the farmer's in the dell

My desktop is broken! *wail* I don't know if it is a good or bad thing, but finally I'm starting to use the Dell (which, shall henceforth be known as Dellia) and figuring out where to put my elbows. For documentation sake, they've been on my knees now for the past hour and dammit my back hurts, sitting here on the bed fingering Dellia on a chair. I've gotta find a more comfortable position to get acquainted with this hot (and getting hotter by the minute) thing.

Wonder what went wrong with the desktop. BSOD just because I downloaded Daemon Tools to play Diablo? Mmmmmf. Nevermind, the cheapest expert ever is coming tomorrow (cheapest not because of skill/patience but he only needs a burger and iced lemon tea as payment) and if all resuscitation efforts fail... we can always reformat.

Which reminds me... where the heck are all my hardware CDs? Shit on a stick.

Anyway I found this band picture I took of the boys which I like very much.

Say it with me now: orrrrrrrrrrrrrrsome photo skillzzzzah...

mysterious

I *think* I know now what's the main cause of my frequent inexplicable bouts of nausea, headache and fatigue. I went to the optometrist to stock up my contact lenses to bring over to the UK (Aggy says it's real expensive over there) and since I haven't had my eyes checked for the past two years, I thought I should.

Good thing I did. My power actually went down. How something like that happens, I have no idea. Maybe hyperopia is showing some early-stage symptoms? Tumour? Dammit I've gotta stop being so grey. Point is, I've been wearing the wrong shit for so long it's amazing my eyes and brains haven't given up on me.

I should probably get new glasses too now that the power's different. Yes that's a paper clip in my hair. If only I wasn't so broke, dammit!

concert and play

I've never heard of any concert that requires a round of balloting to decide who are the lucky few allowed to fork out dough to purchase a pair of tickets. Yup, Live Earth is my first. The curious little girl in me registered for the ballot for kicks. And made a pact with Bel (another workingholidaymaker) that we are to bring each other if either one of us reaches the esteemed final stage of actually paying over RM300 for a ticket (what is the world decaying into... we're celebrating the fact that we can use our money!). It's not like the headliners for the concert are extremely impressive (hello Damien Rice) and flying the performers over with turbo fuel-guzzling, noxious fumes-exuding private jets will probably defeat the whole purpose of this "Concert for a Climate in Crisis" anyway. But hey, I'm not about to miss out on the UK summer musical extravaganza.

I didn't get selected.

But I got a better deal. I'm gonna catch Peter Shaffer's Equus, better known as "the controversial Harry Potter play that many parents protest about". On the final night of this season's run! Also my second night in London (I need the first to get the time difference right). So it's straight from Malaysia to London to Daniel Radcliffe's underaged todger for me. Yeeeeehaw!

Equus tells the story of a psychiatrist's attempts to treat a young man who causes senseless injury to horses. Wikipedia says the play is essentially a detective story, with the psychiatrist trying to understand the cause of the boy's actions while wrestling with his own sense of purpose. Bla bla bla, I'm there for the stable seduction scene.

Ooooh this gets me all flustered. You girls don't be jealous now, Jamie Bell will play Alan Strang the next season. No more Harry Potter but you can see Billy Elliot-lah.

If my friend tells me on Monday that the tickets are sold out, I will positively cry.

good charlotte

I can't believe I walked out on a gig. After spending 2 hours to get to the venue, another 2 waiting for them to play... I left Good Charlotte's concert within 30 minutes without even a hint of regret. Sure, the instruments and arrangement were all tight. But they just lack the raw live stage power. I felt like watching a concert on telly. Gosh they say the stupidest things ever on stage.

"I see so many fine and hawwwt people here tonight!"
"I'm going to move here and have beautiful Malaysian babies!"
"I'll need a place to stay, someone to drive me around and a wife!"
What. The. Fuck. Wei.

They're definitely high on something before coming on.

A lot of people went. 80% were there because it's free. 10% were there to ogle at Denise, Utt and Colby. (Fazura who?) 10% were Good Charlotte's legion of screaming, goth highschool girl fans who're probably there because it's free and they can hold hands with their boyfriends without parents' friends or relatives bumping into them.

