Still Being Random

I went out for dinner with my family tonight at Holiday Inn. Apparently, there was a Family Day dinner there so there were some children running around. As impatient as my mother gets with undisciplined children, the ones tonight pushed even my buttons. It got so bad that we talked out loud of children who have parents who don't teach them manners. One boy (he had to be around 10 years old) had grabbed some marinated beef sausages and held it under the chocolate fondue fountain. He did this throughout the night using everything else except the prunes, grapes and honeydew that were there especially for the fondue. When talking loudly about them didn't work, I resorted to glaring at the uncouth mother. They were sitting at the table next to us so this was easy to do. It didn't help that the mother herself talked with her mouth full and stuffed food into her mouth. And you know how some bitches talk with their faces all screwed up and their eyes rolling and their mouths open wide? This one talked like that. I think she finally got the hint when I glared at her and even mimicked her hoping she'd see how ugly she looked. I think the final straw though is when I loudly commented about how anyone can expect schools to do a good job on their students when the parents practise such lousy behaviours. Only after they were done eating then the mother decided to scold her errant son. And even this was after my dad loudly said that children below the ages of 12 should be left at home, my mom said in western countries you'll never see children act like monkeys, I said that they shouldn't have been let out of their cages and my sisters called them uneducated and stupid.

Ah! A night out in Kuching, I tell you.

Speaking of a night out. While at Coffee Bean later, I saw a Malay guy who was dressed kinda like the neo-Nazis in Europe, with the jeans tucked inside his boots, wearing high top sneakers, sucking on a red lollipop that had a light within that he could activate to randomly blink. It was weird.

Also at Coffee Bean, we saw this Malay guy chase away a family from the sofas at the corner because his family wanted to sit there. We suspect he was supposed to reserve the area but the dumbass had walked away from it. And after he had done this, the woman (probably his mom) suddenly looked like she wanted to change her mind about sitting there. I tell you...if they hadn't sat there, I would have hailed the boy and told him how rude his whole family was. And he was rather curt when he chased the other family away too.

Shook and I are driving out of Kuching tomorrow. I need this time away from the city. I need the change in scenery. I hope I can get to relax a little.

Oh, I've been at work the past two days. That was exactly what I need to jumpstart my system again. I've been getting lethargic and lazy the past month. Once I was at work, despite not looking forward to it, I was eager to start teaching and working with my students. However, the first few days was just to get schedules worked out as well as to set up visual aids and getting lesson plans for the semester ready. And, of course, carrying heavy boxes full of books and stationery up four flights of stairs. And then there's the going down the same four flights to get more stuff. After a month of a lack of physical work, it's no wonder my back aches.

Anyway, it's raining. Good weather to sleep in so I'm going to do that in a bit.

My parents just got back from Europe and my mom got some ideas. Oh god!

Haha!

Jerome asked me tonight if I wanted to go watch Curse of the Golden Flower. Unfortunately, I had already watched it so I passed. However, after years and years of watching period Chinese movies and shows, I have never, ever seen costumes quite like the ones in this movie.

Picture courtesy of E! Online

Even after having been to China, I have never seen any evidence of such costumes. Just goes to show how movies can change anything.

Despite this, I found the movie rather normal. The plot was rather Shakespearen and the scenes were splashes of colour. It's just those bouncy things on people who I know don't have them bouncy things in any other movie.

In other news, I go back to work this Thursday. Part of me is so looking forward to it. Another part of me still wants that extra hour in bed in the mornings. But, I've been getting lazy and feeling bloated due to a lack of anything rigorous to do. So, going back to work will be the best thing that happens to me. Besides, I'll be getting a free 2 GB thumbdrive from school. Haha! Good reason as any to be back!

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!

This template is just temporary. The festive season and all.

I'll get back to my regular template after Boxing Day. Maybe.

Haha! Unless something else catches my eye.

Anyway, I'll be going to visit Dulcy tonight. Where I'll most probably see Nick, Jerome, and whoever who happens to be there at that time. I hope everyone will be there at that time.

And tomorrow, Shook and I will take a drive up to Damai for lunch with my beloved Aunty Mimi and my big brother, Kelvin. I even bought a present for Dexter but I forgot to pass it to Kelvin so I'll do that when I see him tomorrow.

PS: Zetty, if you're reading this. Thank you for the present. I love it!! I love the box it came in too ;)I figured it had to be your idea because I'm pretty sure Kelvin's hopeless at this. Haha!

I went crazy! Digitizing crazy.

When I was done with Forever...Friends, I ran around my room looking for more cassettes to digitize.

