Its december 1st.

I have 24 days left in my army. I've learnt a ton, not all of it that I wanted to know. I"m dating, sort of, the girl says she wants to just be friends,a nd quite frnakly, I've never known a girl who's been so direct. Its kinda of a relief, but I can't hide my dissapointment. I can't say I blame her, I know I've been pleasent, but I odubt I've been charming, or appealing. That, it seems, only occurs over typed words or over time. But then it seems I've always been found to be more adorable than attractive. That in itself isn't a problem, it'll work itself out I guess.

It kinda reached a strange impasse on tuesday. I had invited her to go see a show "A twist of fate' (which was fantastic. Which part? It was all good. It was great). It was a non-date. It was like walking in the last chance you will ever have and you know you're failing and while you're distinctly uncomfortable, its more like feeling like you should care rather than actually caring. She's a great girl, but... something's not right. She's right y'know, its better this way. And yet, I think I feel unsatisfied because I know it may be the last real dating I"ll be doing in some time (not all bad, mind you, at this rate, I'll be broke soon). On the other han, my main real concern is that I may lose soemone to go watch movies with. I want to ask her to see another movie, but I'm afriad we can't get the dating out of the way and reach a true friendship thing. I'm heading for the friendzone and I can't wait.

Not surprisingly, I'm failing, just not in any good way =P

I'm going to app unis today. Not tomorrow, today. I swear to God. Cross fingers and toes, oh lord, here we go. Shit, I'm so bloody scared about it. I'm afriad that someone's going to reveal that I can only act smart and I'm really a close minded shithead.

In other news, they're executing this vietnamese guy tomorrow. Some guy compared the smuggling of drugs to the clod blooded murder of a suicide bomber and said they didn't compare. IMO, that's bullshit. Tell it to the father of a man who cannot live without his fix or the child of a drug addicted mother. Tell them their lives have been destroyed less than a bomb victim. Its all bad, just different shadows of the same demon, cast by different lights, but all equally dark. However, I am also a believer in clemency for clemency's sake. What reason to forgive him? Forgiveness. But not because he dosen't deserve to die, but in spite of it. That's what forgiveness is. But I feel no shame for supporting the governement in this. I just feel sorry for his mother, I pity her, the pain must be unbearable.

God have mercy on his soul, as I pray he will have mercy on my soul when it comes my time.

1) Get into a decent uni

2) make a shitload of money

3) save the wrold

4) get mother a kriss world thingy for the rest of her lifetime. Because that would just make her happy. Really happy.

5) live well.

That's it for now.

*is left blank*

I was once asked whether I would be playing games in ten, twenty years time. At this point of time, unless I get a job in the industry, I don't think I'll be playing many games in a years time. The season has passed in a way, and I'm not so much growing out of it, but I think I've learnt a lot from these things, but the perirod where the time spent on it would be much better spent elsewhere. The things that once seemed right and important in my world... have been done I guess. Its time to try something new.

I wonder what it will be. (I also wonder if I'll be correct, but hey, you never know neh? But I'll finally get off my ass and learn to drive.)

I want to learn Malay. I've asked myself many things over many years and one answer that I got back was who I was. WAs I chinese? By race I am. Am I proud to be Chinese? Are you proud of breathing? (I am, but that's a different thing). But when I meet a Chinese person, one from China, I don't identify to him. Thousands of miles and more importantly a hundred years seperate us. That's 4 generations since my family has lived on Chinese soil. My race is Chinese. I am no longer Chinese. Not in a way that means anything.

But I'm not European. I'm not American. I'm not Indian, I'm not African. I hold no identity with them, although this is less true of some places than others. But I belong here. In Singapore. This is home. And that measn something. I look at Malaysia and think, always I think, that could have been us. Would that have been so bad? Maybe. Yes. No. It would so different beyond all imagination because the changes are so fundemental... and so small. Its not the big changes that are the worst, its the small ones at times.

