Meeting the Melaka Mob doesn't seem to be as much of an ordeal as I remembered. I had two new baju kurung made, mainly because Mak U insisted on a theme of blue for An's wedding (and all relatives must comply) and because raya will be soon and I haven't had a new baju kurung in about five years. I must say I looked extremely adorable in my new outfits. I could almost pass for gadis Melayu ayu except for the fact that I hunch and stride like a man.

Sadly nobody cried, wailed, fell into the kawah or ran over the groom. Mak R was a bit confusing when she ignored me one minute, then was all affectionate and announced to the world that she will look after my future children in the next.

Of course, you can't have a gathering of the Melaka Mob without a relative opening their gob while having a brain bypass. This year the prize goes to Mak Ros for the most jaw-droppingly insensitive and inappropriate comment to ever pass human lips. You know Pak U's sister, Bar - the one whom everybody wanted Dad to marry instead of Mum - died recently. One of her daughters came to the wedding, and upon spotting her, Mak Ros said, "Hey, when's your Dad going to find somebody new?"

I was so flabbergasted (and I tell you, I've never used the word flabbergasted in my life) that I could only stand there gawping, not believing that I actually heard her right the first time. The poor girl's mother died of cancer not three months ago and you are asking her when her Dad is going to shack up with a new wife?!?!?! How bloody moronic can you be?

I don't know how Bar's daughter could keep her cool and plaster a smile on her face. If it was me, I'd have launched myself across the table and scratched my aunt's eyeballs out. And then stuffed the cencaluk down her throat. But that's just me.

Mak Ad's kids were being little monsters as usual by snatching the fruit off the groom's hantaran even before the wedding party had been escorted out to eat, and then nearly upsetting a basket of tapai I was carrying for the groom's family because I refused to give the little brat any. At first I thought the brat snatching the fruit belonged to the groom's side but I should have known that the uncouth, tak boleh bawak majlis types are usually related to me.

So that was it really. The bride and groom looked happy, the weather held out and the food was excellent. (I'm not a big pedas eater but man, do the Melakans know how to make a good sambal). We got to take home about a dozen telur pindang and all the diabetic coma-inducing desserts in the world. What more could you want from a wedding party?

Till next time, my lovely gene pool sharers
Kere XOXO

Three signs that show you are getting on in years

2007-07-13T18:19:00.000+01:00

1) All the college kids look really young to you

2) Salespeople call you kak

3) Most of the songs on Mix FM you have in your record collection

Help! I've been kidnapped by The Cult of Delays

2007-07-11T11:54:00.000+01:00

It's not the end of the month yet but I can't resist plugging Delays, especially since they're due a new album out in September. Another reason why I like them: they don't wait forever between albums. Your adoring masses always want more!

I can think of only three bands which have captured my imagination so much so that I have obsessively collected B-sides, live tracks, radio sessions and any limited releases that they have produced. I can safely say now that you can add Delays to that short list. Lately I've been listening to the B-side, Quiet, over on the flash version of Delays official website. Starts off err....quiet and lullaby-like before building up to a chorus of screaming voices which I think is saying, "Live like you die." I could be wrong of course, since I still sing the opening line to Journey's Wheel In the Sky as "Nemedebede."

Also on continuous play is Girls On Fire, which because it is yet unreleased has so far only been available to me because some blessed person recorded it at a Delays gig in Sheffield and posted it on YouTube. The official word is that it will be out on the new album, Everything's The Rush, (hooray!). So far the only record store I know that stocks Delays is Rock Corner (branches in Bangsar, Midvalley, 1 Utama) so I'll be heading over there when the album comes out or make them order it for me if they don't have it.

Delays performing Girls On Fire at Sheffield Leadmill, 23 September 2006. Thanks to Cheesybadgers.

I like the way Greg dances to this - it looks like he's enjoying himself. Oh and because I don't feel so idiotic when I'm dancing like a muppet to this song.

Stop and breathe

2007-07-09T23:59:00.000+01:00

I was breathing in the salty air of the South China Sea when I heard about the nail-filled would-be car bomb in London. I was on the road somewhere when I caught snippets of news about a flaming car driving into Glasgow airport. Three guesses as to whose bright idea those acts were. No? You don’t need three?

It wasn’t until late last night that I managed to sit down and trawl through the net for news on the events in Britain. (Of course there’s hardly anything in the papers here, thank God for the internet). It makes me heartsick to read about stuff like this, especially when it’s done by Muslims who claim God told them to and it’s for the freedom of the Muslim people.

The news reports are bad enough but when I get to reading blogs and the comments on it, then I start to get really despondent. You can’t blame them for feeling that way; it seems that all Muslims want to do nowadays is Kill The Infidel and contribute to the greenhouse gas effect by burning lots and lots of flags. I would feel angry if somebody threatened me for being Muslim and accused me of being scum.

What is more surprising is the number of of calmer voices who don’t want to just pack off all Muslims and shoot them into outer space or something. You would think we deserved it for all the madness we’ve been creating. Although, by that same reasoning, you’d have to shoot a whole bunch of other people into space too and there’d be nobody left on Earth and all the animals will sigh with relief.

As a supposedly intelligent species, we humans don't seem to have learnt anything from history. It's always kill, kill, kill and damn the consequences. Who cares if it makes monsters of us all?

To the East Coast we go

2007-07-03T15:33:00.000+01:00

The parents and I were in Kuantan for two days. Dad had a meeting there but didn't want to fly because of all the heavy documents he had to carry. He wasn't keen to drive either so he roped me in to do the driving duties by bribing me with a stay at the Hyatt. Okay, so it's not like he had to twist my arm in the first place.

Mum and Dad kept reminiscing of the time they holidayed together in Kuantan. Dad kept trying to find the resthouse they stayed at in Teluk Chempedak but all we found was the resthouse annexe. I think they were nostalgic for the days when they weren't yet saddled with five kids.

While Dad was at his meeting, Mum and I decided to drive from Teluk Chempedak towards Terengganu, mainly to hunt for keropok lekor. I love keropok lekor but the fish that a lot of makers of keropok lekor use makes me itch like crazy, so getting the right keropok lekor is a bit of a hit and miss job.

We got as far as Chukai before we turned back to pick Dad up from work. I got my keropok from a place just inside of the Pahang border. I ate one in the car which made my face itch. Mum then made me stop to get some durians which we smelled through the closed car windows even before we saw them.

Those unused to durians liken its smell to dirty socks. I'm not fond of eating durian but I think it smells lovely - fragrant and very fruity. However, the "invigorating" smell of boiled fish and durian was not something you want to be stuck with in an enclosed space for the next three hours.

Epilogue: Dad has demolished the durians, the fish is in the fridge for later consumption, and the car still reeks of durian. I only got into one argument with my parents. Hurrah!

June 2007's list

2007-06-29T23:01:00.000+01:00

Music

Hey Girl - Delays

Long Time Coming - Delays

1. Faded Seaside Glamour (album); Lost In A Melody (single) – DELAYS. It follows that after me going crazy for Delays’ sophomore effort, You See Colours, I’d be backtracking to their debut album to get more of the good stuff.

If I had discovered Delays by their first album, I’d have gone, “Jeebus! What the hell happened to Delays?” when I put on their second album because the two albums sound like two completely different animals. Where You See Colours did nearly what it said on the tin with its synths, thumping bass and beats you can wig out to, Faded Seaside Glamour is a dreamy, airy, bittersweet collection that you’d put on while you lie on the grass and look at the sheep-shaped clouds in the sky. There are jangly guitars, soaring vocals and melodies so blissed out and mellow you could take them home to meet the parents.

Nearer Than Heaven, Hey Girl and Long Time Coming are some tracks that jump out but on repeated listens I like the bruising Stay Where Are and the child-like chiming that is On. Bedroom Scene is a gem too, a mix of longing, lust and regret though I found a better version recorded by LBC radio a few years ago that is so moving, had I still been in my melancholic youth, I would have shed tears at the sheer beauty of it. For despite its innocent sound, there is a streak of sombreness running through the album that hints of deeper thoughts than the superficial sunniness.

Lyrics are equally emotive; Gilbert sings of ‘monsters making the evening news’ and ‘we could talk forever, nothing would get done’ in the dreamy Nearer Than Heaven, ‘maybe what I’m trying to say, I lost you in translation to lover from the hand of a friend’ in Bedroom Scene and alludes to tantrums with ‘threw your Lego in the lake, why’d you wanna go do that for?’ Heh, anybody that references Lego has got to be good in my book.

I have to admit that initially I found Faded Seaside Glamour hard to get into especially when coming from the more assured, focused and edgier You See Colours. I think I was confused, not quite sure what to make of them and how to define who they were and which box their sound fit into. Perhaps the most important thing about Delays, is that they are honest about what they like and only attempt to sound like themselves, whatever the critics might say about them sounding like a fusion of Cocteau Twins & The Hollies. And while we’re here, let’s make it clear – no, there isn’t a woman in the band; yes, it’s a bloke singing; yes, his voice has broken; and no, they don’t wear leopard skin trousers and eyeliner. Well, not anymore, anyway.

Then we come to Lost In A Melody, released as a single in the period between the two albums that first hinted at the future, more varied sound of Delays. Aaron Gilbert’s musical leanings (less of an influence on Faded Seaside Glamour as he joined the band when a lot of the songs had already been written) comes to the fore here as the song opens with what I imagine my sister would call electronic wankery. But thanks to the Gilberts’ musical craftsmanship the melding of artsy, sensitive Greg’s tunes to Aaron’s edgier beats doesn’t jar, and we get a foot-stomping, ethereal number.

The biggest difference though, between Delays' two albums is that Faded Seaside Glamour is essentially a bedroom record; its melodies written in isolation and inspired from half-remembered dreams, whilst the vivacity and dance-like qualities of You See Colours is evidence of it being born on the road. Still, whatever its inspiration, Delays have produced two beautiful albums to date. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Edit: Having driven to Kuantan and back with Faded Seaside Glamour on repeat in the car, I've got to add You Wear The Sun, No Ending, Satellite's Lost and One Night Away to my favoutites, although I don't think there is a bad song on this record. Truly an album that grows on you.

2. Everybody Move It – TEDDY THOMPSON. Despite its title and its lyrics telling you to ‘bump and grind, have a good time’, there are no electronic beeps or thudding basses here, only a gently plucking guitar and Thompson’s liquid vocals doing the gentle urging.

Books

1. In the Name of Honour – MUKHTAR MAI. You can’t have missed this one in the news. A Pakistani woman is sentenced to being gang-raped by her village tribal council in retaliation for her brother allegedly sullying the honour of a woman of a higher caste. It made headlines around the world and severely embarrassed the Pakistani government when Mukhtar Mai, instead of being ashamed and committing suicide as she was expected to do, got angry and fought for her torturers to be punished for their crimes.

It’s hard not to get angry when you initially read something like this – more proof that humans are evil bastards that should get nuked to world’s end and the most evil bastards of all are bastard men and their frigging ego trips bigger than their dicks. As much as I wanted to be angry on her behalf, there was something in Mukhtar’s story and the way she came across that beseeched calm and understanding. Not understanding for her torturers (she’s still angry at them) but for her all that were caught up in events and how those that stood by while she was raped were only victims of their circumstances.

When I first read of Mukhtar’s story in the news a few years ago, my first thought was, “That’s typical, the randy brother can have his way with any woman in the village, but if caught, it’s always the women who pay the price while he gets of scot free.” I was horribly wrong of course and did a disservice to Mukhtar’s brother for judging him before I knew of the facts. Sadly, he was as much a victim in this as Mukhtar was. He was only twelve when he was ridiculously accused of dishonouring a woman of a higher caste, beaten and sodomised by the woman’s male relatives and kept imprisoned for several days before he was released to the police.

What struck me as rather sad, was that Mukhtar was luckier than most women in her society who were raped, because her family, and most importantly, the male members of her family, were equally horrified and angered by what had been done to her, and supported her in her quest for justice. As Mukhtar pointed out, it wasn't uncommon for victim's family to ostracise her for something beyond her control.

A humbling read, and it just goes to show what one woman can do to change her world.

2. Humble Pie – GORDON RAMSAY. I don’t normally read biographies or memoirs because I don’t believe anybody is so great that they need to have their life story spelled out for me and have me pay for it too but I couldn’t resist getting sucked into this arresting autobiography of Gordon Ramsay. I read the first chapter and a half standing by the bookshelf in the store and ended plonking RM49.90 for the privilege of reading the rest of it in the comfort of my own home.

My first memory of Gordon Ramsay was him yelling at some burger van bloke with crooked teeth on an episode of a reality TV show called Faking It, some five or six years ago. By that time, I was long enough in the north-west of England to not bat an eyelid when somebody swears, but Gordon Ramsay introduced me to all sorts of inventive new ways you can curse at somebody. It was an entertaining show, elevated above all the other crappy reality shows around by the fact that its stars were non-annoying and genuinely inspiring. Fast forward many years later and Gordon Ramsay is everywhere on television and doing very well on the restaurant circuit, judging by the number of Michelin stars that he has won. Some may have had the privilege of dining in his restaurants, but the ordinary pleb knows him by his no-nonsense manner, drive for perfectionism, and oh yeah, his screaming foul-mouthed, artery-bursting tirades against the hapless cooks who fuck things up under his watch.

Ramsay comes across in his autobiography the same way he does on television: brutally honest, insanely passionate and driven. Ramsay isn’t one for being sentimental and it’s evident in how he details his itinerant childhood and abusive father. He describes his father’s alcoholic rages, the death threats against his mother when she left his father, the physical beatings, the psychological torture inflicted upon the family – these are touched on but he never dwells on it, stating them in a matter-of-fact way then going on to the next subject.

It certainly gives an insight into how Gordon Ramsay is what he is today and it certainly gives another dimension into the psychotic bastard you see on television.

3. Death Du Jour, Deadly Decisions, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning – KATHY REICHS. I picked these up after watching the TV show Bones starring David Boreanaz and Emily Deschane, which were based on the character Temperance Brennan which in turn is based on the life of Kathy Reichs, a forensic anthropologist and woman extraordinaire who boggles me with not only managing to do her job in two different countries, but also to write fiction on the side.

From the same genre of books as Patricia Cornwell and Tess Gerritsen, Kathy Reichs has the advantage of churning out slightly 'meatier' books in terms of the cases she presents. Always well-written, well-researched and definitely a page-turner.

Open wide

2007-06-27T22:20:00.000+01:00

My friends are surprised when I say that I hate going to the doctor’s.

“But you’re a doctor yourself!” they exclaim.

Yes, your point being?

Face it, the only reason why you would go see a doctor or some other health care professional is because you are in some form of misery; whether it’s that stinging sensation every time you pee or that odd-looking mold growing on your toe – whatever it is, it’s not pleasant.

Of course, if you are in the UK, some old folks treat a visit to their general practitioner as a nice day out. You can’t blame them really, because it’s just about their only social contact in the world but in Malaysia, decent health care is you can afford to pay. So unless you’re rolling around in agony, forget about the health check ups, pap smears, breast exams and so forth. Let’s just wait till you drop dead of a heart attack aged 42.

I’m one to talk of course. In the UK, it is mandatory to be registered with a GP whose practice covers the area you live in but I moved all over Merseyside and Cheshire and was still on the books at my university clinic.

I went to the dentist yesterday for a check up. I’ve been meaning to go for ages but I kept putting it off. Why look for trouble where there is none? I have so far been lucky and have escaped the need for fillings and what not, but I dread to think what a steady diet of coffee, soft drinks and chewing gum since my university days have done to my teeth. I’ve been getting the odd sharp pain whenever I eat cold food and I had some unexplained cuts in my mouth which have gotten infected twice this past year.

Time to see the dentist? You bet. But really, who would want to go see the dentist unless you absolutely have to, no matter what you know you should do?

Finally, I went with my dad who went because his teeth were agony and then my mum decided to come along to get her teeth checked too.

It’s always nice to have a doctor/dentist who is professional and has your best interests at heart, rather than trying to make a quick buck out of you. I was feeling sheepish for not having been to a dentist for about five years (hey, doctors do stupid things too) but my dentist was very nice and more concerned with my potential for developing cavities and the non-eruption of my lower wisdom teeth.

Note: I’m sorry if all this grosses out the regular readers but I love talking about body parts and diseases.

It appears that my upper wisdom teeth have popped out but it’s sitting there collecting junk and generally being useless because it has no lower wisdom teeth to gnash on. Where it’s currently positioned, my dentist says, is causing a lot of trauma to my inner cheeks which explains the cuts in my mouth that I’ve been getting.

“You had braces before didn’t you?” Dr. R asks.

“Yes, when I was about sixteen.”

“Your front teeth are starting to buck again,” she says. “It’s leaving an indentation on your lower lip.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that. But my retainers don’t seem to be doing the job anymore. Well, partly because I don’t wear them much, but they hurt more now and lower one doesn’t fit anymore.”

My mum walks into the consultation room at this point.

“You grind your teeth at night?” Dr. R asks.

“Yes.”

“Chew your fingernails?” she continues.

“Uh, yes.” I sometimes chew on the dinner plates too, but I don’t tell her this.

“Why would you do that?” my mum interjects from her position by the door.

“Stress,” Dr. R replies the same time as I say, “Nervousness.”

My mum doesn’t say anything else.

Once we were done with the scaling and polishing, Dr. R x-rays my teeth to see where the absent wisdom teeth were and lo and behold, there were the two of them on either side of my jaw hiding beneath the gums. It’s quite awesome to see (I’ve only ever had my chest X-rayed) because one tooth is completely lying on its side. It frankly looks bizarre.

Dr R is unhappy about this because she says that that is not good. I need to have both teeth out, as well as the upper ones out because they are non-functioning and would be a focal point for developing cavities.

“Shall I make another appointment to see you then?” I ask.

Dr. R shakes her head and says no, I would need to see a different specialist for this because removing the lower wisdom teeth is not a simple extraction like the upper ones are. For this, I would need to see an oral surgeon because removing the lower wisdom teeth requires making an incision in the gums and all. Gulp.

“Minor surgery?” I squeaked.

“Yes.”

“And I should get all four teeth taken out at the same time?”

“Yes.”

The last time I had four teeth taken out was right before I had my braces put in. My then dentist said that I had too many teeth for the size of my mouth (my mother always did insist on plenty of calcium for us kids), so I had four premolars taken out. It was in a government clinic at Sinar Kota in KL. You wait for your turn in the corridor and when you were called, you went into this long room with several dentist chairs lined up in a row, all filled with patients having their teeth extracted. I remember a very young dentist sweating and grunting trying to get my teeth out and exclaiming in frustration that they were too strong.

It was on the last tooth that she pulled so hard she broke the body of the tooth, leaving one of the roots inside. I still remember her eyes widening and the look of panic she shot across to her assistant, who was standing there gaping, looking down on me. The dentist said she needed to dig around in my gums, for the root, because she couldn’t leave it in there. Eventually she did manage to get it out, but she tore such a big hole in my gum, she had to put stitches in. By this time, the anaesthetic was starting to wear off, and one side of my face was starting to throb. Mentally, I was just trying to hold on and get it over with.

Finally she was finished and she suggested going to the sink by the door to wash my face. I staggered upright, feeling a bit faint and tottered over to the sink. There was a mirror above it and I remember looking at it and not quite recognising myself. I was white as a sheet and there was blood spattered on my face and down my bib. Bits of hair had escaped my ponytail and it was standing in some sort of crazy halo around my head, as if even my hair had been frightened by my ordeal. At that moment the door opened and the patients sitting in the corridor saw me standing there all bloodied and ghastly-looking. I could see the look of horror on their faces, looking at me and thinking, ye gods, this was the fate that awaited them too. I nearly laughed but it was too painful to.

That was more than a decade ago and I don't think I'm traumatised by it. I pretty much know what goes on when you do have surgery, and this oral surgeon I'm supposed to be seeing is supposed to be good, albeit expensive. So, wish me luck and the next time you'll be seeing me, I'll be down four teeth.

The sacrificial Billy goat

2007-06-26T13:46:00.000+01:00

Just as I was getting into the edge-of-the-seat splendour that is Battlestar Galactica, the writers and producers do something that got me mightily pissed off. I have just watched them kill off Billy, the president’s aide.

Billy, Billy, Billy. Poor under-utilised, puppy-faced Billy. They could have made something of his character instead of always sticking him in the background with like, two lines per episode (if he was in the episode even). They could have cut down on the macho posturing of the steroid-pumped pilots and given Billy some scenes for God’s sake! Oh yeah, sure they gave him some scenes and some lines but right in the episode where he frakking dies.

Why do I like Billy? I guess because I always have had a soft spot for the awkward, tragic-looking boy in the corner, the quiet one with a glint of steel in his eye who will let you showboat all you want but if you shove him he will shove right back. Billy was all those things; a young man surrounded by the military and the high-powered, he was gauche and lanky, always bent slightly forward as if to apologise for his physical superiority in front of his social superiors. He was deferential as befitted his station but he wasn’t stupid. He was observant, quick on the uptake and did his job well. His suits were too big for him, he wore cheap shirts and always had a badly knotted tie but that somehow added to his charm. Even his misplaced infatuation with Dualla was sweet, except that girl could not make her mind up and played him for a fool.

After today’s episode, I trawled the websites for some investigating on why the writers killed Billy. It turns out that the actor who played him, Paul Campbell, was reluctant to sign a five season contract for the show so the execs took his hesitance for non-commitment on his part and figured they couldn’t rely on him so his character was axed. Such a shame but I wouldn’t blame Paul Campbell for that since he obviously felt he was getting nowhere career-wise and a young actor needs to get better experience and his profile up.

Anyway, what’s done is done. Billy is no more. Paul Campbell is still going, albeit in small roles still. You can read all about his adventures at his official website here, which has some funny, but sparse journal entries. He may not have a job on one of the biggest TV shows, but he has got one hell of a sense of humour.

Rest in peace, Billy.

Road rage: asshole on the road

2007-06-25T21:29:00.000+01:00

Today, I let rip at a stranger and my mother went, “YEAH!! You tell him, Kere!”

I was third in line at the traffic lights at that mass of intersections in front of Bank Negara, pointed towards Lake Gardens. A white, four wheel drive with a JKR emblem was at the front and when the lights turned green, the fricking idiot decided to do a U-turn there. Stupid bugger did not comprehend that you cannot do a U-turn there, mainly because TRAFFIC IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION WAS ALSO GREEN AND THERE WAS NO WAY HE COULD MOVE UNTIL THE LIGHTS TURNED RED AGAIN.

Meanwhile, since everyone else behind him was stacked bumper to bumper, no one could manoeuvre sideways at all. I started honking at him, not little tiny honks but really long, ear-splitting horns with my hand jammed firmly against the steering wheel. Much to my delight, every one else started honking him as well. And did that stubborn bugger give up on his ill-conceived turn and moved straight ahead like everyone else before him? Like fuck he did.

By some miraculous twisting, the car immediately behind him managed to move around him so traffic started to flow again. Just as I went past the idiot driver, I rolled down the window and yelled, “BODOH!” then drove off. I would have loved to have gotten out of the car, jump up and down on his bonnet, smash his windscreen and stick one middle finger in front of his terrified, Neanderthal face.

But I didn’t want to hold up traffic.

Fraaacckk!! or How Battlestar Galactica turned out better than I thought

2007-06-24T14:05:00.000+01:00

Battlestar Tic-tac-tickah?

Battlestar Galactica. It's the name of a ship. And a TV show.

What does it do?

Oh, it does battles. It's a pretty big ship.

Does it do anything else?