The opening acts were One Buck Short (too punk rock for my liking), Lo (not really a rock act but hey, Jonesy likes one of his song so...) and Estranged. I'm gonna coo and go on and on about Estranged starting from the next next sentence so if you don't like 'em you can be excused. And find me where they're playing at next while you're not reading this.

Estranged fucking ROCKED my socks! Powerful vocals, tight instruments, the right volume... everything a good head-banging rock experience should be! And ohmygoodiliciousness the drummer really is Azwin Andy. I always think drummers are the yums but Azwin... has got to be the epitome of yumness. Why oh WHY haven't I heard them play before? They're gonna play at Laundry on 12th May... anyone wanna come? C'mon, they totally owned Good Charlotte's asses, must see them live!

What a long wait. In between local acts. Waiting and waiting for the heroes of the night to come out (we didn't know it's gonna be a disappointment yet)... and watching the MV of Keep Your Hands Off My Girl for the 19083762th time... what else is there to do but... take pictures?

No self-respecting rock band drummer should ever pose like this, James. Ever. Leave that to Japanese schoolgirls. But hey, Good Charlotte hadn't come out and we were all in high spirits!

Don't even get me started on the fucking horrible rail transit system on the way back.

catch-22

I have to really start packing and clearing out junk from the room (and also file my income tax return, but hey I still have a week) because ohmygoodness June is speeding towards me in full throttle and I'm panicking. So I took baby steps and started with the book cabinet... and discovered Catch-22, the book I borrowed from a cousin during Chinese New Year. I know this book is supposed to be a classic satirical history fiction, one of the great literary works of the 20th century, but dammit it's so hard to read. Very, very different from my usual Stephen King and the likes.

I'm still stuck at the first quarter. I don't feel like reading it at the toilet (too heavy), I don't wanna read it to wind down after a hard day's work (too much concentration required)... just can't find the time and mood. And my cousin has since flown to India for her dentistry course. But hey, now I know what's a catch-22. It's an idiom meaning "a no-win situation". Perhaps an excerpt from the book (yay I've read the most important part!) would be more enlightening:

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr [a character] was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian [the story's hero] was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."

...
...
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Now you know why I say it's hard to read this book, right?

Of course, there're still the 24 books I bought at Payless's sale last year. And more from Bangkok. So many books to read, so little time... ah life!

politik

I haven't registered as a voter. I don't know if what they say is true, that if you miss 3 general elections your citizenship will be revoked. But if I'm not even in the registered database I should be able to live in my remote corner of the world and blissfully ignore anything political.

Tsk tsk all you want, I've decided since 1996 that my dream human leader of the country/world doesn't exist. Because Bill Pullman isn't running for presidency the last time I checked.

"Good morning. In less than an hour, aircrafts from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind — that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution — but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"

Yup, I still feel the fire in me BURNING after 11 years. Sweet speech. Sweet man.

nido

It's been 3 months since my godbro's passing. I missed my opportunity to pay my last respects or attend his funeral, and I was quite depressed with that fact that I didn't say goodbye when I could. For the past 3 months I busied myself keeping on with moving on. Living so far apart, we weren't as close as I would've liked, but that didn't stop me from missing his online presence. I was angry at how our mutual friends could bounce back into everyday normalcy within weeks, I couldn't bear hearing them talk about travel plans and gatherings. I wanted to wave my fist at them and shout but he's dead, why are you guys so happy!

I know why. Being sad is so tiring. Being angry with the neverending why is so tiring. I'm afraid there will come a time when I don't think about him every day, and that scares me. I don't want to forget about him. But I also don't want to hear "there's something wrong with you since you changed the hair but I cannot pinpoint it" or "you are just grey and lifeless these days" from friends and colleagues. I'm slowly sinking into a bottomless abyss of gloom and I have to snap out of it before it's too late. I get ill easier and tire faster these days. It's amazing (and scary) how powerful and tempting and easy this negativity is. Enough.

Nido had awesome photography skills (to me, and it's all that mattered). He's the one who encouraged me to fumble and learn my way in finding the perfect angle, perfect moment to capture a picture that tells a story without words. Even if that means standing in the cold, waiting, waiting for a leaf to fall from the branch.