So what does this have to do with Malay?

If you are an immigrant in another man's land, it is your obligation to adapt to his land, not his to adapt to your attitude. While the latter is advisable on his part, and almost nessecary to maintain good and liveable relations, it is *not* his obligation. I cannot understand immigrants who mvoe to other countries who make no effort to learn the new language and adapt (BUT: I am not an immigrant. And Language is always a bitch to learn). But the ball is in their court. The attempt has to made by them. Such is life.

I am in a ways, in another man's land. But it is also my land now. And the land around me is filled with Bahasa speaking people. It is 1) in my economic interest to learn a langauge of comerce 2) a thing that appeals to my nature. While I am no linguist, I prefer to believe that is due to other factors other than wanting to. 3) because I am Malayan.

I belong to the land that was once known as Malaya, a british colony, the land of my grandparents, on both sides. I grew up 2 months out of every year in that country across a thin strip of water, so close you can cleary see across the ways. And there are so many who speak it in Singapore itself. I want to speak to these people in their own language, a sign of respect to their past, and to their future. I am here to stay and I'm here with you, for you. I will be your neighbor. I will not be an isolationist bastard by choice. If I can't speak Malay, it won't be becasue I never tried in my life.

See, the thing about countries that share past... it means that they share futures.

I've been thinking as of late, about nothing useful ( as usual) and of things of the greatest importance.The thing is, I was doing both at the same time. I swear, I promised myself this would be a quick post but I can't really promise that.

I think it will. I'll write more about this later, but I think the important thing to note is that when people talk about 'the two faces of the same coin', few mention it is in fact the same coin. Whether you see heads or tails, what we forget is that the coin itself is both heads and tails at the exact same time. But it is also only one and neither at the same time depending on how you view or choose to view it. And in a way, the coin becomes everything, anything and nothing all at once.

I wonder if it means anything.

Christ, I need a school.

I spent saturday in a Battleground (www.worldofwarcraft.com) (n00b). But its the in between that counts. I love WoW for the strange little things you can do to people just for kicks. I for example spent my time in between the battles (while trying to get a place) sapping people. What is sapping? Sapping is ( as a rogue, one of those sneaky ninja types) going into stealth and then *twapping* some guy (added coolness if from behind). The guy is unhurt but cannot move or do anything for about 20 seconds. Harmless, but irritating as f***. This can only be done while people and marked for PvP.

There is strange pleasure to go out, and letting someone know that for one moment, your existence in the world was in the hands of one person. He looked at you, weighed your existence in his hands... then *twaaped* you and ran away like a crazy *****r. Did it for an hour. Was fantastic. Thge guy was a lowbie, so killing him would have been dishonorable, in life and in the game. There were some other max level people messing with lowbies, which is just mean and stupid, so I don't engage, but I like sapping. Its like griefing without causing anyharm. ^^

Yes, I am an asshole. But a nice one.

It was always dawn when I came home. Always. It was always us, me and our crew of miscreant, cramped air sailors flowing through the sky chasing the west falling sun across a far horizon, chasing the dawn till tomorrow (or due to the damn international deadline, chasing today. Bastard IDL), until it shown with a hazy light over the South China. Bangkok, Ipoh, KL, Gemas, Johor, JB, Tekong, that last crazy loop over Changi and the flaps extending like angel's wings to slow our speed and still my heart. Across the ground, it all came into view, the east coast, the merchant ships that brought our life blood, the city. Rows and rows of permenent makeshift housing and the steets of my childhood. Like God we looked over all of it, our faces pining at the window, no matter if it were our first or a hundred and first time, it never lost its beauty. Never lost its meaning. Never lost its silly poignecy of our smallness and our largeness, encompassed at exactly the same time. That last, crazy loop over the changi, seeing, the road, the tree lined highway, the bridge, the underpass, the ice cream control tower, that golf course with blue people tending its lawns, that final stretch of tarmaced forever, the bump, halt screech and shudder.