Last night, while lying on Shook's bed, I suddenly thought of my ultimate favourite vinyl record. Not many people will remember these big black round things that used to be our source of music but I still have a few of those, legacy of my parents.

One of my very, very favourite ones is an album by Richard Harris. Yes, good ole' Dumbledore himself, bless his soul. We have an album of his titled My Boy. The album is awesome. It's a narration of a man's idea of an ideal life. The album begins with him singing about his perfect woman to his marriage to her and, subsequently, to the birth of their son and eventually to their divorce.

It's a whole movie in one LP. The romantic in me found it beautiful. The cynic in me today finds it sappy at certain points.

And how do I know it's sappy? I'm listening to it right now. Apparently, I had transeferred the whole album to cassette at some point before going to KL to study. And, in my hunt, I found the cassette moments ago. So I now have Richard Harrus belting his heart out on my computer. The only thing, which I have no control over at this point, is the scratchy sounds of the record itself. But I can ignore the sound. Besides, the sound is rather nostalgic. I rather like it.

The album's older than I am. It's from 1971. Cool, huh?

After years and years of lamenting the fact that I can neither preserve my favourite songs that are on cassette nor play them without the fear of spoiling the tapes, I have finally gotten round to turning them into MP3s.

Thanks to Lifehacker for this page, I am, at this very moment of typing this post out, digitising some songs from a cassette that is, fortunately, still is good condition. Haha! To be honest, for the sake of the first experiment, I grabbed The Best of Village People. So I now have In The Navy, Go West, YMCA and Macho Man on MP3.

The sound quality of course depends on the cassette itself. But it's relatively clean and in stereo. There was a bit of tweaking and downloading of plug-ins.

But it works! I can now work on the one reason I started this. My Friends Forever cassette. It's the only Christian album I have. And it is one of my absolute favourites.

A very good friend of mine in London wrote about what I could only agree to be a pillow fight club. It looks like such great fun! Her boyfriend put up a video here. Apparently, it was organised through mobile clubbing. An interesting concept considering how we can't seem to live without our mobile phones nowadays.

Oh, D'Grill at Sarawak Plaza is renovating their place. The owner told me he was planning on moving the bar to the back and making better use of the front area. He's also going to add more things to the menu and redo the menu so that it looks better than it does now. He also wants to install broadband there so that he could play music from radio stations overseas over the Internet. I wonder if Global 6 would be interested? Ninja Bee, what say you?

Also, does anyone know if the renovations are done?

I bought a USB flash drive today. For no reason other than it's cute and I needed one for my portable applications.

They're not very sensible reasons I know. But it does help me in a lot of ways and besides, you can never have too many flash drives.

The one that I bought, though, is so cute and small. It's about the size of our Malaysian 50 cents coin. And, this is the fun part, it looks like a Lego and attaches like Lego pieces too.

I got the yellow one which is 1GB. There are, apparently, blue ones with a capacity of 512 MB and orange ones with 256 MB. I might buy one of each and attach them together for ease of carrying. I'm not so sure I'll buy enough to make a bracelet, though.

I downloaded this Heroes wallpaper.

I'm not bragging on anything but I just need someone to tell me it's not my imagination. Or if it is.

Take a closer look at the reflection in the water. See the Niki/Jessica reflection? Next to her is the policeman's.

Is it just me or does his reflection look really, really creepy? That, and the fact that they are the only ones with reflections.

While I was growing up, my father used to tell me many stories that were told to him by his mother. Some of her stories were folktales that were told to her. Others were from books that my father's family used to get. Books that were still in their original form and written in Jawi.

The one story that my father always spoke of was the legend of Puteri Santubong. The guy who wrote the song we hear nowadays took a lot of poetic liberties to it and changed the entire legend. The old people here all know the real story.

Besides, if you think about it, Santubong is a mountain. Sejinjang is a hill. As petty as the gods can be, why would a higher god lower themselves to fight with a minor god? But if you think of Santubong fighting Lesung, which is a mountain on its own in the Second Division, wouldn't that make more sense?

Anyway, I started a little of the legend here. That's the way I write. I'm influenced by romance and fantasy writers. So I describe in great detail. This is so that I won't have to bother filling in the details later when the action starts rolling. And also, I want to put a picture in people's head. That way, they can't come to me and say 'Oh, I had an idea what so-and-so looked like. Only later then I got the real picture from your description.'

I don't like that as a reader. So I don't do it when I write either.

I don't write very well. I talk better than I write.

Oh heck! Just read the story.