Oh yes. It can jump faster than light. But no one ever shouts, "Warp speed!" It would be so much cooler than plain old FTL jump.

Start at the beginning please.

In a galaxy far, far away...

Wrong universe, mate.

Oh, but it is in a far away galaxy...

Grrrr...

Okay. In the far off future, mankind has dispersed among the stars. They settled in twelve different colonies and all roads to Earth have long been forgotten.

That's better. Go on.

In these distant lands, Man has built machines called Cylons...

To do their dirty work, no doubt.

Yes, but don't interrupt.

Sorry.

The Cylons soon evolved and seeked to overthrow its master. Unbenknowst to them, the Cylons have built machines that look just like humans.

Yowza.

Indeed. They made many copies of each human model and infiltrated them into the human population. Some are unaware that they are Cylons and remain sleeper agents until they are triggered.

Sounds like a good plan. Does it work?

Well, like any scheme to overcome a strong power, you need to have an insider who will betray his own kind.

Oooooh, so who's the lucky fella?

Enter Dr. Gaius Baltar, eminent scientist at the Ministry of Defence, who also happens to have the codes to the entire defence mainframe.

He doesn't just roll over and gives it up, does he?

Uh, he kinda does. Mind you, he gives it to a half-naked, extremely leggy blonde who looks like she could take his head off after carnal relations.

Blimey.

Moving on. So the Cylons nuke all the colonies but history tells us that these humans are persistent little cockroaches that refuse to.....

What, you're a Cylon now?

Uh, no. Err, humans struggle against adversity etc etc and some managed to escape to space.

Some?

48, 000, give or take.

Daaayyymmm. That's not a lot compared to the six billion plus we have on Earth right now.

Indeed. And now the humans are on the run because the Cylons are not just content with taking over the colonies, they want to exterminate all mankind.

Exterminate! Exterminate!

Shut it. There are no Daleks here. Now who's the one getting his sci-fi universes mixed up?

*sheepish* So what's happening now?

Well it's kinda hard to say because I'm watching both Season 1 and 2 on TV right now while Season 3 is airing in the States.

What? How did that happen?

Well, firstly I didn't have satellite when they were showing it on Sky. Then I moved back here and it wasn't showing at all. I got bored so I downloaded episode 1 of the first season. It was frigging good but it took forever to download so I gave up after that.

The writer would like to inform readers that illegal downloading is uh...illegal.

Then 8TV started to show BSG on Sunday afternoons but the episodes that followed were rather boring. Especially when Starbuck is giving attitude for no reason whatsoever. She can be such a pain in the ass. And that Apollo is such a spineless whiner.

Hang on, Starbuck is a woman? Apollo is spineless? The TV execs have shat upon my childhood memories of the old BSG!

Oh shut it. The only thing you remember of the old Battlestar Galactica is that one was a blond and the other had dark hair.

Ooooh and we named two of our cats Apollo and Starbuck.

Yes, they're both dead now.

May they rest in peace. So, which station is airing Season 2 then?

Cinemax.

But it usually screens films.

Yeah, I know, crazy huh? And you know what's even crazier? They've been showing two episodes back-to-back every afternoon this month.

Noooooo!! Why?

I have no frigging clue. What a way to treat a really good TV show. I've missed several episodes already. I am highly annoyed.

You should be. What have been the highlights for you so far?

Well, I know Gaius Baltar is supposed to be an evil bastard but so far I like him best. I'm not sure if he's crazy or if he really does have a Cylon chip implanted inside his brain but the moments when he argues with Cylon Number Six who nobody else can see but him, it's always funny. One time, he was humping the Cylon against a lab bench and Starbuck walks it on him - oh my gawd, I nearly burst my gut laughing. Baltar caught with his pants down humping thin air and the look of total disgust on Starbuck's face. Priceless!

Cool! You mean there's some skin on a sci-fi show like this?

Yeah, but keep your pants on. Everything gets censored here so you won't see much. Plus, there isn't anybody here that you would be dying to see with their shirt off.

Not even Captain Apollo as played by Jamie Bamber?

Well, he's alright. He's got a buff body but he's not my type.

Huh, I thought your type was any guy whatsoever.

Shut up.

Okay. Any other talent?

I guess that would be Felix Gaeta played by Alessandro Juliani- he's okay. If you like older men, there's Edward James Olmos who plays Commander Adama. He's ugly as sin though. For the adolescents, there's the president's fresh-faced aide, Billy Keikeya, played by Paul Campbell who looks like he just left zits and high school behind.

What about the ladies?

There's Mary McDonnell who plays the ailing President of the Colonies - she always looks constipated. It doesn't seem to be an effect of old age because she looked like this when she was in Dances With Wolves many years ago. Then there's Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) who I am actually beginning to warm to in the second season. Not as annoying as before. There's also Lt. Sharon Valerii - she has a bit more fun. She's a secret Cylon and the two different copies of her bonks two different guys. One copy gets killed and the other gets preggers by a human colleague.

Holy Lords of Kobol! How did that happen? She's a machine!!

Beats me. I'm still in the middle of Season 2. You interested?

By golly, yes! Murder, intrigue, sexy robots....... bring it on!

Death of a child: a short commentary

2007-06-23T23:45:00.000+01:00

There's an article in today's Star (Mum upset at award for death of son)regarding the death of Nui Jia Yuan in 2003, which concerns me because the level of aftercare provided by this particular doctor seemed wanting.

I'd like to first make clear that my opinion is based solely on this particular article. I have no access to the medical or autopsy records or the original press report regarding this boy's death in 2003. If today's article was reported accurately, then there are a few things concerning this case that I felt the need to comment on.

According to the facts of the case, Jia Yuan, who was four then, was taken to Klinik dan Surgeri Kuben on March 26, 2003 after the boy complained of pain during urination.

Dr Kubendran examined the boy and asked Nui and Lim to bring him in again on March 28 for circumcision.

The boy and his parents arrived at the clinic at about 1pm and Dr Kubendran
administered injections to the boy’s arm, buttocks and private parts before
performing the procedure.

I have never done a circumcision before but it is usually done with a local anaesthetic, which numbs only the relevant parts of the body, and a sedative, to keep the patient calm and relaxed during the procedure. The injections in the buttocks and private parts in the article refer to the anaesthetic and the injection in the arm, is I presume a cannula to provide venous access to the patient. The doctor can inject the sedative through the line and any other drug or treatment required in case of anything untoward occuring i.e. like an allergic reaction to the sedative administered.

The parents then took the boy home and the doctor informed them that he would
regain consciousness within the next four to five hours.

It was this part of the report that boggled me because:

a) if the boy was unconscious due to the sedative, the doctor should keep him in the clinic under supervision until he wakes up

b) how much sedative that he gave the poor kid that he would only wake up in four to five hours time?

It's standard procedure to monitor your patient, no matter how minor the surgery is, until he regains consciousness. You don't just pack them off home and say don't worry, they'll be up and about soon enough. It is unsafe to do so. I think doctors make the mistake of thinking that because a sedative is 'milder' and does not require the services of an anaesthetist, that you don't need to be as concerned about them as say a person who has had a general anaesthetic. I know at least two anaesthetists who grumble about the wide

In the two hospitals I've worked in, day case patients for endoscopies are usually administered a class of drug called benzodiazepines, usually a drug called midazolam which has a short half-life. (Day cases are patients who come in for a procedure then after a period of recovery in hospital, go home the same day, barring any complications.) Even then, I know at least two anaesthetists who grumble over the widespread use of midazolam in day case surgeries without what they deem to be inadequate support.

(By the way, I know some people get confused and think an anaesthetist [or anesthesiologist in the US] is a technician but they are actually doctors. Masters-of-the-Universe aka Surgeons tend to think of anaesthetists as their bitches but anaesthetists are highly skilled autonomous doctors. They are very clever too - they bloody well have to be because their professional exams are damn hard.)

Benzodiazepines reduce anxiety and agression, sedates and induces sleep and also reduces muscle tone and co-ordination. They are not a painkiller, and does not stop you producing a reflex to pain stimuli, even if you are asleep. They also cause a degree of respiratory depression i.e. like when you have too much alcohol, but patients should generally be able to maintain their own airway.

The problem comes when a patient is so heavily sedated that the body does not respond when it finds itself cut off from oxygen. Imagine somebody who is heavily asleep and they are snoring. Snoring is a sign of a partially blocked airway, reasons including obesity, bad sinus problems, or just a bad sleeping position. Eventually a snoring person will turn over on to their side and the snoring stops. They manage to do this while 'being unconscious.'

When the boy failed to wake up, Jia Yuan’s parents took him to the clinic
at about 4pm. After examining him, Dr Kubendran told them to rush him to Banting
Hospital.

However, Jia Yuan had died on arrival.

The autopsy report issued by KL Hospital’s forensic department cited
asphyxia as the cause of Jia Yuan’s death.

By the conclusion of autopsy report reported here, you could infer that the boy asphyxiated either because he was so heavily sedated that his breathing stopped or that he was placed in an incorrect position while he was sleeping and blocked off his airway. Either which could have been prevented if he was monitored in the clinic and proper advice given to the parents.

Again, I don't have the full facts on the case and for all I know Dr. Kubendran could have done everything right and this was an unfortunate accident. I'm going by what was reported in the papers but it seems such a tragedy that something like this could have been prevented by simple measures.

Missing things past

2007-06-22T21:02:00.000+01:00

Nearer Than Heaven [acoustic] by Delays from the album Faded Seaside Glamour

I said I didn’t miss England at all, but I think I do a little bit. I miss its sense of humour, the newspapers, the BBC and most of all, I miss the summers. What?!? But it’s ‘summer’ all year round in Malaysia. Yes, but it’s not the same summer.

Visitors always make jokes about the miserableness of the weather, but I usually shrug and say that it’s not bad really. It was more of a survival mechanism perhaps, because if you live there 11 out of the 12 months of the year, moaning about the weather isn’t going to help you get through it. It was a case of putting your head down and getting on with it.

Summer was always good, and the transition to summer was better. It was the way it slowly crept up on you until it tapped you on the shoulder like an unexpected friend; the days got longer, the temperature turned warmer, even the air smelled different. If the wind was right, I could smell the salt blowing in from the Irish Sea. The blue of the sky seemed endless, lulling you into believing summer would stretch forever. Everybody smiled a lot more, and even though garish colours on pasty white English skin looks awful, everybody on the whole looked and felt a lot better.

We’d go out to the park nearby and toss a Frisbee around that we got free during induction week and had been keeping in anticipation of summer. There would be a barbecue nearly every weekend at somebody or other’s house, or a huge gathering in a recreational park where there would be enough food to last you a week, much less at one sitting. A net would be set up and a volleyball or a football would be tossed around. Inevitably, someone would make a prat of themselves by falling into a pond.

When we got bored of the city, we’d pool our money, rent the cheapest car available, pick a point on the map and head there. If money was a problem, we’d make do with short excursions using DK’s boyfriend’s car, which you nearly always had to get out and push. That is if you weren’t gassed to death with carbon monoxide while you were sitting in it.

If it got too hot outdoors, we’d retreat inside and keep all the sash windows open. In my old student house, you could sit on the wide ledge outside the window and watch people pass by three storeys below. You’d have to watch where you put your feet though, because one of the housemates had planted strawberries in a little trough on the ledge. We were all waiting for the green little fruits to ripen and you didn't want to be the one to have stuck your giant foot in it.

Our green thumb would not extend to flowers so someone would have bought flowers and it’d sway prettily in the breeze. Meals would be had sitting by the windows. There would be plenty of cold drinks, cans of lychee and melons in the fridge.

You could do what a lot of English do and cheer Tim Henman on to win Wimbledon, even though you know that no way in hell he would. Or you could switch to the live telecast of the various music festivals going on – Glastonbury, Reading, Isle of Wight, T in the Park – and dance to that. Until your neighbours downstairs start banging on the ceiling. Then you’d whip the acoustic guitar out and have a big sing-along-session, or play a drinking game where the loser has to stand on the ledge outside and sing Negaraku. That is, until your neighbours downstairs start banging on the ceiling. Which is when they wisen up and bring their guitar along for a jamming session but give up once they realise that you are a lousy musician and know only four chords on the guitar.

When you get tired of mucking about, you can put the cricket on and let it lull you to sleep on the sofa. When you wake up later, it's still light outside so you can wonder down to the local kedai runcit and get yourself an ice cream.

But all good things must come to an end. The days get shorter, the wind nippier, the clothes lose their colour and before you know it, it's winter and you're kicking yourself for not leaving the country and wailing about how totally miserable you are and how much you hate this rotten place. That is, until summer comes around again and you get a sudden case of amnesia because everything on this wet, rocky island is beautiful once more.

Bedroom scene

2007-06-16T15:27:00.000+01:00

I'm so glad that I kept on to some of my old junk because right now, I'm getting more than my money's worth from my seven year old JVC stereo headphones. Perfect for making magic out of crappy laptop speakers, and for listening to this in bed at night.

Bedroom Scene [Acoustic] by Delays. Recorded live on LBC Radio 97.3 in 2004.

Greg and Colin send chills down my spine.

Pimping attempt No. 4

2007-06-14T16:11:00.000+01:00

Why, Kere? Why?!?

Because I love this band so much and if I can't witter about them on my blog, where else can I?

This Town's Religion by Delays. Album: You See Colours (Rough Trade Records, 2006)

If the chest is right

2007-06-12T19:07:00.000+01:00

I have been in need of new undergarments for some time but I have been thwarted in my mission at least three times now.

Bra salespeople really make me twitchy. They tend to be tiny, persistent women who follow you so closely around, I feel I should have an akad nikah just to feel legal. I've accidentally elbowed a few in the boobs a couple of times, before I started doing it on purpose just to get them off my back.

It's not like they're helpful either. Figuring out the right size is pretty much an exact science involving a tape measure but these women will eyeball your chest then loudly proclaim a number either two sizes two big or small for you. Protesting makes little difference because she has given her decree. If you choose to ignore her and root around yourself, you do so at your peril as she will stand close by, giving you evil looks which will curse you with a wonky chest.

Then there was the sales assistant who shoved bras of varying sizes in my hands. It was the last day of sales, so I was patient and tried them all. Of course they didn't fit and when I told her they were too big, she waved her hands at me and exclaimed, "You tighten the straps, la."

What, are you stupid or something?

"There is no point tightening the straps if these," and I grabbed my boobs at this point, "don't fit the cup."

I dumped the bras on the display counter and walked off.

Epilogue: Yes, I did manage to get some eventually. Three for RM129!! Not bad huh?

The plot stops here

2007-06-10T13:27:00.000+01:00

The downside of lending my mum my books is she always asks me the ending when she isn't even halfway through reading them yet. I get terribly agitated when she does this. I don't know why I get so worked up about it, it's stupid I know, but it's difficult to control my distress at her illogical behaviour. Especially when she does it in the car when I am already stressed driving around Morons & Their Metallic Weapons of Death.

My mum also never introduces her topic properly i.e. "You know in So-and-so book that you lent me, what happened to Mr. So-and-so in the end?" I could have been talking about the price of roti canai in KL when she jumps in about whether the lightflyer is like in The Stetsons.

She leaves me floundering in confusion while I dodge a Moron & His Metallic Weapon of Death who has cut across my lane before I figure out that she's talking about a book I lent her a week ago.

"You mean The Jetsons," I say.

"No, no, The Stetsons," my mum adamantly says.

"Ma, Stetson is a type of hat. The cartoon with the flying cars was called the Jetsons," I tell her.

"Oh."

More death-defying driving ensues.

"So, does Kareen marry Mark in the end?" she asks.

"Who?" I search my memory, which isn't too good nowadays. Have I got friends named Kareen or Mark? Maybe my sisters have? "Oh, you mean in the book. Uh, no."

"So, she marries someone else?" my mum asks.

"No, she doesn't."

"What, do they break up?" my mum persists in asking.

"Ma, why don't you just read the book to find out?" I was getting distressed at this stage.

"Why do you always get upset when I ask you the ending?" my mum asks in annoyance.

"I'm .... not.....I just......"

"You only have to answer 'yes' or 'no' to my questions."

"But that's the thing!! I can't! You're not asking me yes or no questions, you are asking me the plot of the story." I clutch at the steering wheel.

"So, do they break up?" my mum asks again.

"Nnnnngggg....no. They don't. They just stay together. They don't get married."

My mum hems and haws. You can see her mentally ticking Kareen and Mark off her list of Good People.

Wait till she gets to the part where a woman has a sex change operation. Hah.

Music memory lane: Delays expected

2007-06-09T09:20:00.000+01:00

My friends are familiar with what kind of books I like since I yak about it often enough, but they're not entirely sure what kind of music I listen to. I wouldn't know how to answer that myself because my tastes have changed so much in the past few years and I listen to whatever grabs me.

In my schooldays, I listened to whatever was in vogue, or whatever my elder siblings were crazy about. People were going ape-shit over New Kids On The Block when I was 11, and I picked Jon as my favourite NKOTB member because everyone insisted that you must have a favourite, even when I did not fancy any of them at all. One of my earliest memories of peer pressure. I could do the dance moves though, I learned it with my big sister, Steamed Chicken.

Then there was Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Madonna, Fleetwood Mac, Roxette, Johnny Hates Jazz, A-ha - Steamed Chicken was infatuated with Morten Harkett - Bros, Rick Astley, Milli Vanilli. I bought my first album with my sister's help. It was Kylie.

When my brother became more influential in my music selection, the grunge phase was in and I became familiar with Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Mudhoney, Cypress Hill, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots. I even had the baggy shorts and my one flannel shirt to complete the look. I drew the line at Doc Martens though: too expensive and I never wore shoes outside of school. Even the girly-girls were into grunge, even if they didn't dress like it and anyone who didn't know about it was soooo uncool. Like the time me and the girls in my tuition class laughed a boy right out of the room because he had no idea who Nirvana was. What planet was he on, we thought. He was from Methodist Boys School and unfortunately from then on, I thought all boys from Methodist were total geeks. I haven't met anyone else from there to disprove me of that first impression.

Then at eighteen, I left home and got all melancholy and holed up in my bedroom listening to dark or miserable music like Radiohead and Tori Amos. At some point, melancholy turned into an unexplainable anger and frustration and I got into Metallica's entire music collection to date, Deftones, Tool, Slipknot. I bought a guitar because I wanted to goreng like my music heroes and started buying Classic Rock magazines that always had free CDs attached to it, so I was introduced to Led Zeppelin, Yngwie Malmsteen, Deep Purple in its various incarnations, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath.

I could only be angry for so long before my hormones leveled out and I chucked out a lot of those free CDs, got bored of music for awhile and started spending my money on books again. Eventually I got sucked into the ridiculously naff dance music that kept making the charts in the UK, though I never bought the originals and merely recorded songs off the radio using my friend's MD player. A bit labour intensive but very similar to the days when my sister and I would stand by the radio with our finger on the record button listening to Rick Dee's American Top 40 or Casey Kassem.

Today, like I said earlier, I listen to whatever grabs me, be it rock, pop, dance, classical or whatever new genre is out now. Though I still find R&B extremely annoying for some reason.

I wouldn't label myself as a big music fan - my free time, free space and available money is mainly spent on books and magazines, but I appreciate music for what it is, and how a song can alter your mood or a refrain can take you on a trip down memory lane. I still depend on my siblings to recommend stuff to me though, and even my current favourite band was introduced to me by my sister.

I knew I could not hide my infatuation for Delays for long (and no, it's not The Delays). It was inevitable that I started posting their videos on my blog and wax lyrical over their melodies, harmonies, driving bass, angelic yet throaty voice bla bla bla. Maybe I like them because they combine in one band the muscial psyche that I am attracted towards: upbeat songs you could dance to, tinged with a hint of melancholy and bruised feelings, layered with obscure lyrics and sharp intellect. They have no hang ups about being pop or being indie or rock and are unafraid to be corny if the song demands it.Oh, yeah and they write banging tunes too.

I don't think they are ever going to be considered cool because they don't have an agenda to push or fit into a particular music scene or are pushy and attention-seeking, which is a shame, because it seems you need to be cool nowadays to be big. But as long as they keep true to themselves and continue to write what they write because they like it and not because it's cool and in, then I'll be happy to wait and listen and ogle and dream for the time when they are big enough to come to Malaysia.

In the meantime, here's Delays playing Valentine at the Isle of Wight festival in 2006. Just ignore the two blokes in the straw hats at the beginning.

Here's them again at the V festival playing their single Lost In A Melody, which never made it into an album.

And to finish up, here's a more traditional acoustic-rock number that's stripped down and haunting, minus any beeps.

Postcards from the edge

2007-06-07T22:55:00.000+01:00

A musician whose name I can't remember once said that a guitar suits a man better than a woman, because it is an extension of a man's dick. At that time, I had no idea what he meant but now, looking at the way some guys play their guitar, I have to agree. About the dick part, I mean.

Very phallic indeed.

Sorry, been watching some music videos all afternoon and my mind just ran away with me.

Love me, Love Delays

2007-06-06T14:16:00.000+01:00

I'm turning into KJ by pimping my favourite band of the moment but I love them so much and I can't exactly explain why I love them, so I need to direct the world (or the seven people who read this blog) to places where they can find out more about Delays.

Check out an excellent live set on Mexican television here (Part 1), here (Part 2) and here (Part 3). My favourites are Lost In A Melody (it's got beeps, Maryam) at the end of part 1, You and Me at the beginning of part 2 and Valentine at the end of part 3.

Or if you don't have time for the half-hour session click here and scroll down to the links at the bottom to see two short acoustic versions of Waste of Space and Hideaway by Greg Gilbert and Colin Fox. Be warned though, they were done in a hotel bedroom after an interview by FaceCulture and they both look like they just woke up. Their hair looks uncombed and Greg is wearing the most awful grandfather glasses but they both sound bee-yew-ti-full.

It's a brave new world

2007-06-05T10:27:00.000+01:00

Hello, regular readers. You may have noticed that The Dean Winchester Appreciation Society has disappeared from the sub-headline. If you haven't noticed, then you seriously need to get your eyes checked.

What does this all mean, you ask? Well, I thought it was time to let go of old Deano, do a bit of house-cleaning, clear the air..... the works, especially now that the season has ended. It was a bit of an unhealthy obsession for a while there and even my super-cool sisters thought it was rather embarrassing. Don't worry, I have a new obsession now and it's a floppy-haired, girly-voiced band called Delays! Woo-hoo! Just kidding...... a little bit.

In the meantime, I shall think of new and exciting ways to jazz up my blog page. Apparently the bright green colour that was briefly up was distressing enough to conjure images of vomit, so I have changed my colour scheme to a more soothing blue. Until the time I become more adept with the ways of the computer, I shall have to rely on the mercy of Blogger for my blog templates, so please excuse the pedestrian quality of my blog.

Thanks for all the wishes

2007-06-02T21:00:00.000+01:00

It’s become a bit of a joke in my family. I thought we’d cut the questions about my available status and just hand out fliers with my ugly mug and personal details on it with a headline in big, black letters saying, ‘WANTED: Husband for professional spinster.’ (Because you know, single women in their late 20s are a danger to society). Easy, all the info you need on whether I would tick all the boxes required to be a suitable wife/in-law. Just don’t mention the fussy appetite, mood swings and baggage of dusty books.

Still, it’s one thing for it to be a private family joke to becoming an online advertisement for the single, desperate and unemployed.