And the sudden stillness. The slight rejerk of movement and the hum. Excitment in the air, the relief of being. The bump on the side of a reconnect umbilical cord and the cracking open of overhead storage. The line, the long line. A friendly face says farewell, and you believe it because its so much better to.

And then it happens. The threshold could be anywhere in the world. It looks the same. And then you step between airconditioned worlds and through that gap you feel the warm, soaked, humidity and a smell that only means one thing:

Home. You lucky sonofabitch. You're home.

I abhor blogging.

The reason why I have a blog despite this fact is simply becasue I didn't know it when I started. That doesn't make it true, and it mgiht not make it right, but it certainly is fact, usually the only fact that truely exist when I write these damnable things. The only thing that allows me to sleep at night is the fact that no one reads this, so I am greatly relieved.

On the other hand, I feel obliged to keep this up becasue I realise that I'm about to embark (with luck) on a politics degree. Vox Populi Vox Die and all that jazz and eventually the topic of blogs is going to come up. I hate reading them, so this is a compromise of sorts. I say of sorts because its not really one. But what the hell.

Blogging is the equivilent of the man with no voice shouting at people on the side of the street from the safety of his own head. No one really reads this and its not really information or news, espcially if taken at face value because the damnable things are likely to only be read on regular basis by people who agree with the posters opinions. Unless you're writing one of those diary like blogs, in which case one might wish to invest in a telephone and a long heart to heart talk with your target audience. Or use skype, which is good too.

Even worse than blogging itself is(are?) newspapers who talk about blogs, or the cloumnist who write columns about things that were written in blogs, like a review of a moview review. And the movie was about literary critics.

I suppouse the true upshot of this post is this. I HATE THE NEWPAPER (Google it. Newpaper Singapore. I'm sure you'll find what I'm talking about). GET A FUCKING LIFE AND/OR DIE IN A FIRE.

Just finished Pariah. FPS, PC, whatever and ever. My god, games really have gone far in such a short time haven't they? I mean, its almost as if we missed the whole 60-70's period and shot straight to the 90s haven't we?

If you're wondering what I'm babbling about, then consider this: If the games 'industry' were compared to movies, games would be ten years behind where movies are today. We had the initial period where nothing was shit because it was all new and thus, great. We had the period where there was no sound, and no colour to speak of really. Then we had the bit where we had no plot, and the music sounded like there was a guy hiding somewhere playing a piano. We've had, interspersed, the classics that are classics regardless of the shit that was being propelled at us otherwise.

And now, we are in the 90s. Good games come out, but we are begninning to see the emergence of the relatively high budget, high effects, glossy action movie type game. There isn't a plot, there's a hot chick and some bozo being blown apart. I had fun, I'm never going to touch it again I think and christ, maybe I shouldn't have paid so much to play it. Although, to its credit, Pariah was set in a much nicer world than, say, Doom 3. We went *outdoors*. There was sun, trees, water, grass! No fucking zombies to speak of, it was like a holiday at a not so dystopian club med.

It was Halo + Half Life 2 + Unreal 2. Now, in a form of equation

Halo = 10/10
Half Life 2 = 9.5/10
Unreal 2 = 7/10 the first time you play it, -15/10 everytime thereafter.

Therefore, Pariah, the game = 4.5/10

Harsh? Maybe. It was fun enough to finish, and fresh enough to start. Not bad, not good. And root canal fucking sucks.

Now where the hell did that come from?

I don't think I'm a very good human being, I don't know how to reach out to people, how to help them in anyway. Sometimes I get lucky though. But yet, the sole saving grace in my opinion is that I want to. I want to help people, and I don't want to be seen doing it. I would like the people to know it was me, I would like to know that they appreciate it, but that's not important.

I wanted to write about train seats and people and shit, but I can't concentrate on it. Something that happened recently stops that from happening.

I went to KL recently, this weekend and stuff. I live a blessed life, that is undeniable. Its is not by chance, it is through the hard work of my parents, something that I will never forget, and will forever be grateful for. I will never be indebted to them however, this is beyond debt and beyond repayment. That is what my family is like. I like to call it asian, or chinese but frankly I don't know if other families feel like that because of our ethnic roots. It is simply: the way we live.

I say that because, sometimes... you wonder. We were on our way back and decided to stop by a noodle shop for dinner. Its a conventional coffeeshop, nothin special, good enough food, when all of a sudden, this little girl is at my mother's elbow. She's small, I imagine about 7-10, but I can't tell. She's thin, but not (as far as I could see) malnourished. She has a dress that looks like PJs on and she has a pack of tissues and (oddly) chewing gum in her hands and all she does is offer them to us, her mouth moving, but no words coming out.

You know its wrong. There's no reason why this girl should be there. There's no reason why she shouldn't be at home, sleeping, preparing for school tomorrow or something. Not out selling tissues and shit. And that wasn't the worse part, the worse part was the fear she had in her eyes, if not all consuming, then it was at least ever-present. That scared the bejeezus out of me. And in that moment, I knew. I should do something. Something wasn't right.

Ever see the right thing walk away from you?

I have.

I did.

I let it.

It was horrible.

But what could I have done? I couldn't have given her all the money I had, she would have given it back to her master. I couldn't take the girl home, could I? I don't even know if she was really being abused, it was only a suspicion! But! Why did it seem so wrong to see her walk away into the night?

We gave her 2 ringgit, but not without my mother torturing the girl, asking her where her mother was. My mom was doing her best to be nice. She should have known better though. The fear with which the girl shook her head... so understated yet clear as day. My dad pointed out that at least she was clean. Her clothes were clean, and that was a relief, it could have been so much worse.

What do we do seeing a thing like that? This will not be the worse thing I will ever see, but it was... horrible. There must be conscience in the world and I hope the next time, there will be something I can do. Because a blog somewhere on the web is as useful as a 2 ringgit note, guiltily passed on in the night. And that is to say, not very.

Singapore just recently celebrated its/her/our 40th year of independence, or relatively less dependence (or reality phased sub par dependency altered state), whichever seems more likable (or likely) to you. For you, out there, who might never have had the oppotuinity to stay in such a lovely place such as Singapore, this can only mean one thing: Parades.

Parades are bad ideas. They block roads, they cause people to be silly in all ways. Silly people on floats, silly people planning the floats, silly people deciding how to best fuck up your holiday mood by blocking the wrong roads. Silly people deciding to go see the parade and causing all sorts of harm to your mental state too. And should be entangled at any point of time in the excitement, you become silly too. There's good silly and bad silly. You decide where this one goes.

The right thing to do is stay home. Or leave the country. Otherwise you will be subjected to... the parade. I tried my best to do my patriotic duty this year, but my mum ruined it for me. I want to be proud of this place. And so every year I do my best to avoid the parade so I don't feel compelled to state that our parade is shit. That way I can tell everyone that we have a lovely parade, which *must* be true because so many people go see it (its because of the freebies. Don't lie you bastards, you know its true). Its a shit parade. This year was bad because of (usual reasons) and (other stuff). i.e. the acts that we do are horrible, the costumes garish, the songs unbelievably patriotic sung unbelievably by unbelievably mediocre singes (this parade is worth seeing simply for the warp in reality that takes place at this point) and the rolling museum that was our armored column (ooh, yay, the white ice cream truck with the monkey with the smoke machine in it. What? That's a hazmat truck?! ooooh, big furry deal Asimov!). The guys who do this have no sense of style, no sense of what it takes to look good. These are the bastards who wear bow ties and have combovers who talk about their kids at parties.