I went to Book Castle with Gette the other day and decided to pick up The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer. I've always been curious to read it but have never plucked up the courage to do so. Yet, on that day, I made a split second decision and picked it up once and for all.

I managed to read 10 pages within as many minutes and I am hooked. I can't seem to put it down. And I'm tempted to find the movie. It has Julian Sands in it. Granted, he's no hottie. But this is Julian Sands we're talking about. He made vampires romantic and magic tempting when Tom Cruise was still flying high and Irish.

But, the one fascinating thing about the whole thing is the lengths they went to in making it seem real. At first glance, one does wonder how true the story is. Until you get online and they reveal how fictitious it really is. They even created a website by 'Joyce Reardon' to publish the missing excerpts from the diary.

My family is leaving for Europe today so I'll be at home alone. Between this book and my very active imagination, I am so walking around with all the lights switched on!

Ironic, isn't it, the song I'm listening to?

Here she is doing her impression of a rug ;)

This was the one I wanted to use a stalker icon. But Shook keeps saying she wants to interface with the PC


Here she is doing her loyal hound pose

Today, the parental units come home!!! Yay!!!

You know how most of us actually do want our cake and to eat it too? Well, that's me. To be honest, my parents are my foundation. I cannot imagine my life without them. Never once did I wish them away, nor did I ever wish to move away from them. I can survive without them but only for short periods of time. When I went away to study, I love the independence, the 'freedom'. But that freedom is only sweet in the knowledge that I can always, always have somewhere to run to when I am down. And that shelter has always been my parents. I still cannot get over how they arranged for a ticket for me to come home while I was the US within 12 hours. And all because I was so depressed that I was crying like a baby on the phone. And I remember my mom hanging onto the phone because I was crying when I was alone in my room one Raya while I could hear the sounds of family in the background at home.

These are all things we never appreciate until we leave home. Until our parents are not in the next room to come to our aid. That's why I get angry at people when they wish for freedom from their parents. They don't seem to see how their parents suffer for them or bend backwards to help them. I always tell my sisters to appreciate our parents because, one day, they won't be around to shelter us anymore. And, by then, it could be too late to ask for forgiveness. Or to wish.

There was time when I had a back-up plan for a lot of things. There were two back-up plans which I knew I would not change. One was if I never get married, I'd move to the Mediterranean with a friend and enjoy life and the many men/boys in it. The other plan was if I was not married and my parents are no longer around. I long decided that I'd leave Malaysia. I didn't care where I'd go. I'd just go. Yes. That's how much I love my parents.

Thanks to them I've made the right decisions in my life. I listened to them, allthough at times I wanted to rebel. Now, I reflect on what I have and I've decided that all my decisions were the best for me. I'm happy, I'm secure and most of all, my conscience is clear. My parents brought me up well, despite them admitting that they did the best they could at that time. What 'evil' I have in me, I blame entirely on myself and not anyone else.

So...yay!! My parents are coming home today. But next week, they're going off again. They're taking my sisters to Europe for a holiday. I decided to stay back because next year, they're sending me and Shook to Europe for our honeymoon. So, from next week until the end of the year, I'm going to be an orphan. So, if I get depressed or edgy, blame it on the fact that I don't like being without my parents.

But, on the plus side, my big brother is coming home. Another yay!! He asked me what I want for Christmas and I still have no idea. Maybe I should just ask him to surprise me.

I think some people are just better at shoving responsibility onto other people than they are at taking on responsibilities themselves. This is not uncommon, really. But it gets really frustrating when said person acts very holier-than-thou about it and just keeps dishing out ideas and seems to refuse to take on a more active role in implementing the ideas.

Sad, really. You can only pity them for their lack of self-confidence or esteem.

On another note, I have so many photos that I've been meaning to post. I just need to resize some of them and do a few touch-ups. I'll do that later today.

This has got to be my weirdest holiday yet. It is a holiday but I can't seem to stop myself from running around. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that no matter how late I go to bed, I still wake up at 6.30 a.m. The only difference from normal days is that, instead of running around like a mad chicken, I get to lie in bed and read.

But all this will end in 2 weeks time. *sigh* Some holiday...

I found these trailers today:

A series of features for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. These same features can be downloaded individually from HPANA here.

Robotech: Shadow Chronicles

I came across this website today. Apparently, you can give to certain charities just by clicking on the advertisers' links. There's one especially for pets.

I admit I clicked those buttons a few times ;)

I'm not sure if it worked but I clicked.

I don't know about this. It does sort of sound like me yet not really...

I had almost forgotten!

Today is World's AIDS Day!

Here's a ribbon: