Mystery Wolf

Dirty Little Secret

2005-07-03T01:49:00.000+08:00

I have a confession to make. I have a little dirty secret that I have been keeping for about a month now. No one knows...

... I now have my own domain name, pwahahahahah!

Please update all your links to www.mysterywolf.com, thank you very much!

And now, to leave this blog with my typical musical bang, I shall put here a musical baton that has been passed to me by Ian and Shavain:

Total volume of music files in my computer:
6GB. Still a big collection of original CDs that I didn't convert into my iTunes yet though.

The last CD I bought:
Ocean Avenue - Yellowcard.

Song playing right now:
Dernière étape avant le silence by Sylvain Chauveau

Five songs that I listen to a lot and mean a lot:

Buddy Holly by Weezer - Just brings back good feelings when I hear it all the time when I was younger.
If It Makes You Happy by Sheryl Crow - Just a song that stuck when I first heard it. Great vocals...
Welcome to Paradise by Green Day - Though this is not one of my most favourite Green Day music, this was one of the most memorable songs on the first ever music record I ever bought -- a Green Day live at Woodstock cassette.
Pink by Aerosmith - Probably the song that got me hooked to Aerosmith and Joe Perry.
Self-Esteem by The Offspring - One of my favourites during my years of discovering my love of punk rock.

And now, 5 people whom I'm passing the baton on to...

Woohoo! That's it! Thanks for coming to this blog everyone... This is Mystery Wolf bowing out of blogspot, so see you all at my new site! *howls*

Buy me a new life

2005-06-08T23:03:00.000+08:00

Today, the semester's over, finally -- oh finally. The last essay that I had passed up on Monday turned out to be a cut-and-paste of incoherent facts by my standards, but what the hell, I just wanted to get rid of the work and move on to the holidays.

The screening for my video documentary this morning went fine, but it wasn't great. Apparently subtitles made in the safe-zone in Adobe Premier Pro still gets stuck outside viewing area in the Screening Room's television set. The audio for a particular interview was also unexpectedly almost horrendous. A difference in technology perhaps, since the viewing for the Forensics Team yesterday went well without any hitches, and visuals and audio didn't give any problems. We screened through an LCD projector yesterday. Other than the annoyance of technology, our video was well-received, thankfully.

Speaking of the Forensics Team, the environment in the meeting room yesterday seemed more indifferent and hostile this time around. For the first time, we were asked to sign our names into their visitor's log book. We never had to for the numerous occasions during pre-production and production. A female doctor who was very friendly during our interview shoot with her was more stern in her actions and voice this time. Maybe she was mad because I omitted her interview from our video because it got corrupted...

Only four people from the department were present, and unfortunately, the two doctors who were with us throughout the planning and shoot of our project was not present. One of them had to fly to Johor Baru for a case while we were waiting for the rest of our group members. Guess that's why we were picked on - our 'support team' wasn't there.

While we were relieved that they didn't have any objections to the autopsy visuals we used, we were shocked of hearing that they will be sending a 'feedback' letter to our university. It's a letter to tattle on us, basically. They told us that the letter would contain two items about us -- punctuality and attire. While I think that the punctuality part was mostly because my Production Manager arrived 30 minutes late to the meeting with the DVD of our work (I'm still kinda pissed about it), but attire?? Apparently we "didn't dress appropriately" for our shoot. Okay, if jeans and T-shirts aren't decent enough, I don't know what is. None of us even wore slippers because we didn't want any dead people fluid touching us. They should have informed us on, um, their desired dressing code before we started our project, and not just drop a bomb on us like that without warning.

Okay, fine, maybe they're not educated on the culture of attire of production crews. They'll probably faint at the sight of what Hong Kong production crews wear -- most of them are in shorts, slippers, and singlets.

Anyway, the letter won't actually have any effect on us. I'm just unsatisfied at their sudden inhospitableness (if that's even a word). Well, at least they liked the video.

So now that I've got the semester behind me, organization is a priority now. The physical organization of my room, and the spiritual, mental, & emotional organization of myself. I have to clean my room and mind of past and present clutter. So many things to throw out, so many emotional attachments. Sometimes I could use some anti-sentimentalism.

My housing in Curtin has been confirmed for the 8th of July. I won't be able to go that soon though. I have to wait for my results first, which will only be out around the second week of July. Right after that, is a mad rush of visa applications, medical check-ups, and what not for my flight on (hopefully) the 18th.

For now, all I can do is other stuff, like buying a laptop, and getting some warm clothes since it'll be the dead of winter when I get there. I am almost literally buying myself a new life.

I could use a new life.

Dead dog tired

2005-06-02T09:39:00.000+08:00

I haven't slept for over 24 hours. I was up at 8am yesterday, and was over at Shaz's place to complete editing our huge-ass documentary assignment at 2pm. I was editing straight from then until 8am this morning, and now I'm in college because Shaz has a presentation to do and I'm stuck here until he's done. Kinda weird how I could still face another monitor after an insane editing session. But hey, I'm addicted to the Internet. Bad, I know.

So yeah I'm tired but I'm pretty happy with my labour of love; the video is awesome. Awesome to me lah of course...

Director's Log

2005-05-25T23:00:00.000+08:00

I returned from my first day of shoot at the morgue today. To save myself a lot of typing, here's an extract of the day's events from my Director's Log (names withheld):

"Dr. S informed the Producer earlier in the morning that he had two cases, and that shooting the autopsy was possible. However, he later told us that the autopsy shoot couldn't happen because the post-mortem needed to be wrapped up quickly as the relatives of the victims wanted to claim the body as soon as possible. On that dissapointing note, we only prepared to only shoot cut-away shots of the place for today. We arranged to meet Dr. S at 2:30pm.

We collected the shooting equipment which was under the Production Manager's name, and drove to Tesco to buy a mini-dv tape, since he was not around to do this. We arrived to the KLGH Forensics Dept. slightly late because of this.

Surprisingly, we were told that there was an accident case and that we can go ahead and shoot the autopsy procedure. We were slightly rushed in preparing our equipment because they had been keeping the body for us. Although the production crew was mentally unprepared as far as figuring out camera angles and such, we were enthusiastic and ready to go.

The victim was a male European cyclist who got hit by a car along a well-known road in Kuala Lumpur. He looked like he was in his fourties. The body was still quite fresh, so the smell was not strong enough to create a nauseating effect.

The autopsy went well, and it was a very interesting experience. The doctors, who are now quite familiar with us, were very friendly and helpful. They accomodated our shoot by stopping their work in important parts of the procedure so that our cameras are able to take close-ups and such.

Dr. S allowed us to freely shoot the procedure, but with the only rule that they will keep the tapes after our shoot. They were very wary and concerned of these footages leaking out into the public and on the Internet after a couple of past bad experiences with other people.

An electrical blackout in the autopsy room occured halfway into the procedure. The crew did their best in ignoring the fact that they're in a pitch black room with a disemboweled open-chested corpse. Just kidding. We were used to the feel, sight, and smell by then. Well, almost. The Asst. Production Manager retreated to the small office in the autopsy room when things got slightly gory. The Producer and I soldiered on throughout the whole procedure. When the electricity came back on a while later, we briefly shot the cleaning and stitching up of the body as both our camera batteries were rapidly running out of juice. The entire procedure lasted 5 hours. Normally, it would take much less time than that but they slowed down the pace for our shoot to show us the details and proper sequence of events of the procedure.

After sliding the body back into storage, the doctors dashed off for dinner. During the procedure, they were commenting frequently on how hungry they were and were planning to eat KFC while they were slicing the major organs of the body. We were amazed at how desensitized they have become in their line of work.

Anyway, after the shoot, we discussed further on our plans in the structure of our video with Dr. S, and then surrendered our tapes to him."

It's evaluation day tomorrow, where the big shots of forensics are gonna watch our raw footages. So I'm expecting a lot of "No, you can't show this", and "You have to censor this..."

The Unquestionable Truth

2005-05-22T15:18:00.000+08:00

After following their development in the studio on their website, Limp Bizkit's new stuff is finally out. I just saw their video 'The Truth' on [V], and it's frickin hot! I'm just glad Wes is back, and he's rockin' the hell out of the new album! Hoyeah!

Plain and simple

2005-05-16T19:45:00.000+08:00

I buy soya bean juice from the tau foo fah seller without sugar. I drink it without sugar. My mom thinks I'm not normal. Ah, the joys of being me!

Happenings of the week

2005-05-10T20:46:00.000+08:00

The past week has been a pain.

Authorization for the post-mortem project didn't clear, so we couldn't shoot the documentary over the weekend even though we managed to secure all the proper shooting equipment needed. As for the bodyguard project, my fellow groupmate (now referred to as 'Mr. MIA') who dissapeared had resurfaced somewhere in the middle of the week to tell us that the shoot with the bodyguard is not possible anymore. Reason that he didn't inform us earlier and 'dissapeared': He ran out of phone credit. Geez.

So, we shot at the Sepang F1 Circuit two days ago. Apparently, Mr. MIA managed to secure an interview with a MotorGP racer through a friend. But, through all the madness, we only managed a one-question interview! Our topic had suddenly changed from a biography on a racer to the sport of MotorGP racing itself. Rushed impromtu shoots is never a good thing. Anyway, I did the rough editing yesterday on the university's Final Cut Pro program. We agreed to meet up in uni to edit at 10am. But, *surprise surprise*, Mr. MIA only showed up with the DV tapes at 2:45pm. Anyway, the assignment was due today, but Mr. MIA who brought the rough-edited work back home didn't complete editing it. ARgH!

Okay, I'm done griping now.

Yeah, other than that, I've been trying hard to put stuff aside to spend some quality time with my Dad, who came back down from Vietnam last week. This will be the last time that I would be seeing my Dad before he flies back to Vietnam again this Thursday. It could be after my graduation before I will be seeing him again. However, my Dad said that he might make a quick trip down to Malaysia to see me off to Australia. My family is also planning to come to Perth this Christmas to spend time with me, so I hope those plans come true.

University has become a bore and a chore to me, and I'm surprised I've lasted this long. I thought I would've burnt out earlier in the semester. I have started to selectively skip classes to allow myself more time to rest and work on all my assignments. I've also been working on a few ambitious personal projects, but I would not elaborate further on it at this moment.

Life has just made a 360 degree flip, but I saw it coming.

You won what?!

2005-05-05T14:02:00.000+08:00

When a close male friend goes on to become the Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year, you gotta go, "Hot damn..."

Shoot!

2005-05-01T23:01:00.000+08:00

I'm supposed to be in the middle of a two-day film shoot about the life of a bodyguard/bouncer dude this weekend. Well, it's Sunday night now, and my Producer who's supposed to arrange everything has dissapeared off the face of the planet and cannot be contacted. So that pretty much leaves me fucked, as this is the only week to shoot this project.

Next weekend, I have another project where I have to go into the morgue and shoot a corpse being cut up. Whose idea was it to shoot a documentary on post-mortems anyway? I still kinda liked my tsunami ghosts idea, since I'd get to camp out on a beach and watch out for paranormal activities. But yeah filming dead people is cheaper apparently.

Oh, and depending on what day I'll be going into the death house, I'll be smelling like a corpse for the next three days, so WATCH OUT!

Accepting it

2005-04-29T20:53:00.000+08:00

So two of my closest friends since our freshman year in college are not so close anymore. And I'm stuck in the middle. I was hoping that everything would be okay in the end. It bites, but I've finally accepted that things won't be the same anymore. You guys are still very important to me though, and always will be. I think you know that from what happened last night.

What is holy and what is evil?

2005-04-25T23:36:00.000+08:00

It had just occured to me that Pope Benedict XVI looks like Hannibal Lecter.

Other than the uncanny resemblance, both also feed on flesh and blood.

The only difference is that one is real and feeds on something symbolic and vice versa.

In other vaguely blasphemous news, I got an sms yesterday. It read, "If the Pope is supposed to be our Sheperd, then we now have a German Sheperd. God has a sense of humour after all!"

Reincarnated

2005-04-22T17:42:00.000+08:00

It was at night. I was walking alone. I got out of a closing mall, only to find myself going through many rows of dead shoplots. Lifeless flourescent lights flickered in empty mamak stalls. Its seedy workers sit around a table, watching me as I walk by cautiously. I end up at a junction, somewhere in the back alleys. Are they trying to kidnap me again? It's so dark. A shadow glides by... on a bicycle. A very old woman cycles towards me. Something looked wrong with her. I walked away, and I bump into someone. We talk incomprehensibly for a moment, and the old lady cycles up behind my friend. Under the darkness of her headscarf, I could see that her eyes were merely two large holes in her face. A skull covered in skin... she was death. Her small, hunched figure waited for me patiently. I walked away as fast as I could. She followed, slowly and confidently in a distance. I couldn't run. It was like someone had pressed the slow-motion button. I managed to literally crawl back to the safety of my home, and she screams in a pained hollow sound. She turns away. And I wake up. But in real life, she has caught up with me.

In this death, I am liberated.

Lecturer speaks up, students don't care

2005-04-19T23:51:00.000+08:00

My hard-of-hearing Journalism lecturer is probably getting fed-up with our hyperactive and noisy class. He has started to tell some individuals to "shut up" (with pointed finger and all, like we're 5 year-olds or something). Mr. Chee surprises me in every class. Well, at least that helps me get by his ultra boring and slow moving class. If our class ran through normally, it would only take 30 minutes for us to complete the day's lecture, but he manages to drag it on for two hours. However, sometimes I do pity that poor old man trying to keep up with us.

But still, he could've been more excited for the interview Jon and I did rather than being all "Are those real Iraqis?", and "Oh... internet phone... okay..."

I will also try not to feel insulted when he said that I was "riding on Jon". What? I'm not good enough now? Also, Mr. Chee, that sounds so wrong!

So far...

2005-04-16T16:20:00.000+08:00

I haven't really written a serious blog in awhile, but it's not that I don't have anything to write either. So anyway, my semester break is coming to an end soon, and I haven't achieved much within the week except maybe catching a little bit more sleep than I usually do.

I was involved in a documentary shoot meant for the Malaysian International Fashion Awards along with Jon, Nicole, and Zaid last Monday and Tuesday. Yeah, Mr. Letfee from Limkokwing pulled us into the project in the last minute. It's unpaid work but he mentioned that the documentary would be played on TV.

If only I had a ringgit for every media person trying to sucker me in with that line...

Anyways, we interviewed a large number of local celebs, models, stylists, and fashion editors. By the end of the shoot I was numb mentally from overexposure to these naturally narcissistic people. I didn't do much, but I guess it was good exposure to, um, the fashion world, which is, like, totally gonna help out my career in film and music...

We got lunch money for each day. Somehow I still managed to save some money, so I am now 10 ringgits richer. Please hold your applause.

Jon's one happy camper. He's getting paid for the photos he took during the project, plus he's been called in as a talent for a commercial shoot. Some people just have all the luck.

A DSLR cameraman shoots an SLR camerawolf

As for me, I've been in a reflective mood. This is good, because my artwork shines through the best in times like these. I'll pick up my pencil and sketch. My Canon Rebel looks lonely, too. I still have a few rolls of film to use up before they expire. I got the hint.

Sunday

2005-04-10T18:08:00.000+08:00

My alarm clock rings at 8am. I wake up in my room - my air-conditionless room. My upper back aches from the uncomfortable sleeping position that seemed comfortable a few hours earlier. I crack my shoulders and head out into the living room. Everyone's awake - my mom, my brother, my aunt, my uncle, and my cousin.

I'm sleepy as heck. We get ready for mass. My mom came up with the brilliant idea of attending mass at St. John's Cathedral in the city. We piled into my relatives' Ipoh-licensed car and headed for the LRT station in Kelana Jaya. We stopped at the Masjid Jamek station and walked to the cathedral from there. It's hot as hell. There's a large group of Filipino women and men getting a haircut at the side of a road near the stairway that led to the cathedral from the back. Inside, we all sat in a single pew together. A baby in front of me almost drooled onto my handphone. The church band was bad. The priest was old and was mumbling his sermon incomprehensibly and extensively. We were all bored and falling alseep. After mass, we decided to take the LRT home. The train wasn't as packed as before. An Indonesian woman kept replying all her handphone calls by yelling "Belummmmm!". A hot Dutch backpacker stumbled in from the Pasar Seni station and asked if it was the right train to the main station. We struck a small conversation. He's from Amsterdam. He gets off at the next station. Darn. The sun is still scorching hot. A seated guy in a chef's uniform pukes nearby. He's in the middle of a bad hangover. His puke travels all over the floor as the train moves.

We get to Kelana Jaya, and drive to The Curve for lunch. The folks wanted to shop in IKEA again. They were there yesterday. We walked and walked and walked. My feet hurt. After shopping we drive home. It's raining. I have a splitting headache. I'm sleepy. Whatever.

FTV Gang Reunion

2005-04-05T22:46:00.000+08:00

Hey you FTV mofos from the early times, let's meet up! Chino's got the dirt, so check his blog entry for details. If you missed it, here's the 'invited list':

1. Chino 2. Michelle 3. Joy 4. Mien 5. Yu Ming 6. Alfred Loh 7. Clarice 8. Bridget 9. Chut Liang 10. Jonathan Yap 11. James Tan 12. Eugene 13. Li Wai 14. Amy Lim

Please help out in arranging this meet, RSVP Chino, aight?

Illusion

2005-03-31T22:16:00.000+08:00

This is awesome! Check it out!

Earthquakes and wobbles

2005-03-29T01:32:00.000+08:00

There I was sittin' in my room in front of my Mac, shaking my right foot on auto, when my computer table and everything on it started shaking as well.

I put down my feet to the ground (I double checked), and still saw my stuff shaking from left to right. No sooner than that, I found myself wobbling to the rhythm of everything that was moving.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!!

*insert dramatic scene of books falling, ceilings crashing down, and debris flying everywhere*

But in actual fact, it was only a minor wobble, and I got up to ask my brother who was in his room if he's feeling it as well. He sat still for a moment, and I watched as he and his computer monitor wobbled together like two highly trained synchronized swimmers.

The ground continued to tremor for about two minutes between 1:17am to 1:19am, and we switched on the news to find that Northern Sumatra in Indonesia had been hit by a 8.5 earthquake (according to CNN). Click here for the stats. Tsunamis might have been generated from the force, so please watch out tonight. Malaysia is protected by Indonesia's main island, so thankfully chances of tsunamis hitting us are slim.

My Mom, cousin, and his folks who were sleeping in the master bedroom slept through it like nothing happened even though I tried to wake them up. This is my first quake experience and I was pretty bummed for not having felt the humongous 2004 Boxing Day quake.

UPDATE:
The latest measurement of the quake is at 8.7. I felt a slight aftershock tremor in class today at 2:20pm. It lasted for only a few seconds and went mostly unnoticed. The were no tsunamis generated from the main quake.

What a party...

2005-03-27T17:45:00.000+08:00

I attended Boe's 25th birthday party yesterday. It was one helluva party. I shall start from the beginning...

The flashy invitation card said that the party starts at 4pm.

4pm?

I blinked a few times and the card still stated the same. I've never been to a party that early ever before. I decided to arrive there at 6pm instead.

On my way out, I grabbed a Carlsberg six-pack at Giant for the party since I didn't really get Boe anything. Jon requested some yogurt earlier on MSN, but he'll have to wait for that since he asked me to watch that horrible PETA video which will continue to flash before my eyes every now and then and traumatize me.

Anyway, It was raining on my way over, and the party's location from the Sutramas poolside moved to Jon's apartment due to the persistent rain. Jon's apartment will suffer.

When I got there, there were already a fair amount of people present. Unsurprisingly, all of them were from Limkokwing. The large and intimidating DJ was already blasting out some music. It was smoky. Gao was in the wet kitchen pouring vodka into coal that refused to burn for the barbeque. At that point, Gao's shirt was still considerably white.

I didn't know anyone else there. Jon and Gao were getting instructions on how to burn barbeque coal from a website. So when they were told that their next step was to get lighter fluid, I headed out to the stores with them. It stopped raining then.

The employees of the handful of convenience stores around Sutramas either didn't know what lighter fluid was, or they told us that they don't carry it in stock. We then walked to IOI Mall. I noticed a lot of people looking at us. Maybe they're not used to seeing a Chinthai Asian girl walking with a black dude and a white dude at the same time. Alrighty then.

At Jusco in IOI, we faced the same dilemma of confused in-store staff who don't know where their store's products are located. My proficiency in Malay (or the lack of it) is tested as I acted as the official translator of the evening. We finally got some lighter fluid after struggling to describe what it looked like and what it was for in Malay. When it was time to walk back to Sutramas, it was raining heavily once again. Luckily, we caught up with Tasha just in time whom we bumped into earlier along with Niren and a few others. We had to run in the rain to the pedestrian bridge before piling into Tasha's Kelisa. Due to a missing knee ligament, I had to run with care on the the slippery wet ground.

By the time we got back, someone else had bought lighter fluid. The fire still refused to start however, and Boe dissapeared somewhere to cook the chicken in someone else's house. Nevertheless, it was already about 9pm and more people have started coming in and passing out the alcohol mixes.

I had quit drinking ever since that last party at Jon's place, and told Boe a couple of weeks ago that I wouldn't be drinking at his party. Boe being Boe, he asked me go drink one last time for his party, and so I did. He made sure I did by bringing in JDs and vodka to suit my liking. His hidden agenda became more obvious as he said that he wanted the drinks to 'knock me the fuck off'. The highlight of the night was that I didn't get wasted, although I was kinda tired and drowsy at one point and passed out for a few moments while resting on Jon's knee. Jon was lying down from the stress of looking at the accumulating dirt and grime in his apartment.

The music was pretty loud and it was very entertaining to watch the African guests dance. Azlinar was enjoying herself with the music, and it was great how her room became the ladies' pit stop for some quiet time and some cool air, compared to the stuffy and noisy situation in the living room.

I found her room to be a convenient getaway from the dudes who were trying to pick me up. One kept pinning me to a wall and insisted that I was his classmate in one of Patrick's classes. He also kept rubbing my shoulders and patting my ass. Another one said that 'he's got his eyes on me', whatever that means. Another one kissed my hand after puking out a concoction of alcohol and chocolate milk earlier. Yes, it was gross.

The party ended at about 12:30am. Everyone left once the music stopped. Some of us stayed back to clean Jon's apartment up. It was horribly dirty; there were even chicken bones behind the air-conditioning vent in the balcony. The socks that I was wearing throughout the party is now marinated in a mixture of alcohol, chocolate, cake icing, and dirt. It could've been somewhat tasty if it wasn't for the dirt.

We finished cleaning at about 2am and Boe (who was now denying that he was undeniably drunk) asked Gao to pop open two bottles of wine. Gao did so by stabbing the cork in with a chopstick. Oh yes, the white part of Gao's shirt is now grey in colour from all the dirt and smoke. After a short and weird drinking game brought up by Jonnie, I left at 3am when my brother came to pick me up. At home, I found a sort of weird and suspicious abrasion near the elbow on each arm. How the hell did I get that?

Extraordinary Machine

2005-03-19T23:34:00.000+08:00

Here's something different. I am against pirated CDs and the downloading of music off the Internet, except if it's legit downloading such as Purevolume. However, I'll make an exception for this case.

Long story short, Sony had shelved Fiona Apple's newest album Extraordinary Machine (completed in May 2003), but the entire album has now leaked onto the Internet. It's available for download here.

You will need WinRar and something like Turbo Torrent to open the file. Both of those are available here.

If you're not-so in-the-know of this bit torrent thingamajig, you can download the mp3 files off here.

Here's the deal though, if you do decide to download the album, please help by signing the Free Fiona Petition here. You can also annoy the crap out of your local radio station by requesting Fiona Apple's new music in every way possible. But since we're in Malaysia, you know that they'll do nothing about it but call the cops on you. And lastly, if the album does ever reach stores, please do buy a copy and support her. Don't be a cheap ass.

To stop living in a shell and want to know about the whole story about Fiona's album, tell me you love me, and click here.

A rant on religion

2005-03-16T22:50:00.000+08:00

The dial on my new box fan is mercilessly switched to number 3. Even though it's been raining cats, dogs, and horses recently, it's still been hot as hell. Speaking of hell, I've been quietly ranting about religion a lot. This is a not-so-quiet attempt.

Sometimes I wonder why religion exists. I wonder why some people are into one religion, and others in another. I wonder why people need religion. I also wonder what do I have to do with religion.

Sometimes I confuse myself.

So I asked Google what 'religion' was.

Apparently, when it comes to religion, lonely ladies get feaky and buy whips and chains

Google only confused me more.

Anyway, being brought up as a Catholic since birth, it was only natural for me to say that I was 'religious'. A religious Catholic at that. So, until I was 17, I dutifully fulfilled the church's rituals (or sacraments), such as First Holy Communion and those uncomfortable confessions. I attended Sunday School until I was Form 4, and it was then that I was given the choice to reaffirm myself as a Catholic, or not. My Sunday School class was being prepared for Confirmation.

I remember my teacher telling the class, "When you were baptised as a baby you didn't have a choice of choosing your religion, but now you do..."

Yeah right, lady.

In a perfect world I would have a choice. But imagine the parental, social, and peer pressure. I think I would've been left on the streets if I would've declined.

But I was still pretty much a kid then, raw in experience. To me, this was just another 'ritual' I had to go through. I suppose I was pretty passive when it came to this. So I went ahead with it. Those Confirmed were deemed 'soldiers of God'.

I didn't attend Sunday School the next year. Many of us didn't. It wasn't compulsory anymore. Heck, it's been almost four years since then, and only four out of the thirty students stuck around for Sunday Masses until now. So what happened to the soldiers of God?

Today, I still go to church every Sunday, and I still abstain from meat every Friday. Still, things have changed. I have to drag my heels to church, and I don't see the purpose of a lot of things the church does. The people who run the church have a 'holier-than-thou' attitude, and everything and everyone is segmented into Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs). I don't live in the area the church is, so I don't have a BEC to belong to. All church activities are done through these BECs. Technically, I am an outcast in my own church which I was baptised in 21 years ago. This is the problem with Catholics. Everything is hierarchical rather than leveled.

In the end, I asked myself, 'Am I religious'? My answer is, no, I am not religious. It took me twenty-one years to realize this, but I am not religious, but rather spiritual. I am no more passive, and I don't need a religion to suggest to me what lies beyond death. Heaven and hell is just another theory to me, but who's to say who is right? I have learn to ask 'why?' and 'why not?' instead of eating one-sided information off one's hands.

Adding to that, I do not understand humankind's herd mentality. Don't we all have minds of our own? Don't we have our own ideals? Why do we 'worship' religion as a group? To me, religion and/or spirituality is a very personal thing, almost within me. We all think and yearn differently, therefore, religion/sprituality should be practiced differently, and individually. This is because, well let's face it, we are born an individual, we live as an individual, and we die as an individual. My point is, know and focus on what you believe in, and know what you don't believe in. Don't follow blindly.

Also, refer to:
The Purpose of Religion
Definition of BEC

I heart my Uni

2005-03-13T01:57:00.000+08:00

The semester is moving on fine... well, almost. I still have three classes clashing for the same period twice on Tuesdays within a 7-hour time frame though. The weird part is that my schedule permits me more time on my elective than my core and major modules. It is also scary. For example, classes for MCI 212 (Core), FTV 222 (Major), and MDI 292 (Major) are all running almost simultaneously.

What kind of University College would clash a student's two majors + core like that? Only in LUCT, folks!

Classes on Wednesdays and Thursdays are few and short, I find myself lepaking a lot before and after classes. There's more time to sit and chat with SP and Hui Yee this sem compared to the last, which was nuttily flavoured with A.L.L. It is also very cool to be hanging out with a crazy bunch of journalism students from my elective class.

The uproar on the gym has toned down, and some have decided that what's done is done and is starting to work out at Fitofly. The question is, will I submissively haul my ass in there and do the gerbil wheel run? I hear that there are water heaters in the showers.

Please.

The Annoying Repairman

2005-03-07T15:37:00.000+08:00

FADE IN:

Our washing machine was making strange noises. My MOM called the REPAIRMAN over. Repairman agreed. This is our story (all dialogue transcribed from telephone calls):

INT. WOLF'S LAIR - DAY

REPAIRMAN
I asked 19-over people, I can't find the way. I'm at Makro now, can you come show the way?

MOM
Fine, wait there, I'll drive over now.

Car descriptions are exchanged.

EXT. MAKRO CARPARK LOT - DAY

Mom drives over to Makro. Mom calls Repairman.

MOM
I'm at Makro now, where are you?

REPAIRMAN
I'm at Eon, Makro is one-way mah...

Eon doesn't exist anywhere near Makro, which also happens to be two-way now. Mom drives out to the entrance gates, Repairman calls again.

MOM
I don't see you anywhere...

REPAIRMAN
I'm at the Lusa showhouse at Giant...

MOM
(puts phone down) &@$#^*$!@^#$*!@&#

EXT. OUTSIDE GIANT - DAY

Drove to Giant, found Repairman's beaten up White Rusa, and led him to our condo. Repairman drove 20 kilometers an hour throughout.

EXT. WOLF'S CONDO'S GUARD HOUSE - DAY

We reach our guard house.

REPAIRMAN
Ooh! I've been here before many times, you didn't tell me it was in the golf course

MOM
Yes, I did, I mentioned 'KG****'.

REPAIRMAN
But you just told me the short form.

MOM
...

CUT TO BLACK.

ROLL CREDITS.

END.

Well, Uncle, if you've been here before, you'd frickin' know our frickin' condo is situated inside a frickin' golf course!

And thanks for ripping us off too, biatch!

Starburned

2005-03-05T22:35:00.000+08:00

My Dad e-mailed me this photo the other day:

Do you smell the aroma of a ripoff?
That's the Vietnamese version of Starbucks. Check out the scooters on display above the stall for the fair going on behind Starblack. The hip-factor of scooters in Vietnam are probably the equivalent of what Harley motorbikes are to us. Neat, huh?

Sentience

2005-03-03T21:52:00.000+08:00

Proclaimed stellar is your rhetoric maunder,
Through the grit and ashes, once it burned,
Tracing back the hypocrisy to a diffident liar,
Awakens an anamnesis, one shall learn.

My Engrish Very The Powderful

2005-02-28T14:11:00.000+08:00

I want a holiday. So what that my semester just started? I want one. At a beach. Tsunami or no tsunami. I wanna dive-bomb into the water. Yes, that would be nice.

I'll have to make do with my condo's pool for now.

Three things happened today (and it's only 2pm now):

First time ever in my university life that I went to LUCT at 9am knowing that I have no class.
My English is deteriorating to the level of a Chinese-educated Ah Lian.
My Mom thinks I have a secret boyfriend.

As for item #1, I went to LUCT for a group discussion, although I don't consider it a group when there's only two people in the group. I shall call it, a team discussion. It's probably impossible to have a bad day with Jon as your teammate. Our meeting today *was highly productive.

In item #2's case. I'm beginning to develop The Ah Lian Syndrome, which is the confusion between the pronunciation of 'R's and 'L's. I must point out, however, that these early symptoms of TALS (you may pronounce it as TARS) only surfaced with heavy interaction with Jon.

And for item #3, my Mom (finally) noticed that I was wearing a ring on my right pinky, which I have been wearing for over a month or so now. The following conversation ensued:

Me: *scratches head with right hand*
Mom: "Eh, you're wearing a ring?"
Me: "What, oh... It was there for..."
Mom: "... engaged already ah?"
Me: "Ack! No!"
Mom: "Who gave it to you?"
Me: "I got it myself la"

Does a ring have to be from someone when I wear one, damnit?

*Opinions may vary.

There's always space for humor

2005-02-25T01:49:00.000+08:00

With the current Malaysian heat wave, freak weather, and the coming of total annihilation of humanity in a fiery barbeque blaze, I took the opportunity to catch up on humor, both in good taste and in the sick sad manner most humans indulge upon. *phew that was a long sentence*

Video goodness:

Wordy goodness:

Paris in the toilet

Medieval Geek News

2005-02-21T17:06:00.000+08:00

The A.L.L. has retreated! The A.L.L. has retreated! She will not be lecturing us (literally) this semester! We are victorious! *raids the stash of booze*

*clears throat* Yes, Nazha will be teaching us our last core module. The great big confusing timetable has confirmed this.

In other news, four modules will be clashing for my attendance on Tuesdays, and two modules on Wednesdays. I feel so 'needed'.

Yet, I am loving the fact that all my classes start at 1pm or later :)

A Problem Replacing Another

2005-02-18T20:38:00.000+08:00

The suspense is over, my Dad decided to let me study in Australia next semester! *hurrah*

Oh and fellow Class of 2004 Semester Fivers, our archenemy, THE A.L.L., is back to wage war with us this semester!

ALL may have won the last battle but the war will be ours!

May the Lord have mercy on our bookish souls, godspeed, my comrades in arms!

The Black Cult

2005-02-16T18:00:00.000+08:00

Okay well here's what I didn't tell you the day before, while I went to pay my college fees. As if the fees aren't expensive enough already, now you have to pay an extra RM240 for a membership at the campus gym with the stupid name, Fitofly.

It's compulsory, and if you refuse to pay, you won't get your transcript at the end of your semester.

This reminds me of the time when they forced the students to buy the uni's big black book (whatever it's actually called) a couple of semesters ago. But somehow some students like myself managed to avoid having to pay for it.

It feels like I'm in a pseudo cult being sucked of my money in a black occultish building. I'm sure many of you would feel the same.

No commercial breaks?

2005-02-15T23:00:00.000+08:00

Okay well I might not go to Australia after all. My folks are having second thoughts, but it's more of a financial thing here mostly. Well anyway I took the 'rents to the Next Generation office today after I paid my semester's fees to avoid the queues on registration day this Thursday. So they gave them the lowdown on the cost for the whole thing, talked about accomodation, etc, and now it's pretty much up to my Dad's decision.

Yes or no?

My life's a reality show.

Bangkok Still Rocks!

2005-02-09T00:08:00.000+08:00

Being part Thai, it was a great experience to finally being able to visit Bangkok, Thailand. My 3 night's stay there was incredible, and I wish I could've stayed longer. I decided to do a full-blown photo blog on this, so I won't have mercy on your loading time. The photos below are taken from my brother's digital camera and also scanned pictures taken from my Canon Rebel. Looking at the horrible quality of the scanned photos, this is where I'm jealous of every DSLR owner on the planet. So, to justify the horrendousness of the quality of my photos, please ask to view the original photos in college when I'll see you guys :)

Here we go!

Don't leave meeeeeeeeeeeee
Before we went off to KLIA, our pet cockatiels were giving us sad faces and puppy dog eyes... too bad there aren't bird sitters around.

Anyway...

I find that Thai Airways is one of the best flight companies around.

Not only was the food great, but the service was better, AND the plane was uber comfortable.

It was a smooth ride and we arrived to the Bangkok International Airport where we met up with my Dad who flew in from Vietnam a few hours earlier. We went to get a taxi at the counter, which turned out to be a Mercedes Kompressor!

We got to our hotel and headed out for some sightseeing after a brief rest. The famed Bangkok jam did not materialize during my stay there, which might be because of the elections and many had to return to their hometowns to vote.

... or maybe we didn't notice it because we utilized Bangkok's Skytrain, which resembles Malaysia's LRT system. It's incredibly convenient for tourists and locals alike.

I would like some, please
If you look closely there's a woman playing hide and seek with the camera
This dude was jammin' some serious Hendrix tunes on that old thing
Everyone knows me by my first name here
Didn't have time to sit on one of those Tuk Tuks
Our hotel was right in the middle of town, so getting around the place by foot or by train was pretty easy. Every corner had something interesting to see.