My dad loves this phrase and it's apt. "Money tak ada, style misti ada!"( I apologise to the Malay people for the massacre of their language). Loosely translated, that means "you may or may not have money, but you *must* have style". Parading old, ugly, unimpressive machines, not matter how important they are, in an armored column in the parade is not a good thing. Its stupid. You roll out the big bastards that make people go "Holy shit! I don't wanna mess with these motherf%#$@!s". Lacking that, you DON'T DO IT.

I could go on an on. But I won't. I think you get the idea already.

I will say this though, the mas dance this year is hilarious (as opposed to painful) when you watch it without music (it helps that from afar with my glasses off, Rui En looks good). And the aerial display this year was awesome. Anything that flies over head and causes me to quickly follow it from front to back is instantly impressive to me. I can't resist. Flight is my bane.

My God!!!!

I'm going to be 21 in a little over a month! I can drink in the US! I don't know how to drive yet! (Actually, I don't really care. I live in SINGAPORE for fucks sake, who needs to drive?) And I still won't be able to vote!

Where has time gone? Who cares, where will tiem go? Why don't I own a monkey yet! When will Metallica play again in Singapore! When I frickin grow up and get a life?

And is the fact that I'm more worried about what people think of my nonchalance as opposed to being worried by my nonchalance. And will my guild ever kill Ghennnas?

I love this. I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a beach looking to an unspolit horizon and there's nothing but things to discover. I'm not yet bitter. And before I die, I will make sure I won't be. Punks, goths, bleh, I want to be happy. And happy is what you make of it.

And monkies. No monkey = no happy.


____
Min

It was an interesting weekend I suppose, different, and rightly so because I was on holiday!

Here's a tip for holidays: Skip Bintan. It's just not worth the hassle, going all the way to Changi and then the hour by boat to the island itself. But if you have to go to Bintan, go to Club Med.

From all stories of club med I've ever been told, this must mean that Club Med Bintan is the dystopian Club Med, a vision of Club Med gone wrong, and yet hauntingly familiar. But, and its a big but, they have all you can eat buffet tables with more food than you could shake a stick at. Believe me when I say I ate it. With relish.

Actually, without relish. That was one of the things they didn't have.

I was determined to enjoy myself on this weekend and thus I did. I didn't do much, I hung out at the beach and climb rocks that had been blasted into position, to look like real formations from afar and leave me wondering what they looked like before. I twas fun, in the sense that I don't climb rocks, I don't pretend I'm fitter and more gung ho than I am, and I certainly don't encourage children to follow me when I do. And yet all these things happened and it was fun. Three small british lads were hanging about near the rocks and were inspecting crabs, and wondering how to climb the rocks. Me mum was about as well, telling them where crabs were and how to climb rocks and like good kids they were ignoring her. I figured that they would ignore me too, so I ignored them and went ahead and went climbing. I could described how the followed and such, but I have a distinct distaste for being a boring writer (more than I am naturally at least) and so I won't. But it ended with them doing things my parents would have certainly frowned upon if I had been that age. Min: Bad influence. I like the sound of that.

No hawt chicks though, only alot of potentially hot chicks, if they grew up and became 'yknow, 18 or something. If there were ever any need of proof of the flexibility of time, the age difference between 13-18 is at least 4 times the difference between 23 and 28.

I doubt I'll ever return, but it was fun while it lasted.

Go with God Robin Cook. Go with God.

Mr. Cook, too short a life. I only ever caught a glimpse of your life, a glimpse of promise, a glimpse of... greatness?

Of Honor.

There are many ways to turn your back on your allies. Never have I seen it so gracefully done, so rightly done. Without treachery, without malice, without the bitching backstabbing that so many of us have to deal with every day. With dignity, with honor. Without glory. For what you believe, with your head held high and yet level all at the same time. Your heart in the right place always.

And it doesn;t matter if you only ever did it once, you did it with the world watching. You picked your moment and did it right.

And now you're gone.

The world will miss you.

The world misses its good men.

*EDIT*

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2859431.stm

Read it. Watch it. Understand why.