Yea he's crazy about photography like that. He could haul the heaviest equipment to other countries and stand in the same spot for 3 hours just for one shot. ONE! I used to say, traveling with Nido must be very torturous. Look who's talking, now I'm torturing my travelmates. Although the same level of enthusiasm doesn't mean same level of output quality. Shuddup, I'm learning ok, learning!

This series of waterfall shots are my favourite, and I wouldn't stop bugging him to develop a poster-size one for me. He'd laugh it off, saying that a poster would cost him a bomb. Ok and here's when things get a little... surreal. After he died, I asked a mutual friend to check if his parents are releasing his photo album... and if I could have a waterfall film to develop it myself. She didn't get back to me and I didn't pursue the matter further.

I was cleaning my room to prepare to shift to my new apartment (or rather, dumping my stuff there and take off to London) when I discovered a letter from Nido which I have absolutely no recollection of receiving and opening. But apparently I did, so I opened (reopened?) the envelope and 4 photos dropped out. And one of them... the waterfall. It was sent on January 2006. I'm not gonna say anything further here. I'm happy (and sad) enough with the pictures.

Thanks, Nido. For everything you've done, given and taught. From now on I'll take the pictures. And one day, I'll trace your footsteps in Greece and your beloved Aegean Sea.

friday the 13th

Friday. The 13th.

It rained cats and dogs just when we finished lunch and was ready to walk back to the office. We were stuck under a torn stall umbrella, and the torn bit was right above Gab who wore white (the rest were wearing black to ward off bad stuff... and in this case, raindrops) so she got wet. Then she dropped her wallet into a puddle.

Ian's in the hospital. Today's the girlfriend's birthday and he just had surgery yesterday. Don't know if I should feel guilty jamming a few nights ago without him and totally enjoying it. Don't know if I should cancel tonight's jam and force the boys to visit him. Brrrrr, I'm so cold-blooded. Or maybe I just didn't have a chance to know him as well as the others.

I went for my first-ever acupuncture session last night. Richard gave me a can of 100Plus for being such a brave girl, having not seen or done acupuncture before. I told him, I'm willing to try anything to get my health back on track before leaving for the UK and her impossibly skyhigh medical charges. So I closed my eyes and bit my lips as he poked needles into me. And twisted them around every few minutes. My limbs felt numb one moment, on fire the next. It was no fun at all, but the pain's bearable. Richard's little daughter staring at me with big, wondrously innocent eyes (nevermind she's also digging her nose) made me even more determined to smile and make goony faces. As if looking like a (a) shedding porcupine, or (b) junkie with really BAD aim, isn't goony enough. It was over in an hour. I'll be seeing Richard every 2 or 3 days from now.

Today is the end of my mourning. Time to put away all the black clothes.

easter

Happy Easter (or Resurrection Day) folks.
I still don't get the bunny, chocolate eggs and lilies, though.

rambunctious

Uh huh. No wonder posting the picture of the dead random rat had me so ill. It's disrespectful to another member of my clan. Upon realising so, my ulcers have begun to subside. I'm a rat. And all along I thought I'm a dog or cat person.

rat ass

Maybe I shouldn't have taken a picture of this poor rat's mishap yesterday. Because it's exactly how I feel right now. In bloody painful hell. My lymph nodes are swollen again, something my doctor and I laughed about last month. The mouth ulcers are back with a vengeance! Got four throbbing ones on the inside of my right cheek and on the gums, same side with the third breast growing above my collarbone. Still my doctor said (reeking of ciggie, that bastard) not to worry and put me on turbomutantpower antibiotics that make me feverish and spaced out.

My lips and cheeks have swollen to the point that my face is now a perfectly symmetrical square. Like it's flattened into 2D by a truck. Maybe this truck face can audition for a role in Transformers. That is if the lymph bean growing on my neck doesn't explode outwards into a sapling. THEN it's an audition for Swamp Thing.

To top off all the glam, my right toe's (can I not be right anymore) slab of skin has rolled up like an opened sardine can. It was raining and I reminded myself that roads would be slippery and I should walk extra carefully and... I opened my car door *whoop* slipped and rammed my right foot into a rock.

Just not my fucking week. *whine*