We went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market the next day. The place is a huge 35 acres, selling anything from squirrels to furniture. This is the place to bargain, and the place to really find curious eccentricities. I, for one, got stuck at the pets section...

You look like a little sheep, but I think you know that
Bunny in a shirt, anyone?
Like in Vietnam, I felt the amazement of finding pork-related food items on menus in almost every restaurant, when I realize that I'm not in a Muslim-dominated country anymore. Nando's Restaurant in Bangkok had a better variety of items to order, even steak. McDonald's Prosperity Burger had a choice of chicken or pork. Bacon and ham in pizzas from The Pizza Company!

Evilly laced with ham
The day after, my Dad's Thai colleague flew down from Vietnam as well and he and his wife made us all the more touristy by taking us to The Grand Palace. It was breathtaking, and only these photos (although in shitty quality) can say more.

I particularly like this shot
There was serious shopping going on in between all this but I'll spare you the details.

Our last day was pretty rushed, but I had to take a picture of this shop inside our hotel before we left:

Jewelry shop living a double life
Our flight was without incident and by the time we got back home (in yet another Mercedes, woohoo), it was 8pm, and we were dead dog tired.

Tha hell u've been?
Our pet birds were pretty excited to see us the next day, and continued singing Jingle Bells for us in celebration.

Bangrock Bound!

2005-02-05T01:12:00.000+08:00

I'm off to Bangkok!

I promise I won't get you guys anything, nyaHAhAhAhahhAha!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*cough* *cough* *wheeze* ooh hairball...

Attack of The Quizzes Part 2

2005-01-29T18:20:00.000+08:00

Your Dominant Intelligence is Musical Intelligence

Every part of your life has a beat, and you're often tapping your fingers or toes.
You enjoy sounds of all types, but you also find sound can distract you at the wrong time.
You are probably a gifted musician of some sort - even if you haven't realized it.
Also a music lover, you tend to appreciate artists of all kinds.

You would make a great musician, disc jockey, singer, or composer.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Hooray! :D

You Have A Type A- Personality

A-

You are one of the most balanced people around
Motivated and focused, you are good at getting what you want
You rule at success, but success doesn't rule you.

When it's playtime, you really know how to kick back
Whether it's hanging out with friends or doing something you love!
You live life to the fullest - encorporating the best of both worlds.

Do You Have a Type A Personality?

How Your Attitude Ranks

Your Attitude is Better than 70% of the Population

If you scored...

80-100: You've got a winner attitude. You're always optimistic and cheery. Your personality will get you far in life.

60-79: You have a good attitude. While a realist, you do see the positive side of most things. People love to be around you.

40 - 59: You have a positive attitude... somtimes. You prefer to see the world through clear glasses, not rose colored ones.

20 - 39: You have an average attitude. You take the good and bad in life as they come. Though sometimes you could use a little more good.

0-19: You have a negative attitude. You tend to see the dark side of every situation. Free ice cream? No thanks, it will just make you fat!

How's Your Attitude?

You Should Try Ice Climbing

Cold, challenging, and downright scary
And there's no way the snow is breaking your fall

What Extreme Sport Should You Try?

Ooh ice... ooh snow...

Your EQ is

140

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick!

51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese.

71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely.

91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that.

111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt.

131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin.

150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

What's Your EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient)?

You Are a German Shepherd Puppy

Intelligent, quick witted, and a bit aggressive.
You've got the jaw power to take a bite out of anyone you choose.

What Breed of Puppy Are You?

Hoyeah!

1985 by Bowling for Soup

"Where's the mini-skirt made of snakeskin?
And who's the other guy that's singing in Van Halen?
When did reality become T.V.?
What ever happened to sitcoms, game shows?"

You took the bitter with the sweet in 2004 - and kept laughing.

What 2004 Hit Song Are You?

Good thing I didn't end up with a Blue or Westlife song...

Your New Years Resolution Should Be: Stop waking up in strange places

Your personal mantra is "What's your name again?"
It's not that you're slutty - more like carefree
(In that whole free love sort of way.)
And if you're not careful, you'll end up a permanent fixture at the free clinic!

What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be?

LOL I can't stop laughing at this one!

Psychopath Trolls

2005-01-28T19:01:00.000+08:00

Wanna be amused and outraged at the same time? A particular blogger's posts on the tsunami will give ya just that! Thanks to Mozzie for highlighting it.

Remember my last post on empathy? This guy is (what I believe) the statistical minority that lacks all forms of it, called psychopaths.

I know the need to bash this guy's skull in is strong, but the best way to deal with these people is to actually ignore them. It's not like they're gonna care if you disagree with them, more less so are they going to change. Some of them are close-minded individuals hell bent on speaking their ill-informed minds, and some others are just there to screw with your emotions (better known as Internet trolls).

This guy ~~talks~~ types as if he's a racist war veteran trapped in a 24-year old's body.

"If it wasn't for WW2 yadda-yadda-yadda..."

Someone give this guy an enema.

Empathy for Strangers

2005-01-25T01:43:00.000+08:00

Why is it that we feel a sense of sympathy or sadness whenever we hear of a passing of someone we don't know personally?

Are we saddened because of a loss of a life, that we can relate to the feelings of the family of the deceased, of the things that can no longer be done/enjoyed by the deceased, or is this just a normal human reaction called empathy?

If the departed happens to be someone we know personally, then would our reaction be the same? I suppose not, as past memories spent with that person would summon a stronger emotional response and attachment. Plus the fact that we (might) have spent a good deal of our lives with the deceased is another factor. But still, going back to my original question, why then would would our hearts sink a little, and our eyes slightly squint when we learn about the passing of someone we have no connection whatsoever to?

It probably wouldn't be normal if we didn't feel so, but I'd like to know the science behind this. Probably what makes this hard to understand is how different people deal with the issue of death.

A definite answer I will probably not get, and Googling did not yeild sufficient clues. A couple of sites were quite helpful in understanding grieving following a person's death.

Predict me not

2005-01-22T23:18:00.000+08:00

Job Predictor

Mystery Wolf, your ideal job is a Movie Star.

Michelle Lee, your ideal job is between the hours of 12 and 1pm on days with a W in them.

Michelle Stephenie Lee, you ideal job is a Stunt Person.

E-mail Predictor

(E-mail #1): Your e-mail means that you are a scholar.

(E-mail #2): Your e-mail means that you are straight talking.

(E-mail #3): Your e-mail means that you are hard-working.

Love Predictor
Sorry, this is classified :D

Chat-up Line Predictor

Michelle, your ideal chat-up line is "Oh my God! I think I love you! Now lay down!"

Michelle Lee, your ideal chat-up line is "I could fall madly in bed with you"

Michelle Stephenie Lee, your ideal chat-up line is "Uh oh. My parents met at a place like this. Let's get the hell out of here.."

Mm... yes, I know I have better things to do.

Creepy Old Ladies & Falling Into Floors

2005-01-20T20:44:00.000+08:00

Sorry about the 24-hour delay on my post on old ladies (not that a lot of you would've noticed anyway!) but explanations and a slight change of topic will follow.

Two days ago I pleasantly stumbled into the Fortean Times website, which is a magazine about strange phenomena and weird stuff which I am a total sucker for. Checking out its forums, a particular thread about creepy old ladies piqued my interest, and that night I had decided to write about it, but decided to blog it out the next day [yesterday] as my nocturnal internet runs were scheduled to end as sunrise was about to bloom in an hour. In short, I went to sleep.

Granted that it had been sometime since mentally involving myself in paranormal literature, my mind somehow took the cue and subsequently gave me a ghostie dream that night. Surprisingly this time I talked back at the loudly whispering disembodied entity, but nonetheless I was still a tad freaked out when I woke up in the morning.

I decided to drop the 'creepy old lady' topic, as past experiences and knowledge on the weird stuff starts flooding back in my mind. My mother and I are really huge into the study of extraterrestrials, and paranormal cases. Our home is filled with all sorts of literature on these topics ranging from case report books to theories. Don't know if it's called a hobby though. Anyway, the thing is, some... weird stuff happens when I indulge in reading this topic. Things appear where they're not suppose to, etc. Just my imagination? I had hoped so, but not really. My mother has noticed some odd things sometimes. One reason I have is that our senses are more aware when we are reminded of them, and they are attracted to these sort of energies.

Anyhoo, I was trying to avoid continue reading more forums on this online, but my curiousity got the best of me and I ended up too chicken to go to sleep and waited till the sun rose up before I did. Good thing Gao was online and we discussed about ouija boards, orbs, horoscopes, and stuff like that, heh.

Oh hey, anyone ever had the feeling of falling while you're lying down (not sleeping) and you'd get up with a jolt? I hear quite a lot of people have experienced it. I used to have that a lot when I was younger, usually when I'm lying on the bed/floor just relaxing. Suddenly it would feel like there's nothing beneath you but darkness and you're falling off the edge into black space. Anyone has an idea what the hell those were? Do you notice that it happens if a window is nearby, like beside or above you? The Chinese say that if you get that feeling, it's because a spirit happened to step onto you while trying to move out through the window.

What's so Godly about it?

2005-01-08T21:29:00.000+08:00

I was having a chat with a Malay friend on MSN last night, and he was telling me about the events of his week. One of them was about meeting his "godbrother".

Him: "I went to meet my Godbrother..."
Me: [cutting him off] "Is there such a thing as godsiblings in Islam?"
Him: "...if you know what that is."
Me: "Well, I have Godparents, so of course I do."
Him: "What does it mean to you?"
Me: "In Christianity, a couple is appointed by your parents to be your Godparents at your Baptism..."
Him: "Oh, well, for me it's different..."

He went on explaining extensively about how his mother is really close to his godbrother's mother, and how close he is to his godbrother (etc, etc...) which is why that person is his godbrother. Whatever.

I don't think I am being biased towards my religion when I say that that is an inappropriate term. I don't appreciate the use of the word "God" such liberally in something that doesn't have anything to do with religion, or anything official, for that matter.

Wikipedia explains 'godparents' as:

A godparent, in Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather and a female godparent is a godmother.

Traditionally, the godparents were counted informally responsible for ensuring that the child's religious education was carried out, and for caring for the child should it be orphaned. Today the latter duty is the most commonly recognized duty of a godparent. This is not a legal duty, and should the parents seriously intend the godparents to act as foster parents in case of their death, this must be legally specified through the usual means (such as a will).

A godparent may be related to the child, such as an uncle or an aunt, or may simply be a friend of the family. Usually someone very close to the family is chosen; in some cultures, the word for "godparent of one's child" is used for any, or certain, very close friends. This is the meaning of the Spanish compadre and comadre, the French commère and compère, and the archaic meaning of the English word gossip (from godsib, "god-sibling").

Still, alot of people these days use that term freely with anyone they platonically feel close to. In my observation, I have also noticed the favourite Chinese term of khai mui [adopted sister] and khai kor [adopted brother] that is over-used especially among the younger generation. These terms have somewhat of the same application to the non-religious version of godsiblings. These 'adopted siblings' are not really adopted, per se. Call it a verbal agreement, non-official, and just for fun. It's funny how I find that a khai kor would mostly end up dating a khai mui in the end. Call it unofficial incest, then. Just for fun, right?

My friend asked, "So if I introduce my godbrother to my friends as my 'brother', they might get confused and think that he really is my brother. How then?"

My reply to that would be, "Who friggin' cares?!"

No, seriously, whatever happened to the plain good old-fashioned, "Hey everyone, meet so-and-so, he's like a brother to me".

By the way, newsflash, having a godsibling does NOT necessarily mean that he/she is especially close to you. I'm guessing a majority of people out there do not even form an unbreakable bond between their own blood-siblings.

The Yin and Yang

2005-01-01T20:50:00.000+08:00

A new unfolding. A new outlook. A new pair of eyes to see the world.

2005, ushered so sombrely. So quietly. Lucky ones spend time with family and friends in churches, mosques, temples, and private gatherings, making sure prayers replaced fireworks.

Facial expressions lost, words cut up.

This is a new year, what shall the world see?

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

It's hard to take in what has been happening in South Asia. We're still experiencing aftershocks and still finding bodies under piles of cement and rubble. I feel almost guilty being in my position. We are beyond lucky, we should be beyond grateful to be safe.

Mien called me up yesterday while I was in Ipoh with relatives. She was looking for anyone who has little or any medical training to be part of a team bound towards Aceh to help in relief efforts, leaving this Monday. Well, I couldn't get anyone for her, but I wanted to go too, to help in any way. I thought it was a good way of relieving my feeling of guilt. It seemed almost wrong that I'm sitting here so comfortable, warm, dry, a full stomach, and accompanied by family members, watching TV. Sure, donation and all that has been done, but a gift of your time would be far greater than anything else. Anyway, as I had expected, my Mom wouldn't let me go. I thought that was selfish, but what can I say.

Anyways, there have been many rumours, what-ifs, and did-you-knows circulating around the public spheres of late. Some of them are pretty interesting! *DISCLAIMER: The following statements does not reflect the thoughts of the author (Umm.. me) in any way.

Rumour Mill

Malaysian government's media cover-up on the stats on Langkawi to save tourism. Geographically near to Phuket, Thailand, Langkawi SHOULD be almost as bad as Phuket, and the stat of only ONE person dead (and a heart-attack victim at that) does not make sense. Rumor continues that Ex-PM Tun Dr. Mahathir had a hand in this.

The earthquake actually took us off of the earth's axis for a few seconds and we had a shorter day the day before yesterday [Some truth to it in Wikipedia in the second paragraph under title "Power of The Earthquake"].

Dolphins swam up river to save themselves before the tsunami came in.

This is the beginning of the end of the world.

What if?

What if it wasn't an earthquake that triggered this after all? What if it was an illegal testing of nuclear bombs under the sea that hit the fault lines that run next to Thailand and the other islands? This might not be a natural disaster as we think.

Did You Know?

Heard of the Malaysian miracle baby that survived the water by floating on a mattress? (Story here)

Crocodiles in Sri Lanka tried to eat/attack struggling tsunami victims (Story here)

Recommended literature

Humour at the expense of the uneducated

"So who's this Tsunami...?" - Old Chinese man in speaking in Canto
"... is he Japanese?" - Same Chinese man
"Sunat [circumsize] me?!" - Malay joke on the word 'tsunami'
"Muthusami lah" - The tsunami has been given an Indian name...

Tsunami = Good?! Some people's thoughts

That it cleansed poverty off the map (ie. India)
That it cleansed the "unclean" (ie. Phuket)
That it cleaned off wars/ unrest (ie. Tamil Tigers; Aceh)
Nature reclaiming itself
Example in Maldives here

I don't know if you've noticed it, but I keep reading the word 'two thousand four' in Cantonese and its literal translation of "Death coming in many zeroes", or "Death in numbers" is disturbing.

Ditching Two Thousand Four

2004-12-30T01:51:00.001+08:00

This is my last entry for the year, today I'll be heading to Ipoh to celebrate 2005's birth, so,

HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEAR GUYS!!!

Unlike the years before, I haven't really thought about what was great or horrible about 2004. So, off the top of my head now, I'll just dish some out, non-chronological.

GOOD:

Incubus show
Hoobastank show
Lame but good life... etc y'know

BAD:

Dislocated my knee
Damn earthquake & tsunamis
Had to stop guitar lessons
Damn Anal Lecturer Lady

Okay I can't really think of much... this year has been stressful, lame, but good overall. Please ignore my contradictions.

I haven't figured out any new year's resolutions yet. But I promise that 2005 will bring better things. It's gonna be great... I'll have some college video productions going on, and I'll be heading off to Australia around July... I hope to be better as a person too.

Anyways, my uncle who emigrated to New Zealand came down yesterday to go to Ipoh with us. He's a superb guitar player, Jimi Hendrix-esque, and he's just plain too good. His kids are musicians. Oh yeah, my point is, that it felt good to be in the presence of one of my guitar-pro uncles. AND... he told me that about two years ago his wife -my aunt- who works in Australia, met Wes Borland and Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit!!

Well, being the older generation, she didn't know who this goateed guy and this huge tattooed dude was when they walked into her shop. Wes wanted to buy a watch. Apparently he told her that he was playing at Big Day Out. Somehow, Wes had to show his ID and credit card or some crap but it was really funny. Anyways, Wes bought a really nice beautiful watch... I'll try to get more details from my uncle later... I was too in shock to remember anything. Oh yeah... my aunt, she's so dope, she even took the security camera tape back home and showed it to her kids. I bet they were stoked as shit.

Ah well, that's the hugest and raddest fact I know of 2004. I am |----| this much closer connected to Wes *hails to the guitar god*

Afters eons of knocking back beers, I'm finally immune to it. I just had four beers just now, and I feel nothing. Not that I'm numb or anything, I mean, that I don't feel like I'm under the influence. Squat. Still had great vision, acted normally, everything was normal, and I played pool better than I usually did. I need to be challenged here, c'mon.

Well, there's some last minute highlights of the year, so my friends, be safe, take care of yourselves, don't DUI, spread the love, and I'll see you next year! Cheers!

Woodstalk!

2004-12-27T19:13:00.000+08:00

I'm trying hard not to laugh/freak out as I type this right now...

About a month ago or so, some of you on Friendster might have witnessed the little war me and Cheesy had on a girl called Clarissa who took a whole bunch of Cheesy's photos and claimed them as her own. In my part I managed to send a message to everyone in this Clarissa's friends list and asked them to remove themselves from her list. The 'campaign' was a success, and I suffered a backlash of messages, all in the tune of, "Hey you're cute, can we be friends?"

Maintaining my 'Only friends I know' policy, their requests were denied politely.

Now, it so happens that I'm in this online club, of which its site was shut down temporarily. We congregated to Myspace to keep in touch with members. Reluctantly, I joined half out of curiosity and half out of loyalty to the club. Since I didn't know most of the members personally, I didn't mind adding other people I didn't know as well.

Since I joined, I've received the most weirdest messages ever, ~~bordering~~ total insanity! I'm not even talking about those with the most atrocious level of English. Loyal readers, in tune with a previous blog on my constant stalkability, I shall share with you a recent message I've received in Myspace, unedited, including my response and his reply to it:

From: Mohammed
Date: Dec 26, 2004 03:58 AM

how are you . I hope you feel fine
I am studt here in Malaysia intenational school I can aspeak fraice and english ,by the way I am Mohammed 25 years old from Ghana I like fool ball .not smoking even drinking . I am muslim single I am looking for wiff even muslim ar christian I dant care I sed my pc soon con you tell me about you I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

From: Mystery Wolf
Date: Dec 26, 2004 04:42 AM

Hi,
I'm fine, thanks. I don't know how you "love me so much" because you don't know me, but you're welcome to add me as your friend.

From: Mohammed
Date: Dec 27, 2004 01:43 AM
LOVE YOU SO MUCH ? BABY BECAUSE OF YOU NOW ICHANGE I HAVE MY NEW LIFE. PLS BABY I WANT YOU TO MERRIED . YOU AND AND BE MOTHER OF MY KID"S PLS BABY DON' T DISAPOINT ME . I DIE FOR YOU GOD KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU I NEED YOU .YOU ARE MUST INPORTAND TO ME .IHOPE SOMETEMES YOU MEET MY FAMILY >AND I HOPE YOU CAME WITH ME IN GHANA ? OKAY NOW ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF YOURSELE I LOVE YOU AND I MISS YOU SO MUCH ?OUR LIFE TOGETHER HAS BROUGHT ;I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT ARE MY GREATEST TREASURE MERRY X' MAS LOVE AND CARE DARLING MOHAMMED

... please tell me that you're as creeped out as I am...

EDIT: Okay, I drafted my reply, here it is! :

Wow I'm glad I changed your life. To insanity that is. Oh don't worry, I am "merried". In fact, with all this Christmas cheer and booze around, I'm so merry!

You want my kids? *looks around* Last time I checked, I didn't have any. I also had no idea I was so "inportand" to you, if only I knew what that was. Me meeting your family? Aww, you're too kind, I'm sure they'll get used to a girl part flesh and part surgical steel. My dad also mentioned that he wants a herd of a thousand camels, twenty white cows, one goat, two bantam weight chickens, and your severed head as a sign of agreement to meet me.

Visiting Ghana would be cool! I love travelling places... but of course not with you. Alrighty I'll take care of myself, thanks for the concern. Good to know that I'm your greatest treasure... since sliced bread?

... oh, and who are you again?

The Tourist Prayer

2004-12-20T21:36:00.000+08:00

My mother was looking through some old stuff and came upon an old photocopy of a newspaper clipping given to her by my uncle who lives in Texas. I looked at the article, undated, and it looked like it was about 10 years old.

It's a Dear Abby-type column, with 'Abby' being a woman named Ann Landers. A reader sent Ann Landers a 'Tourist Prayer' and asked who the author was. Landers answered that it is none other than Art Buchwald, and shared the prayer with other readers. Here it is, it's hilarious!

The Tourist Prayer

Heavenly Father, look down on us, your humble, obedient tourist servants who are doomed to travel this earth taking photographs, mailing postcards, buying souvenirs and walking around in drip-dry underwear.

We beseech you, Oh Lord, to see that our plane is not hijacked, our luggage is not lost and our overweight baggage goes unnoticed.

Protect us from unscrupulous taxi drivers, avaricious porters and unlicensed English-speaking guides.

Give us divine guidance in the selection of hotels, that we may find our reservations honored, rooms made up, and hot water running from the faucets.

We pray that the telephones work, the operators speak our tongue, and that there is no mail waiting from our children which would force us to cancel the rest of our trip.

Lead us, dear Lord, to good, inexpensive restaurants where the food is superb, the waiters friendly, and the wine included in the price of the meal.

Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand. Forgive us for under-tipping out of ignorance and over-tipping out of fear.

Make the natives love us for what we are and not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods.

Grant us the strength to visit the museums, the cathedrals, the palaces and the castles listed as musts in the guidebooks.

And if perchance we skip a historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak.

HUSBANDS: Dear God, keep our wives from reckless shopping and protect them from "bargains" they don't need and can't afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.

WIVES: Almighty God, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us. Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and nightclubs. Above all, please do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do.

ALL TOGETHER: And when our voyage is over, and we return to our loved ones, grant us the favor of finding someone who will look at our home movies and listen to our stories so our lives as tourists will not have been in vain.

This we ask you in the name of Conrad Hilton and American Express.

AMEN.

Messed up

2004-12-19T01:14:00.000+08:00

My heart's in a mess. My mind's in a bind.

So much uncertainty now, so much opportunity, so much deprivation.

So much I don't know.

Distress.

Many things have been swishing back and forth in my mind of late, and I don't even know what to begin with.

I had even more to think about after meeting Chino today at Midvalley's MPH Bookstore. I was there to collect my guitar from him and to watch Fallen Leaves' three-song set in the bookstore. I don't even know how to describe what I felt. It wasn't anything bad, but it was clear much contact has been lost over time between us. It has been awhile, and it's pretty sad that I couldn't think of much to say; so much has changed in the lives of my friends.

I really miss my freshman year, it was the most time the gang had spent together doing production shoots, the time where I had made the most friends and had the most fun ever in college. Now most of my friends have graduated, and I am almost burnt out. The most painful part is to just lose contact, but that's what's happening. I don't want to see you guys in ten years in a shopping mall and exchange cheap pleasantries and just walk away back to our own lives. But I have a feeling that that's what's going to happen too. This ain't right. This is not a c'est la vie moment.

My life. My life began as a straight road. As I walked down, it started to curve slightly, but I still thought I saw the end. Now, the road's not only winding like mad, it's a 20-lane highway with unexpected dead ends and fatal cliffs without barriers to stop you from falling off into nowhereville.

Self re-evaluation settles to a blur, and I am no more capable of knowing what's right or wrong. What I thought was right before is not now, and nothing bears a single answer. Still, I listen to myself. I find myself on my own again, as always. Because of my tendencies to different paths, I constantly see my own shadow and no one else's. What was important was strength in my decision and spirit, and I think I'll be doing that again. I might appreciate company, but I am made to be on my own.

Parents, I've been doing my best so far in all honesty, I know you have much trust in me, so I hope you'll understand what I'm planning to do next.

I won't come back when I do.

*EDIT
This is me 7 hours later:
Okay that ending sounded suicidal, but it's actually not in case you're wondering *lol*
I'm alright, cheerio...

Freeze & Flood

2004-12-15T03:08:00.000+08:00

I had just spent two absolutely freezing days in Genting Highlands with my mother and brother for a small vacation. Yes, I'm not one of those people who practically go up to Genting every fortnight (to gamble). I have only been to Genting twice in my entire life, and my last trip was probably about a decade ago, so this trip meant a lot to me.

I enjoyed the nippy cold air and scenery, but unfortunately nothing much else appealed to me. I was banned from those that did, though. Like the casino which I was only a year too young to enter, told rudely to us by a bitch-slappable Malay guy. Nevermind that my piercings triggered the metal detector alarms easily.

Everything else was either too expensive or too boring. This acrobat water show thingy called H2O was like, fourty Ringgit. Attractions were custom-made for their majority of Chinese patrons. Flatly, things were too chink for our liking, and I'm trying not to complain about the 1 million and one Chinese people there with their many children running, screaming, skating, vomitting, and crying there. Let's just classify that as chaos and annoyance.

After finding out that we landed in a second Hong Kong, we also found out that we landed in a second China, linguistically. A majority of the shop staffs only spoke Mandarin mainly (some Cantonese), and did not understand English. One cashier could not even understand the concept of a receipt.

Still, I found something that was good in Genting. One thing. A Ripleys Believe It Or Not Warehouse.

Some of the exhibits at the Ripleys Warehouse

Since it was too cold and a blizzard was adamant on keeping us indoors throughout our first one and a half days there, I sat in the room sometimes to try to heat up. The hotel room did not have a heater.

Me freezing my ass off

It was easily zero degrees during the night as the powerful winds blew screaming winds against our windows much like an orchestra of ghostly sirens in pain.

On the second day the skies cleared slightly and we were able to walk about in the theme park which was right beside our hotel.

Plus the fog, the theme park looked like something out of a slasher movie located inside a deserted carnival during the night.

I have never seen such thick fogs before, so walking around exploring the entire Genting was interesting, like I was walking into a misty movie set.

Genting's got some really great deco going on, you can't take enough pictures of them, but our camera was getting wiped out by the wet mists around the place.

Anyway, on the third day, it was time to leave, but as we stepped into the Genting Skyway cable car to go back down, the sun shone through the thick clouds and it was finally a nice sunny day... just when we were leaving. Nice.

Oh FYI, the blizzard we encountered was part of the flash floods occuring in Pahang, Kelantan and Terengganu which so far has killed thirteen people, and had over 12,000 have evacuated from their homes.

Keys & Needles

2004-12-11T01:00:00.000+08:00

I usually plan my future piercings/body modifications a year ahead before I get them. I started getting bod mods since I was 18, on every birthday. I still wish I was able to keep that first piercing of mine, too bad infection got the best of my right eyebrow piercing.

I have started planning on my next bod mod for my 21st birthday. My mother had always wanted to give me a key on my 21st birthday to symbolize giving me freedom in the adult world. Things like a key pendant on a necklace and such has been given thought by her.

Recently, I hatched my own plans.

Ear Project

Instead of continuing my current ear project, I decided to get a key tattooed on myself.

I would be studying in Australia next year when I would be celebrating my 21st birthday. So I will be out there all by myself for the very first time, and come back to Malaysia with a tattoo. How cliche is that? Sounds like a typical parent's nightmare.

A reason I'm considering a tattoo is because, well, I only trust my usual piercer dude and I don't want to suffer in the middle of the semester with a throbbing ear. My next ear project involves piercing a mirror-image twin for my current Orbital, which calculates to a noticable amount of discomfort. I'm not taking that risk in a foreign country.

So yes, a key tattoo from Australia would be a great souvenir, and I hear tattoos from Down Under are great. Time for more research and bod mod networking.

Alright, so a key. What kind of key? Celtic key? My house key? I originally had no idea on what kind of key I wanted, but it had to mean something to me. All my bod mods mean something. I checked out images of keys on the internet. Nothing really caught my eye.

A few years ago I thought of having a tattoo of a cross on my nape. Then not too long ago I planned for a wolf tattoo, but that'll come later as I'm gonna design the wolf myself. Maybe a wolf holding a key in its mouth... nah... A key is small and simple enough for a first tat. Then I recalled the cross I originally wanted.

It's just an idea for now, but to get the Keys of The Vatican tattooed on me would have double meaning. To symbolize my freedom, and me being Catholic.

It's just then that I find out that The Vatican has two keys. One silver and one gold. The gold key is the key to heaven and the silver one the key to the earth. I had planned to get a key tattooed on my hand, and now I might get the two keys on each hand - the keys in my hands to open doors for myself.

That's pretty deep, but I still have a lot of time to think about it.

X'mas shopping turned movie day

2004-12-09T02:10:00.000+08:00

Yay finally I got to sit my ass once again in a movie theatre. I think my last movie was Spiderman 2, not too sure. It was an impromtu decision to watch a movie at Mid Valley's GSC, and we bought 9pm tickets for The Polar Express. Apparently it was the movie's opening night but the place wasn't as packed as you would have expected ala Spiderman. Less people with annoying cell phone conversations in the theatre for me :)

We bought the tickets an hour earlier, so we bummed about waiting for time to pass. Guess what? I spotted some guy with a familiar hairstyle, in a familiar ~~skinny~~ bony frame and in a familiar shirt - it was Yu-Ming, with his tiny lock of long hair at the back pleated. Naturally, I pushed him from the back.

Yu-Ming:"Oih! What you pushing"
Me:"Hey man"
(moment of odd staring)
Yu-Ming:"I'm with some people" *pointing*
Me:"Uh, okay? Gotta catch a movie, bye"
Yu-Ming:"Bye"

Man, that felt weird, I didn't know why, and I still don't. Anyways I saw him walk towards and stand beside this really huge girl. I mean, she was tall and she was big-sized. As much as I was trying to comprehend that situation, I gave up, and he later dissapeared, the girl was still standing there though, so maybe he wasn't with her, I'll never know. But it was funny.

Anyway, our movie was about two hours long. It was great! The characters look almost real. Nice storyline, thrilling scenes, great message, I'd give it a 8.5/10.

Between Rarity and Commercialization

2004-12-06T06:13:00.000+08:00

It's around 6am now and I haven't gone to bed. Those who know me well already know this is as normal for me as the cat I used to have that gives out 'silent killer' farts. No, really.

One thing that I just have to blog out before I hit the cushion jungle is how much great music out there that I'm deprived of here in this country. No, no, I'm serious here.

You know whenever you talk to a kid in the US or wherever, they'd be telling you that they listen to all this underground bad-ass bands that you've never heard of? I'd be wishing that I know what their music sounds like. When I turn on either Energy X radio or ChronixAgression radio on iTunes and I get all these fantastic music played by bands I have never even had the slightest clue existed.

These bands don't have as much exposure as their more 'succesful' counterparts and yet there they are getting their songs played on a radio, and they sound just as good as any other band, maybe even better.

Yet, I know that these bands might not be 'underground' or whatnot, it's just that their fanbase is only limited to their state, or country the most. Yes, obviously if it was otherwise we would be hearing it on Hitz.fm non-stop and be titled the new sensation etc, and be overplayed and then forgotten in a few months...

I guess the message my mind is trying to get across 6am in the morning here is, that I would like for these awesome music to be more widely available, but to get that is to lose the novelty and to be easily forgotten.

Argh... I think I'll stick to iTunes for now.

Good Morning.

Just An Illusion

2004-12-01T22:47:00.000+08:00

It's December and the Christmas tree is finally up in my house!

Two years ago we had a Christmas tree that was over six feet high. Last year, we had a REAL living christmas tree (which didn't like the ornaments hanging on it) in the living room. This year? We have an x'mas tree as tall as Verne Troyer [Mini-Me].

Bringing out the ornaments from the storeroom and decorating the tree brought back memories of the Christmases I've experienced in my two decades of life. Most of them are about my mom who has a knack on driving me nuts and what my family has become now.

Ever since I could remember, my family has always had great X'masses together. We would decorate the tree together, have a nice dinner in a fancy place on the 25th together... just everything we did was together, and most of the time we would be celebrating it together in a hotel in another state because my Dad moves around a lot due to business stuff.

Not until quite recently, things have changed, not that I didn't see it coming. My dad's working in Vietnam permanently, and only comes back every three months for a week. Even though Vietnam has a church around every block, Christmas is not a public holiday there. So my Dad has to work in Vietnam during the festive season.

So now we celebrate Christmas without a husband/father.

Lately I find myself being the only one who actually cares about our tradition. I decorate the tree myself now. My mother would be a 'backseat decorator' after I'm done struggling with the lights and crap. She initially didn't even want to put up an x'mas tree this year. My mother also does not bake her annual X'mas cake soaked in Brandy anymore. She now buys those cakes, which totally loses its meaning.

If I removed the Christmas tree in the house now, you probably wouldn't notice anything else that feels like x'mas. We don't even decorate the house now. No stockings, no holly, zilch.

Since our plans to go to Vietnam to experience Christmas in another country and spend time with my dad has been cancelled, our fancy dinner tradition has also been reduced to just eating dinner at home.

Seems like Christmas is just an illusion here.

All I want for Christmas is... socks?!

2004-11-29T04:56:00.000+08:00

It's time for Christmas gift shopping!

Try giving hints to your Aunts this time that you do not want socks or bottles of soap for Christmas this year... heh, I don't know why, but I hear that complaint a lot.

What we need are totally freaky pressies this season. And yours truly has compiled a refreshing list of unusual ideas for ideal Christmas presents for your consideration:

1. USB Mincepies
2. Caffeinated Soap
3. Pop-up Hotdog Cooker
4. Remote-controlled Farting Bear
5. Deer & Cow Pooper Set
6. Banana Guard
7. Mr.T Soap-on-a-rope
8. Little Whizzer Liqour Dispenser

Most of them might not be practical, but hey, beats getting socks!

You know what, I used to have a Magic 8 Ball when I was a kid, and after one or two years of having it, the water in it started to drain out. After that, it made a dissapearance, and was never seen again. I want another one!!

But really, I don't really know what I want for Christmas, but I sure as hell know that I want snow from Regina (even though it'll come a month late)! Hah... Jon's a 'snowman' (think 'postman'), he delivers snow to the needy snow-deprived people in the world.

Drunken Eyes & Hangovers

2004-11-25T17:56:00.000+08:00

Jon will be going back to Canada to freeze his ass in winter tonight :)

So us peeps had a lil party to wish him a good flight back at his place in Puchong last night.

Thanks to that two cups of neat Absolut Vodka that totalled me for the rest of the night, I can't really tell you what happened yesterday, because I don't remember >.<"

But hey before the vodka was flowing, we had some good snapped moments.

Aren't you glad I didn't post your drunken eye pic Jon? LMFAO

Wow... a decent photo... sorta

Joy amused herself with my camera while I... had a few appointments with Mr. Hurl

I walked straight into a chair this morning after getting up from bed. I'm alright :)

A Plan that didn't turn out Simple

2004-11-21T18:00:00.000+08:00

I just got back from Tower Recods at KLCC today for an autograph signing session by Simple Plan.

Here are the details:

Who: Simple Plan, from Montreal, Canada
Date: 21 November, 2004
Time: 3pm
Place: In front of Tower Records

What I brought
- My Canon EOS Rebel camera
- Simple Plan's No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls CD

My plan was to get there by 1:30pm, meet Jay (and hopefully Hui Yee), get in line, get my CD autographed, take lotsa pix, and buzz outta there.

Posers in goth-like clothing, or punk-like wannabe baggy pants started to fill the LRT train I was in from the Pasar Seni stop onwards. Most of them were very young (and very bullyable) and accompanied by parents.

I got to KLCC by 1:45pm, and by the time I found Jay and Tower Records, there were so many freaking people there that we don't even know where the line started. Jay went in to buy their latest album, Still Not Getting Any so that he could get Simple Plan to sign it. I decided to buy the new album too and hopefully get them to sign both the new and the old one. We got free posters :)

It turned out a waste of energy though, because Phat Fabes announced on the mic that each person could only get one thing signed.

Bugger.

But it's a rational thing to do... seeing the millions of people there. If I were Simple Plan my signing hand would totally be jacked if I have to sign so much shit with my face on it.

Impressionable and hormonal kids would scream their hearts out at the many false alarms that happened. Some dude who had hair like Pierre came up the escalator and they would scream. The DJ played a Simple Plan song and saying "Ladies and Gentlemen...", and they would scream. Nothing happens, and they still scream.

Am I getting old for this or do those kids need a reality check? Or Prozac?

So while they scream and mess up the line, Jay ate some KFC chicken popcorn shakes bought by his super-youthful looking mom. Yeah, Jay came with his parents too :P

I had nothing to do either so I small talked with a girl standing in front of us in line. She was from .. uh.. Spain or Portugal.. something like that, I don't remember.

Hui Yee arrived with CC a while later. I shoved her my old Simple Plan CD in hopes that I could still get my two CDs signed.

Simple Plan arrived at 3:05pm. That was a nice change, they're quite punctual for rock stars, heh...

Aside from the pushing and shoving and yelling and sweat that comes with anything close to someone famous in the queue line, Simple Plan got up from their seats for everyone to take pictures after about an hour and a half of signing stuff. It was then in an almost Snaggle Puss way that they dashed out - EXIT, STAGE RIGHT.

And it was over.

Jay and I stood there, with a what the fuck look on our face.

"What?! They didn't even sign my CD yet!!" said us.

"Shiettt..."

"Since I can't go to Zouk to see them perform tonight, I'm gonna fuckin' go to KDU tomorrow!" said peeved Wolfy.

"Hey, where's Hui Yee?"

So we called Hui Yee... and whaddaya know, she got my CD signed! And she shook their hands! And she got her hands dirtied by the marker pen by Simple Plan!

"Farker!!!!! I wanted to meet them! And you got your hand doodled by them!?" I said to her.

*LOL*

Oh well, that was swell, at least I got one of my CDs signed :)

Let's see how tomorrow at KDU will go, apparently SP has some tennis thingy there.

UPDATE: MW finally did not go to KDU.

Down Memory Lane in Saigon

2004-11-15T18:53:00.000+08:00

I kinda miss Vietnam. Sure, I may have dislocated my knee there, but heck... I miss the people, the scenery, the feel of the place, and the food was alright. Best of all, it's just nice to spend time with my dad, who works in Ho Chi Minh City as a VP of a company. He only comes back down to Malaysia to see us every three months for about a week.

In the middle of town in Ho Chi Minh City at night

It was only early January of this year that me and my mom went up to Vietnam. We stayed there for about three weeks, if I'm not mistaken. Time went by very very slow. Sometimes you'd feel restless, one hour would seem like three Malaysian hours. I'd get tired of my Dad's Nat King Cole CD playing in the hall. Nicholas, our housemate from France, would play some proper modern music like Jamiroquai from his little laptop in his room, which saves my day sometimes. When boredom catches up with me, that's when I'd turn on the cable tv, with nothing much to watch except the French channel. Improved my French a tad along the way. It's still bad though.

Though my dad didn't have much time off his job to take us around, we did follow him on his business trips out of HCMC. Dalat was a place way up in the mountains, it was much colder and breezier than Cameron Highlands or Genting Highlands. I guess it was about spring time in Vietnam then. It was sprouting cherry blossom trees everywhere in Dalat.

Cherry Blossoms trees, in Valle� D'amour (Valley of Love), Dalat

Gia Nguyen Cafe, Dalat

Coq Church, Dalat

There were many interesting churches in Vietnam. There's always a church somewhere about every ten blocks you go, especially on route to Vung Tao, a coastal town. My particular favourite was a hilltop church overlooking the ocean, which had statues of cherubims everywhere. I limped my way up their steps slowly...

Statues of a group of cherubs, Vung Tao

Rock carvings along the steps of the hilltop church, Vung Tao

View of the sea from the hilltop church, Vung Tao

I found out later that Vietnamese people even set up religious statues in their homes. Mostly on the balcony, as their houses are very narrow but high. Humongous Christian statues mysteriously sit on mountain tops too.

No, we're not looking at Christ the Redeemer of the Open Arms, on the Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we're still in Vung Tao, Vietnam

Another church in Vung Tao, facing the sea. Tried asking for a translation to the name of the church from a parishioner, but neither of us understood each other

Well, those trips were a lot of fun, broken knee or not. Back in Ho Chi Minh City, I was still in awe of the French colonial architechture.

Hotel Continental, and the HCMC Opera House

And I didn't lose my humour.

The Bich Son Shop

That was a nice reminder of the trip. Question is, will I be able to go back there this holidays? We were planning to spend Christmas with my dad, but my mom isn't very happy with the flight prices. Plus she thinks it's pretty boring there aside from the scenery. Me, I just wanna spend Christmas with family in Vietnam with two good knees.

All I want for Christmas is my two good knees, my two good knees...

Tongue of Colicab's Return

2004-11-14T01:48:00.000+08:00

So I'm three months backdated. Doesn't stop me from bursting out hollering, "WES BORLAND'S RETURNING TO LIMP BIZKIT!!!"

Wes mentioned something about working on Bizkit's next album in his website. I didn't quite believe it, so I Googled it out, and true enough, the news is confirmed by MTV.com, VH1.com, and Yahoo! LAUNCH, among others. Most importantly of all, confirmed in Fred Durst's blog, and sort of confirmed in Limp Bizkit's official website, which carries photos of Wes jamming with the band since August 16.

On a side note, I don't recall Limp Bizkit's website to look like it does now. I thought it was all flashy and fancy looking. Looks like the band needs a webmaster (or maybe a new one). Their old website used to be "www.limp-bizkit.com", a page that doesn't open anymore. On a cooler note, their main page of the new site, which is their blog, has the same template as I do :)

Back to the topic, I don't know how I feel about Wes returning to LB. Part of me is absofuckinglutely ecstatic about it, and another part of me is, well, not exactly liking that fact. Wes left LB three years ago because he felt trapped, that he wasn't doing what he really wanted musically. Currently, there's no statement from Wes on why he's returning or for how long. I'm sure Wes' got his head right so I'm gonna support him on that. But I'd hate to see him returning to his old predicament in the future, like a bad dejavu. His new record's 75% done, but because of Bizkit's recording he'll be putting that on hold, but might be able to finish the record right before his tour with LB starts.

Will Wes make Limp Bizkit his priority from now on? Will he go back to the mainstream which was the reason why he left?

I want to see Eat the Day and Big dumb Face grow. The development and potential power of Wes' upcoming record might be stunted with his renewed popularity in Limp Bizkit. Then again, it could possibly help push sales in a way, especially by obssessy with wessy fans.

So Mike Smith (dude from Snot), Wes' replacement, has been shoved out of LB. He never looked as if he fit into the whole LB picture anyway all this while. Speaking of him, he looks awfully like that psycho housemate Chandler had in an episode of Friends in Limp Bizkit's video, Eat You Alive. I don't remember that actor's name though. Heh...

In conclusion, I'm not sure if Wes' getting back into Limp is a great thing, but as long as he still comes out with good shiet and is happy about it, then it's all good :)

*Update:

Wes' blog entry in Limp Bizkit's website dated October 21, 2004, which includes his statement on his returning:

We're packing up and heading north to record a new album. Los Angeles is too comfortable for us, so we have to leave our everyday lives behind . This music is hungry for our blood, and we have to feed it what it wants. The gear's in the road cases, the trucks are being loaded, and the absentee ballots are in the mail. We have about two months before the holidays hit. Do you think we can hammer it out before Christmas? We'll see. Let's get down to brass tacks here. I've been gone for a long time. I don't regret anything that's happened over the past 3 years. It couldn't have happened any other way. I had some time to explore some other things, and after searching I came to the conclusion that this band was not an accident. There is a chemistry here that I haven't found anywhere else. There's an intention and an electricity that exists which is bigger than the individual members, despite their differences. We're very excited about the music we are writing at the moment, and we are very grateful that we get the chance to do this again with our friend Ross Robinson on board. We'll be updating the site more and more as the record progresses, and posting new pictures from the studio as we take them. The amount of support from the fans of this band is staggering. I can't wait to get back out on the road next year. I'm picking up my suitcase and walking out the door.

(p.s..... when I said "hammer it out by Christmas" I in no way meant that we would try to release an album by Christmas. I was saying that I hope we will finish recording by then. Thank you and goodnight...)

I don't know what to call this one

2004-11-13T22:30:00.000+08:00

I'm supposed to start my semester break today, but oh no, I've still got an unexpected second report to submit next week. Bah humbug...

Siew Poh didn't want to keep my interactive CD I submitted, she wants me to submit it with the report next week. This pretty much made my working-on-CD-overnight-till-7am effort a waste for the presentation yesterday. My body's still in pain and fatigue.

Oh well, I felt pretty creative today, my hands were itching to do something. Although I had a lack of imagination at the moment, I decided to give my hands what they wanted. And they came up with something pretty lame, I must say...

Meet Mr. Shady! He's gonna go through some humiliating hair experiments to cover up the missing half of his head...

This version obviously didn't work... Mr. Shady can't rock any jailhouse...

Umm.. groovy?

... you ever see those people with plastic-like hair?

Alright, enough of embarassment for us both, Mr. Shady will just have to walk home half-headed, and I better blog properly next time.

Of Pgymy Malls & Rain

2004-11-10T02:50:00.000+08:00

Happy happy joy joy...

Only three days left to the very much needed semester break holidays! Oh boy oh boy...

Oh yeah, today was my first ever visit to the new shopping mall in Putrajaya called Alamanda. Makes me wanna say SALAMANDER!

Lizard jokes aside, I'm pretty impressed by the mall. We'll, it's interior anyways. If you want to get a close idea of what Alamanda looks like from the outside, think of a grey-coloured flattened Mid Valley Megamall.

Inside, the place looks like a hybrid of Ikano, 1 Utama 2 (whoa irony), and Twin Towers' KLCC.

The mall itself is only comprised of two floors. The parking's ample enough, going on multiple levels.

We parked on the third level if I'm not mistaken. The third floor of Alamanda to take an escalator down has got a really, really low ceiling. Beware all kwai-los and Shazzes, you've got to really bend down to avoid bumping your heads on the ceiling or also risk getting your head lopped off by those emergency water sprinklers up there.

One feature I loved about the mall is the live Jazz band hired to play there, just like KLCC. They've got a percussionist, a guitarist, a celloist, and a saxophonist (okay, not exactly like KLCC).

I don't want to sound like a stereotypical fool, but I've always known of live Hari Raya songs to be performed by dangdut singers, or these raggedy men with a boring keyboard or the pasar malam-ish blind-man-playing-accordion-yelling-into-microphone types. I'm not a big fan of Hari Raya songs played repeatedly in supermarkets either. No offense to my Muslim friends, yo.

But here's the thing. The Alamanda band played so beautifully, so jazzy, so smoothly, and I almost thought it was Christmas, but they were playing the Selamat Hari Raya song. Wow, that blew me away. That totally changed my perceptions on Hari Raya songs. Forgive me while I indulge in my punk mode: Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuddeeeee!!!!!

*ahem* Moving on, me, my bro, and my mom (they've been to the mall once before) took walks outside to the courtyards to explore the deco. There are those water-spouting fountains like KLCC, but with a nicer view. We didn't get to stay outside for long because strong winds from the oncoming rain were giving us new hairdos and kicking up a lot of dust from sites still under construction.

Back inside I checked out the variety of shops available, which were pretty much standard. There's Starbucks, A&W, Memory Lane, Hush Puppies, Delifrance, F.O.S., Toy City, Carrefour, and the standard food court, among others. There only seems to be one ATM, which is located in the AMFinance small office branch.

There were no pet shops or music (instrument) stores in the mall, which was a bummer (for me).

The crowd mostly comprised of Malays, probably because it was about 6pm then and most of those breaking fast would rather eat out than to cook. Yes, I felt a tad guilty when my family and I devoured our food greedily in KFC at 6:30pm when the rest of the customers, obviously Muslims, were looking at us. It's bad enough that me and my mom's got tan coloured skin, so it looks kinda weird with my brother there who looks totally Chinese and fair.

So after reading magazines from MPH for free, we bummed around for a while longer and then took a film noir-like drive back in the dark and rain to our warm home up in the hill, just in time to watch The Apprentice. Omarosa should be fired.

What is the world coming to?

2004-11-07T01:56:00.000+08:00

I'm personally disgusted by this. Well, not exactly disgusted since I'm immune to rotten.com, but I'm disgusted by this act.

What am I talking about? I was reading a Friendster bulletin posted by my friend Trish:

There's an artist, Nathalia Edenmont, who kills cats, mice, doves, rabbits, and other animals, mutilates their bodies, and then takes their photographs. She's on exhibit, among other places, at the Wetterling Gallery in Sweden. She has taken the top halves of five white mice and made them into finger puppets. She beat a cat to death with a stick. And this is called art. This is not only inhumane, but morally reprehensible.

Take a look at Edenmont's exhibits. The Wetterling Gallery gave a justification of her work, but in my opinion, it was (and is) a bad justification.

If you feel as strongly against this as I do, you'd wanna sign the petition against her too like I did.

I left a lil note in my petition signature:

Sure we kill animals to eat, but that's to nourish our bodies. To kill animals for art on the other hand is a totally different thing. If the animal used was already dead due to natural causes, it would also be questionable to use the carcass as art.
If Ms. Edenmont wanted to provoke thoughts through her pictures, it would be a better alternative if those images were computer generated. Why kill a living creature who deserves to live as much as you do for your personal satisfaction of self-expression?

In the same spirit, please take a few moments to help petition to save and protect wolves in the links provided in the side section on the right. Thank you.

This is for everyone connected to ALL

2004-11-04T22:18:00.000+08:00

I had just visited Cheesy's blog after blogging out the last entry awhile ago. She had written about our same presentation as well, and had discussed some thoughts that she had made with Chingy a.k.a Mozzie and Parmie (whom I don't think I know) on ALL's mind.

Admittedly still feeling somewhat bitter, here's my two cents on ALL's mind, elaborating on some of Cheesy's points:

ALL's mind:

1. Higher security and more secretive than Area 51. Enter and die getting shot.
2. Hacker proof and contains supreme-o State-Of-The-Art security systems that'll put the Pentagon to shame.
3. Shaped so square that it redefines the shape of the square. The term "think out of the box" cannot and will not be applied to the closed square mind because it is not feasible enough to be executed. Contents of the square cannot be altered once stored.
4. More devious than the CIA. Risk being "removed" once you are found to be in opposition.
5. Beats the attention span of a child diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), replacing the child's crave to go and play with massive outbursts of anger and intolerance in addition to copious amounts of gloating.
6. Is probably as compassionate as Osama bin Laden (alternative examples encouraged).

That's all I could think of at the moment. And still in the great spirit of pissedness, an open message to ALL:

Dear ALL,

I really did want to end this semester of class with a least a regained sense of respect for you, which you've successfully lost over and over again throughout the semester.

For your information I didn't think you were that bad, judging from my studentship experience with you in Semester Two if I'm not mistaken. At least you weren't as "bad" as you were now. Heck, I even got an A from you from that class.

Maybe you have a lot of problems back home, now with the second divorce and all, or maybe you have too much stress on the job. Technically, you can't bring your problems to work, but as a human I'll give you leverage on that. I also don't know why you seem to be like taking on 20 jobs at a time. Are you running for the Cabinet? No, you're just a lecturer. Please give your students the attention they deserve instead of shoving us off every time we need to consult you with the reason that you're "very busy" with "other work". What did we pay for then? Just to endure the product of your stress and problems in class? Seems like it.

Sure, you asked us to arrange appointments with you, but come on, you're supposed to be there for us most of the time. Even so, you try to end our meetings as quick as possible, making us feel unimportant. In all fairness, we don't deserve this.

I have to ask - how did you turn out like this? I don't believe that anyone can turn out like that; to have total disregard of other people's feelings. Think of how we feel when you shoot us down the way you do. Did the word 'motivational' somehow dissapear from your vocab? Or possibly the principle of it?

It's not ethical to demoralize your students like that. It does not seem like that for you, but it is. According to you, you would stop our presentation to ask questions. That's okay. But to do so in a hostile manner is not. Just the look on your face throughout the whole time in class would be enough to demotivate us. If you're so bothered, please resign.

You're a good teacher ALL, I hate to see that good part of you being overcome by other factors, like your emotions.

ALL, please think over what you are doing here. Sure, we might not be the best students you've ever had, but were still a good team and some of us are pretty awesome students academically.

It might be a cold world out there but it's people like you that make it cold.

I look forward to regaining my respect for you, but I don't look forward to being your student again if you don't change.

I never like to leave in a bad note, so in all honesty from the bottom of my heart, I wish you well, and best of luck in your future endeavours.

Yours truly,
Mystery Wolf

Kingdom Has Fallen; Closing of ALL Watch

2004-11-04T21:07:00.000+08:00

Today we had Anal-Lecturer-Lady's last ever presentation assignment in class. It was the last time that we would see that grumpy penguin lookalike for the rest of the semester. And boy, did she go out with a bang, or more accurately, a "grumpfest on max", which can be much attested to by all of us students.