Big Sister (or rather Steamed Chicken, as she shall henceforth be known) was back in Malaysia for three weeks and had met up with a friend for lunch. I tagged along because it would be stupid if I ate on my own while waiting to chauffeur Steamed Chicken around. (She’s recently discovered she’s been driving for 3 years with an expired licence, so Dad won’t let her use the car, hence me, the driver.)

Unlike my gregarious sister, I do not immediately form bonds with strangers, tell them my life story and say, “You’re my besht friend.” I’m more of the lean back in the chair, arms folded, suspicious stare kind of person. Occasionally I will smile. Although on social occasions I make the effort to be pleasant.

I gather I wasn’t being enthusiastic enough when Earnest Friend talked over me like I was a child and said to Steamed Chicken, “Your sister isn’t very talkative, is she?”

Hello, I am over here. Speak to me, or refrain from making comments. Or talk to me directly and include me in the conversation.

It never ceases to amaze me how strangers seem to think it perfectly acceptable to blatantly talk about you to someone else as if you weren’t there yourself.

But the finale is yet to come. Earnest Friend takes a picture of me and Steamed Chicken on his mobile phone. “For memories,” he says. Sure. I later find said picture on his blog (which I will not name because I like my anonymity, thanks very much), complete with my full name, and rather patronisingly saying that not to worry, soon I will find someone to cherish and to hold, just like he has with his wife of 10 years. Thanks, it’s good to know that someone I’ve met for all of two minutes is rooting for me.

I find it amusing that these smug, metrosexuals think they are so enlightened and wonderful just because they are nice to their wives. “Look, darling, I hung the laundry today. Aren’t I a good husband?”

I said I wouldn’t be too harsh as he is after all, my sister’s friend and she does have to face him again some day but I do think that was rather restrained on my part, don’t you think?

May 2007's list

2007-05-31T23:06:00.000+01:00

Books

1. I Am Muslim - DINA ZAMAN. No, don't go running off at the title because Dina Zaman's latest isn't going to preach/proselytise/ to you or urge you to leave your 'sinning ways' and repent. As Dina herself said, this isn't a book about religion, it's about a person who happens to be a Muslim trying to make sense and find her way amidst perilous Kuala Lumpur life. Sometimes, she's not even writing from a Muslim point of view (whatever that is) but from a thirty-something newly single woman just experiencing life and poking fun at it. It's rather a relief to me, that even someone like Dina, whose column Dina's Dalca I used to read as a teenager in the New Straits Times, is still searching and is still trying to find some semblance of order and meaning in today's world. Dina's humour is never nasty, nor despairing and the warmth of her anecdotes of the people she meets, no matter how bizarre, demonstrates her willingness to learn and not to judge. I have to admit though that there are a couple of chapters in there about the dating scene in KL that gave me nightmares for a week. So leave your expectations by the door. It helps when you read this.

2. The Stars My Destination - ALBERT BESTER. Neil Gaiman was right when he said that you can tell he date of an old science fiction novel by every word on the page. "Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future." He was also right when he said that Albert Bester's The Stars My Destination (published in the UK as Tiger! Tiger!) is the exception to that because if I didn't know it was written in 1956, I would have sworn that it was something written recently, something along the lines of the bizarreness of Chuck Palahniuk, perhaps. In the future, everyone can teleport across space and time, except that they can't do it through the vacuum of space, which is why Gully Foyle was screwed when his ship was buggered halfway between Mars and Jupiter. His situation was hopeless - he lived in a closet which was the only airtight room on the spaceship and was 171 days gone before his distress signal hailed a passing ship. But the spaceship Vorga appoaches, then leaves Gully to his doom and the enraged, and by now quite demented Gully, swears sweet, bloody revenge on the Vorga and everyone aboard. Quite how he achieves this is the plot itself and I won't spoil it for you if you should ever choose to read this, but be prepared for a lurid, frenetic ride as you get caught up with the monstrous being that Gully becomes as he becomes unstoppable in his quest for revenge.

Music

Wolf Parade plus visiting alien

1. Modern World - WOLF PARADE. If you read this blog, you most likely read my sister KJ's blog as well, who on the weekend goes by the name DJ Flea On A Leash on KPIE radio (What the cool kids listen to, allegedly). You will also know that she has been trying to convert me to the Church of The Genius Spencer Krug for many months. Her preaching has mostly been met with my indifference but KJ has been relentless with espousing the virtues of Spencer Krug and friends. She even had a special podcast just for me one Saturday afternoon playing a set consisting mainly of Wolf Parade and Krug's other band Sunset Rubdown. She must have played about 10 songs before Dan Broeckner's raspy voice singing Modern World's downbeat, biting tune got to me. So KJ is happy that I finally like one Wolf Parade song, only rather disappointed that it's a Broeckner-led song that I like rather than one sung by the band's other vocalist, Spencer Krug. I guess you can't win them all.

Oh and check out their absolutely cool video for this song here. It's very Tim Burton.

Delays (L-R) Aaron Gilbert, Rowly, Greg Gilbert, Colin Fox

2. You See Colours (album) - DELAYS. Big Sister bought this on recommendation from the guy at Rock Corner and we've been playing it non-stop in the car. It's infectious sunny pop-rock that's happy to distance itself from the sneering swagger of Brit bands like Oasis, Kasabian et al and make you bop your head like a chicken, waggle your hands about and....okay, that's just the way I dance, alright? YOU might do it differently. It's not vacuous happy pop, but the kind of happy that you find after a lot of heartache, so it's an exuberant well-earned happiness. Uh, I'm not making sense, am I? You think I shouldn't be reviewing music at all? But don't let my half-assed review put you off Delays. This is the kind of album you can listen all the way through. One song sounds like Alison Goldfrapp,another sounds like some 80s Bonnie Tyler/Journey, while another sounds very much like a guy singing...... You can go like that through every song in the album (It's a man! No, it's a woman! No, it's a man!) before discovering that it is actually a guy called Greg Gilbert singing in a falsetto alternating with sexy, raspy vocals together with his three friends from Southampton. S-s-s-moking.

Favourite tracks include You and Me, Valentine, This Town's Religion, Too Much In Your Life and Given The Time.

Carry on my wayward Winchesters, you're screwed anyway

2007-05-23T10:55:00.000+01:00

In conjunction with the end of Supernatural Season 2, I will be doing a (nearly) blow by blow account of the two part finale, All Hell Breaks Loose, to exorcise its demonic hold on my higher brain functions. For the same price, I’ll throw in my razor-sharp analysis of the episodes so that all of you readers can ooh and aah at my insight and biting wit.

Here we go.

All Hell Breaks Loose Part One opens with a “Previously, on…….” montage, titled The Road So Far, complete with classic rock courtesy of Boston , and Bobby’s gravelly voice warning the Winchester boys, “Storm’s coming. And you boys, are smack in the middle of it.” As if they didn’t know. Although I do know what has been happening, the spooky, urgent strains of the opening music sent chills down my spine as we furiously flit by reminders of the psychic children, the Yellow-Eyed Demon’s plans for them, the impending war and finally Dean’s scared confession, “Dammit Sam, this whole thing is spinning out of control!”

Ah, Dean, if only you knew.

Introduction over and we see Sam and Dean in a happier mode, trundling along to a stop in front of some greasy spoon, where Dean thuggishly demands Sam to bring him some pie. I chuckle along at Dean’s little obsession over pie but we know any levity will soon go out the manually operable Impala’s window when the car radio starts fizzing out and Sam suddenly disappears from view. Oh-oh, should have gotten off your lazy ass, Dean and gone in with Sam, who despite his oversized abnormality, can’t look after himself without you looking over his shoulder all the time.

Bow-legged Dean runs over to the café, but finds two of the café’s staff and a customer swimming in pools of their own blood. Of the giant Sam, Dean finds no clue, except for traces of sulphur lining the café door. Oh dear, a demon’s got Sam. Poor Dean, having little Sammy disappear from him again. He must have been a nightmare to look after when he was a kid, always letting go of Mummy Dean’s hand in the shopping mall and wandering off to poke his sticky fingers in the fish pond.

Anyway, Sam wakes up on some muddied plank in the middle of some abandoned Wild West town. He scrabbles about a bit on the ground (damn that man has got some legs on him) before realising that he has been transported to the land where no mobile phone signal can reach. Eeeeekk!!!!

As Sam wanders around the seemingly deserted town, he runs across fellow special psychic child, Andy Gallagher, who is freaking out over his sudden transportation to Ghost Town. Their reunion is interrupted when they hear frantic girly screaming. They rush over to a padlocked shed, break it open and out stumbles, Ava Wilson, another special psychic child, who disappeared with a trace of sulphur five months ago. Ava, however thinks she has only been gone overnight and is horrified to know that she has been missing all this time. More freaking out follows, with her burying her head in Sam’s enormous chest. Mmmmm. Any further embracing is interrupted when the trio hear more voices and they come across a huge guy in army fatigues (but still, not as huge as Sam) called Jake and a goth girl called Lily, both having been transported from Afghanistan and San Diego respectively.

Sam, being the only one who has the full story, explains that they were all brought here by the Yellow-Eyed Demon, for what purpose he isn’t entirely sure. The two newbies understandably pooh-pooh him at first until Andy starts babbling about how his powers of Jedi-like persuasion has developed into sending images into people's minds, which includes sending gay porn imagery into the mind of a man Andy dislikes. Two questions arise here: one, what if this dude actually likes gay porn, so far from it being a punishment, guy likely goes "Cool! Free porn!' and two, where does Andy get all this 24 hour non-stop gay porn if he hasn't been watching it himself and if he watches it, surely he likes it a lot and wouldn't really consider it as a punishment for someone else? Okay, whatever, on with the plot.

Goth girl then gets antsy with Andy and with Sam's and Ava's psychic abilities because when the Yellow-Eyed Demon was giving out prizes, she was definitely last in line as she stops people's hearts with just a touch. Bummer.

The two newbies, having never had an episode to succumb to Sam's puppy dog-ness get fed up with all this bullshit. Despite his pleas for them to stay together and arm themselves against the demonic threat, those crazy kids just won't listen to him. Firstly, Jake nearly gets himself made into a pincushion by a demon disguised as a girl-child, then Lily runs off into the woods to escape. Poor kid hasn't watched enough horror movies - anyone who ignores the advice of the best looking guy there is bound to be the first to die. Funnily enough the creepy demon child doesn't poke Lily full of holes with her extra long fingernails but chooses to throw a rope around her neck and hang her from a tower. Less gore but makes for a very visible threat to the rest of the special children.

Meanwhile, Dean and Bobby are trying their darndest to find Sam, but have come to a dead end, until Ash calls from the roadhouse with info so hot he dare not talk about it over the phone. So Dean and Bobby wing it to Nebraska (from wherever they are in the States) but upon their arrival, they find the roadhouse burnt to the ground and Ash’s charred remains among the ruins. For everyone’s sakes, I won’t make any jokes about how Ash is now ash ……. awww, I just think I did.

Over in Ghost Town, Sam being the generation Y that he is, is lamenting the lack of instant communication with his brother Dean. Andy suggests sending images of their location to Dean via telepathy. He’s never tried it long distance but hey, if he can transmit porn into some guy’s head 24/7, then a distance of several hundred miles must be a piece of cake for him. Andy asks for an object that Dean has touched and Sam produces a receipt that Dean has signed ‘D. Hasselhoff’. Blimey! Has my mother been subconsciously transmitting her thoughts on Dean to the show’s writers? I know my mother has this unerring knack for knowing when her children are up to no good but has her maternal instinct developed into something bigger? Or does everyone else also think Dean looks like David Hasselhoff?

Anyway, Dean does his telepathic sending thing, Dean gets a big headache like Sam always has when he has visions, and between Dean and Bobby, they figure out that Sam is in Cold Oak, South Dakota – a town so haunted that every resident has fled. Dean and Bobby hop into the Batmobile, uh sorry, Impala and hurrah! off they go to rejoin Sam!

Spooked by Lily’s death, the gang hole up in a room lined with salt. Jake stands guard by the door, Andy’s asleep at the table, Ava’s staring into space and Sam is nodding off when holy shit, it’s the Yellow-Eyed Demon! He’s standing next to Jake! But nobody can hear or see him! Except Sam! Yowza!

Sam takes a walk with the YED and Sam is very angry with the YED. You can tell because he has adopted this hunched, neck out, Neanderthal-like stance in an attempt to appear threatening. The YED brushes these pitiful threats, because you know he is the YED and he can. (The YED, is played by the same bloke Fredric Lane, from In My Time of Dying, so I feel rather sorry for the poor hospital janitor who has been in continuous demon possession for nearly a year now.)

The YED tells Sam to shut his gob so that he can explain that he isn’t looking for soldiers, he is looking for soldier. “Why do you think so many have already flamed out?” the YED asks, referring to Max Miller and Andy’s brother, Anson. The special kids were brought to this desolate town to fight among themselves and the last one left standing will have the dubious honour of leading the YED’ soon to arrive army. Yessir, there can only be one. See, I was thinking of a battle to the death like The Highlander, but the YED compares this competition to the Miss America Pageant. Sheesh. What a sad, sad comparison, unless…….. there’s something about the Miss America Pageant that I don’t know about. The YED confesses to rooting for Sam in this one and does a good Peter Stormare impression when he breathes, “Saaaaammm. Sammy…….you’re my favourite.” Brrrrrrr!!!! Spooky.

Sam is not impressed and understandably wants to rip the YED to shreds because the YED killed his momma, his daddy, and his girlfriend. The YED tsks-tsks and shrugs his shoulders. Girlfriend was leading Sam into respectable lawyer-dom and suburbia and the YED couldn’t have that. He needed Sam sharp and on the road. And momma? Well, she just happened to be in the way. Sam looks at him in bewilderment. Even the YED can’t resist Sam’s confused puppy dog look, so he generously zips Sam and him to a “high def playback’ of the night Sam’s mother died.

Now, we’ve seen a little of this event in the series’ pilot but here, we get to see the action from inside Sam’s nursery. Here is the Past-YED in a long black outfit, shrouded in the shadows, standing over a cherubic six month old Sammy’s crib. (Awww, the little tyke is kinda cute.) A non-fried Mummy Winchester resplendent in the obligatory white nightgown, sleepily enters the room and asks the Past-YED, who she mistakes for her husband, if Sam is hungry again. The Past-YED shushes her, so Mummy exits the room to, as we know to go downstairs where she will find her husband John asleep in an armchair and will soon come high-tailing up those stairs. (Honestly, that is one of the most scary thing I imagine a mother could face and my own heart nearly stopped in empathy with Mary Winchester when I first saw the pilot.)

But for now, the Past-YED is alone with little Sammy. He uses the sharp edge of his fingernail to cut across his wrist (ewww, unhygienic!) and drips demonblood into Little Sammy's mouth. "Better than mother's milk," the Present-YED croons. Big Sammy is extremely grossed and horrified by this pseudo-vampiric activity. This scene puts to rest the question as to whether Sam and the other psychic children have demon blood in them. Okay, so it's ingested demon blood, not inherited but either way it sucks.

But wait! More revelations will be uh...... revealed. Mummy Winchester, now realising that some crazy stranger is in her son's room, comes storming into the nursery. The Past-Yed turns around, flashes his yellow eyes at her and she gasps, "It's you!"

Jeebus! Mary Winchester knows the YED. Goodness, I did not see that coming. In which life did Mary Winchester rub shoulders with the YED? Was she a hunter before she met John Winchester? Was she a psychic child of her generation? Blimey, she's a dark horse, that Mary.

Big Sam then sees the Past-YED throw mummy against the wall and when she starts to scream, the past scene vanishes and Sam wakes up in Ghost Town. Jake is standing over him and says, "Ava's missing."

The two big guys go out looking for Ava while wussy Andy stays in the salt-lines room. Ava suddenly turns up in the room looking highly suspicious. Andy hasn't cottoned on yet as Ava looks at him in an EVIL manner. She makes a hole in the salt border before doing some temple rubbing and suddenly black smoke comes pouring in through the gap in the salt. She -yeet, it's the demon-child who has trouble with nail clippers. This time there's no messing about as the demon-child lunges straight for Andy and starts ripping into him. We see blood coming out of his mouth then a huge spray of blood smacks a window. I might be wrong here, but I think Andy is dead. Poor guy, I kinda liked the little doofus.

Ava turns on the taps and starts screaming for help. Sam comes running in and is shocked by the sight that greets him. Ava acts all helpless and clueless but Sam is sharp and notices the gap in the salt line. He's not taken in by Ava's crocodile tears and starts badgering her. "I'll tell you what I think. Five months - you're the only one with all that time you can account for. And that headache you got? Right at the time when the demon got Lily."Ava still tries to maintain her innocence - she's got tears running down her face, lip trembling - but eventually she sees that Sam isn't buying it. She suddenly stops crying, her face changes and even her high pitched scared girl voice drops lower, "Had you going didn't I?" she smirks at Sam.

It turns out that this hasn't been the only Miss America pageant going. Ava had been here all this time and batches of three or four special psychic children have been appearing to fight it out. With each kill that she made, Ava's powers had grown from just having visions to being able to control demons. Ava proudly announces, "I'm the undefeated heavy-weight champ." Sam is horrified but Ava looks at him like he's two kinds of stupid. It was either kill or be killed. "If you would just quit your hand wringing...." she says. Hee hee.

After a plot explaining monologue, Ava proceeds to call forth a demon to kill Sam but Jake walks in behind her and breaks her neck in one resounding thwack. Sam can only stand there looking confounded.

It soon transpires that Jake also had the same visit form the YED and him killing Ava was more to do with coming out tops than saving Sam. Sam appeals to Jake to not succumb to the YED's games and stupidly puts down his knife to show his sincerity. Jake puts down his weapon as well but that was just a ploy because he sucker-punches Sam so hard that he flies back several metres. (Sam, not Jake.) Sam manages to fight back using his incredibly long legs while lying on the ground and reaches for not his knife, but Jake's iron rod next to it and gives Jake a good whack with the rod. Jake falls down, apparently senseless, and Sam looks like he is about to give Jake a life ending whack, but at the last minute decides against it because he is Good Boy Sam.

Suddenly, he hears Dean's voice calling for him, and Sam thinks he must be hallucinating what with all the hits he's taken to the head but he turns his back on Jake and there is Dean, and Bobby, walking towards him. A relieved smile breaks over his face and he staggers towards Dean but Jake has gotten up and grabbed the knife. Dean screams a warning to Sam but it is too late because Jake has plunged the knife into Sam, and he gives it a good jerk and a twist that leaves no viewer any doubt that Sam is done for. Jake turns and run as Bobby gives chase. Sam falls to his knees and Dean runs forward to catch him before he slumps face to the ground. Dean can't believe that Sam is done for because he's hugging him close and telling Sam (and himself) that the wound is not bad and things are going to be fine but the viewer sees all the Signs of Impending Death. Sam's got blood coming out of his mouth, his eyes are unfocused, his head is lolling - finally his eyes close.

Cue music which sounds like something from the sad bits of Lord of the Rings. End of Part One.

Part Two opens with a song that for me, is the anthem of Season 1 Supernatural - Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas, which we last heard in last season's penultimate episode. It turns up here again but its presence jars because it doesn't fit with the tone of what's happening here. Sam is dead for sure, because he's laid out on a smelly-looking mattress (and he isn't complaining) and he looks white as a sheet. Dean can't let go of Sam - the way he's got Sam laid out is like he's expecting Sam to wake up any minute. Bobby broaches the subject of burying Sam but this gets Dean mad as hell and he practically shoves Bobby out the door. At this point, I'm afraid for Dean's sanity as it looks like he might go pyscho and keep Sam's decomposing body in an attic somewhere and talk to and feed him like he was still alive. Then they'd have to change the show's name from Supernatural to Unnatural. There's a few more tears and Dean banging on to Sam's dead body about how Sam is his responsibility and he has failed Sam because Sam is now dead as a doorknob. I got really impatient with all this self-blame because:

I don't think anyone would be too happy if they thought they were a burden on their older siblings

Sam is a frigging Sasquatch for goodness sake. You can't tell me that someone who is 6'4" and weighs more than 200 pounds can't beat anybody into pulp

Sam is 23, stop treating him like a child and let him take some responsibility for himself

Gawd, it's like Dean can only find any worth through his role as Sam's keeper. Get a life Dean!

Phewh.

Sorry, Dean. I still like you.

Meanwhile, the YED is a bit disappointed that his favourite, Sam, didn't win. (Favourite?!? Huh, I bet he says that to all the kids) but he's satisfied enough with Jake. Jake's already to kill the demon by this point but the YED threatens a slow, horrible death for his family if he doesn't comply.

In desperation, Dean heads off to what I think is the same spot in Crossroad Blues where humans make pacts with demons. The Red-Eyed Demon appears, only in a different body from the one we saw in Crossroad Blues. The RED (keep up now) is delighted to see Dean brought so low. Dean tries to strike the same deal that others have before (Sam's life and ten years of life for himself before the demon takes his soul) but the RED is feigns disinterest. She knows she's got Dean by the balls. (By the way, it's nice to see an actress over 30 who is not in a mother role pretending to have sons barely younger than them.)

In the end, Dean gets offered a really, really bad deal - Sam's life but only one year to live for him. Dean takes it and heads back to Cold Oak (that Impala must have magic wheels to get places real quick) where hallelujah, Sam is alive! He's a bit confused but takes Dean's word that he's alive because Bobby has patched him up good. Oh-ho, but Dean is not the only one lying because when Dean asks Sam what else the YED told him, Sam neglects to mention that little detail about their mother and the YED. Heh, another thing the brothers have in common, besides hunting and being RESURRECTED FROM THE DEAD BY DEMONS.

Despite Dean's pleas to take it easy, Sam is keen to press on and they end up at Bobby's place, where Bobby is more than a little surprised at Sam's animated corpse. Bobby shoots lasers at Dean because he can guess what Dean has done. He distracts Sam with some books then takes Dean outside and tears a new one in him for his stupidity and recklessness. As Bobby is laying into Dean, they are distracted by a noise in the compound, which turns out to be Ellen. Not fried after all, hurray! Turns out she went out for more pretzels when the roadhouse was burnt down and managed to get a message from Ash before he died. She brings out a map of Wyoming which has crosses marked on it. After a bit of researching, the gang discover that the marks indicate abandoned churches built by Samuel Colt (he of The Colt that can kill any supernatural evil), all joined by iron railway tracks which make a giant pentagram covering several hundred miles. It is the only spot in the whole of Wyoming not showing any demonic activity. Sam surmises that there is something there that the demons want but are unable to get in so they all head off to Wyoming.

At the edge of said railway track, Jake arrives. The YED wants him to go to a cemetery in the middle of the pentagram and open a crypt for him as he can't go himself. He gives Jake the key which is The Colt. That was mighty efficient of Samuel Colt - you not only can kill people with this gun, you can also use it as a key. The YED also tells Jake that the gun is the only gun in the world that can shoot him dead. Jake naturally points the gun at the YED but the YED only sniggers and taunts Jake with his bleak future as an unemployable AWOL-ed soldier. He promises riches and power for Jake and his family in the future the YED wants to bring about. And because Jake is a greedy, short-sighted bastard, he doesn't shoot the other bastard there and then but chooses to do as he bids.

Down at the cemetery, Jake appraoches the crypt but he is surrounded by our intrepid heroes, all pointing guns at him. Jake gibbers when he sees Sam and buggers Dean's plans to keep Sam's resurrection secet when he blurts out that he killed Sam good when he stuck that knife in Sam's spinal cord. Sam is distracted for a bit but does not waver. At this point, Jake grins and using his recently developed demonic powers of persuasion, he tells Ellen to point the gun at her head. Ellen's hand shakes but she can't do anything else but comply. The others fume but drop their guns at Jake's orders. Jake then swiftly turns around to stick the gun in the lock and just as swiftly, Bobby and Dean grab and deflect Ellen's gun from her head and Sam reaches for his gun and without much hand wringing, plugs at least six bullets into Jake. This time, he makes sure he is dead.

There's little time to gape because the lock on the crypt's doors starts spinning. Bobby finally figures out that the crypt's doors are actually the gates to hell. Everybody takes cover as the doors fly open and demons spew forth from the opening. The plume of demons race over to the edge of the railway tracks and make a flaming hole in it, big enough to allow the YED to walk through.

Sam, Bobby and Ellen brace themselves against the crypt doors in a hernia-inducing attempt to close the gates of hell. Dean picks up the gun but the YED comes along and with a telekinetic sweep of his hand, throws Dean against a tombstone. Sam spots the YED and barrels along to help because foolish boy, he still hasn't learned he is no match for the YED. The YED taunts Dean for a bit but it's all too tedious by this time for me to spell it out. Let's just say that one of the things that crawl out of hell is Daddy Winchester (he was in hell because he sold his soul to the demon) and Daddy grapples with the demon long enough to distract the YED for Dean to grab the fallen Colt and shoot the bastard through the chest. The demon, not Daddy. Haw, haw.

They do something funny with the camera here because everybody's head looms bigger than the background as the Winchesters gaze moonily at each other. I'm getting flashbacks to Return of the Jedi because Daddy Winchester looks eerily like Obi Wan Kenobi when he appeared to Luke at Endor. Oh yeah, and I had flashbacks to The Empire Strikes Back in Season 1's finale when Dean was pleading to Daddy to overcome the demon and save him. Damn, you know I've got a weak spot when it comes to the old Star Wars movies.

So at long last, after 23 frigging years, the Yellow-Eyed Demon is finally dead and it was Dean and not super special Sam that did it. Hurrah! Uh, but on the downside, they just let a couple hundred demons loose in the world. Wooops.

Oh and Sam is not too thick to work out that Dean made a deal with a demon to save his life. Finally, he tells Dean off for thinking that his job is to protect him. "What do you think my job is?"asks Sam. So Sam vows to get Dean out of this mess if it's the last thing he'll ever do. The boys smile at each other and look forward to more demon hunting as I say thank God I'm not a recapper on Television Without Pity because this is harder work than I thought it would be and I'm nearly going out of my mind.

In conclusion, Season 2's finale is disappointing compared to Season 1's stonker. I understand there's only so much scary stuff you can fit into a television show, especially one that follows Smallville on a channel primarily catering to teens, but that shouldn't explain the oomph that is missing from the last episodes of the season. I'm kind of regretting my clamour for more Manly Angst this season because I certainly got plenty of that in All Hell Breaks Loose. More than I can stomach, actually. Too much chin wobbling and leaking tears does not look good on Jensen Ackles' pasty face. And Jared Padalecki looks like a goblin when he tries to emote too much. His cool indifference towards Dean in What Is And What Should Never Be or his delightful wickedness in Born Under A Bad Sign suits him better.

So I hear it's all systems go for Season 3. Will I still be a nut for Supernatural then? Will Mummy Winchester knowing the Yellow-Eyed Demon be relevant in Season 3 or are the writers going to forget about it now that he is dead? Will my blog still be subtitled The Dean Winchester Appreciation Society? Who knows? All I can say is, I'm beat and this must be the longest post I've ever done, so I'm going to mandi and go out and get treated to a nice lunch by my sister in Bangsar.

Goodbye, and goodnight.

Come down

2007-05-17T23:19:00.000+01:00

Saying sorry is a funny business.

Sometimes you don't even have to vocalise the words but you know you are forgiven. And vice versa.

The funniest apology happened between me and Flatmate. We are opposites in nature and from time to time we have our little tiffs. Most of the time it ends good-naturedly but on this one occasion, the argument blew up and we both stormed off to our separate rooms. I don't even remember what the fight was about - only that it was one of those stupid remeh-temeh fights that only people living in the same house can have.

So there I was, sitting at my desk by the window stewing with self-righteous anger at the injustices visited upon me by Flatmate. After about 15 minutes of taking vicious pleasure in being angry, my mobile phone beeped with a text message. It was from Flatmate, in the room next door, apologising for the fight we just had.

A puff of laughter escaped from my lips and all residual anger evaporated. Silly goose, I texted back, why are you texting me when we're right next door to each other. I could ask the same question to myself. I'm sorry too, I said.

I could hear her phone beep through the thin wall separating our bedrooms and knew from the sound of it that she was sitting at her desk too, which was against the wall like mine.

Several text messages followed where we affectionately took the mickey out of each other for being idiots and wusses. I could not stay angry at Flatmate for long. How could anyone when she so pandai jaga hati? There I was still sulking and unwilling to back down and Flatmate had the maturity to see the ridiculousness of our argument and be the first to mend things between us. That was the first time I was aware that I admired Flatmate for her bravery and her lack of ego and I felt humbled.

Over a week ago, I had lunch with a friend whom I hadn't spoken to for more than six years. We used to be good friends between the ages of 18 to 20. He and another friend were my steady compass in those first confusing years I was in England, and we used to write to each other every week. Regular phone calls were beyond the budget of a JPA scholar so we'd pour our angst, confusion, misgivings and anecdotes of our translocated English life into letters mailed with 19p second class stamps. Of course, you can't have a platonic relationship with a guy without our mutual friends nudging and winking each other and believing that we were more than just good friends. I ignored it and I thought he did too.

Fast forward to summer of 2000, the first year at university. My year-end finals were looming and I was half-comatose with a fever. Guy Friend calls up whining about something or other and I was short and testy with him. He hung up or I hung up, I can't remember. Just as I was drifting off into a feverish sleep, my phone beeps with a text message. There was a garbled message from Guy Friend, something about it didn't matter that I only thought of him as a friend now, but he will always wait for me to change my mind.

Confused and ill (not only from the fever), I put down the phone as I felt unable to deal with a bombshell like that. Some time later, I received another text from Guy Friend telling me to ignore his previous text message, that it was a mistake because he was all stressed about university and exams.

At this point, I was feeling angry. Stupid bugger, I was dying of a fever, which he has barely acknowleged by the way and now he's waffling on about his problems and what's that about that waiting for me rubbish?

I have to clarify at this stage that when I was twenty, I was a lot stupider and immature than I am now and I had zero social skills. I had only just discarded the notion that boys were weird, unfathomable creatures from planet Zorg sent to torture womankind when Guy Friend had to bamboozle me like that. Looking back at it, I also think I was angry at him, for spoiling things between us, for putting that unsaid question in the air when all I wanted was a friend. He had to stupidly ruin things and put his foot in it. I am rather ashamed to say, both of us ignored what had been said, pretended things were all hunky dory but in factany contact became less frequent, shorter and terser. Eventually, we let a three year friendship fall by the wayside.

In 2007, I come across Guy Friend at a mutual friend's wedding. He's married by now, to a girl I'm vaguely acquainted with. His wife could not attend. Guy Friend looked a bit nervous when he saw me, but by this time, I'm feeling, what the heck, that was donkey years ago, we were both young and stupid, water under the bridge, okay? I didn't actually say it, but I acted like it because a crowded wedding party isn't exactly the place to have a heart to heart is it? Besides my mum was there too.

When we finally met up for lunch a couple of weeks later, I was surprised when Guy Friend brought the subject up. He was clearly still uncomfortable about it because he looked constipated, and I don't think that was attributable to the curry he just had. To cut a long story short, we cleared the air and in a roundabout way, said we were sorry without actually saying we were sorry.

On a side note, I found out that Guy Friend thought I was seeing one of his friends that had previously stolen girls away from him and mistook me for someone who had a snogging session with said friend in Tesco. Huh, as if I would do such a thing. Guy Friend really does not know me. Tesco?!? No frigging way. If it was Waitrose, then yes.

Joke......... ok?

So the point is....... I knew I had a point when I started telling this story to my long time Agony Aunt and Budding Psycho-analyst. (He's kind of the Gay Best Friend, only he's not gay.) I think what I was trying to get at, was that I'm glad that I'm not so stupid and immature anymore and I learned to not have a such stiff neck about things. All this time staying at home with the parents and feeling like a child had sapped my confidence a little, what with close relatives telling me that I had regressed into adolescence.

Not-Gay-Best-Friend reassures me that in the ten years he' s known me ("God, has it been that long?" he squawks) , I have definitely improved in character and maturity. I could take it as him being sarky with me again, but thankfully for my self-esteem, he's sincere. Bless his little socks.

What is and what should never be

2007-05-16T23:30:00.000+01:00

Aaah, after having to do so long without the Winchesters, it eased my heart to see the Now part of Episode 20 What Is and What Should Never Be concentrated on the lovely brothers instead of some extra nobody cares about who will die in the next two minutes.

Any heart easing went down the drain soon after because this is an episode of Manly Winchester Angst designed to make crazy fan girls feel even more sorry for our suffering heroes, specifically our old man Dean. Now let me tell you that our man Dean looks less pasty and puffy here than he has in most of the episodes in Season 2. And it looks like the make-up artist has been bundling them off to the tanning salon again, judging by the fact both boys are getting a bit of colour on them. Sam also looks surprisingly..... preppy, what with the pastel coloured shirt and carefully blow-dried hair.

Anyway, a djinn is the monster of the week and Dean falls into his evil clutches when the djinn grants Dean’s unspoken wish and transports him to an alternate reality where Mummy is still alive. Funnily enough, Dean’s fervent wishes doesn’t include Daddy being in the land of the living because in this alternate reality, Daddy is dead from a stroke. However, there is unrest in fantasy land as not everything turns out perfect because Alternate Reality Sam hates his brother’s guts. You can’t blame him for that though because the younger Alternate Reality Dean has been a real sleazy, scumbag jerk to his brother; nicking money off him and stealing Sam’s girlfriend away on prom night itself. Charming. I guess it shows that if Dean didn't have responsibilty thrust upon him, he would turn out to be a complete jerk.

Anyone who has read a decent amount of fairy tales as a child know that you never, ever accept wish granting from unknown strangers (except if it’s your Fairy Godmother) because no good will ever come out of it. There is always a heavy price to pay and in this case it’s human blood that the djinn wants for its own sustenance. Kind of like a toyol sucking blood from the toe of its master only this djinn is modern and uses a cannula and an IV bag instead. So much more hygienic, you see.

So.... two more episodes to go, but I'm scared to watch the final two episodes, because I know it will be a major cliffhanger and I know it'll be the last ones I'll have for a very long time yet. That is, if there is a Season 3 in the works. If not, then..... I don't know what I'll do, curl myself up like a fetus and rock myself to sleep?

176 hours without Supernatural.........

2007-05-14T17:05:00.000+01:00

Forgive my being overdramatic when I say that I have been in paroxysms of agony for the past week because I have gone Supernatural cold turkey. I have missed TWO episodes of Supernatural (the really exciting end of season ones) and I did not even have old episodes to tide me over because my laptop has been in the shop all this time. I have not even dared to go to an internet cafe in case I am tempted to look at spoilers.

Sitting morosely in front of the television, I eventually resorted to the bored and lost's cure: The Bold and The Beautiful. Only half an hour of it, and I was snapped out of my reverie. My God, that show is sick! There's this woman who marries the patriach of this family, then she divorces him and marries her stepson, divorces the stepson and steals not only one husband from her own daughter but two husbands, the second husband who is actually her stepson's half brother, then gets rid of this guy and goes back to the stepson!! And the family, for some unfathomable reason, has not yet chased her with tar and feathers out of the country but still treat her as one of their own. Frigging bizarre!!

Feeling tainted by all this near-incestual bed-hopping, my despair eventually leaked out last Friday when I moaned to my mother, "I miss my Supernatural."

My mother isn't the most enthusiastic fan of Supernatural. She is not a fan of horror/fantasy most days and she thinks Dean is mean to his brother, Sam. Also, she doesn't like Dean because she thinks he looks like David Hasselhoff. (Nnnnnngggg!!!!)

I was surprised when my mother put down the book she was reading to listen to me so I continued whining about my lack of Winchester sauce.

"Why do you like Supernatural so much?" my mother asks.

I looked at my mother's face. It is a serious question, not a criticism. Encouraged by this, I rambled on all the things I have mentioned in this blog about Supernatural, plus added a few more things I know would appeal to a mother's heart; poor motherless boys, no nutritious meals to eat, studious good boy Sam getting a scholarship, the mother hen Dean, Sam losing his girlfriend, Dean always being the peacekeeper when Sam and their father fight, their Dad dying to save Dean's life......... ahah ha ha, I could see her melting in front of my eyes!

My mother does not exactly break down in tears but the next thing she said nearly made me cry with joy.

"When you get your laptop back, let me watch some Supernatural. Sounds interesting."

YESS!!! One for the team!

AGONY!!

2007-05-06T10:51:00.000+01:00

WAAAAAAARRGGHHH!!!!

Having just watched the promo for Supernatural Episode 21 All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1, I have not only bitten off my fingernails, I have gnawed my fingers down to my knuckles. Sam getting skewered like a kebab! Dean howling in agony! Manly tears all around! (clutches blanket)

Will the finale be like Season 1 where we are left to ponder whether any of the Winchester men will still be alive? NOOOOO, this is too cruel, too cruel Eric Kripke, you heartless man you!

Could I tempt you with some satire? A little fantasy, perhaps?

2007-05-05T22:20:00.000+01:00

The Mother likes to moan at my choice in novels - fantastical, overblown dramas - but when she's looking for something to read, she comes to me to feed her addiction to books. The Mother does not like to admit it, but she is as much of a bookworm as I am. The Father knows this and has sneakily employed this knowledge in the past. He gives her a book when he has done something wrong so The Mother will be distracted for a day or two and forget to yell at him.

When she was hassling me to hurry up and come home from England, she scoffed when I said I needed time to sort and pack my belongings. I have nine and a half years worth of stuff and I had collected a lot of books in the meantime. ( Books are partly the reason why I have so little savings).

"Why don't you sell or give away your books?" she said.

"WHAT?!? Sell my precious books? I have autographed copies and special editions."

"Surely you're not going to read them all again."

Yes, I would, yes, I certainly would. My books are my friends, they are my comfort, I love them, I love their fragrant paper smell and their..........

"Where are you going to put them?" she asked.

"Uh.... I've shipped my bookcase over as well. I thought I'd put it in the dining room next to Dad's bookcase."

The Mother twitched. The Martha Stewart in her is horrified that my cheap pine bookcase will be squatting next to her dark, hand-crafted teak furniture.

The Mother has been unwell this past week. I'm not that good at cooking, so as compensation, I supply her with some books. She likes the Odd Thomas books by Dean Koontz so I rent a couple for her. (The Mother likes stories about good children). I also give her Susannah Clark's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell but she soon gives up on that, saying it's too heavy and long. She has also picked up Lois McMaster Bujold's The Hallowed Hunt from the shelf. I did not plan on lending it to her because as much as I like Bujold's books, it wasn't one of her better ones and it was full of gods and magical bits which she doesn't really like.

Late last night, she comes to me again, looking for something to read. We stand beside my cheap, pine bookcase as I ponder which books to recommend to her.

"None of your depressing stories," she says.

"I don't have any depressing stories," I object.

"You know, a lot of your books are emotionally taxing. Like that one about the twins, and how the brother died, and then her mother died and the land can never be prosperous so long as...."

"Oh, you mean, The Bone Doll's Twin?" I say. "That isn't depressing.... it's very engrossing and full of drama and intrigue."

The Mother shakes her head. "No, no. I want something light and easy. And don't give me any of that Miles Vorkosigan books either."

"But those are quite light. And funny too!" I exclaim.

"Yes, but Miles is a mutant. He's short and hunchbacked. It's no fun investing all that time in an ugly hero," The Mother replies.

"But Miles has such character..."

The Mother shakes her head.

"What about Carl Hiaasen? He's quite amusing. Or Rob Grant's Incompetence? That's very good. It's laugh out loud satire," I said.

The Mother makes non-committal noises.

Finally, I pull out the latest Ian Rankin novel that I have, Fleshmarket Close. It is the 16th Inspector Rebus novel and mine is a special edition, autographed copy. I carefully take it out of its sleeve and hand it to The Mother. The protagonist of the novels is a grumpy, beer-bellied, chain-smoking Scotsman with a bad habit of getting up his boss's nose. Hee hee, I love grumpy old men. Only in books though.

The Mother is again disappointed that Mr. Rankin chose to make his hero so disagreeable but The Mother likes murder, mystery and gore, and you can find that aplenty in a detective novel, so she takes it.

When I check in on her later, The Mother is fast asleep. Fleshmarket Close is lying on my dad's study table. In The Mother's hand is a copy of The Bone Doll's Twin.

She's decided to go for depressing.

Bapak borek, anak rintik

2007-05-02T08:35:00.000+01:00

Dad has finished that Playboy article he had been writing and has e-mailed it to his children for comment. When he says 'comment' he actually means 'praise' because it doesn't matter what you say, my dad never listens to advice. All the changes I recommended he make, he basically ignored, except for one sentence. One. Sure, he put in my recommendations while I was standing over his shoulder but he's erased nearly all of it. When I was correcting his essay, I pointed out several areas where he should break down his points into shorter sentences and use simpler and fewer words.

Dad grumbled and said that he can't do that, and that I don't understand that this is a technical essay and I don't understand technical stuff. Fine, I don't understand anything about fossil fuels and pollution indices but it does not matter because it is the grammar and clarity of your article that I am trying to mend.

"Look," I say, "you are not writing for your science boffins. You are writing for the lay person. Yes, your opening line is catchy and will reel your audience in but you will lose them by the end of the first paragraph. You are not getting your point across by being long-winded."

Dad mumbled something but it looked like he understood what I was telling him. Until I got the e-mail attachement and he so obviously has not.

Supernatural does Prison Break .... sort of

2007-05-01T15:50:00.000+01:00

It's back to regular ghost hunting again as Sam and Dean purposely get themselves thrown into prison to investigate the mysterious killings of guards and inmates in episode 19, Folsom Prison Blues. What? Are they crazy? They are already on the run from the law for identity fraud and murder, among other charges, and they willingly put themselves into a position where they likely will never get themselves out of? Crazy's in town, indeed.

Though that doesn't stop Dean from turning on the charm, even on Special Agent Henriksen, who is spitting venom at having to chase them from one end of the country to the other. Ooooh, he thinks he's got them now! Henriksen doesn't take to Dean's wisecracks and hisses, "You think you're funny?" to which Dean replies with a wink and a smile, "I think I'm adorable." And a whole bunch of fanboys and fangirls sigh yes to that.

The boys get a lady lawyer to defend them, and Dean just about stops himself from sleazing on her. Maybe because she's not his type - you know, the slightly ditzy, giggly, lady in distress. No bail for the Winchesters on account of several states petitioning for their extradition so off to county jail they go. For once, Sam actually lands himself in a place where there are people who are even bigger than him, if that is even possible. Sam iterates for the hundreth time that this is the stupidest thing they've ever done, which he is absolutely right, and that's not just him being prissy and pessimistic. Dean insists that they gotta go where the job takes them, and that even jailbirds don't deserve to die like this. Also they've got a debt to settle because it is a man called Deacon, who once saved their father's life in the marines, was the one who asked for their help from jail.

And so, aside from the unusual setting, the Winchesters do the usual salting and burning of the bones to defeat the murderous ghost. This series is really doing a lot for the benefits of cremation huh? And do the boys manage to break out of jail? Of course they do, there's three more episodes to go! What do you think this is, Prison Break?

April 2007's list

2007-04-30T22:38:00.000+01:00

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 to become the soldier his father and grandfather were.

The Vorkosigan story actually begins when Miles parents met, both soldiers on opposite sides of an interplanetary war, told in two novels, Shards of Honour and Barrayar. The Miles Vorkosigan series picks up the Vorkosigan family saga in The Warrior's Apprentice when Miles is 18 years old, but I personally favour the later novels when Miles is older, more complex and less of a suicidal lunatic.

As each book in the series reads as a stand-alone, you can pretty much start anywhere along but to get a full feel of the characters, it's better to start at the beginning. Like all Bujold's books, character and dialogue is key and it does not matter whether she sets the story in space or in a fantasy medieval past, you always end up believing in and rooting for her heroes.

If the earlier novels are filled with spaceship hijackings, rescue missions, hostage taking and clone harvesting across galaxies, Komarr and A Civil Campaign narrows the story down to the home and the personal. Having suffered 'an acute case of death' in Memory, 30 year-old retired Captain Miles has finally come to a place where he's embraced his identity and not running from himself and his past. It's a bittersweet lesson to learn but even though he is not the one shooting laserguns anymore, it doesn't mean that there isn't any action in the later novels. It's just a different kind of adrenaline rush.

Film

1. Zombi Kampung Pisang. With a title like that, I could not very well NOT see it, could I? Following in the vein of Shaun of the Dead, Zombi Kampung Pisang is a comedy about the very rural Kampung Pisang being overcome by an epidemic of err....zombification, possibly brought on by some deadly curry from Pak Menawer's food stall. Malay movies tend to get a bad rep, because umm... they are generally bad, with the actors either overacting or mugging it, and terrible scripts. Luckily for my nerves, which were highly irritable the morning I went to watch this film, it was actually funny and amusing. Mugging was minimal, the script was actually funny, the pace was good except for a dip in the midddle. Makeup was atrocious though, the zombies looked like somebody had just thrown a kilo of flour over them, but they were a convincingly murderous, brain-eating bunch with a penchant for dance music, motorcycle wheelies and Liverpool football club. It's not actually scary, more of an old-fashioned slapstick comedy but one that feels fresh and updated. If you miss this at the cinema, get a copy of the DVD when it comes out and have a good night in.

2. Sunshine. My friends usually moan when I drag them to see ‘geeky sci-fi’ films of my choice at the cinema and they usually curse me afterwards for making them waste the precious hours of their lives on some confusing/depressing/weird film. So unsurprisingly, when my friend and I finished watching Sunshine, he was unhappy that his Saturday afternoon was spent making himself miserable.

It’s an interesting premise; the Sun is dying and mankind and planet Earth are slowly heading towards a frozen death, unless eight intrepid astronauts flying on a massive bomb can nuke the Sun into doing its proper job. Warning bells started to ring that this could be a bad movie when:

for such an important mission, everybody here is pretty young
for such an important mission, everybody here barring one or two, are complete wusses
there's a psychologist onboard

Thing is you just know, you so know, you'd- be- screaming- at- the- people- on-screen know, that EVERYBODY will be in BIG TROUBLE as soon as they diverted from their mission to respond to a distress call from the ship that was previously sent seven years ago to nuke the sun but failed. The second mistake was when the ineffectual captain allowed one 'expert' crew member to decide for the whole ship whether to divert from their course or not. The third nail in the coffin was when one person was left alone to do all the plot calculations for their new course. Considering that this was a very difficult and important job, you would expect a second person to double check things. But no, this does not happen. And predictably, everything goes belly up and the ship loses nearly all their oxygen supply. Dun, dun, dun!! Because you just can't have a spaceship movie without people losing their oxygen.

Okay, so the main question is: do they succed in their mission? Second, can everyone get back to Earth alive? Third, what happened to the first ship and crew that was sent, and what made them fail their mission? Aliens? Killer bugs? An acute case of stir-crazy?

It took me a lot of a patience and the fact that I did not want to admit to my friend that he may be right to get through the first half of this film. Things do start to pick up in the second half when everybody starts pulling their thumbs out of their asses and some interesting issues come to the fore. For example, do we lose our personal humanity by taking the life of one person, in order to save the whole of humanity?

In summary, everybody redeemed their stupidity by dying at the end. Ooops, was that a spoiler? Come on, what did you think, that people could actually come out alive in a movie like this?

Music

1. What I've Done - Linkin Park. Oh, look it's a new U2 video..... uh, no it's Linkin Park. I wouldn't say I was a fan of Linkin Park, but they always manage to release a song that I find myself humming along to and fake-drumming on the steering wheel.

2. How To Save A Life - The Fray. I gotta admit, when this first came out, I went, "Fssshhh, another piano-tinkling emo band trying to manipulate the heart strings by singing about saving people's lives. But I like it now, and I try to sing it but I can't quite get the words right.

How many roads must a man walk down

2007-04-27T10:10:00.000+01:00

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 decided to write erotica in his senescence, the essay WAS about the environment and bizarrely, the centrefold in that particular Playboy magazine 32 years ago was an illustration about the ravages that a polluted environment would cause on future man. Even in the 70s, environmental pollution was still as much of an issue as it is today.

"Why would your university stock Playboy?" I ask Dad.

"Because it has got some good articles in it," he says, with no irony whatsoever.

"And.... you read Playboy because of the articles?"

"Yes. Why not?"

Being an oldie and a person who has actually contributed something to the country, Dad was asked to contribute an article for a local newspaper, coincidentally the same one that my eldest sister freelances for. It's for a series about Merdeka in the run up to the nation celebrating 50 years of independence this coming August. There have been small articles and advertisements on television regarding this - people saying what Independence means to them, how life has changed since, their opinions on what the future holds for Malaysia and its citizens. My parents are the generation which grew up in the waning years of the British Empire and came of age in the post-colonial period. They were the generation for whom change was relentless; they were the generation that developed and changed the face of the country.

I am from the generation that was promised great things and have grown dissatisfied waiting for it.

Last Friday, I was chatting to a friend of a friend about life in Malaysia. I was speaking from the point of view of the prodigal child, aware of the pitfalls of Malaysian life yet still hopeful that things can get better, if only we put our minds and backs to it. This friend, let's call him Bowl-cut, had spent the past five years as a working adult in the capital city, was married with one child and was horrifyingly despondent about how his life was turning out. This isn't the Promised Land we were brought up to believe in, he says. It is not enough to work hard and be honest. You can't get anywhere without having the right skin colour, the right connections, the right job etc.

He wants to emigrate to Australia. He's sick of the hypocrisy, the racism, the corruption, the dog-eat-dog world that is life in KL.

What makes you think Australia will be any better?

A chance, he says, of fairness and transparency. Hypocrisy and corruption could still be exposed and reviled while in Malaysia people would just shrug and say, "Well, what do you expect?"

Perhaps it is a bit rich coming from me, a person who has spent nearly a decade out of the country, (in my defense, seven of those years were spent being educated) but if all the intelligent, forward-thinking, passionate people left the country, how do we expect anything in the country to change for the better? All we would have left are the bigots, the idiots, the venal, the short-sighted........

My dad has spent many years of his life raising awareness of environmental pollution, pushing through laws to control emission of pollutants and reining in rampant development projects. He did not know he would still be going down this path when he was a 20-something postgrad student reading a Playboy magazine. But he has made changes and he has seen changes made by others, and I hope to think that it will all add up to something one day. Maybe not in his lifetime, maybe not in mine but if someone hadn't started all those years ago, my generation would not have tasted the fruits of that labour, flawed as it is, today.

You gonna finish that?

2007-04-26T22:25:00.000+01:00

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?

Another funny episode? So soon?

2007-04-21T11:19:00.000+01:00

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 poor Jensen Ackles look like a bandy-legged under-developed ape. Jensen plays up the boorish lout that he did in Tall Tales again, cramming his gob with free food and generally being an ass to Sam. Oh dear, am I starting to go off Dean? Come back Action Man Dean, I’m losing my faith!!

Anyways, the boys don’t do much here – they mainly stand around on the film set and watch the cast of the film scream and yell while the crew gets bumped off one by one, in a somewhat understated way. I was expecting more gore and gruesomeness and for Gary Cole to be more spectacularly odious and die in flaming agony and dismemberment or something. Which he doesn’t. Although one person dies in a way that reminds you of mince beef, but somehow, it just seemed kind of, meh. It’s also a pity that Cole didn’t get more screen time because I love it when he plays the smarmy, clueless boss.

On first viewing, Hollywood Babylon isn’t too bad: it had good flow and pace and moments when I hid my face behind my hands (I’m easily frightened, so that is not an indicator of how scary this show is) and a very light-hearted feel to the whole episode. But just like having a plate of greens when what I really want is a huge slab of juicy lamb, I am left unsatisfied and hungry for something more substantial. Is it because I’m itching for the big showdown in the season finale? Or I’m looking forward to the Winchester boys being hard and tough in bright orange prison jumpsuits? Do I want to see action packed gun shooting, fisticuffs, Latin incantations, angsty male looks and brotherly love instead of all this idiotic tomfoolery? YES! YES! YES!

My old friend, the face-eater

2007-04-18T21:50:00.000+01:00

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 go home, armed with bug killer, a bottle of saline and packs of cotton wool and tissue paper. The only relief I get is by draping several layers of saline-soaked tissue paper on my face. I poke one hole in it to breath through and two holes for me to watch television.

Monday afternoon and the dermatologist has slotted me in as an extra. Man, it's good, when your mother knows people. The doc doesn't mess about and gives me a course of oral steroids. He doesn't see the point of giving me hydrocortisone cream which probably won't work too good at this point since my skin is excoriated, oedematous and is agony to touch. He wants to go straight for the hard stuff. I like this guy already.

My mum twitches at the mention of steroids and the doc, knowing her qualms over steroids goes on a spiel over the safety and efficacy of prednisolone in short courses. I'm grateful for my mum for getting me this appointment but I don't care if she objects - I'm legally an adult, I'm paying for this and I want my prednisolone!

He also gives me a bottle of potassium permanganate to apply to my face. What? I ask, you mean KMnO4? The stuff we use in school labs? Won't it stain my face brown? Don't I look enough like a monster already? He says it'll dry the wounds up and should be diluted so it won't stain. Anyway, I'm grateful for something, anything, even if it means slapping my face with stuff that I played with in a school lab.

At home, I bin RM50 worth of face cream which I suspect was the main culprit in triggering this particular eposode. And here I thought I was being safe by buying EcoGreen stuff which is paraben-free, all natural, bla bla bla. Instead it ends up eating my face. Maybe the two Ferrero Rocher I had a few days earlier contributed to it as well, but they were gifts from my friend's wedding reception and I could very well not eat them. They're lucky chocolates!

Lucky for me, The Flatmate (or rather ex-flatmate) has arrived from England for her holidays and has brought seven tubes of my usual cream with her. Hooray!

You might ask, why don't I test drive products on other parts of my body before separating with my cash for it? The answer is because for some reason my face is on a totally different planet from the rest of my body and what the body will tolerate, the face will throw a tantrum and bitch-slap it away. Even the expensive, all natural creams. I should really make friends with a chemist who can make up my own special potions. Hang on, I do know a chemist...... but last I heard he was doing the rounds flogging Viagra for Pfizer. Mmmmm, not quite up my alley that.

Tales from Klang Valley: Episode 3

2007-04-12T05:54:00.001+01:00

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?

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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 sounds like any other million and one housing area. Not that we used to live in a much better area. Old as it was, I still lived in a place only denoted by a number.

As bad as it sounds, I'd rather live in a place called Balakong or Machap Umboo if it means living somewhere that is instantly recognisable rather than having to have a lengthy conversation to explain which part of town I live in.

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I was browsing (non-pirated) DVDs in a store the other day and came across a copy of Passion of The Christ. On the front, was a sticker saying 'This film is not suitable for Muslim viewers.' Really? What will happen to me if I do watch it? Will I be shouting "Hallelujah!" and "Praise the Lord!" from the rooftops? Wll my soul be damned to hell if I watch anything Christian-related? Do you suppose the unsuitability of this film applies if the viewer is a Buddhist, or Hindu for instance? Dear me, these Malaysian Muslims are a weak lot, aren't they? So sensitive to even the faintest hint of Christ. We so need to be insulated from the goings on of the wider world, don't we?

Just as I was extricating myself from christian pollution (I had actually touched the case of the DVD you know) my faith was severely tested again when I came across a copy of Schindler's List. What?!? That piece of Zionist propaganda that was banned in Malaysia when it was released many years ago? When did it get unbanned? Are they going to start selling Babe: Pig In The City too? Do you suppose if anybody did a film about the murder of gypsies and the disabled by Hitler they would ban that too? Sorry, what did you say? It would get the green light because it wouldn't garner any sympathy for the Jewish people or show them to be humans? That it's not really about too much violence and Hitler? Oh, I see.

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In other, albeit a few weeks old news, Culture, Arts and Heritage Mimister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim (what's the Dr. for anyway) has called for a stop to the Negeri Sembilan State Museum's Hantu & Jin....? (Ghosts & Djinns...?) exhibition. He and a mufti of the state of Perlis have raised objections over the exhibition as quote 'not being beneficial to the community and could cause society to live in fantasy' unquote.

Boo! You boring old farts!

As if your mama didn't bring you up on tales of how the hantu polong would get you if you if you were a bad boy, or the numerous orang bunian that used to plague the Karak Highway? What about the Hungry Ghost festival, or the Taoist having marriage ceremonies for the dead? Face it, ghosts and its ilk are part and parcel of Malaysian life. Isn't part of the role of a museum to document the culture and history of its people?

To the Negeri Sembilan museum's credit, all they said was 'Yeah, whatever, we're doing it anyway.'

Note to Lily: The insertion of a politician's name is not an attempt to get myself into the list of Malaysia's 50 Most Influential Blogs. Hee. But maybe the note to Lily is.

Letters

2007-04-11T12:10:00.000+01:00

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 to be my sister's schoolteacher in Honolulu) of the number of As she was getting at school. At the end of each letter was a plea for my dad not to forget his promise to get her a boy and girl Monchichi doll. She quite adamantly stated that it was Monchici dolls she wanted and if Dad could not get Monchici dolls than she would rather have no dolls at all. Even at that age, my sister was savvy enough to be very specific with Dad because he has a tendency to bring home all sorts of junk. Even a hard-hearted woman like me could not help be moved by a seven year old's heartfelt desire for a Monchichi doll.

Mum's letters to Dad were tender missives to a much missed husband. There were large chunks of it which I skipped because they were too personal to read, but I could not mistake the anxiety, love and wistful longing of a young couple separated. It's very discomfiting to read such private thoughts, especially when it's your own mother's in her youth. I can't imagine my parents ever being young once.

Much more interesting to me, and less embarrassing, were Mum's news of us kids to Dad. It certainly revised ideas of what I had of our early childhood. I had always thought us kids did not mind our dad's frequent absences from home but my mum detailed plenty of occasions where we would whine about Dad being gone for so long. Disney books seem to calm us down and my mum told my Dad to buy more while he was in the States. There was also a time when my brother got terribly upset in Lake Garden, bashing a stick on the stones and the ground, because he could see a lot of the other children playing with their fathers while his was not there.

There were stories of the children being ill and how difficult it was to do anything else in the house because KJ would not let go of her, or go to anyone else either. My dad's favourite story to tell the family (and strangers) is how I always ran and hid under my mum's sarung whenever visitors came to the house so I'm glad to know I was not the only clingy one in the family. There was also two accounts, one from my mum and one from my sister, of how my brother pushed me down the stairs and 'there was blood all over the place.' My sister seemed quite pleased describing the carnage. My mum wrote that she was so proud of how brave I was when she took me to a clinic and the doctor sewed up my chin. Apparently I did not even cry but my memories of that event was how absolutely terrified I was. I may have been only three and a bit but I knew needles were sharp and painful and I was struck with terror that my mother would actually just sit there and let some stranger stick a needle in me. I don't know why my brother pushed me down the stairs but I got my own back a few years later when I locked him in a wooden chest and he cried like a baby until our neighbour came and hacked it open.

Just as I find it hard to imagine my parents as ever being young, trying to remember my siblings as children seems like trying to remembe people unrelated to me. I know my siblings best as they are now, in their adulthood, and the children that my mum wrote of in her letters come from a lost time and place. I guess we were more innocent then.

Full of Jit: A Review

2007-04-05T10:34:00.000+01:00

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, asking each section of the audience how they are feeling before admitting that he actually hates performers who do that.

Jit is one of those people who look like they have drunk from the fountain of youth. It’s been about 13 years since I last saw him on stage but barring the odd wrinkle or two, he still looks about the same; slim, shaggy haired, prominent front teeth and dressed in preppy, slightly oversized clothes. He made fun of himself, citing the awful promotional pictures of him which zoomed in on his awful teeth and receding gums, which he happens to be awfully sensitive about.

Any Malaysian comedian stand-up worth his salt would touch on the state of politics and the antics of our politicians and Jit certainly did not disappoint. He had a good go at Samy Vellu (Works & Transport Minister), at one point getting down on his knees and declaring that the 'new boss's testicles are lighter than the previous boss's set.' This went down a storm with the audience, many who would have a beef with Samy Vellu over the ever increasing road toll hikes. The show lagged a bit after the break when Jit did a pretty long piece on reminiscing about his childhood, but picked up again when he came out playing one of his old characters, Renee Choy, the dubiously-sexed, slutty hairdresser, who recounted the story of how she got one of her 'shampoo clients' to unwittingly become a sperm donor for a friend of hers. Strangely enough, Jit seemed more comfortable and funnier when he was playing other characters like the obtuse, happy-go-lucky government minister Dato' Bahloluddin* bin Ashol and the aforementioned Renee.

As Jit correctly pointed out, a lot of comedy is born out of anger and it was the political satire and lambasting of politicians that the audience identified with and gained the most laughs. Throughout the show, there were little sprinkles of sobriety as he brings up issues about racial harmony, apathy and nurturing the future generation.

I had a good time overall, and my mum certainly enjoyed herself, despite her earlier misgivings that this was going to be an artsy-fartsy, super-liberal, authority- bashing, socialist gig. But Jit's charm and boyishness won her over and she forgave me for making her rush her Maghrib prayers so we could get to the studio on time.

*Bahlol = Malay for stupid

It's the leather jacket, I tell you

2007-04-03T16:05:00.001+01:00

“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, drowsily looking at the blaring television while comtemplating the need to shower that day. David Hasselhoff turned up on TV starring in his latest music video. (I was just as surprised as anyone else that he has a music career). The remote was too far away and I couldn't be arsed to reach over to change the channel so I left it as it was. I was later punished for my laziness when upon seeing David Hasselhoff gyrating in a leather jacket next to a car, I had a flashback to Dean Winchester in a leather jacket standing next to a car. It was too much to bear, to have my Dean associated with The Hoff, but I kept quiet about it because sometimes vocalising things only makes it bigger and more important than it actually is.

Fast forward to today: My mum and I were watching The Benders episode of Supernatural (Season 1, Episode 15 - yes, I know we're very slow) on television. She picks on Dean again, saying how much she doesn't like him etc. She's doing this to wind me up, I know, because she only started dissing Dean when she discovered that my sister and I like him. Sam and Dean are in a bar discussing a case when The Mother says, "Dean looks like David Hasselhoff - he's got that same arrogant look and attitude. Really he looks so much like David Hasselhoff."

WHAT?!?!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

You do know that's not doing anything for me, don't you?

2007-04-01T16:55:00.000+01:00

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 very own tragic movie and he will feel manly angst and turn over a new leaf and marry some virginal princess and live happily ever after.

Why am I getting snipy over Justin Timberlake’s What Goes Around.…Comes Around video? Because it irks me. I feel the story portrayed in the video is the kind of chauvinist crap we’ve seen a million times before: rich, influential men living it up with lots of skank women, but expecting their ‘girl’ to be faithful to them then acting all surprised when their girlfriends behave the same way as their men.

So Justin wants to be cool and hard and whatever. He might have some good tunes but I wouldn't go ape- shit over him, especially after that comment of his post Brit Awards 2003.

Of course both Kylie and Justin had agreed beforehand that Justin would grab Kylie’s ass so that they could sex up their show but when asked by a reporter how did it feel like, Mr Trouser Snake felt that in order to show he is so cool and hardcore, he replied that Kylie’s bottom was ‘a Grade A piece of meat.’ How utterly repulsive.

I turn to another channel where Shakira and Beyonce are humping a wall in an attempt to be sexy. (slumps forward with face in hands).

Closer to home, in the run up to the Formula 1 racing in Sepang this weekend, the organisers have organised a Grid Girl preview as part of the promotions for the race. Grid Girls?!? Grid Girl preview?!? What do they have to do with racing cars?

I'm not naive, I know sex sells - hell, I religiously watch an average TV show because of its two good-looking leads - but sometimes I wish that people would just not try too hard. That there is some merit in restraint and patience and just having a good product. Nudity does not equal sexiness. And when you're saturated with naked girls and thrusting bodies 24/7, it keeps getting harder and harder to shock and titillate.

March 2007's list

2007-03-30T11:14:00.000+01:00

Films

1. 300 – Or as I like to call it, More Six-packs Than A Carlsberg Factory. Anyway, don’t let that fool you; it’s definitely a man’s man kind of movie. I went to see this purely based on seeing the trailer and for the fact that there was sod all to watch at the cinema, unless I watched Ghost Rider, which looked really bad anyways. I did not find out till the end of the film that it was based on a graphic novel which explains the direction and the look of the movie – short, sweet and to the point, with a beautiful palette of sharp-edged browns accented with the reds of the Spartan army’s capes.

The plot is not too difficult: 300 Spartan warriors stand against the might of an invading Persian horde far superior in numbers. The fighting is graphic and gruesome – I physically gagged at a couple of scenes – and any other scenes not involving mass slaughter are well-paced and served the purpose of the story. There are a few hammy lines thrown in and some concession is made to emo scenes (what with people dying and all) but they are kept mercifully short and relatively cheese-free. With a lot of ‘epic’ war movies out on the market these past few years, praise is due to the film-makers for bringing something fresh to the mass fight scene, which are quite inventive and do not feel repetitive. Whereas Troy seemed to be merely a platform for Brad Pitt’s and Orlando Bloom’s preening, 300 managed to get their story across, portraying genuine brotherly feeling and manly angst amid the impending doom.

However the film is not all grim and unrelenting. It is darkly humorous with likeable, fleshed out characters, nicely underpinned with a dry narration by Australia’s Hottest Ginge, David Wenham, who seems to have developed an Anthony Hopkins-esque accent since we last saw him in Lord of The Rings. Scotsman Gerard Butler, who I last saw being dashing and heroic in Timeline, does heroic again in an altogether super buff body, playing a most charismatic and forbidding King Leonidas, leading even me to quake in my sandals. The Persians, who compared to the Spartans, are supposed to be pansy waisted boy-lovers still look decidedly fearsome yet decadent with half of them sounding like they had a James Earl Jones voice transplant.

How do I know this was a good film? By the fact that:
a) I was in a good mood afterwards
b) Gagging was induced by violence on screen rather than cringe-worthy moments
c) The bunch of teenagers in the front row (some who definitely don’t look old enough to be 18 and to be allowed in) kept quiet throughout the film and only threw popcorn when the credits rolled
d) I saw two office workers in shirts and neckties bunk off work at 11am to watch the film
e) A bald man in his forties cried when certain people died (or maybe he just had the sniffles)
f) I would watch it again

Books

1. Twilight Eyes - Dean R. Koontz. I actually read this at the tail end of last month whilst sorting out the books prior to us moving house. This copy had my eldest sister's name in it and it was dated '1986, Washington' on the inside cover. A present from our dad most likely, from one of his frequent trips overseas. This book has been in this house almost as long as we have lived here, which accounts for why the story seems very old school. Sort of like an old Stephen King novel.

Its protagonist is a young man who is blessed/cursed with 'Twilight Eyes' - the ability to see 'goblins' disguised as humans whose ultimate mission is the destruction of mankind. Taking refuge in a travelling carnival - because that's where all th emisfits are - he kills the goblins one by one, before joining others like him to wage war on the goblins.

It's an enjoyable enough read, though the plot feels very familiar like I've seen several movies doing the same story.

2. In the Night Room - Peter Straub. Author Tim Underhill is writing a new book. His heroine is about to marry a sinister, powerful man a year after her husband and daughter were murdered. Somehow his creation crosses over to real life, along with the baddies who are after her. But that's not the end of Tim Underhill's problems as a creepy stranger is also out for his blood.

Peter Straub always does solid mystery/thrillers and this is another with slightly off-kilter characters and general weirdness. I felt a bit blah towards the two main characters, not really caring too much about what happened to them but the background of the story was more interesting, in that there's some sort of afterlife for books and all.

3. If You Could See Me Now – Peter Straub. Peter Straub knows how to do psychological horror. He doesn’t need scary monsters to have you hiding under the covers. No, he just messes with your head. Even the title of the book is creepy.

An adult Miles Teagarden returns to the country where he spent most of his holidays as a youth just as the serial killings of several young women begins. Known throughout the small town as someone ‘not to be trusted’ since a mysterious tragedy in his youth, Miles is greeted with hostility by the townsfolk. Is Miles’ own hostility and strange behaviour a response to the townsfolk’s attitude or is he slowly becoming mentally unhinged?

4. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke. There are times when you come across a book which is a total joy to read from start to finish. There are no moments when you are bored, there are no characters you hate, and every situation and consequence seems to fall in place exactly as it should. You don’t feel like you are being condescended to with high-falutin phrases yet you find the flow of the language sleek and elegant. This is that sort of book.

It’s the sort of book where you keep having to remind yourself that it’s not real, that it’s all made up, yet never does it feel like you’re reading some boring old biography or history book.

Kudos to Susanna Clark. I’m looking forward to more from her.

Television

In a moment of weakness last week, I told my sister that I was tired of hankering after Dean. It’s too much to wait around for him every week. He doesn’t even show up every week. I am too old for this. I need a life.

In my book that means getting interested in other things not Dean Winchester. I watched an episode of Family Law and sniffled as a 16 year old boy attempts to gain custody of his two younger brothers after their mother dies of cancer and their bastard of a father leaves them to fend for themselves.

I waited for NCIS to come on because I like to watch the sniping between Tony and Ziva. I still dislike Mark Harmon though – he has only one facial expression and that expression says, “I don’t want to be here.”

I watched Grey’s Anatomy though I switched over to other channels during the excruciating/tiresome bits. McDreamy looks more like McWetrag to me.

I watched Heroes even though I think it’s too slow and had the potential to go the way of Lost. They keep adding more and more characters. There is barely time to develop whatever character they’ve already got before the scene shifts to another character. And I don’t care any stupid problems you have with your wife, Mr Police Officer man. Just get a move on the heroing. Peter Petrelli’s power is wasted on him. Such a cool power should not be wasted on such a wet rag.

I watch CSI Las Vegas. Sort of enjoying it now. Maybe because the geek who was molly-coddled in his youth has been wearing a suit a lot and has been the All-Action hero. Even if he did get beaten badly for it.

America’s Next Top Model Cycle 7 is hotting up now that everyone is jealous/can’t stand Melrose and one of the twins announced that she is possibly gay. Brooke’s face when she heard that was hilarious. Come on let’s bring out the bitch!

She's hairy, but she's my lover (a Supernatural post)

2007-03-25T08:24:00.000+01:00

After watching a good episode of Supernatural, there are a few things I have to do before I can form any sort of coherent statements about what I had just watched. First, I need to control my idiotic grin whenever I think of The Brothers Winchester. Second, I need to get all my girly gushes out of the way via blithering to my fellow Supernatural fan, my sister Maryam. This used to be done by me lying on her bed, stealing all her pillows, waving my hands about in an excitable fashion then driving her off her own bed in my excitement. This is now made difficult by the fact that she has gone back to university 2000 miles away and blithering on a long distance phone call is murder to my wallet. And finally, I need to be able to get over the impulse of giving each brother a hug; depending on how the story went, either a consoling hug, an I’m-glad-you’re-safe hug, or just a you’re-so-cute-and-adorable hug.

Sadly, I can never completely get over any of these impulses. I have managed to have some degree of control over them but that’s about it, so let me tell you of the latest episode of Supernatural, Heart.

It’s about a werewolf see. It’s not just any werewolf, but a superhot lady werewolf who Sam Winchester falls for. But because he’s Sam Winchester, he goes all dopey and dewy-eyed around her. And that’s before and after he finds out she’s a werewolf. Only he tries desperately to save her after he discovers the truth instead of killing her outright with a silver bullet through the heart. Gosh, if only all the other monsters the Winchesters have killed were as good looking as this werewolf – they might have earned a reprieve instead of being blown away. But I do Sam Winchester an injustice. Her attractiveness wasn’t the only thing that made our Sammy hesitate. It was the recognition of a kindred spirit in her. Here was another like him, who had a dark side to which they have no control over. And in recognising this similarity in the werewolf, he thinks, ‘There but for the grace of Dean, go I. If I have my brother Dean to look after me, then surely it falls to me to look after this lady.’

So Sam tries to find a way to reverse the werewolf curse and when their first attempt fails, he begs and pleads with Dean that they must carry on looking for a cure for his lady in distress. Dean is not without his usual one-liners, but appears less caustic this episode, possibly because he acknowledges Sam’s dilemma and growing attachment to the lady werewolf. As uncouth as Dean is, he is sensitive to his brother’s feelings and behaves in a more compassionate way than usual towards his brother. There is also no doubt that he can see himself fighting other hunters for Sam’s life and the vow he made to Sam to save him from the evil within. Which would have left me trying to hug Dean onscreen if it wasn’t for the fact that I was in an internet café surrounded by people.

Sigh, these brothers break my heart. The trials and tribulations they face, and how stoic they are, and how much they look out for each other. Aaaahh, so much love in the world, why can’t we just share it? Sam may be a towering beefy giant who can overcome two SWAT officers with his broken arm but with his dimples, messy hair and general awkwardness, I just want to put him on cake and eat him. And you just have to laugh at Dean when he acts all big and know-it-all when in fact it’s his younger brother who runs circles around him.

A most satisfying episode, much better than the previous week’s Roadkill, which was short on the usual brotherly love. My only problem with it is that I did not see why the werewolf felt that she needed to be put down. Yeah, okay she killed a few people while she was altered but she had no control over the bad side of her. You don’t give a death sentence to a person because of it. As the brothers say, the transformation occur in the week leading up to the full moon, so she still had three weeks out of a month when she wasn’t ripping people’s heart out. She just needs to be locked up once a week or not go to sleep at night. Not a cure, yes, but it’s a manageable chronic disease. But I guess for the purposes of the story, it would be so much better if the brothers killed her and be done with it instead of having it hanging in the background. It won’t do to have them keep running back to her in future episodes.

A short statement from Dean Winchester (a Supernatural post)

2007-03-20T03:08:00.000Z

Hi, my name is Dean Winchester. I’m an Aquarius, I like long walks on the beach and frisky women. I used to be one hell of an ugly kid, but I grew up to be a handsome devil. I have a little brother, Sam, but he’s not so little really because I’m 6’ 1 and he’s still taller than me. He makes me look like a short arse, the freaky Sasquatch.

We were once a happy, normal family until my mother was killed when I was four years old. It could have been just an ordinary house fire except for the fact that my dad saw a yellow-eyed man pin my mother to a ceiling by an invisible force, made her bleed from the abdomen, and then set her and our family home on fire. My father, driven by grief and anger, spent the rest of his life, trying to find answers to who or what killed his wife. That mission would lead us all down a path we could never turn back from.

It turned out that this yellow-eyed man is a special type of demon who don’t die easy and is slippery as hell. That wasn’t the end of our problems though, because in Dad’s search for Mom’s killer, he found out all kinds of shit about other demons, ghosts, hoodoo, zombies and vampires. Dad, being an ex-marine, trained us both in demon hunting and the like, saving people and all, so that no one else had to go through the same things we did. Hell, I just like shooting stuff anyway, unlike my pansy brother who would rather talk about his feelings, play ball and go to law school.

So we had a pretty unusual childhood by other people’s standards. We grew up knowing that there were things that went bump in the night. We moved constantly, living in one motel after another, making a living from credit card fraud and hustling pool. Sam, the wuss, gets fed up of this one day, has a huge bust-up with Dad and heads off to Stanford University. He got a full scholarship too; he kept up with his school work despite moving schools several times. Guess that’s what you get when you’ve got your nose in a book all the time.

Anyway, one day Dad goes missing on one of his hunting trips and I pull Sam out of school to go look for Dad. We didn’t find him initially, got sidetracked by some murderous lady ghost, and when we got back, Sam’s girlfriend was on the ceiling, burning like Mom did. Oh and Sam has been getting visions of people dying, which eventually come true. So now we know this Yellow-Eyed Demon means business. He has a plan for world domination or something and he is going to use my brother Sam, and other psychic children like him to achieve his goals. We find Dad again by this point but the happy times didn’t last long because then, he exchanges his soul with the devil in order to save my life. That sucks balls, that, ‘cause it makes me feel guilty as hell and I’m all torn up inside but I gotta keep my game face on for Sam’s sake. Plus, I got my macho image to uphold.

Right now, we’re in ten kinds of trouble; not only do we have the usual hauntings and vengeful spirits to keep us busy, we’ve got the Feds after us because of all the fraud, grave desecrations and killings that we’ve been doing, other hunters are gunning for Sam because they think he’s some kind of demon spawn and the Yellow-Eyed Demon is closing in on us.

I don’t know if we’re going to get out of this alive, but whatever gets thrown at us, as long as I’ve got Sam and my salt-loaded shotgun, and Sam’s got me, we ain’t gonna let any sons of bitches bring us down. And that’s about as chick flick as I’m gonna get.

Tales from Klang Valley: Episode 2

2007-03-19T02:08:00.000Z

What other way for a newspaper to kiss the ass of the Prime Minister than to give his son-in-law, the non-elected politician, a column in its pages? Thank you, New Straits Times, for ruining my Sundays by having Khairy Jamaludin’s smug mug looking at me over breakfast. Honestly, that man has no shame. No wonder Dr. M is disappointed with Pak Lah.

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I was pleasantly amused to see Cineleisure Damansara provide several parking spaces for Single Female Driver located near the escalators in its basement car park. Someone obviously gave some thought to the escalating number of violent crime in the Klang Valley and the horrendous rape and subsequent murder involving single females that have made the headlines in the past few years. What really amused me was that these spaces, which were painted bright pink, were mostly empty on a busy Sunday afternoon. When able drivers will blatantly park in spaces reserved for the handicapped, it’s amusing to see that being pink and marked female has deterred a lot of errant drivers (which I am guessing to be male) from parking in these spaces.

Kudos also to Cineleisure Damansara for only charging RM1 per entry for a parking space in an area where parking is in great demand, considering there are three popular malls located side by side here. RM1 for parking that’s clean and spacious in the Klang Valley? Shocking. Let’s see how long this will last before they start charging higher. Still, that hasn’t stopped people from reducing traffic lanes by parking on the street. Can you blame them though? A ringgit saved here and there on parking means a lot when you can’t move from one end of the valley to the other without going through a toll booth.

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A shout out also to Amcorp Mall for only charging RM2 for the first four hours to park in its basement. Sure, it’s not exactly the trendy hotspot like Damansara or Bangsar but it’s still a good local mall with lots of traffic. It costs more in the open air car park but there’s plenty of room on the lower basement, if people would only drive further down instead of insisting on finding a space on the higher level. That’s what drives me crazy about Malaysian drivers. They would rather park in spaces not designated as car parking thereby narrowing traffic flow instead of just going down or up another level. It’s not like they have to get their ropes and spikes out to climb to the shops. They take the same stinking lift anyway.

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If eating is the number one hobby for Klang Valley’s residents, then shopping is its definite number two leisure activity. There’s no limit to the amount of tat you can buy in its myriad stalls, shops and boutiques. Although I would probably fail any residency test by my dislike of shopping and eating different things, I do understand the need and place for having such things catered for. What annoys me is that these supermarkets, or rather hypermarkets like Giant, Tesco and Carrefour, construct purpose-built monoliths to not only sell their wares but also every other rubbish that you can get at a hundred and one malls and backstreets throughout the valley. To get to the supermarket proper, you have to pass through food shops, telecommunications shops, stalls selling cheap jewellery and dubious health products, over-enthusiastic salesmen and just people loitering in the aisles. Grocery shopping is serious business and it’s stressful enough as it is without having to navigate a laden trolley through crowded hallways and misplaced advertisement boards.

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A gossipy neighbour has been gushing to my mother of how an acquaintance of an acquaintance of hers has just moved into their brand new house furnished completely by items from Ikea. They only brought their clothes with them to their new home. By said neighbour’s ecstatic raptures, you would have thought that stuff from Ikea was gilded with gold and hand-crafted by blind Italian craftsmen trained from birth in a secluded monastery instead of cheap mass-produced plywood that falls apart with a good kick from an anorexic twelve year-old. But then, maybe I’m being one of those cynical, arrogant posers of the new generation who thumb their nose at everything just because I’ve been abroad for a few years. Yes? No? Yes? Ikea dahling? So passé.

I’ve just noticed something: the spelling police in Microsoft Word actually recognises the word Ikea. Frightening.

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Speaking of my mother, we have been getting along relatively well. I still phrase all my requests as, “Mum, can I……” but she always answers, “Yes, why not? You are 27 after all.” I tell you, it’s downright spooky. Unless she’s being sarcastic. Which she is not.

I think.

Anyway, we were sitting down watching Kidnapped on TV one night. It’s one of the few shows that I find tolerable enough, since my obsession with Supernatural has rendered all other shows near impossible to watch because it can never hold up to the beauty and radiance that is the wonderful Dean Winchester and his fierce and protective love over his baby brother Sam and the tragedy that is their……… okay, I’ll shut up for now.

Okay, so….. Kidnapped. It stars the darlings of yester-year: Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany and the whole series is about the kidnapping and subsequent negotiation and twisted dealings for the release of their son. Yes, that’s right folks, it’s a whole series not just an episode. So far, both my mother and I agree that there are no cute guys in this TV show. She grumbles about the fact that one of the heroes is a scruffy moon-faced man with a pot belly. (Don’t get her started on the very pretty Boone getting axed from Lost). Thinking we were on a roll here, I start to comment on Timothy Hutton; he has several chins, he looks old, he looks fat etc. My mother then gets all huffy with me, saying don’t you start dissing Timothy Hutton, I like Timothy Hutton, I love Timothy Hutton, he has such a sweet face, you just don’t like him because he is old. Uh, cool it, mama, I like plenty of old people and I liked Timothy Hutton well enough in Taps, but you gotta admit, he hasn’t aged very well. No, mother huffs again, he’s beautiful, I love Timothy Hutton, he’s better than your Dean.

No way, a-ah, no way can pudge-faced Timothy rival Dean Winchester. Dean has curly eyelashes, beefy muscles and does tortured man-angst better than Timothy Hutton ever did!

Mother started hitting me in defence of old Timmy, so for the sake of peace and to stop me from being tickled to death, I chose to shut up. Dean still rules though.

For the love of..... (a Supernatural post)

2007-03-18T05:05:00.000Z

Jared Padalecki is a stupid bugger. He and anyone who says that Sam and Dean Winchester have to die for the show to end properly need their heads examining. Aaaarrgghh!!! How many times must I say this? No one will fondly remember this TV show, watch it repeatedly or buy the DVDs if we know the brother/s die at the end.

Why do you think I can’t bring myself to watch Devil’s Trap or In My Time of Dying? It’s too heartbreaking! Stop trying to be realistic. This is a TV show, dammit. I watch it for escapism and eye candy. If I wanted real, I’d watch the news or British television. Come on, you’re Hollywood! Don’t you know the rules? You have happy endings! Riding off into the sunset! Freedom and justice for all! It’s the non-Americans, homely people and the wise-cracking smart asses that buy the farm. Good-looking hunks save the day and get the girl. Wait, hang on…….. Dean is a wise-cracking smart ass.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

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Five minutes of watching Jensen Ackles doing an interview on a small grainy screen was enough to keep me grinning like a fool for ages. How friggin’ gorgeous is he? It’s just not fair. No one should be that beautiful. It’s not fair on the rest of us. Even that lady who must have met him for five seconds on the Jimmy Kimmel show noticed his deliciousness. “Do you curl your eyelashes?” Absolutely priceless. It’s amazing Jensen hasn’t got a big head what with all the women (and men) throwing themselves at his feet. If you’re a nut like me, go to the Supernatural.tv link and scroll down the news section for the Jimmy Kimmel link and see what I am talking about.

By the way, who the hell is Jimmy Kimmel?

There’s no need to be sad, it’s only bricks and mortar. I don’t do regrets.

2007-03-14T05:05:00.000Z

This is the house that my family have lived in for the past 29 years. There were seven of us. It has had an interesting life, this house. It has been renovated and extended several times. Its roof leaks when the wind blows in a certain direction and when it rains hard enough. It has had rats, cockroaches and various small children poke holes in its walls. It has heard screaming matches and shrieks of laughter. It has been witness to torrents of tears, fits of rages, and fierce bouts of love. Its garden is a graveyard of cats, kittens, birds, lizards, snakes and assorted small animals. This was my home.

This is our garden. There used to be a durian tree here which only bore fruit once in a blue moon, much to our family’s (and our neighbours’) disappointment. It was great for climbing though and it had a rickety swing which hung from one of its branches. Its life ended when it had to be cut down because its roots grew so huge that it cracked our front porch.

There used to be a coconut tree in this patch of the garden, but it grew the kind of coconut that wasn’t too good to eat. We tried to climb it anyway and usually ended up bitten by red ants.

Where the wet kitchen now is and its surrounding area, there used to be a storage shed, a compost heap, a starfruit tree and a papaya tree. When the developers started developing the hills behind us, we had scores of displaced monkeys and various small animals come live in our garden and eat our fruits. The monkeys also sat on our hanging laundry to eat which got me really angry because that meant we had to watch monkey butt stains off our clothes.

During one raya holiday, when we ran out of sparklers to play with, we made a little bonfire in the area near the trees. When we ran out of things to burn, we started to throw matches in, which eventually exploded and sent us running and screaming in all directions. For one moment, I thought my siblings had died. Much to my relief, every one was safe, if rather embarrassed, and only my butt was sore for the next day.
Before the house was extended, there used to be a mango tree here. As a child, I thought it seemed a rather dark and menacing tree. It was so huge, it extended over the fence and into the school next door. It had vines hanging off it but never any that were strong enough to swing from. My parents eventually had it cut down because it reached my brother’s bedroom and they were afraid snakes might get in through there.

However that did not stop the baby python that climbed through the skylight in the laundry room and hung over my dad’s head. Luckily, no one got eaten up (guess the snake was not hungry) and some fellows took it off to their Hindu temple to keep.

This porch used to have brown slippery tiles. We played hockey on it using umbrellas and our dad’s old studded capal.

The car that is parked here is our clapped out Citroen station wagon. Technically it was the kids’ car, for us kids to use. I did the most damage to it when I rear-ended another car with it. It has never worked properly since. Now it can’t go above 40km/h or more than 10km before it overheats. It’s a big shame because it has the most comfortable bucket seats which beat the seats in all the cars that I’ve ever sat in.

The kitchen and dining room used to be a different creature when I was younger. The dining room was a dark hole with no windows and you reached the kitchen through a long, narrow corridor which we used to play bowling in. The kitchen had an unlined cement floor and exposed water pipes and plumbing. You always knew if somebody was using the bathroom upstairs by the noise the pipes would make.

The banister used to be of wrought metal and it had larger gaps between the supports. We would regularly stick our heads through it, especially since our mother told us not to. My brother got his head stuck one day. Not wanting to tell our mother (because she’d say ‘I told you so’), my eldest sister got the bright idea of slathering butter on our brother’s head to grease his way out. Believe me, it was good fun rubbing all that butter in my brother’s hair as he screamed and cried himself silly.

The master bedroom was the girls’ bedroom since there are four of us, though I don’t think all four of us slept in there at the same time. We had a metal double double-decker bed which my mother told my dad not to buy (but he did anyway), which quickly became useless because it bent in the middle. Any attempts by any of us to stay on opposite sides of the bed failed because we ended up crunched up in the middle. It still has a whiff of its last occupant – cigarettes and hair products.

Most of us talk in our sleep. My eldest sister woke me up once telling me about minerals and rock formations and yelled at me because I didn’t understand what she was on about. I found out the next morning that she wanted me to turn up the air-conditioning. My younger sister mumbled threats in her sleep to kill my youngest sister. My mum would wake up and punch my dad because she had a dream that he was flirting with a young woman. I have more benign dreams; I just say, “Why don’t we get off here?”

My brother’s bedroom was the smallest but since he was the only boy, he had a room of his own. This was also where most of our toy collection was kept. We were all rabid Lego fans and we had three shelves of Lego on permanent display. One shelf depicted a medieval scene with knights, castles and Robin Hood men. Another was the futuristic shelf where we had our spaceships and astronauts and moonwalkers. The last one was the modern day one, where we had a race track, a police station, police helicopters, a hot dog stand, houses and a garage. We had set scenes and plotlines for every age and my younger sister frequently got bullied because her guy always ended up being killed. We also had Monchichi dolls (I think that’s how you spell it) brought home from our stay in the US. We had a marshmallow factory made out of an upside down tricycle and a giant unnamed doll which would regularly trash Monchichi land. We also shared a Barbie doll which we bought as an experiment. We ended up cutting her hair and made her wear ugly homemade clothes. My two younger sisters had Smurf dolls given to them when they were hospitalised. I made my youngest sister, Maryam, cry when I kicked her Smurf doll onto the sharp edge of a light fixture and its eyes came off. KJ still has hers which she jealously guards. She calls it Bluey and it sleeps on her bed still.

My parents slept in the room next door till they built another bedroom on the ground floor. I found a box of condoms in their underwear drawer when I was putting their folded clothes away. I didn’t know what they were at the time, because it had Japanese writing on the outside and a picture of some Japanese city skyline. I took one out and was disgusted because it was so slimy. It was several years later before I realised what I had found.

Once my parents built their bedroom downstairs, the balcony became more of a regular hang out place. My youngest sister had small parties up here. It was also the unofficial smoking den for my brother and sister because neither dared smoke in front of the parents. Sometimes we’d climb the roof over the kitchen unless our neighbour spotted us and start yelling for us to get down. Sometimes we’d sit on the ledge and chew the cud for a while. Sometimes we’d scoff burgers in secret.

There used to be a beautiful tree called flame-of-the-forest that grew by this drain many years ago, which perpetually shed bright red flowers. My brother fell head first into this drain when he was seven. I thought he had put flowers in his hair when I found him climbing dazedly out of the drain. I ran into the house screaming when I realised it was his blood.

We all learned to ride bicycles on this street. This was where I stupidly pressed the brakes while cycling downhill and ended up somersaulting over my bike and landing on my chin. I have the scar to this day.

So fare thee well, old house. Don't miss us too much.

Tales from Klang Valley

2007-03-06T04:38:00.000Z

This is KL

I've been hearing it from cousins and various relatives living in smaller towns and more rural areas - people in KL are a breed apart. I think they're being polite. What they mean to say is KL people are just up their own asses.

When they say KL, they don't necessarily mean the city of Kuala Lumpur itself but also that amorphous sprawl of suburbia that extends past the city itself. Sometimes people just call this vast area of human colonisation the Klang Valley. Geographically, the Klang Valley is a huge place, extending from the Titiwangsa mountain range in the north and east from which the Klang river starts and ending where land meets water in the Straits of Melaka. PJ kids and KL kids might get indignant when you lump them in the same group but to anyone who lived outside the influence of the capital city, they are all one and the same. The growth of the middle classes since Independence 50 years ago mean middle class neighbourhoods have mushroomed as well, along with all the trappings that go with it and the notions of what it means to be educated and upwardly mobile.

So I guess, it's only in the Klang Valley that I could have heard this particular gem. I was sitting at the open air tables outside a Starbucks (yes, I know, I am supporting an evil, over-priced global corporate chain, but it is the only placeI know that makes a decent soya cappucino for the lactose intolerants like me) in yet another shopping mall built within spitting distance of another shopping mall in the Klang Valley.

Anyway, I was writing in my notebook, my sister was on the internet while other people were sitting around us at tables shaded by large umbrellas, drinking their coffees and just generally relaxing and having a chat. (As you do in a coffee shop). It was all very pleasant, sitting in the shade, a gentle breeze was blowing and even the 4 o'clock sun had lost its intensity.

Before long an entity known as a Mak Datin approached a young girl who had been sitting at the table behind us. They evidently knew one another because the young girl said, "I've got us a table here," to which the Mak Datin replied, " Alaa, we can't sit outside. This is Malaysia, it's too hot to sit outside. It's not like Melbourne, kalau kat situ bolehla."

Now, to the uninitiated, this might sound inoffensive. But this statement is typical of what is wrong in Klang Valley society. One - the kind of people who want to ape the mat sallehs because they think white people are better, more sophisticated and well-travelled, they try to achieve that by buying loads of designer tat and flying to places like London and New York. Unfortunately the only reason they go to these places is to shop; they take in none of the arts, culture or heritage of these places. And to show people that they are sophisticated, they name drop like crazy. And think everything in Malaysia sucks balls.

I know Malaysia can suck but so does every country in the world but don't thumb your nose at what normal Malaysian culture is. And I'm not talking of the Malaysian culture of not knowing how to queue and parking wherever they feel like it, I'm talking about the time-honoured Malaysian culture of lepaking at the kedai kopi!

Secondly, it's the attitude that anything from overseas, especially the white Western world is automatically good and better than us. Much of this attitude is leftover from colonial times but this is the modern world, now, everything sucks!

Anyway, you can call me a hypocrite now since I was at Starbucks when my sister and I were laughing openly at that lady and dissing her behind her back. In my defense, as much money as I pay for a coffee at a global coffee chain, I throw money equally on a kopi o ais at a mamak stall. Clean ones, only though; I am still my mother's daughter and I have a weak stomach.

--------------------------------------------

Get me connected!

We have recently moved to a smaller house because my parents have sold our family home to build a super-duper, multi-powered dream home in the hills of Bukit Jelutong. I haven't had much time to explore this new area due to all the moving and cleaning but i did find a group of shoplots somewhere past the DHL and Triton headquarters. Thank God, there was an internet shop - cheap too - but it was one of those dark place half-filled with noisy primary school kids playing computer games. It reminded me of those dingy gaming arcades my mother never let us even look at because it was the haunt, she says, of truants, school drop-outs and unsavoury men. I went in anyway though I only lasted half an hour because I hate it when people look over my shoulder at my screen and th epeace was frequently interrupted by various kids screaming, "Belakang kau!", "Tembak dia!" and "Bodoh!"

The next day after having lunch at KLCC with my mother, I went to use the internet at a place which cost 4 times the price as the one in my neighbourhood. Cekik darah betul but the place was clean, comfy and CIVILISED. I had an hour before my mum called to say she was bored of shopping and wanted to go home.

The day after that the telecommunications technician that came to set up our phone line says that whoever put up the awning at the back of our house had cut one of the phone wires. This means that we can only use the phone line downstaairs and if we're desperate to have an upstairs line, we need to get somebody else in to dig into the concrete wall and reconnect the wire. Also, he tells us, that due to some techno-babble-bla-bla our broadband connection will probably last between 6 - 12 months before it goes kaput.

I'm going to be putting on my angry face to a lot of kids from now.

Waiting for Sam and Dean (a Supernatural post)

2007-03-05T06:09:00.000Z

I did not want to get too involved in the Supernatural forums; I did it before on a previous obsession and it near ruined me. Before this season’s Supernatural went on a three week hiatus, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I went on the Supernatural forum. I admit I go to the website regularly. I look at the promos for future episodes. Occasionally, out of curiosity, I look up info on Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, but I don’t delve too personally into their personal lives because:
a) they are not Sam and Dean Winchester
b) they are luvvie actors, not intrepid demon hunters

But desperate times call for desperate measures. With a new episode of Supernatural not airing till March 15, there are only so many times I can note how hot evil Sam is before I get bored.

First, I read about what other people think about Supernatural, which on a forum dedicated to Supernatural on a website dedicated to Supernatural, means that the reviews go from generally good to screaming-fan-girl adoration. Next, I read the spoilers which make my craving worse because by then I’m blithering with excitement at all the promised goodness to come. I burst a blood vessel. Nearly.

The point where I fall down is when I start trawling the web for Jensen Ackles, Jensen Ackles + Jared Padalecki, and then here’s when I not only fall down but drop down a 100 foot hole, break every bone in my body except for my thick skull so my brain can function and ponder my stupidity till I bleed to death, I google for Jensen Ackles + Joanna Krupa. God, the shame. And because I am a on a hamster-like spiral where I keep pushing the torture button instead of the sanity button, I read about them and I look at the pictures. Even I can see Joanna Krupa is drop dead gorgeous and hot to boot and if I were a lesbian (which despite me telling my cousin that I am, I am not) I’d go for Joanna Krupa. I can definitely see why a hot guy like Jensen dated her. I know, I know, it’s Jensen Ackles not Dean Winchester that is dating/dated her but as my sister (and fellow Dean fan) says, “He’s wearing Dean’s face!”

Twilight zone

2007-03-03T04:26:00.000Z

She knew she had it bad when she got up from the bed and felt disoriented. Stumbling towards her bedroom door, she opened it and peered out. The landing outside her bedroom was dark except for what was illuminated by the light from her room. The dark body of the bookcase towered to her left and she could see the shadows cast by the banister on the wall. The sun had set while she had been reading and no one had turned the lights on. She was alone upstairs.

For a moment she hesitated. Half-formed nightmares and a sense of impending doom gripped her before she realised she was being silly. Switch on the light, she told herself. She took a step away from the doorway and pressed the light switch. The light flickered for a couple of seconds before its white fluorescence steadied and illuminated the landing. There were no shadows anymore. No demonic creatures bent on torture and murder, no homicidal bogeymen with claws dripping with blood. Letting out the breath she did not realise she had been holding, she chuckled to herself. Silly girl, she thought, that’s what comes from reading too much Peter Straub and Dean Koontz in quick succession. You get too absorbed then you get strange ideas in your head.

She remembered the time when she woke up one morning and the first thing that crossed her mind was whether the lawyer was okay, whether he was still safe and alive. Then she got confused and thought, hang on, I’m fifteen – I don’t have any lawyer friends. She remembered having to sit on her bed for a few moments and sort out in her head what was real and what was not. Silly girl, she told herself again, if you can’t read horror, then don’t read it.

She made her way downstairs, noticing as she did, that the house was unusually quiet. Normally at this time, her parents would have been home from work, dinner would be boiling on the stove. She stopped at the small window halfway down the stairs. It was very black outside, the yellow street lamps seeming to struggle to against the dark of the evening. Funny, she thought, if it was this late in the evening, mum would have been yelling at her to come down for dinner already.

The lights were on in the living room and the dining room – in fact the whole ground floor was lighted, but no one seemed to be there. She stood in the middle of the kitchen looking at the empty stove. She turned and went back to the living room and looked outside the front window. Both her parents’ cars were parked in the driveway. She went out the living room and walked back upstairs to her parents’ bedroom. First she listened at the door. It was quiet inside. Maybe they’re asleep, she thought. She tapped quietly at the door at first, then knocked louder. There was no answer. She turned the door knob and pushed the door open. It was dark inside but she did not need to switch the lights on to see that her parents were not there. Their bed was messed up, which meant that they both must have come home from work since her father always made the bed without fail in the mornings.

She searched all the bedrooms, then went downstairs and searched there again. Their garden was small but she still walked to the edge of the garden and back, even though she could see all of it from their porch. They hadn't gone jogging by the looks of it because their sport shoes were still by the door.

Where were they?

She looked up at the sky, not so much for inspiration or to cry to some All-Seeing Being but because that was the only place she hadn't looked, ridiculous as it seemed to her.

Note: This blogger let her imagination run away with her one day and made up a little story so as not to scare herself anymore. She also advises against reading too many horror novels in isolation, then falling asleep.

February 2007's list

2007-02-26T06:03:00.000Z

Music

1. Somebody To Love – JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

2. Angry Angel - IMOGEN HEAP. A week at my older sister's meant a good a long trawl through her extensive CD collection. All of us siblings have different tastes in music but at various junctures our paths cross, and this old gem by Imogen Heap is one of them.

3. Set The Fire To The Third Bar – SNOW PATROL & MARTHA WAINWRIGHT. I hated this at first but it's one of those songs that grow on you.

4. Not My Kinda Scene – POWDERFINGER. Courtesy of my sister again, I found this old tune on a CD which I think is actually mine, but I can't very well prove it. We're always nicking stuff from each other anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. Slow-rock still sounding good.

5. Your Cover’s Blown – BELLE & SEBASTIAN. My younger sister sent me this track ages ago but I must have been in some kind of noisy guitar rock only mood that I couldn't really bring myself to like it. But I've been organising my music collection on my laptop and have given this a second chance. What do you know, I find myself bopping my head, tapping my feet and doing hand gestures along to its smooth, chill out beats. It's a bit long, going past six minutes so the song is in three parts, with the middle bit going a bit whacked out.

6. Renegade – STYX. I like this song mainly by association. When I hear it, I always picture Dean and Sam Winchester in their stolen SWAT uniforms running from the feds, looking so hunksome.

7. Laugh, I Nearly Died – THE ROLLING STONES. Every time I think I’ve listened to this song too many times, the opening strains of this song manage to hook me in to listening a bit more. It’s just so damned sexy.

Books

1. The X-Files Book of the Unexplained Volume One & Two – JANE GOLDMAN. When my mind is restless and I can’t find a thought that sticks in my head without it withering away as if it were leaves in wind, I know there is no point in trying to focus my mind starting a new novel. This is when I raid the bookshelves, either by reading something so old and familiar I could quote lines from it or by reading non-fiction. From the back of a dusty bookcase, I come upon two hardbacks belonging to my younger sister.

At one stage, she was a fanatical X-File fan, or X-Phile, and she collected the books, comics, card games, etc. I used to collect Star Wars paraphernalia, so the both of us would haunt our local comic book store, checking out prices, saving a cent here and there and salivating over the day when we could buy our precious collectibles. Now, evidence of our halcyon days lays gathering dust (or destroyed by younger cousins who did not understand that a model kit spaceship is not meant to be banged about).

Anyway, this is two volumes of explaining the background of the inspiration to the stories that turned up on X-Files. The author references her work, so if you ever feel like knowing more of alien abductions, ESP, spontaneous combustion – it's all here.

Morality tales for grown ups

2007-02-19T12:27:00.000Z

Once upon a time, there were two best guy friends who met with two best girl friends. Guy A married Girl A and Guy B married Girl B and each couple went on to have many children and many happy (I think) years of marriage thereafter.

Unfortunately Couple B was afflicted with Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses Syndrome, more commonly known in Malaysia as kiasu. Their favourite people to inflict this disease on were their best friends, Couple A, who on a normal day, could not give a rat’s ass whether the car they drove, the neighbourhood they lived in or the type of china they used would enhance their status symbol or not. However, there was one thing in which Couple A, mainly Girl A, was very insecure about, which were her children and her pre-occupation with what was ‘normal’ society behaviour. Symptoms have been mainly kept under control due to both couples being busy with the needs of a growing family but once the children left the nest, things came to a head. Together with equally kiasu empty nesters who are also afflicted to the different but related syndrome of WWPS (What Will People Say?), they start to compare and one-upman each other with tales of how angelic their respective children are, what wonderful careers they have, how brilliantly smart they are and how many prospective suitors their very attractive children have got etc etc.

Girl A, who has grown into Woman A, is normally the kind of woman who does not suffer fools gladly but has a blind spot when it comes to her so-called friends. She is also a woman who grew up in a house where criticisms were plenty, positive encouragement rare and anything she did was never good enough. As a result, any good sense or ideas she has frequently gets shot down by her more materialistic and status conscious friends. Since these ‘friends’, particularly Girl B (who is now Woman B), are obsessed about presenting not only to the world but particularly to their friends how perfect their own family and life are, they failed to mention the delinquent things their children have done and the many times their children drove them up the wall. Woman A, in all her innocence, would pour out her troubles and misgivings while Woman B would listen smugly to all this then go on about how her own brood are the stiff of angels.

As a result Woman A has developed strange ideas of what is correct and proper behaviour from her children. Even though she has raised her children perfectly well enough and these now adult children are happily going about doing exactly the same things that other adult children are doing, Woman A felt she had screwed up as a mother and therefore her children were failures in this particularly insular society. Now, in her middle years, she felt compelled to harp on their imagined faults and has embarked on a program of re-educating her children, much to the horror of those unfortunate enough to be within spitting distance of her.

Having grown increasingly insular in their middle years, Couple A are of the opinion that their 20-something children are abnormal for not wanting to spend all their time with their parents. They also think it is abnormal for their young adult children to have opinions different from theirs, to be impulsive, to change their mind from one minute to the next, to get angry about the injustices of the world, to act silly over cute TV actors, to go out with their friends instead of their parents – basically all the things that normal young people everywhere do but because Couple A are so removed from everything that goes on in the normal world, they do not understand this. Their daughters tried to explain it to them, “What is the point of youth if you are going to act like old men?” – but Couple A still don’t get it.

One day, Woman A had a small revelation. She was visiting couple C, both doctors who have looked after all of her children. She has known them for more than 30-odd years but sees them probably about once a year. During this visit, on the eve of Chinese New Year, Woman A was accompanied by one of her daughters, who although is loathe to spend her time visiting her mother’s friends, did not mind this trip as she quite likes Couple C and would like to see them as she has not seen them for many years. (Also, as she is still unmarried she was hoping to score some ang pows).

After the usual greetings, talk inevitably turned to each other’s children. Couple C has three grown up children, all unmarried and all scattered in different parts of the world. Instead of spouting about how their children calls them dutifully every day and never gives them any trouble whatsoever, Couple C were quite candid about the hi-jinks of their children and their anxieties about them. Parents will be parents, they said, you can’t stop worrying about your kids but they gotta do what they gotta do. And so Woman A learnt that her children weren’t in fact, devil-children after all. They did exactly what the esteemed doctors’ children did – they travelled all over the world, they changed jobs at the drop of a hat, they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives, and they had different aspirations and ambitions than what their parents had for them.

Woman A took heart in this and realised she was not crazy and her children were not crazy and that Woman B’s words were actually poison to her soul. Of course, her children had been telling her these things for years but Woman A only heard what she wanted to hear. It was in fact, the very same fault that she frequently accused her children of having.

However, this was not the first time Woman A had heard of imperfect children. Firstly she used to be a teacher, so she should know better. Secondly, if she had cared to listen, there were plenty of screwed up kids among her children’s friends. She should be thankful that none of her kids turned out to be the k-snorting, bed-hopping, suicidal, devil worshipping law students that roam the streets of Klang Valley nowadays.

When told by her children that she should really ditch Couple B sake of her sanity, Woman A snapped in reply, “What do you young people know about friendship? We have been through a lot together.” Well, to this the children thought in silence, “Yes, we are young and callow but we know enough that the people who you call your friends shouldn’t shit on you when you’re down.”

So it came as a surprise one day when Couple A did not inform their friends, Couple B, that the reason they were selling the house that they had lived in for the past 30-odd years was to finance the building of an even bigger dream home. Couple B were left thinking that poor Couple A had fallen on hard times and had to sell their home to make ends meet, leaving their comfy semi-detached house in a leafy neighbourhood to go live in a tiny terraced house owned by their daughter-in-law in the unfashionable town of Batu Tiga, Shah Alam. They must feel bad for their long time friends but not without a hint of smugness and glee.

It seemed that Couple A had finally gotten fed up of Couple B’s showboating and were starting to have a little fun with their so-called friends. Next thing they need to learn – get off their children’s backs.

Tall Tales (a Supernatural post)

2007-02-18T03:05:00.001Z

The problem with addictions is when you think you need a little bit more, just a little bit to satisfy your craving then you’ll be alright but that little bit more is never enough. You have one more and as soon as that is over, you want another one.

And how could I not want another one when that addiction is as adorable as Dean and Sam Winchester?

You know when you hear guys say that their ultimate fantasy is to have a threesome with sisters or twins and you think, god, that’s sick? Or that they get a kick out of seeing women wrestle? I never really understood that until I saw Sam and Dean wrestling with each other on a bed and I went, “Yeaa—hh.” I only wish that scene was longer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m gagging for a ménage a trois with the Winchester brothers, but I can see where the impulse comes from….. although I still think it’s gross.

Too much information? Take a breather.

After all the angst, heartache and drama of the past few episodes and Season 2 in general, it was refreshing to get an episode played for laughs. We also get seemingly three different mysteries to solve in this episode too – a vengeful female spirit, aliens with a penchant for slow dancing with their abductees and a man-eating alligator. All very weird, even by the Winchester standards. What made this episode even funnier is the way the events of the past week are told in flashback to a bewildered Bobby (a fellow hunter and longtime family friend), with each brother recounting his version of the story. So we have Dean portraying Sam as a prissy, tight-ass, over-sentimental wuss and Sam making Dean out to be a slutty, boorish pig. All exaggerations but with a kernel of truth in it.

Jensen Ackles tends to get the witty one liners and most of the angsty, I-am-tortured-but-keeping-my-game-face-on scenes but I think in this episode, Jared wins hands down for getting the best parts. Top scene has got to be when in Dean’s recollection, Sam’s reaction to Dean’s sleazing in the bar is, “Dean, what are you doing? This is a very serious investigation. We don’t have time for any of your bla bla bla. Bla bla bla. Blaaa..”

Of course it doesn’t sound funny when you read it but the expression and intonation that Jared pulled are priceless. No matter how many times I watch it, I never fail to laugh out loud. Jared may not have as rubbery a face as Jensen but his tone of voice can convey a lot, which he put to good use previously in Born Under A Bad Sign as evil Sam.

I must say that both Jensen and Jared’s acting have come a long way from their early days. No, actually let me correct that to just Jensen because honestly I’ve haven’t seen enough of Jared in his earlier work to make a judgement. Jensen, now, I remember him doing a dying scene in Season 1 of Dark Angel that was so bad, I laughed. It was supposed to be really sad and all but he looked so fake, my tears were tears of amusement, not sadness.

Anyway, if Dean’s not careful (especially if he goes the David Boreanaz way) and Sam gets better scenes, Sam could be shaping up to be the hotter Winchester brother, what with him being more buff this season compared to the last one. (Oh, yes Sam, I have noticed). Oh no, what have I said? I like Sam better than Dean?!? Blasphemy against the leader!!

Aaah, what the heck, I am 27. You need to keep my attention, Dean.

Edit: I am 27, and fickle. I’ve just watched Born Under A Bad Sign and Nightshifter again and I think Dean is definitely the hotter brother. As much as I enjoyed the light-heartedness and tomfoolery of Tall Tales, I prefer Dean when he is all serious Action Man and is taking charge of situations. Even when demons are manipulating his feelings, he never succumbs and always uses his head. Sheesh, and people keep on thinking he’s the dumb brother.

Tell me it won't be so! (a Supenatural post)

2007-02-16T03:11:00.000Z

While waiting for the next episode of Supernatural to be available on the net, I've been trawling the websites on any news and titbits I can find on the show. I know going to forums isn't always the best thing to do -it has ruined a few book plots that I had looked forward to - but when you're addicted, you need something to keep ou from having withdrawal symptoms. As always, something somebody mentions in passing on a forum has put a horrible idea in my head, mainly on how Supernatural would end.

Dea, as any fan is aware, was dead, or very nearly dead at the opening of Season 2, and it was his father's deal with the Yellow-Eyed Demon which miraculously healed his traumatic head wounds and gave him back his life. Dean cottoned on to this fact early on, though it wasn't till Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things that he vocalises this and bared his anguish over the fact that his father died for him and his unnatural existence has made him become what he himself hunts.

So, now my question is - if Dean is himself an unnatural existence, will he at some point, when all things are put right, die because he should have died a long time ago?

It seems like a logical conclusion but I don't watch tv for logic, I do it for escapism. Unless of course it is horribly illogical and I can't suspend my disbelief but that is a topic for another day. There is only one way I want this story to end and that is happy. Happy, happy, happy. You hear me network people? I won't buy your DVDs otherwise.

Death by burger - or maybe not

2007-02-15T06:33:00.000Z

Most kids rebel against their parents by running away from home, or by doing drugs or by getting drunk on bottles of cider. It’s understandable, the need for self-destruction, especially because by destroying yourself, you destroy what your parents had borne and nurtured. But because I’m a frigging good girl and have still have some sense of self-preservation, I rebel by scoffing burgers.

Burgers? What’s so rebellious about that, you say? Food, and who feeds you is control. Any anorexic will tell you that. And my mother is the ultimate food Nazi. McDonald’s is anathema to her. Even before organic became trendy, she was ordering boxes of organic vegetables from a supplier in Cameron Highlands. She only buys free range and will spend RM30 for one free-range, organic chicken. Everything has to be low-salt, low-fat, preservative-free, unbleached etc. She reads numerous health magazines and knows more about nutrition than I do. So you see, when it comes to rebelling, swallowing a Big Mac is as bad as it can be.

Things got so bad at one point that I vowed that I would eat at all four major fast-food outlets in one day. That mission ended in failure because I only managed to eat two burgers a day before giving up and having to start all over again the next day. Even my little sister, who could be relied on to support any rebel causes, was appalled at my lardy ambition. I think Super Size Me has had an effect on her.

The problem comes when you rebel without a cause. When your mum says you can have a meal at A&W while waiting for her to finish class, suddenly a Double Double Cheeseburger smuggled into the house doesn’t seem so dangerous anymore. Or when she gives you the keys to the house so that you don’t have to yell for someone to open the door every time you come home.

This is decidedly strange. It’s not turning out to be the protracted battle I thought it would be. Maybe my oldest sister’s previous screaming matches with my mother over curfews when she found herself living back home with the parents has paved the way for me. Or maybe it was me going the crazy the last time I was home. Maybe my mother is tired of arguing.

Maybe she thinks I am right. Haw haw.

Whatever it is, we’re getting along better now. I’ve re-learnt that giving in to the small things that my mum wants equals trust and the keys to the car. And I think that my mum’s learnt that sometimes I need my own space and want to do things my way.

-----------------------------------------------

I’ve had a few friends tell me that I shouldn’t be too harsh when judging people and that I should make more time to get to know people better before denouncing them as fools, dunces and all-round wankers. All very sound and sage advice. Trouble is, I’m too stubborn, hard-hearted and impatient to deal with people who I believe to be wasting my time. Also, I’ve developed a very short fuse nowadays, especially with morons, so I try to avoid situations where I will explode and say something I will seriously regret later. I might also add that most of the time I trust my first instincts about a person and so when I know I’m right, there’s very little that can change my mind. Have I said that I’m stubborn?

So my moron radar was alerted last night when I answered the house phone. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello
Middle-aged sounding man: (Pause with heavy breathing) Aaaahh……is your dad still in Brunei?
Me: Um….ye-as.
MASM: Ah, who is this? Is that Maryam?
Me: No, it’s Kere.
MASM: Oh, Kere, you’re home. Which one are you? The one in Australia?
Me: No, the one in England.
MASM: Ahah, the one in Liverpool.
Me: Ya. Can I know who’s speaking please?
MASM: (Ignores my question) Why are you back? Cuti ke?
Me: Tak, balik for good.
MASM: Hah, tu nak kawin la tu.
Me: (I faked a laugh because this guy is obviously my dad’s acquaintance and telling him to fuck off for insinuating that I came home to find a husband is clearly the wrong thing to do)
MASM: Hah? Betul ke nak kawin?
Me: Tak.
MASM: Oh.
Me: Who is this again?
MASM: Can I speak to your mother?
Me: Who is this?
MASM: Izzudin.

Oh, hello. Wanker.

When I was a kid, I got an earful from my parents if my friends called the house and never introduced themselves or asked to speak to me properly. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one with friends who aren’t aware of correct phone etiquette. And this man is fifty-plus, so what’s his excuse?

----------------------------------------------------

The signs have been everywhere but what with my erratic sleeping pattern, I forgot that yesterday was Valentine’s Day until I saw some poor schmuck standing outside the girls’ school gates near my house with a bunch of flowers and a pack of Ferrero Rocher. He looked about fifteen and had this lovelorn look on his face. My mother and I had a good laugh as we drove by. Of course we can laugh about it because one is a woman married for 33 years who knows all about love and its ups and downs, while the other is a cynic who has never been in love. Both of us have no illusions about the big L.

-----------------------------------------------------

I keep telling my sister – we need to go to Vancouver. I know Dean Winchester doesn’t exist but the closest I can get to him is to see the guy who plays him and that guy is Jensen Ackles, who films mainly in Vancouver. I have seen him in interviews and behind-the-scenes featurettes. He is very good-looking but not as forward or caustic as Dean Winchester, but hey, he’ll do. In real life, no one can be that perfect. Anyone who looks that good physically has to have something wrong with them somewhere. Maybe Jensen Ackles has knobbly knees or something. A little balancing on God’s part I think. Although some of us seem unlucky enough to be both ugly and have zero personality.

I need to go to Vancouver.

Born under a hot sign (a Supernatural post)

2007-02-12T02:26:00.000Z

Frigging hot, I'm telling you. Last Thursday's episode of Supernatural, Born Under A Bad Sign, may be in the running for one of the best yet. Please forgive me, Dean, for saying that your brother Sam was frigging ace in that episode. You are still my leader, Dean, but how hot was dear Sammy in that one. I think I must be a sicko for finding evil Sam so bloody amazing but he does play evil wonderfully well. My two favourite moments are that deep, howling laugh he let rip towards the end of the episode and when he taunted Jo and said in a sing-song voice,"My daddy shot your daddy in the head." Fucking brilliant.

Although there are a few things I am unhappy about, two of which I specifically mention in a previous post. The first is poor Dean being tortured again! Poor boy, give him a break. He keeps having his pretty face bashed in, this time by his demon-possessed brother. Now, that Sam is a big strapping lad and it pained me greatly to see him repeatedly hitting Dean. To top it all off, he goes and emotionally tortures Dean by bringing up all Dean's insecurities and calling him worthless. Fie!

The second issue I have is the fact that the fans hate Jo so much that Eric Kripke (the creator of Supernatural) has bowed down to pressure and written her out as Dean's possible love interest and specifically mentioned in this episode that Dean thinks of her as a little sister. Personally I think the fans (mainly girls) hate her so much because they feel threatened by her and actually really think that Jo suits Dean to a tee. Girls don't like the competition, see. Now, I know I said previously that this series don't work with the brothers having love interests but if Dean gets it on with Jo, I wouldn't mind too badly because one: I think Dean deserves a little happiness in his life, two: I think Jo kicks twenty kinds of ass, and three: I'm not so deluded that I think I can have Dean for myself. Though there are some days that my imagination runs that way.........

Anyway, where was I? This episode was great but I think the writers should pull their thumbs out of their asses and get cracking on some big episodes soon. All these self-contained episodes where the boys are in mainly isolated situations are fine but I think it's time to crank up the excitement factor and start doing some major arc storylines here. Self-contained episodes were fine in Season 1 but the writers have to up the game in Season 2 and keep the fans hanging in there with more development on the Yellow-Eyed Demon plot and the fact that the police are on their tail. They have already set up a few threads regarding this, plus now the brothers may have the other hunters after them too.

There is another thing that is bothering me. Does Jensen Ackles have a no unnecessary nudity clause in his contract? In this episode he gets soaked in a river and gets shot in the shoulder. In any other TV series, this signals the oppurtunity for the guy to get his shirt off. But no, all Dean gets is a liitle bit of the arm of his t-shirt taken off while he keep the rest of it on. Dear me, how disappointing. Certainly, if it was a woman, they'd have her stripped down to her undies by now. However, I guess they're trying to keep the tone of the series dark and having a hot guy take his shirt off isn't exactly in keeping with the series' dark and sombre mood. Damn that to hell. Much as I admire the writers for not letting the series descend into traditional Hollywood cheese fest, I am still bitterly disappointed at this missed oppurtunity. I shall just have to content myself with Dean's mega bicep instead.

In Born Under A Bad Sign, Dean was hot as usual but little Sam has upgraded himself from cute to hot. Of course, he might fall back to just cute in next week's episode but for now he is offically hot. I've decided that Dean shall also be known as 'The Face' while Sam shall be 'The Body'. Two frigging hot brothers. We are not worthy.

Last day

2007-02-04T10:40:00.000Z

So here it is, the last day of my life in England. After living here for nine years, I thought I should write something that would summarise my experiences as a Malaysian in England. I started out with a list of things I will miss. I got to number eight when I realised that this is terrible. I was condensing a third of my life into a dry list of likes and dislikes. Surely my life has more meaning than that? Nine years is a long time and I did a lot of growing up in those nine years.

In the end, I thought: sod it. This isn’t the end of the world (not that I know of anyway). I’m not dying. I’m just moving. No regrets, remember. I don’t want to be sentimental about this. Look at this way, I’m starting over. I’m starting over in the land of my birth. I may be a stranger in it but – tanah tumpahnya darahku – I’ve always been a part of it.

I’m not going to cry, or look back and try to make myself feel moody about things I’ll leave behind. I’m standing up tall, looking ahead to my future. Because I think it will be another big adventure.

I like adventures.

Imagine me and Dean (a Supernatural post)

2007-02-02T22:37:00.001Z

Thirteen down, nine more to go. So, at a rate of one episode per week, Season 2 of Supernatural will end somewhere in April. Hopefully, there will be a Season 3 – never mind if I have to wait six to seven months for it. I also hope to be gainfully employed (and busy) come April but I doubt my ardour for one Dean Winchester will be much diminished. He is, after all, hot.

Of course in real life, he would probably be frustrating to live with what with him frequently disappearing on road trips and always trying to be the macho guy and all. Oh and he’s bossy too. But then again, that’s why he’s my fantasy fancy man and not my real man. Then again, my mother did say that there’s no way I could get a man as hot as Dean looking and acting the way I do. Thanks for the reality check, ma. But didn’t you also say always aim for As, so if I extrapolate that to men like Dean instead of exam results……..

Hot guys go after hot girls. That is the order of life. I can’t do hot. I can do moody, sarcastic and unhinged but hot is beyond my abilities. Still, that’s what television and the imagination is for. Maybe Dean likes moody, sarcastic and unhinged. As long as the network keep Supernatural on air, I would be happy. Even if they do decide to end it, I hope it would end in a way that I could continue to imagine happy times for Dean and me.

In the last obsession I had for a fictional character, the author ended the hero’s life as a lonely, broken-spirited man living in obscurity and near-poverty. I howled and cursed the author for many days. I would have torn the book – I was that angry - only I respect my books too much. Yes, the man’s not real but it was testament to the author’s skill that he the protagonist felt as if he was flesh and blood to me. And it is testament to the skills of the writers, the film crew and the actor that make Dean Winchester so undoubtedly real. God, how I wish I had skill like that. That would be the secret power I’d want to have. Other than telekinesis of course, ala the Jedi.

Anyway, I digress. Long live Dean Winchester. Please don’t die. Also, I hope your brother makes it too because he’s kinda cute and your hotness is increased when you so protectively look after your baby brother.

Yours truly.

(Aameeeeeen)

A letter to the makers of Supernatural

2007-01-31T09:57:00.000Z

(Dean and Sam doing a Mulder and Scully)

I watched the latest episode Night Shifter yesterday and I have got to say that, in American speak, it was totally awesome. Now, because I am not the most eloquent of writers and because my brain is half-man, I shall put my points across in a list.

What I like about Supernatural so far:

1. The two brothers. Yum mee, keep those two brothers coming. Especially Dean.

2. The fact that Sam and Dean constantly take the mickey out of each other.

3. Dean's one liners. "I don't do shorts, sweetheart."

4. Dean, because he is so hot.

5. The fight scenes where they use everything they've got: guns, crossbows, knives, bare knuckles, head butts.

6. The things they hunt: demons, murderous ghosts, vengeful spirits, vampires, satanic preachers, backswood crazies, telekinetic murderers.

7. The beautiful, haunting cinematography.

8. For making classic rock cool again.

9. Sam's 'guilty conscience for surfing internet porn'.

10. A cool, ass-kicking Dad.

11. Dean, because he is so hot.

12. The self-contained episodes coupled with a major story arc running through the series. Leaves you satisfied for one night but keeps you coming back for more.

13. Sam - even though he's not as hot as Dean, he's still nothing to sniff at.

14. Dean's ability to fix his car from scratch. I like a man who is good with his hands.

What I would not like to see:

1. Love interests. That would just be wrong. Where are they to be? In the back seat? No, this is a series based on two brothers hitting the road, fighting demons. You can’t have girlfriends tagging along. Beside, I would be hurling abuse at them every time the girlfriend/s came on screen.

2. Poor Dean being tortured again. My heart just can’t bear it.

3. Dean continuing with the marshmallow look. What is going on with that? He looks puffy and tired lately. Maybe he is tired in real life working 15 hours a day. Poor lamb.

What I'd like to see next:

1. More episodes like Night Shifter because the risk factor is upped whenever the larger world and the authorities are brought in to play, i.e. The Usual Suspects, Skin.

2. The boys to wear fewer clothes. Why are they always in bulky jackets, long shirts and several layers of them, I might add? I know it's cold in Vancouver but why do they have their jackets on indoors too? Shoot in L.A. if it means that they get a bit of warmth and get to walk around in just fitting t-shirts.

3. Sam with a decent haircut.

4. Sam and Dean’s dad, John, to come back for few more episodes.

5. Jo, played by Alona Tal, to kick some ass with the boys. I don’t know why lots of Supernatural fans don’t like her, but I think she’s cool.

6. The secret to Sam’s power to be shown before the end of Season 2. Is he or is he not demon spawn?

7. Has Dean got some special powers, besides his innate hotness?

8. More demon hunters. We know there are more out there and I’d love to see them join forces for a big season finale.

9. The FBI closing in on Sam and Dean. How are they to explain that they are not murderous, paramilitary whack jobs?

10. Bring on the Yellow-Eyed Demon!

11. Ellen doing more besides looking worried and fielding telephone calls from Sam and Dean.

12. The boys giving each other a proper hug instead of the half-assed, we’re-not-gay hugs they always do.

13. For Dean to have a home, and for Sam to go to school. Sob! It’s what John wanted for them before he died.

January 2007's list

2007-01-30T10:52:00.000Z

Music

1. Patience - TAKE THAT

2. Rehab - AMY WINEHOUSE. Scary woman, who despite her anorexic appearance, looks like she can beat you up in a darkened London alley any time. Powerful voice, catchy song.

3. Carry On My Wayward Son - KANSAS. You gotta blame Supernatural for this revival in classic rock. A shame I threw away my Yngwie Malmstein and Deep Purple songs. It would have been so good.

4. Highway to Hell - AC/DC. Ditto.

5. Bones - THE KILLERS. Rousing chorus, a hint of over-the-topness. You gotta love The Kilers.

6. Smack That - AKON. I don't really like rap or its ilk or the proponents of its genre who go about thinking their God's gift and saying "I'm hard me, I got shot nine times," and making it obligatory to have all sorts of naked ladies dance provocatively around them while they themselves are dressed in several layers of clothes. Hey,man, if you want to show that you've got balls, why don't you take off your clothes as well, huh? Anyway, some songs are catchy.

7. You Know My Name - CHRIS CORNELL. I resisted the whole James Bond media machine, but days at home watching music videos meant that this song frequently popped up. I guess it grew on me.

Film

1. Eragon. Bloody hell, what a total waste of time and money this was. I'm shocked it even got made or that it managed to pull some quality actors like Robert Carlyle and Rachel Weiscz. Biggest con on planet earth. I would have walked out several times if it wasn't because I don't walk out on the principle I paid good money for it and I didn't want to leave a warm cinema to hang around in the cold for the next four hours while waiting fo rmy car to be fixed.

2. Miami Vice. Dull as ditchwater, despite the movie itself looking all shiny and slick. It just lacked pizzazz and chemistry. What's with all the unnecessary sex scenes anyway? Nowadays, there's so much naked flesh everywhere that it's become boring and sometimes, gross. There's got to be some other incentive for me to watch some other person's naked butt in front of me, like if Jensen Ackles did it in Supernatural for instance. But it can't be because of a girl, you see. We don't want any of that. I am a highly jealous person.

3. Failure To Launch. Blame my flatmate for this, I wanted a horror movie for Saturday night. Still, it was marginally more interesting to watch than Miami Vice, which we borrowed on the same night. I wouldn't borrow it again though. It's a romantic comedy after all and it's full of the kind of shit deluded men and women feed you in order for you to believe that if you are a little cute and quirky and flick your hair a little bit, you will soon find love with somebody who is also cute and quirky and will flick their pecs a little bit. Bollocks to that. Also, I had additional sound effects from my flatmate who giggled like a schoolgirl whenever Matthew McConnaghey flashed a 'Look at me, I'm so cheeky' smile or took off his shirt to show his abs. I'm trying to think of the ending of the film, but I can't remember. Actually, I can't be arsed.

4. Casshern. This was my choice using my friend's DVD rental card and typically for me, it's some depressing science-fiction movie. I don't think I can even explain it coherently since I don't completely understand the ending. It's set in a future world where man's years of destructive wars have brought the planet to its knees and millions die due to pollution-related diseases. Of course some big brained scientist tries to save the world and his dying wife by growing, in vitro, human organs to replace the disease-ravaged ones. Predictably it all leads to chaos. The cinematography is extremely gorgeous with some great set-pieces and it's all very theatrical and operatic with some seriously creepy bits thrown in but I got annoyed by the constant music in the background and lots of preaching by some of the characters. I don't actually hate the movie but the film left me distinctly uncomfortable and confused.

5. Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Now this is a film you can just sit back, watch and laugh your head off. It doesn't require a lot of brain power to watch but at the same time its affable nature and good set pieces do not insult your intelligence. Typically in American comedies of this type there's always a scene with an animal going crazy in it, which I think is so predictable and yawn-inducing but I enjoyed myself through most of the movie and laughed like crazy several times. Quote: "Daddy's not coming on anything!" Classic.

Books

My current unsettled situation means that I haven't felt like reading for over a month now. I need security and stability in order to commit to a novel. I did manage one short story though, which I managed on nights when I didn't feel like talking and wanted my own company.

1. The Time Machine - H.G. Wells. Herbert George Wells was one hell of a guy for coming up with ideas. The War of The Worlds and The Island of Dr. Moreau were some of his more well known novels. The Time Machine concerns us with of course, time travelling, told not from the point of view of the time traveller but a witness to the time traveller's tales. The time traveller (for we never discover his real name) travelled to a time sevreal hundred thousand years in the future where humans have evolved into two separate species - one subterranean and one living above ground. As a lot of science fiction of that era was, it is highly spooky with plenty of social commentary that is relevant even now. It was also claustrophobic at times especially when the time traveller ventured underground.

Pandas in Dublin

2007-01-29T15:18:00.000Z

Two weeks ago, I saw the saxophonist from The Zutons out shopping with a friend in Liverpool's town centre. Last Friday, I saw Ronan Keating on the plane I boarded to go to Dublin. The only reason I saw him was because he was wearing huge, Nicole Richie type sunglasses in the plane and I thought, "Who's the poser in the glasses?" and turned to look at him properly. I whispered this discovery to my sister who said, "Why don't you ask for his autograph?"

"What?! I'm not a fan. I hate his songs," I said indignantly.

In Dublin, my sister was hoping to spot Bono. She's been a massive fan of U2 since she was in her early teens (she's thirty one now). The last time she was in Dublin about five years ago, she spent two days wandering outside Bono's house on the off chance he might be home and she could, I guess, scream and faint at the sight of him.

However, we were not there to spot celebrities but to see my brother, his wife and their burgeoning family. My sister-in-law gave birth to a baby boy in November last year and neither of us have seen him in the flesh. He's an adorable baby who looks like Yoda and prone to colicky stomach pains, eczema and screaming. Can't fault him for all that screaming with that much to trouble him, but it must be hard for his poor mother. I'm tired just looking at what she does on a daily basis.

My 4 year old niece is getting smarter every day, methinks. She already speaks in a Dublin accent but she can imitate a standard English accent from all the BBC education programmes she watches. She can argue logically ("It's only a little bit, Daddy"), can count to twenty in English, Irish Gaelic and Spanish, and can use the internet to get on to her favourite websites like Dora the Explorer and CeeBeeBies. She can sing the whole of Shakira's 'Hips Don't Lie' (albeit with plenty of mispronounced words) and quite gamely sings, "What the hell are you waiting for?" whenever Jay Z & Linkin Park's 'Numb/Encore' comes on the radio. Believe me, it is very bizarre to hear the word 'hell' said in a cute, piping little girl's voice.

Continuing in my niece's education, I was at my brother's computer with Niece sitting on my lap watching a panda video on YouTube. Niece spots a still of a South Park cartoon and whines several times that she wants to see it. The episode is called 'Sexual Harrassment Panda' which should have warned me about what to expect but I'm not a parent and I haven't watched South Park in years, so I stupidly clicked on it. The episode goes something like this:

Teacher: Due to several incidents in the country, I have been instructed to teach about sexual harrassment in schools. Now, does anybody know what sexual harrassment is?

Eric: When you're trying to have sexual intercourse with a lady friend and some other guy comes along and tickles your balls from behind.

It then dawned on me that Niece really shouldn't be watching this. Really. Thankfully, Niece didn't make much of a fuss when I switched the video to something else. She musn't have enjoyed it. I just pray she doesn't go around telling her teachers what sexual harrasment is.

By the way below was the panda video we were initially watching. My niece and I couldn't stop playing it over and over again.

Dean (a Supernatural post)

2007-01-25T14:26:00.000Z

How do I love Dean? Let me count the ways.

1. Gorgeous, melt-inducing smile
2. Sexy, come-hither eyes
3. Razor sharp cheekbones
4. 100% pure Texan beef. Yum.

Tonight, I will be at my sister’s place in London, the last stop of my journey before I finally leave England for good. Civilisation at last, as my sister has a broadband connection and a working computer. I can finally watch the two Supernatural episodes I have missed so far. But being the technologically challenged person that I am, I have to watch it on the small screen of YouTube. Still, it’s better than nothing and I can moon over Jensen/Dean in private while my sister and her husband are at work. Aaaaaah…… happiness.

I don’t think all this ready access to the internet will lessen the length of my fevered discussions about Dean with my sister Maryam. Lately, our phone conversations have consisted mainly of this:

Me: Dean is hot. Heh heh heh.
Maryam: So hot. Hee hee hee.
(Pause as we both think about Dean’s hotness).
Me: Remember that episode with him in the hospital where he only had a T-shirt and pajama pants on?
Maryam: Ummmm, yes. He should wear fewer clothes more often.

OR

Me: ……….and that was why I had another argument with Mama.
Maryam: Yeah, I understand. Anyway, Dean is so hot.
Me: Yeah. Hotttttt.

Harrison

2007-01-20T12:56:00.000Z

Goodbye Harrison. You have been good to me. You were my freedom. You were my burden. But most importantly, with you, I could go places. You were my boy racer. You were empowerment.

But now I must bid you farewell, for where I go, you cannot follow. You cost too much. And you need fixing.

Today, I give you to a Londoner, who is desperate for something like you. I hope she gains as much joy from you as I did.

Goodbye Harrison Ford. You were my Focus.

(Tear trickles down cheek).

The end.

Enemy of the state

2007-01-19T14:13:00.000Z

This is a rather novel experience for me. From being the one who reportedly caused my mother the least trouble, I have moved in the span of two months, into being the enemy of the state. I am almost proud of that achievement except for the fact that this whole situation is causing my mother grief. I would also feel more guilty if I thought that this was all my fault, rather than something my mother blew out of all proportion. Seriously, I have a sneaking suspicion that my mother secretly enjoys all this drama.

Maybe part of my mum’s shock and anger is the fact that I’ve actually stood up for myself. Although I think the fact that I acted like a loony when I was last back didn’t help either. (I pretended that I was an alien from outer space and that the Zouk club in KL was the mothership – I know it sounds crazy, but it was an outlet for my feelings in order for me to not go off the rails for real). I have always been the quiet one, the neutral, the observer, the one who kept sane when all chaos that are my siblings and my dad broke around her. I was bloody Switzerland. Heck, I was so silent my older sister seriously thought I had some form of autism. I didn’t even have a teenage rebellion – just the usual sulking, hiding in my room and answering in monosyllables, which I think is the absolute minimum that a teenager should do.

But people change. People open their minds up a little bit. People think about things a bit more. People open their mouths and fight back once in a while. I don’t think anybody can ever change their basic nature. But I also believe even if you are naturally quiet, you can learn to speak up, to be more sociable and friendly. I don’t think you would ever be the life of the party but at least you’re in the party, if you get what I mean.

Judging by the fact that my mother still moans to my youngest sister and holds me up as an example of what not to be, I guess she’s still mad at me. But knowing my mother’s rages, I will eventually get back into her good books and she’ll pick on some other child of hers to behold as a bad example. Until that title falls back to my sister Maryam (haw haw), I think I’ll enjoy being the enemy for a while.

Of films and bands

2007-01-17T11:44:00.000Z

Films I’m looking forward to see in 2007:

a) The Last King of Scotland – The first reason is because it looks quite good and interesting. Secondly, because James McAvoy is in it. Okay, actually the first reason is because James McAvoy is in it. I find him compelling to watch. I can’t quite take my eyes off him when he’s on screen. Much to my shame, I never knew he was Scottish until I saw him on T4 speaking in a heavy Glaswegian accent. Who knew? I first saw him playing the louche tabloid reporter in political thriller, State of Play, a few years ago alongside John Simm and Bill Nighy (another two excellent actors). He was a supporting actor but nevertheless made an impression. He has been on British television quite a bit since starring in a modern take of a Shakespeare play and in Shameless, a popular show on Channel 4 where he yet again speaks in an English accent, hence all of us being fooled into thinking he is an Englishman. International audiences may be more familiar with him as the bare-chested Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia.

b) Stardust – This movie is adapted from my favourite Neil Gaiman book so I’m looking forward to see how it translates into film. It’s about a boy who goes into forbidden lands to retrieve a fallen star in order to win the hand of the woman he loves, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is a traditional love story. The basic plot may seem very much like something you read out of a fairy tale but Gaiman turns it into something much darker and scary. A bittersweet story in keeping with real life – I hope it works.

c) The Bourne Ultimatum – Who knew that the Bourne series would turn out to be made of cool and exciting stuff? Despite the big bucks behind the films, I’m glad that the producers and writers kept a very old-school European feel to it with bags of intelligence, rather than a shoot-em-up gung-ho stylee. Although I never imagined someone like Matt Damon as the eponymous Bourne when I read the books as a teenager, I think he has made Jason Bourne his own and I am glad to see him return for the final film of the trilogy.

d) Harry Potter & The Order of The Phoenix – Well, you just have to isn’t it? It’s Potter after all. Even if you outgrew Harry and his friends many years ago, you’ve invested all this time and money into it already, so you might as well see this through. After all, I knew Revenge of The Jedi was going to be total shit after seeing Episodes 1 and 2 but I watched it anyway, didn’t I? There are some things in life you just have to do.

Boy/Girlbands.

I confess. I am not as uber-cool as you think I am. I am not the media sophisticate I appear to be. I do, in fact, have all three NSync albums plus a VCD of their live concert. I know, tragic. I should probably throw my Radiohead albums away for being an impostor.

My sisters think that living in the UK has ruined any possible good taste I had in music. Yes, that is likely, in a country where an annoying ringtone by a cartoon frog can be number one on the music charts. But I do take responsibility for my sins, so I shall confess that I actually liked the following bands:

a) Liberty X – Oh the cheese! All that prancing around trying to be sexy in PVC catsuits. The girls dancing in bikinis while the boys wiggle about in at least three layers of clothing. Jarring. But they had some good singles, the first being the ultra catchy sing-along Just A Little Bit. I do love the underdog, so it was nice to see that despite them being the losers on the talent show Popstars, they made it into popstars in real life.

b) Phixx– They were another bunch of losers from the Popstars show but they came out with a good song called Hold On Me with an equally good, albeit weird video, which had the lads in an S&M/kidnap set-up. A bit like Take That’s How Deep Is Your Love video but with plenty of oiled, half-naked male bodies instead. Makes for interesting viewing, though strangely unsexy for me.

c) Westlife – I couldn’t help it. All that Flying Without Wings and earnest blue-eyed Irishness. Music to karaoke along to when you are drunk or blue.

d) Girls Aloud – The more elite British press may poke fun at them for being the pawn of some pop svengali and having more makeup than talent, but I think the girls are good fun and the team behind them have come up with some tunes that fit their image. So what if they’re trashy?

e) Take That – I never did quite get Take That. Having seen their early videos, I’m surprised none of them has confessed to being gay yet. But you can’t escape their influence in the UK and I admit they have been getting better the older they get. I absolutely love their latest single, Patience. Simple pop at its best. And that Howard Donald is looking extremely hot nowadays.

f) Nsync – I liked them enough to actually buy their stuff so I guess I caught it bad. Plus I had a secret crush on the ugly short one with the goatee. It was his voice, really, so angelic. (Blushes). Har har.

Right, I better go redeem myself now. Where did I put that Bob Dylan album?