Although I should be ~~extremely~~ insanely happy to be rid of her, I am just totally dissapointed and frustrated with my group's presentation to be feeling high right now. To elaborate on that I want not.

To close off this blog's Special Side Section of Anal-Lecturer-Lady Watch, what was reported over the semester will be put in this entry for it to burn into the records of blogdom.

Chronologically, most recent entries first:

4/11: My worst last class of any subject yet... ALL has (and is) not rehabilitated. The past week almost niceness was just an illusion
- Mystery Wolf

Not much in the ALL turf lately as she has been behaving and improving her English. What a pleasant surprise for everyone...
- Mystery Wolf

21/10: She called me today (so much for non-contact week) and asked me to reprint my essay's coversheet because it was the uni's old logo on it. Sheesh, but at least she was nice
- Mystery Wolf

20/10: Non-contact week with ALL this week. A God-send for some, & a hell for those who have not gotten a policy document to show her. I showed her mine today, and at first she was all *sighs* and all, but 10-seconds later she was helpful enough. The Puasa [fasting] month might be our saviour after all...
- Mystery Wolf

*Enters class* *lays butt on chair* "Start lah" "This is the worst presentation this semester!" "Dismiss" *grump grump* *leaves class*
- Chingie's impression of ALL

"Organation of..."
- ALL meaning to say "organization"

"I'll shoot her when they let me"
- Lim Kien Yen

"I'd rather not comment on her"
- Philip

"Actually I think she cares for us"
- Shaz

"I did not vote, it is my rights"
- ALL

-end of entries-

Lecturers / Monsters

2004-11-02T17:56:00.000+08:00

On a lighter note today, I met Jon (Gordon) in the CMB Faculty today whilst handing up an assignment for ALL. Man, that guy's funny, especially when he doesn't mean it.

Calling Pn. Roslina out, he asked, "Is Zeti around? ... Or is it Yeti??"

Yeti?! *LOL* Might as well call her Sasquatch.

Then he asked, "Umm... is Zamzilla around?", and looks at me and Pn. Roslina nervously.

"I got that right, right?" he asks.

I'm just glad you didn't mention anything about Godzilla, Jon :)

I am unaffected

2004-11-02T17:19:00.000+08:00

I was watching some telly when my mom came in with the mail.

"Michelle, your Anal-Lecturer-Lady did something to you", she said, passing me a letter.

I was surprised, and confused. "Did what?" I asked, and read the letter, addressed to my parents.

"FORMAL NOTICE - STUDENT'S ABSENTEEISM"

"... We wish to bring to your attention that the above-mentioned student under your care was absent from class without valid reasons. Absenteeism from class must be supported by valid written explanation or Medical Certificate.

Absence exceeding 10% of a course is unacceptable as it will affect his/her performance and we are therefore concerned to ensure his/her attendance improves.

Any further absenteeism without valid reason or prior approval may affect his/her final results"

"... Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact our lecturer, [Anal-Lecturer-Lady] ..."

Alright, the thing is, I did submit excuse letters on two of the four occasions. The other two days, didn't really bother.

Anyway, after reading the title I went, "Ooh, nothing wan la, it's just a lame disguise threat"

"So it's nothing?" asked my mom.

"Yup"

>>swearing at the Management was removed from this line<<

Howlific Howloween

2004-11-02T01:35:00.000+08:00

So how was your howloween?

I spent Halloween morning helping my mom out sell stuff in a charity bazaar thingy in church. I honestly think that was the first and only church activity I voluntarily got involved in the past year besides the usual Sunday mass. That started at about 8am and ended around 1pm. Then at home, I became a Halloween couch potato for the rest of the day! I watched Starworld's Must Scream TV from 2pm till midnight! It was howlific! The Simpsons Halloween marathon special was until 7pm and then it showed World's Scariest Ghosts and then Ghosts: Fact or Fiction? But the toilet (commercial) breaks were too quick, dammit.

Let it be known that I love any topics of the paranormal.

A strange thing happened today. It had just finished raining, and as usual you could hear birds chirping and screaming about as they clean themselves dry, but my family and I heard quite a birdy commotion at the corridor in front of our house. We peeked out our lil door gate to the left and strained to see what was going on.

There was a Myna bird lying on the floor, motionless. One was standing next to it calling out loudly, and another stood over it on top of a barricade, as if protecting it. The one on the barricade flew off, and we went over to my brother's room window which was closer to the birds, to get a closer look to see what's actually going on. The Myna bird which stood next its seemingly dead partner had its legs holding on to the other's, and occasionally hopped slighty as if to shake the bird to life. But that Myna looked as if it had injured its wings or something. It didn't look right.

I decided to go out to investigate further. I didn't want to alarm or scare the birds, so I opened the gate slowly and viewed them from a distance, in case the Myna calls for backup and all the other Mynas perching nearby comes to attack me.

However, even with the distance I stood, the Myna started getting panicky and called out louder and spread its wings over the dead bird as if to protect it from any harm I might cause. It started hopping again, with its legs held tightly to the downed bird. At first I thought it was some freak-of-nature anomaly that the birds were joined together at the legs or something like that, like some birdy Siamese Twins.

Gimme a break, I was suffering from Post-Halloween Freakiness Disorder (PHFD).

The bird on the floor wasn't dead. It moved its wings when its friend hopped, but it did that so weakly that I thought that it was gonna die any moment.

Just then something happened.

In an flash the two birds hopped into the air and flew onto the barricade, and then flew off to the other building. VART JUST HAPPENED?!

In the end we came to a conclusion that the two birds were playing some birdy game on the barricade, and as it had just rained and it was slippery, the bird slipped, fell, konked its head, and passed out, only to be shaken to consciousness by its hopping, screaming partner. Heh.

How's that for a good "HUH?"

Oh and I've decided to start a cult. More on that later.

The Falling Kingdom of ALL

2004-10-29T01:05:00.000+08:00

I'm feeling more relaxed now. Why? Because all the tough-nut assignments are finished. Well, maybe except Anal-Lecturer-Lady's (ALL) "class participation" group presentation next week, or is it the week after?

Anyway...

Ass you've probably read from the Chatterbox (wait, did I say "ass" there? You know what I meant...), I was working on ALL's policy document analysis until 8am this morning. I slept till 2pm - skipping ALL's and Journalism class - and submitted the assignment at 4:30pm. I'm wondering if ALL would penalize me a mark, since I submitted it late, technically, coz by then I think most of the Muslim staff have gone home. I've only realized that on the way home after submitting that piece of junk, I mean essay.

And all this while up to 8am this morning, I was a messed and stressed up piece of wolf. I hated the ALL's tough-ass assignments coz I never understood what she wanted (since she's always huffing, sighing, and scolding instead of teaching), working till the next morning, and just feeling tired and having a headache constantly. Bloody late-night working always gimme those darn stress pimples. GAH!

Anyway...

Since today was the last day of such hard work, celebration was due. On the way home from uni at 5:30pm, my mom called, saying that my cousin invited us over to his place in Bangsar for dinner with his parents and siblings down from Ipoh. And lemme tell ya, dinner was fantastic. Juicy steaks, fantastic salads, expensive cheese, sweet Strudel desserts. Mmmmm....

And this is the best part of my extended family, they ALWAYS have great booze in the house. And they ALWAYS want me to come back to hangout with them and have drinking sessions. Awesome stuff. So here I am now, a lil tipsy from all the wine and martinis and whatnot, and happy. Happy tail wags.

Ooh, and I got to try some "rich-man's food" - caviar. My cousin's Russian girlfriend brought it back from Russia. Being quite jakun, I ate the caviar which was served on a slice of baguette on a thick layer of butter with enthusiasm and detail. All I could taste was the butter on the first bite, but the second bite got more into the caviar and yea it was slightly fishy, but the butter hid it well. So that's a first for me, Russian caviar. Some of the caviar were selling for 300 Euro in Germany, Natalia mentioned.

By this time I'm more sober now, and Amy had just informed me that next Thursday will be the last day ALL will be imposing her grumpiness on us. I can almost hear the whole class cheering right now!! WOOHOO!!!

Attack of the Quizzes! ARGH!!

2004-10-25T21:34:00.000+08:00

The University of Blogging

Presents to
Mystery Wolf

An Honorary
Bachelor of
Color Bars

Majoring in
Boredom

Signed
Dr. GoQuiz.com

Blogging Degree
Howled From Go-Quiz.com

Mystery Wolf Highway

Contentment Meadows	4
Fame City	16
Bog of Eternal Marriage	35
TravelWorld	161
Hobotown	252
Please Drive Carefully

Where are you on the highway of life?

Howled From Go-Quiz.com

UCAUTION

IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP MYSTERY WOLF AWAY FROM FIRE AND FLAMES.

Howled From Go-Quiz.com

Which internet subculture do I belong to? [CLICK]
	You are a Conspiracy Theorist!
Holy cow! You actually did an online quiz? Little did you realise that the information you gave us is being sent to an unknown government agency for evil use against you! Don't try to leave, we are already watching.
More Howling Quizzes at Go-Quiz.com

How to make a Mystery Wolf

Ingredients:

5 parts competetiveness

3 parts brilliance

5 parts energy

Method:
Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Add wisdom to taste! Do not overindulge!

Personality cocktail
Howled From Go-Quiz.com

M	Mischievous
Y	Yummy
S	Silky
T	Technological
E	Explosive
R	Realistic
Y	Yummy

W	Warm
O	Orderly
L	Lazy
F	Fresh

Name Acronym Generator
Howled From Go-Quiz.com

Your Icecream Flavour is...Neopolitan!

You aren't satisfied with just one flavor. They say variety is the spice of life and this shines through in your Ice cream of choice! Just don't eat all the chocolate and leave the strawberry and vanilla behind!

What is your Icecream Flavour?

Find out while howling at Go Quiz

127?

2004-10-25T01:44:00.000+08:00

IQ test results...

"Congratulations, Mystery!
Your IQ score is 127

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Insightful Linguist. This means you are highly intelligent and have the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind. And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results."

Could've done better if it wasn't 2 in the morning...

I am poor & I ride my buffalo to skool

2004-10-20T21:45:00.000+08:00

I'm taking a break from looking for bloody online international government/NGO policy documents for Anal-Lecturer-Lady's asssignment to blog this out.

Yesterday I was watching Urban Legends on Discovery Channel (yeah I'm a Disco Very Channel freak), and I've been following the program weekly ever since it started about two or three weeks ago. It's really cool, they show you all these urban legends and try to research on its authenticity.

But yesterday I was kinda peeved by a comment the narrator made. Well, they showed this urban legend where this woman was trying on coats in a particular large chain-store selling only coats and a few other apparel. The woman felt a prick on her neck while trying on a coat she liked, but thought it was a needle that the store workers forgot to take out. Long story short, the woman found out later it was a snake bite and the coat was literally crawling with baby snakes from the pockets when she went back to the store to complain. The legend has two ending versions, either the woman survives the bite or dies on the spot. So yeah, the show investigates this story, and they said that the snakes wouldn't have survived the trip from the factory to the store because of temperature and ways of packing.

Then the narrator says that if the story is true, the biggest likelyhood is that the snakes came from "Poor, tropical countries" where they might be manufactured, like, "Malaysia, or Mexico"

Excuuuuuuuuse me?!

I don't live in no jurassic country!

If he mentioned Polynesia, or maybe Malaysia in the 1930s, then yeah... but what the heck, how can they make such ill-informed statements? Who's got the tallest twin towers in the world, huh?

I know I'm not usually the ultra-patriotic type of person, but I feel a bit annoyed and insulted.

I'm not blaming the narrator of Urban Legends here, all the blame goes to the numbskulled scriptwriters. Anyway, the legend is not true, and so is that n00by claim.

Humour without a 'u'

2004-10-18T15:38:00.000+08:00

Hey wolflets, chew on this!

It's freaking hilarious!

Thanks to AnGeLinPayN for this link.

Rêves de Loup

2004-10-15T22:16:00.000+08:00

How often, do you shut off, and wander?

How much have you changed under the influence of your imagination and sub-conscious? Are you living in this so-called reality or are you living in your mind, looking for reality? Or somewhere in between?

Admittedly, I live in my mind. I've always had this connection with the other worlds. There are different worlds out there, like the world of your dreams, and the world in the after-life. Sometimes they are called dimentions. They even have names, but most of us would not understand it.

Though I live in my mind, I do not look for reality, whatever it is people feel it is. Instead, this is reality in itself for me. And I look for fragments of my abstract reality dimention in this popularized entity almost commonly known as the Real World. It is an entity, it has a body, it is actually physical, for humans have given it one through generations of change and evolution. It is a by-product of conflicting and ever-changing trends, laws, ideologies, demographics, and -something unique about the human race- emotions. But the Real World is not where I want to be.

Speaking of connections with the dream world, has that ever happened to you? You know, something that happens in your dream then actually happens when you wake up? That's happened to me buttloads of times.

Once, I dreamt that I did something (forgot what), then I looked below my wrist near my elbow, I had a large bleeding wound there. I woke up immediately after that, and naturally checked the same spot, and I really had that wound. I'm very sure the day before I went to bed with a perfectly wound-free wrist and I didn't bump into anything in the middle of the night because my bed's fully loaded with pillows and comforters and stuff. So, I wounded myself in my dream, or, as some concluded, I was experimented by aliens in the middle of the night.

In another incident, I had dreamt that my selfish brother left a half-eaten bun (supposed to be divided into 6 pieces for us but he just ate it straight, and left teeth marks) back into the container it was kept in. And when my mom found out she fired him. So when I woke up, I almost forgot about the dream until I prepared to eat breafast, opening a container. It was the bun. And when I was almost gonna eat the bun, I saw bite marks on them. Everything I dreamt came true, and my mom fired my brother exactly.

So yeah, since I'm more at home in other worlds than this one where we say we all are, then I'm happy being there.

Volatile, Valid, Vibrant & Void blog of Vulgarity

2004-10-15T01:03:00.000+08:00

I'm still surprised that Her Vulgarness has just suddenly decided to quit blogging, even when she was planning to blog her Anal-Lecturer-Lady Watch Report today. Sad indeed. I tried commenting on her posts but the damn LiveJournal has once again blocked my IP address from commenting again for some strange reason.

Anyway Chingy/Vulgarity, it's good that you used your last post as a way to make amends of whatever that's going on in your blog, and thanks for my very own paragraph in there :P

At least you won't get anymore stoopoot comments from strangers/wannabe strangers.

Doodle you soon, cheers...

Vart a daey...

2004-10-12T00:52:00.000+08:00

Ask me how my day was... Go on, ask me... Okay fine, I'll ask myself.

"So how was your day, Wolf?"

My day? Well, my day comprised of a percentage of 30% great and 70% ultra-kick-your-own-head-boring.

Yes, the Prime Minister of Malaysia was there to launch our new university campus in Cyberjaya today.

For the first time today:

1. There were more than the usual number of students on campus

2. The Uni was packed with dignitary-type people

3. I've seen most of those elusive international students

4. The Uni actually looked hospitable for a moment

5. The security guards wore proper white uniform

6. All the food at Makanlah were sold out

7. There was ACTUALLY FREE food and beverages! *faints*

The roaring sound of cheering and clapping (despite efforts by a certain group to boycott the uni by asking students not to cheer) was amazing, especially when you're high up on the 3rd floor of the plaza. The live band that was hired to play was amazing too, using all sorts of instruments, both traditional and modern. The Ba'i dude was hilarious, and they all just kept smiling and their music was just pretty much fun and peppy... like their rendition of The Hawaiian Five-O, and some Wong Fei Hung-ish type Chinese song. They made us crack up every second.

But that was all of the exciting part. After the Prime Minister dissapeared into the Hall of Fame to launch this black building, the rest of us students were left stranded at the MDTC plaza because we were told to wait there. We had to wait till 6:30pm after the thing ended so we could give our attendance to each and every one of our lecturers by looking for them among all the people there who were all clothed in black.

The reason so many of us were there because we were bribed with extra 5 marks if we attend the thing. If we didn't, 5 marks will be deducted off our full grade for each subject we took by the end of the semester. Tough shit eh?

My class had it worse because we were allowed(/forced) to redo our "shitty" assignment by Anal-Lecturer-Lady only on the condition that we attend the event. So if we didn't attend the thing, it's an auto-fail on the module.

So there we sat for about 2-3 hours.

Chingy, Cheesy, and I amused ourselves by:

Chingy:
1. Singing nya-nya-nya-nya~~~ in a high-pitched voice
2. Doodling on her hand
3. Showcased a repetoire of sound effects
4. Whining about her boy being stranded in KJ

Cheesy:
1. Reading a book on Japanese sex lingo
2. ... that's pretty much it.

Me:
1. Hand doodling on myself and Kristel
2. Imitating Scooby Doo's voice
3. Acting out wrong-number phone calls through Chingy's knee
4. Imitating wolfy and doggy howls, barks, whines, and noises
5. People watching

Us three:
1. Make up lame-ass funny stories sentence by sentence
2. Sing the Happy Tree Friends theme song
3. Me singing crap on lower octave and Chingy on higher octave
4. Laughing about the Ahificator
5. Telling each other how bored we were
6. Talk nonsense and in messed up German style

Oh, and Amy was just trying to ignore how retarded we were.

What a day...

My Designer Hell

2004-10-09T23:59:00.000+08:00

People talking on handphones at the movies
Circle I Limbo

General asswipes
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Bill Gates
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Idiot drivers, Stupid suicidal mat-motors
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Female Pop Stars
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

War nuts
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

The Registry Dude, LUCT administration
Circle VII Burning Sands

Limcockw$ng
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Anal-Lecturer-Lady
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

This Tail's got GMail

2004-10-07T22:42:00.000+08:00

The all-new Mystery Wolf version 20.1 is now enhanced and improved, packaged with GMail capabilities! For enquiries and/or purchase, please scroll down the phonebook list in your handphones to 'Michelle', 'Michelle L.', 'Mich', Mich LUCT', 'Wolf', 'Wolf Road', 'Steph', or 'Mystery' and press the Call button. If you do not have any other way of contact, please leave a message at the end of the howl, and our Customer Services Dept. will be with you shortly. Thank you!

*howl*

Elbow Ticklers

2004-10-05T01:47:00.000+08:00

I was walking down one of those dark, dungeon-like corridors/tunnels in my university one day. The only thing I could hear was the echo of my footsteps reverberating in the cracked black-coloured walls and the only thing I could smell was the stale construction dust hanging in the air in a sort of eternal suspended animation.

So as I quickened my pace to reach the end of the tunnel, something swiped across the back of my right elbow. It was a very light brush. I turned around in surprise, but nothing was behind me. I stood still for a moment, and took note that there was no wind in the air, and there were no fans in the tunnel. As my curiosity declined, I turned back forward to continue my walk, and I felt my elbow getting brushed again.

It was then I realized it was my long hair brushing on my elbow which reminded me to cut my hair.

So much for suspense, huh? heheheh...

My hair hasn't been this long since grade school, which was even longer then. I had cut the high-maintenance locks once I entered high school for convenience, as untangling knots and tying my hair in the early morning for school everyday was a bitch. Ever since then, the length of my hair has ranged from super short to medium long, but not this current length. So, I haven't felt the feeling of long hair brushing against the back of my elbow in a long time.

I'm planning to cut my hair probably by the end of this month, to give my new piercing time to heal somemore, coz you know how brutal some hairdressers are on your ears, especially Chinese ones, who talk non-stop and have their eyes on their talkees 90% of their time cutting your hair. Sometimes their spit even ends up flying into your hair (for extra body). I wouldn't even elaborate on those freakily hot mega-hairdryers they have that burn up your scalp which give me the shivers, literally.

And so with this blog post I have proven that you can talk about your hair in a whole entry. I didn't know that I could do that either.

Comatosed Wolf

2004-10-02T19:11:00.000+08:00

'Twas 3am yesterday while I sat in front of this very computer, working on 3 assignments at the same time, which was due later in the day. My vision blurred as my head was showing clear symptoms of a pre-exploding-headache. The accumulating oil on my face was enough to fry myself some fatal mid-morning snack.

I decided to chat with Amy who was online to ask her about her progression on her work.

"Done your documentary script yet?" she asked.

"Er, no... don't tell me it's due today..." I replied anxiously.

"Yeah it is, don't you know?"

"Fuck, I thought it was due later!"

"Nope, it's due in today with the rest of the research file"

"There goes any chance of sleep... Gotta go, bye!!"

I logged off in panic without giving Amy a chance to say bye. I started to sweat bullets.

"How the heck am I supposed to write a full TV documentary script in a few hours' time?!" I thought in an almost Friends Chandler-like way. And I still had to complete a storyboard for another assignment.

Forward time to 6am. The lights in the living room outside were all on in their brightest shade. Pencils, erasers, two kinds of rulers, and sheets of A3 paper cluttered a table. The storyboard didn't materialize yet. I was sitting in my room, facing the glaring monitor, working on the script, shoulders so hunched that my entire body was aching and the word 'zombie' didn't justify what my face looked like.

Forward time to 7:30am. The sun had risen and my pet birds were awake out on the balcony making loads of morning noises. As far as my work, only the outline boxes were drawn for the storyboard. My script was 70% done but still needed a lot of fine tuning. Like, how can you make-up a factual and visually-interesting script when you're short of time and half-dead? Tough shit. By then, Microsoft Word had crashed or hanged for at least 10 times, and I ain't exagerrating.

Forward time to 8:45am. Took a shower, but my head still felt heavy. My mom had woken up by then. Thank God, she made me breakfast instead of me just eating cereal. Something hot and filling seemed like the right thing to eat when you're in this condition. Continued working on the script until 10:30am to go to college for Anal-Lecturer-Lady's class at 11am. Did not complete storyboard.

Forward time to 12pm. Chingy and Lingy didn't know about the storyboard, so I submitted the assignment without the storyboard. Continued to work on script assignment in college, and submitted all assignments by 3pm, then went home while sleeping in car.

Forward time to 5pm. Snoozed on couch till 8pm.

Forward time to 10pm. Snoozed on bed till 2pm today.

That was some awesome snoozing :)

A tribute to an analistic woman

2004-09-30T15:49:00.000+08:00

In line with the World Fucked Up Grammar As Correct Day, Chingy, Cheesy, and I have celebrated this monumental day by speaking in fluent pooped up English, mostly in past tense, to honoured Anal-Lecturer-Lady for her spectacular feats of spoke in bad English while lectured and penalized our assignments for bad grammar and language.

Now to quoted Alanis Morrisette, "Isn't it ironic, don't you think? A little too ironic... yea I really do think!"

As for now, students will has to put up with this penalizing of marks unnescessarily, until moderators from Curtin University, Australia would come down to tell her that she's a morons. This is because, she are corrected all our good English into her bad one, and she says she are rights and we are wrongs. If we is try to justifying our answers, she will snapping at us said that we're being defensive.

So, since she is always rights, and we cannot debating about it, we is doing what she wanteds.

Please visit Chingy and Cheesy for their sayings on this. Thanks you.

Shameless Advertising

2004-09-28T21:20:00.000+08:00

Hey a video that I produced recently has been nominated in the Cyberjaya Digital Video Competition. So to all you kind, kind, lovely generous souls out there reading this, please vote for it.

Look under 'Drama' in the category dropdown list and look for the video called The Swing - The Brief Cut -; Directed by Lor Yew Mien. The original video was about 15 minutes long, but this one has been cut to 5 minutes to adhere to the CDVC rules.

Yes, I realize the video is in a crummy position right now, having only 5 votes. The video with the highest votes right got 23 votes. So, while my ego flies out the window, please vote!

First comes marriage, then comes...

2004-09-26T16:14:00.000+08:00

So have you heard? Avril Lavigne's engaged! God... when I thought Britney's marriage at 22 seemed a lil early (but granted, quite normal), Avril's getting into the ber-rumahtangga (domestication?) wagon at 19. Unbelievable.

I mean, I don't personally know Avril (*lol*), but she still seems immature at heart, singing about teenage breakups and all. Her sk8ter boi fiancee, is none other than Deryck Whibley, from fellow Canadian band Sum 41.

Maybe she's already satisfied and content, so anyway, congrats to her I guess.

The pics are from the recent 2004 World Music Awards, where Avril was seen smoking and showing off her engagement ring to Anna Nicole Smith and Courtney Love, who looked tired and older from her former glory. Oh yeah, Av was drunk as heck too, finding herself in steel cages with two skimpy dancers before label record managers dragged her out and told her off for making a scene of herself, and of course because she was not the legal age (21 years old) to drink in the States.

For the record, I'm not really an Avril fan and especially NOT a Britney fan.

Poly Ticks scratch

2004-09-26T02:24:00.000+08:00

Politics seem to be a hot topic these days. No matter what country you are from, national politics is beginning to be a topic of debate for most.

To borrow a quote from the infamous Anal-Lecturer-Lady, "Everything is about politics!"

Now being a pampered brat in a (seemingly) secure nation, I haven't been giving a rat's ass to this issue. I have never really paid attention to the daily news or what's in the newspaper on the local and international front. I know that's incredibly sad and ironic, since i am studying for a BA degree on Mass Communication & Multimedia, and I'm supposed to know these things.

On topics of concern, so far I know Indonesia's about Megawati, Britain's got a citizen held hostage in Iraq by "The Executioner" Al-Zarqawi, Malaysia's got UMNO 2004 GM, bird flu, and uh, Bangsar's crippling to worry about, the US's got the Bush vs. Kerry hype, Australia's got some terrorist attacks, and other countries have stuff like floods and some of their citizens getting kidnapped and killed by terrorists/freedom fighters in Iraq. Hey, I'm trying to be as politically correct here as I could.

It's probably important to know your nation's politics, so citizens are well-informed enough to make an educated vote for a leader, and make important decisions that would ultimately affect themselves.

Dan (mol)Estrin Originally uploaded by Mystery Wolf.

Anyways, I've decided to be more informed politically from now on, thanks to Dan Berman's online debates about past and current American presidents and how good/bad they were, in the light of the Bush vs Kerry presidential election, and also other political topics he likes to bring up. God, that guy knows his shit, and man is he a fierce debater.

Very inspiring.

Thought: Why is Dan Berman (Hoobastank webmaster) always confused with Dan Estrin (Hoobastank guitarist)?

p/s: Yes, I drew that pic.

European Language Rules

2004-09-24T23:50:00.000+08:00

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as Euro English (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k." Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing"th" by "z" and "W" by "V". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors; be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru!

Neapolitan Flavoured Week

2004-09-23T23:00:00.000+08:00

Like my life, very few interesting things happened lately.

One of them being a usual online conversation with Albert, which sort of ended with him racking his brain as to why he would waste his time and literal creativity on me. I wonder too. But that thought had only crept up his mind after countless nights of online ramblings till 4am with me for the past year or so. He lost me when he was trying to figure out why he seemed like he was trying to impress me but he's not, but he likes to know that he impresses people, but he didn't achieve that with me... or something along those lines. Does it have to be that complicating? Beats me. Anyway I think it's about time this guy gets a girlfriend or something :P

Well Albert, when you've finally figured it out, lemme know a'ight? *lol*

Anyway, the best thing that happened the past few days is definitely about getting an interview with Shannon Larratt! He's the founder of Body Modification E-Zine (BME), and one of body modification (bodmod) world's VIP when it comes to this subject. I e-mailed him a few days earlier requesting for an e-mail interview for my TV Documentary script on 'Body Modification's Connection To Spirituality and Art', and surprisingly he replied me almost immediately the very next day! Like, whoah, you'd think people like these would only manage to reply your e-mails in two weeks, or probably wouldn't even read it at all! I'm personally impressed by his professionalism and helpfulness. Practising bodmod myself, I feel honoured to be able to communicate directly with Shannon. And like BME, I'm glad that I'm getting to educate people about bodmod, through my assignment documentary script.

Oh yeah, Vulgarity a.k.a. Dolorific has a neat blog post which I totally get!

Interesting things aside, something's not feeling right today. However, my scruffy wolfy head can't seem to figure out what it is. Think, think...

Wolf quizzed on love gasp

2004-09-21T20:42:00.000+08:00

I don't know what's with me and online quizzes nowadays. Here's my results from the 5 Love Languages Quiz, thanks for this one, Albert.

Score Love Language
   6 Words of Affirmation
   10 Quality Time
   2 Receiving of Gifts
   4 Acts of Service
   8 Physical Touch

How to interpret your Profile Score:

Your highest score indicates your primary love language.  Your second highest score indicates your secondary love
language.   If two scores are identical, you are bilingual (you have two primary love languages).  If the scores of your
primary and your secondary language are close (for example, 10 & 9 respectfully), it indicates both are important to
you.  Whatever a significant other does to express love in either of these languages will get emotional points with you.
The highest possible score for any language is 12.

Having a clear picture of your primary & secondary love languages will explain much of your past behavior  Think back
over the past and ask yourself "What have I most often requested from significant others?"  Chances are your answer
will lie within the scope of your primary & secondary love languages.  You have been requesting that which would meet
your deepest need for emotional love.

Hmmm... interesting...

'Can I Laugh You?'

2004-09-20T22:19:00.000+08:00

Say what? Originally uploaded by Mystery Wolf.

*lol*

Friendster, oh friendster... so full of pervs...

Forget the bad English, usually I'd just delete messages like these and move on. However, I'm having a nasty urge to reply this message with such sarcasm in the only way I know best, heheh...

All in favour say 'aye'!

Flesh Play

2004-09-18T21:29:00.000+08:00

It's been 5 days since my birthday orbital piercing. I'd like to take the chance here to update about it and reflect on my past and current piercings.

"Orbitals are usually less painful and heal much faster than industrials", assured Frankie, my piercer, as I sat on the spectacularly comfortable chair where I would once again gain two more holes on my left ear that day.

FYI, an industrial is that piercing I have with the long steel rod that goes through two holes. There are vertical (mine) and horizontal industrials (more popular and less painful versions). An orbital goes through two holes as well but in much closer proximity and not using a long rod but the conventional circluar ring, called a 'captive bead ring', because a bead locks the two ending points together. The effect: 180º of the ring would be seen on one side of the ear and ditto for the other side.

Getting my industrial last year was not bad, since it was a straight piercing. But piercing the bottom hole took slightly longer because my cartillage proved to be a little too thick for the needle. Anyway, it didn't hurt much after everything was done, save for the third day of healing when the piercing hurt like I was getting it pierced all over again. I thought this third-day pain was a curse, because it has been happening to every piercing I got since my first piercing, an eyebrow piercing on my right eyebrow, which I got for my 18th birthday.

My eyebrow piercing was a bummer anyway, I got it at Red Dragon Tattoo in KL. Turned out it was a bad piercer and a bad hole. Because of a chance meet with Frankie at his shop, Zoo Body Art in Sungei Wang a month after getting my eyebrow hole, he looked at my piercing and told me it was too deep and too wide, and it was getting septic. He advised me to remove it. Sadly, I did that a week later when I returned to his shop.

Since that day, I only let Frankie stick needles into me. That's because he's more professional, very friendly and knowledgable on what he's doing, and his shop follows the strict hygiene rules, very well lit, very clinical, and their work is guaranteed.

Even my mom trusts his work, and that says a lot!

I got my cartillage piercing as a replacement for the eyebrow piercing sometime during November that year, if you guys might be wondering how that came about.

Back to this year, and there I was sitting on the chair. After all the routine cleaning at the intended spot, "pop" went my cartillage as the first needle went through.

Frankie: "I would always pierce the most painful part first.."
Me: "Oh that wasn't so bad"

Second needle went through smoothly, piece of cake. Then came the fitting of the ring part. Yes, that part hurt like a biyatch. And it took what seemed like an eternity to fit it in.

"Hmm.. the holes closes very fast.." declared Frankie as he continued searching for the exit points with the captive bead ring stuck halfway in my ear as I started to get used to the constant pain. After a while the exit points were found and he fitted everything in place and cleaned the wounds. Sharp seconds of pain sprinkled in between of course.

Judging from Frankie's bloodied latex gloves and tissues he used on me, I was glad that it was all happening on my ear and I couldn't actually see what was happening during that process.

After that, the wounds hurt for the rest of the day, like the ring was still being fitted in. To date, the orbital is the most painful piercing I've ever had. I've to say that Vertical Industrials aren't as painful as it is said to be, as mine was the most well-behaved piercing ever. But my orbital hurts this much because of its unique position. I had trouble sleeping that night because it hurt too much.

Anyway, I survived the second day with doses of paracetamol every 3 hours to subside the constant pain. It's freaky how this piercing never ceased to hurt. I wondered if that was normal. I guess it decided to give me a break on the third day as it stopped hurting every second and to my surprise it has broken the third-day pain curse.

Now, it's alright. I was finally able to fully rotate the piercing during cleaning today, so that's progress. I'll have to start salt-soaks in two days' time. Everything's worth it anyway, it looks great, and hopefully it'll heal fully in good time.

Oh yeah, one more thing. This bad boy is only one of a set of orbital twins. I'm getting a mirror version of it nearby on a slightly higher point on my ear next year. I can't wait!!

I'm Bee... Mystery Bee

2004-09-17T17:31:00.000+08:00

Get this, I got into one of these online test thingies that finds out what type of animal you are, and this is what I got:

"You are a Bumble Bee! A beautiful insect that is good at working with teams and produces something many want: honey! A bumble bee commands great respect, and will respond to a bad situation with a quick sting! Bumble bees are serious and very wise".

The term 'honey' seems suspicious. Like, honey = money, or honey = 'honey', or what? I'll never know...

Being blown off by deadlines

2004-09-16T22:40:00.000+08:00

Assignment: FTV 241- Screenwriting Documentary Script Research File
Deadline: Wednesday
Me:
The night before (Tuesday) - Rushed to photocopy over 250 pages of research; buy large file holder; last minute hunt for example photos online; panicked coz couldn't burn CD of example pictures; printed coversheet on bro's computer coz my printer ran out of ink. All done till 4am.
The next day - Rushed to college to photocopy more resarch that I forgot yesterday; rushed into the computer lab to burn the pictures into CD; and finally went to submit assignment by 1pm. Was told that deadline was extended to Friday.

Assignment: MCI 211- 1000-word essay on how, when and why media and information industries "govern" communities.
Deadline: Thursday (today)
Me:
The night before (Wednesday) - Panicked for half the day not knowing how to go about the essay; researched online; got 24 websites/pages that helped; Internet Explorer crashed 5 times; wrote essay; finished by 5am; bugged brother in his sleep so I could print the assignment and coversheet on his computer again. Had to wake up in 2 and a half hours for college.
Today - 9am, Went to Journalism 111 class before submitting the essay in the faculty. Was told that deadline was extended to next Monday.

Currently: Frustrated and bloody sleepy.

Celebrated 20 Years of Being A Pain In The Ass

2004-09-15T03:05:00.000+08:00

After Originally uploaded by Mystery Wolf.

Yeah!! I was referred to and referred myself as the 'pain in the ass' when I was a lil kid.

Person on phone: "Hello, who are you?"
Me: "Pain in the ass..."

*lol*

Anyway, I had a great birthday on the 13th. Ate my b'day dinner with my family at a quiet but happening spot in Lot 10 called Societe Cafe. And yep, I got my ritualistic piercing on my birthday again.

I have yet to find out if I can blog more than one pic in an entry, so above's just the "after" photo. Since most of you know me, you'd prolly seen my previous piercings.

If you wanna see some other pix that I took on my birthday, click on the pic and u'll be transported to my photoserver, Flickr. It's not a very fantastic photo album by the way...

Oh, and thanks everyone who sent me birthday sms wishes, and thanks to my family and friends who bought me birthday pressies too! Love y'all!

I'm 20! *gasp*

Starting over...

2004-09-10T23:07:00.000+08:00

I'm still jaded. But I'm showing it less lately. Still, I yearn to feel the enthusiasm and interest in life I felt when I first got into semester one in university. Now, I'm in semester five and I'm a physical and mental wreck.

So many things have changed in two and a half years. Ideologies, family, plans, emotions... the list is endless. Many things have happened that I wished that didn't happen, although I don't regret it happening because I don't believe in regretting. That's at least one thing I know that I still believe in.

I was/am shattered in many different pieces but moving on has left me feeling like my former self fractured and duct taped together. I'm missing parts of myself here and there. I now feel as if I'm just drifting. Drifting like a hollow shell, going along with everything, while I continue to search for something to hold on to, so that I wouldn't get washed away; lost.

I am just kept above water by bits and pieces of what I still remember, what was (and still is) something close to me, what's left of them.

The rollercoaster of life has been down for so long, that I'm wondering if the tracks will continue to ride straight down to the end, making this life the ultimate anti-climax of all. Small highs in the ride were cruelly short-lived, only to plunge back down even before my eyes could see the sky.

The monotony of everything is strangling me. It's killing me, with pain. My eyes are blurring. I've lost trust and dedication to what I used to blindly know and do without question, thinking it was the best for me. My guts have been telling me that something new will come up to save my sanity. Only something new will pour back some much-needed enthusiasm into my mind. But it will risk what's left of everything else I have. It will change my future. But it can destroy or build me.

Now I ask myself, should I wash away, or take a big risk to kill the monotony? The answer is clear, it's a big risk, but I've got nothing much to lose...

Stalk me, stalk me hard...

2004-09-07T19:39:00.000+08:00

Lately I've been getting more stalkers than I'm used to. I'm getting all sorts of stalkers. Phone stalkers, online stalkers, you name it. It's mind boggling why anyone would waste their time and money on people they don't even know. And it's even more mind racking why anyone would wanna stalk me! I don't exactly see the attraction here.

And there's a reason why I said I'm getting more stalkers than I'm used to, instead of saying that I'm just getting stalkers. Well, the thing is, I've been getting stalkers almost my whole life. Some of them have gone to criminal lengths, and some of them just kept extremely low profiles. It's pretty scary and disgusting. Overall so far, my stalkers have ranged from 15 to 60 years of age. Yes, it's that bad.

I also have a lot of those awkward moments when a guy would come up to me to tell me that he has a crush on me. Those are such classics.

Let me share one example: You know Catholics have these special days (before a religious event, like Christmas) where they would all go to confess their sins to the priests at church. So there I was in church, sinful and all, when my ex-classmate from Catechism (that's religious class for you peeps) came up to me while I was preparing my mind.

Him: "I want you to be my girlfriend"
Me : "Uh, I don't think so"
Him: "I want you to be my girlfriend, I'll give you 5 minutes"
Me : "5 minutes to what?? I'm sorry okay, I don't think so.. I don't want to get into anything now"
Him: "Let me know..."
Me : "Uh, if you don't mind, I gotta go inside now"

He wasn't my type obviously. Anyway, turning somebody down at the entrance of a church isn't a fun thing to do. Was that a sin? *lol*
Oh, that was about 3 years ago. Last year at the church parking lot, I passed by him.

Him: "It's been 3 years and I haven't got an answer yet"
Me : "ha-ha, bye"

Well, if I wasn't clear enough 3 years ago, hopefully I was then. Anyway, back to the present, I'm still getting these kinda folks. Last night, I was talking to Ian on MSN about my stalker situation.

"Whoah, I knew you were hot, but I didn't know you were hot stuff!!", he commented.

I think I better not talk to the opposite sex when it comes to the topic of stalkers. At the same time, I was chatting with Yu-Ming on MSN, telling him that I'm encountering a lot of pervs. He commented that he couldn't help me, coz he's a perv too. Geez...

I also losing count of how many stalkers from which course/semester in uni are after me. Somebody tell me why...

I'm Still 19!!!!

2004-09-04T23:42:00.000+08:00

Kids these days. They say such unoriginal lines. And I'm talking about kids around 4-6 years old. I met up with my cousin at One Utama today, and she brought along her two little monsters. The girl's about 4 years old and her brother is about 6 years old. I think.

Anyway, the boy was playing Gameboy Advanced with his 11-year old friend. The things that they said were sorta just... I don't know how to put it... a bit 'out of their league'? The great influence of television was extremely evident as these two Chinese boys were splurting out phrases like:

"He's gaining on me, but not for long!"
"What the?!"
"We'll see about that! *evil laugh*"

Of course these were all said out of context. Oh yeah, my particular favourite was:

"What the futs?!" ... *lol*

Nevermind that he insulted my youth by questioning if I know how to play Gameboy or not. Like, what the futs?!

Another futsing thing that's on my mind lately is that I'm not gonna be a teenager anymore by the 13th this month. Sigh...

Crapsentation

2004-09-03T22:53:00.000+08:00

Every semester, I hate presentations even more. Today was a painful one.

No, it wasn't those killer (literally) heels, or that uncharacteristic skirt and all that, BUT it was the lecturer who kept stopping our presentation after every two sentences to question us with a much threatening and violent tone. Yes, it's the infamous Anal-Lecturer-Lady!!! *applause*

I find it quite unethical of her to keep throwing us off our groove during the presentation. Everytime one of us gets a good momentum of confidence going to prove a point, she would bark for examples even before we could do just that.

I also found it odd that during the presentation evaluation, she kept saying that my part in the presentation was "very good", but didn't share the same sentiment for my fellow groupmates. I mean, 'uh, awesome!' but I'm presenting in a group and the marks are given equally, so it's not nice to rub that I did a good presentation in my groupmates face. It's not right.

She finally told us that our presentation would get about borderline average marks, even though we had better visuals and order in our group than the other group which presented after us, which Anal-Lady mentioned that they will get "above average" marks. Once again, there is injustice but screw it, I'm just going to move on.

Anyways I was just glad to go home and change my friggin clothes after that crapsentation.

A Day To Remember To Stop Depending On Others

2004-08-30T15:02:00.000+08:00

It's Merdeka Eve, and I'm planning to stay at home tonight, maybe watch humongous exploding patterns of colourful lights in the dark blue sky at my condo balcony. A balcony which possesses a spectacular view of the entire Shah Alam City Centre. Maybe I'll whip out my camera to capture these fine annual moments, but come to think of it, maybe not, because I just remembered that I borrowed my tripod to Hao Kai, so I can't do fancy manual-set camera tricks. Darn.

It's alright though, I didn't take any photos in the past, and not taking pictures this time won't make any difference, I suppose. But this time I own a darling SLR, not just some cheap, plastic fully-autos, or low-pixeled digital cameras. However, what's important are the images you keep in your mind, not those in your photo albums or in your computer. But that's if you have good memory.

But photos do come in handy when you want to show proof of something. Nobody would believe that you just had lunch with Siti Nurhaliza if you don't show proof that you did, with a photo. But that's all up to you if you want to get your face laughed at.

Now, the question remains, should I take photos of the fireworks tonight, even if have to set my SLR on auto? Well, it is a special occasion... but I don't feel the need to. I'm not that 'unpatriotic' but I figure that a balcony doesn't really allow a good variety of angles, and if I would be at the City Centre itself, then that would be a good excuse and reason to whip out my Nikon Rebel. Happy Birthday Malaysia, and Happy Independence Day everyone.

Insane...

2004-08-27T23:18:00.000+08:00

I know this is my second post of the day, but I just can't help posting these results from a couple of Quizzila quizzes I took! Pretty proud with the results...

Grunge! You're all about the music and would even
turn your back on fame just to stay true to
your roots... You reached your high in the
early '90s, but you're still making some good
stuff! Keep rocking!

What genre of rock are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Hell yea!

Fight Club!

What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla
Now that's what I'm talkin' about...

A Virus & A Thought

2004-08-27T17:25:00.000+08:00

I'm still recovering from a flu bug which sorta activated itself yesterday. I didn't go to classes yesterday, and I was pretty much feeling like crap the whole entire day. I guess the flu bug didn't want me to get healthy on him (..it, or whatever), so the virus threw in a couple of suprise bonus ailments just in case - a confusing headache and a mighty sore throat to be exact.

But do not fret folks! For I am recovering fast! *jeng jeng*

In another mind frame, for everyone's general information I was feeling pretty bummed, jaded, and stressed out ever since the second half of last semester. A few assignments and a side project in college made me rethink (and in some cases, confirmed) everything I knew , felt, learnt, expected in life, people, and basically the world. I got so jaded at everything at one point that I just didn't believe in anything anymore. Everything I saw seemed fake, and meaningless. I thought maybe this is what happens when you take Mass Comm too seriously... or maybe my perception of the world and how it works has been twisted because you know that 99% of everything you see, hear, and touch now has been tainted by man, therefore not natural. Every rule you follow and everything you do is made by man. I mean, think about it.

Why are most of us consciously and subconciously doing what others think we should do? How can I tell people to wake up and do things differently? No, you don't have to marry and have kids to have a "complete" life, and no, you don't have to have a God to be a good person! It's things like these.

I wish I could just click on 'Old Ideologies' and send it to 'Trash'!

Another thing so irritating about this world is how annoying, intrusive, and twisted the media can be. I don't know, it's just so annoying to see some TV personalities smile and all because you know it is fake. It's pretty hard to come across some sincere smiles nowadays in the media. It's so sad to even note that even in charity events sponsors and even celebrity endorsers give out fake smiles. Do any of you people as the public buy that?

I long to see some sincerity and honesty in the media.

I am the type of person who believes in reincarnation, and the story of the soul in search of The Ultimate Knowledge. I, for one, think I have a bloody old soul, dammit! I hope my jaded-ness means that I'm close to finding whatever knowledge I have to in this lifetime. If you read right, yeah, I am ready to die. HEY before you come to any conclusions, NO, I am NOT thinking of commiting suicide, or anything as dumb as that! Alright? Am I clear on that?

Well, without allowing this to be a long winded blog, I'll continue the debate with anyone who'd post a comment :)

Musical Day

2004-08-23T21:34:00.000+08:00

Geez, today's been a long day. But it was a good one, though, and it seemed to revolve around music or anything to do with music for that matter.

Well, after my uni classes ended at 11am today, me and my mom hopped onto the LRT at Kelana Jaya so I could go meet MC from Warner Music at their office at Jalan P. Ramlee at 2pm. I'm meeting these Warner peeps to help them come out with some (hopefully) fresh ideas for tv commercials for a couple of compilation albums they're releasing. I got there by two, but MC was a little late, but it was alright, met her at about 2:20pm.

So yeah, I met MC, and then met the head honcho for the office's international music department, Kim. Kim's pretty rad, she offered me her Burger King fries and even gave me Simple Plan's No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls CD when I told her I was too broke to buy any CDs I liked. Oh yeah MC gave me a whole bunch of Linkin Park, Green Day, and Shifty stuff too, and that too was pretty rad. Oh yeah, anyways, if Kim likes the storyline and accompanying storyboard for my first trial assesment assignment, and if she chooses to shoot my concept, I'd get a commision from that commercial. Now isn't that good shit or what?! I'll tell you guys what'll happen when it happens, okay?

So yeah, after the Warner meet ended at about 5pm, I met up again with my mom -who was hanging out with a friend at The Weld- and we both took the monorail to Starhill to chill out a bit at McDonald's. Albert said he was on the way to meet me and give me the music store tour once again. I needed really badly to buy strings for my electric guitar, which I broke like a month ago or something, and I was pretty bummed to find that Ernie Ball's Super Slinky strings were something of a rarity nowadays, and pretty hard to find in places outside KL. So yeah, Albert came and we went to Bentley first. After checking out the fine amps, combo amps, guitars, and hell, everything else in Bentley, I bought myself a spiffy new plectrum, a tuning head winder, and 2 packets of Super Slinkies, all for RM40. There goes my dosh for getting myself Hoobastank's The Reason album, and I think it'll take eternity for me to save up for a good pair of headphones for some plugged in guitar-work on the amp, rendering myself neighbour-disturbing-less.

Oh well, after checking out Yamaha in KL Plaza, Tower Records in Lot 10, and finding out that Music Exhange, Do Re Mi, and everything else closed, both of us started heading back, only to bump into two of Albert's friends. Maybe you should check out his blog about more on that, hahah...

So yeah, my mom was already waiting to go home when I almost reached the Bukit Bintang Monorail station, and so we went home... and I shall be re-stringing my guitar in a jiffy!

Whacked Peugeot

2004-08-22T23:19:00.000+08:00

*burp*

My family and I just got back from a little evening (or night, theorectically) drive to Bangsar to check out the location for an interview my brother is going for tomorrow. We drove around Bangsar and its housing area, enjoying the scenery, and then stopped by A&W in Taman Jaya for some hella good supper, waffles and ice cream and a banana boat to boot! Mmm...

Anyways, we were on the way back driving along Glenmarie when some old dude and his family seem to be racing their Peugeot alongside ours. You know how windy the roads are in Glenmarie, and all of a sudden, crazyPeugeotman came by swooping into our lane and missed our car only by centimetres!

So my bro gave the Peugeot a nice honkin', and next thing we know, the mad dude kept following and honking us. He turned off (or maybe was gonna make a U-turn) at the traffic lights at the front. The usual freakazoid stares were shared as we passed before we turned off ourselves.

Hey, I got his Negri Sembilan number plate burned into memory, so he better not try anything funny.

Geminic Day- PART 2: The "Miscommunication"

2004-08-20T20:29:00.000+08:00

Hey! Guess what?! I went to college today at 11am only to find out that class was at 9am! So I only went all the way there to go home. And all of us students didn't know about this time-slot switch.
Now if you've read Part 1 of this blog yesterday, you'd remember that Anal-Lecturer-Lady insisted that me and my group (and other Class B groups) come again for today's tutorial which we have already attended the day before. Today, calling her on the phone asking her where she was, she excused herself for this misunderstanding as a miscommunication. Now wait a sec, if this were our fault, we'd be getting an earful that "miscommunication" was a bad excuse and she would be threateningly insisting that we give her a good excuse (or else). Fortunately, I never knew what proceeded after the 'or else' part though...
Anyway, the conclusion of the story is that I'm really annoyed at Anal-Lecturer-Lady and that I dragged my carcass out of bed 9am in the morning for nothing. Worst part is that it's gonna be a 7am wake up time starting next week :(

Geminic Day

2004-08-20T12:18:00.000+08:00

Woohaa... the first half of my day today was pretty much crap and the rest of the day made up for the morning's crappiness.
First off, my first entry into MCI 211: Law, Policy & Regulation class, lectured by *ahem* Pn. A_ _ _ a, was quite eventful. Well, you see, I missed her first class last week because when I got to the classroom, a sign on the door said that the class was cancelled, and I didn't go for the replacement class. Anyways, it turned out that that class was super important bla bla bla... and she made sure everyone who didn't attend last week feel the burn by depriving these 20-odd students of Course Outlines and 20 chapters' worth of notes, nagging and long-windedness sold seperately. We only got the scrap leftovers and have to ask from friends to photocopy on our own later. But it was not so bad for me as I got most of these notes. Probably she saw how sincere (hahah) I am or maybe she remembers that I always score A+s for the subjects she taught me in previous semesters. Yes, I am taking a chance to gloat here. Gloat, gloat, gloat.

Going back to the topic, her late students torture wasn't the worst that happened today. I attended the tutorial for that same subject too which happened to be after the lecture. After getting into our discussion groups, she said that the class was too big and said that she was gonna split half of us (ouch) to another tutorial session tomorrow. My group members Ee Ching, Ringo, and another Malay girl-which-I-never-remember-her-name-but-is-really-bad-at-doing-presentations-honestly, were hoping to be in this Thursday tutorial class so we would have Fridays off for the rest of the semester.
Every group in class were fighting for a spot in that Thursday class, and our helpful Malay girl groupmember said that she saw the lecturer put us into this class. "Phew" the rest of us members thought, and didn't bother catfighting at the lecturer's desk for a spot, confidently.
Horrors of horrors, later Pn. A_ _ _ a read out who gets to stay and our group's name wasn't read out! And whatshernamegirl was like, "oOh she changed.."

Uh... YEAH ! ! !

But that's okay, I thought. So we have to go to classes on Friday all the way in Cyberjaya for about 1 and a half hours and then go home, alright. But then, whatshernamegirl went on to join another group who gets to have Thursday classes without discussing with us groupmembers, and left us stranded with Friday classes, DAMMIT!

Good riddance to her I say...

So yeah, when I thought all was over, meanie-lecturer-lady insisted violently that we attend the same tutorial tomorrow. Sigh...

That was the end of my college day, so I got home and rested a bit before going out to Computer War in SS2 with Mom (the 'payer') and my bro (the driver) to buy me a BENQ 5000 Colour Scanner, an Apacer 256MB USB 2.0 Flash Drive, and a pocketsized ATEN 4 port USB hub, all of which cost sligthly over 300 bux. I needed them for college work and stuff.

Yes, I didn't have a scanner, and I have never owned or used one!

But that was the better half of my day, I can scan pictures now! WHooP WHooP!!! Hey stop rolling your eyes and gimme a break alright?! It's been one heck of a day...

Whoah!!!

2004-08-19T13:40:00.000+08:00

Lost
Originally uploaded by Mystery Wolf.

Yes! I have moved to a new blog server! Why? Because I can post more and higher quality pictures here without doing all the linking mess thanks to Flickr.com! I know I just started a blog in Blogdrive a few days ago, but this one will save me whopee amount of time. To celebrate (and to test it out), my first blog here will be in memory of my dear, much loved, stolen phone. Miss the Wes Borland pic that I stuck behind it too...