BUT I’M STILL HOLDING OUT HOPE, MALAYSIA.

Love,
One of your rakyat xoxoxo

…. and I can’t wait to make my vote count. (I didn’t register to vote for nothing you know!!)

While the rest of the world go frothing at the mouth about it, I was actually capable of minding my own business while on the inside I’m thinking, “Why are these people so OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS?”.

But not today. Today I feel all kinds of geram towards idiocy. You see, unlike say, the aid flotilla to Gaza, it’s hard to take a centrist stance on this one when one side makes arguments that holds water as well as a colander can. I’m not here to make nuanced rebuttals against them. This is my attempt at expelling all my geram-ness into words because I really cannot tahan the horrifyingly bigoted and unreasoned reasonings that I’ve heard anymore.

Mostly, I feel like this: >___<

People are ready to jettison civility and rationality when confronted with a problem that is larger than them and is too complex to solve, in place they find the lowest common denominator — and I do mean lowest — by inciting fear, and anger, and maligning the ‘other’. In this case, because they hurt you, you have to hurt others, right? It’s like a case from Criminal Minds gone macro, PTSD for the masses.

Those who perished on 9/11 cannot be honoured by hate, and to see their memories being thrown around in the name of veiled and outright racism is more profane than dancing on their graves.

EDIT: The charity is World of Children if you are inclined to donate.

And you’re not an after thought this time, Dan Dan… happy birthday to Daniel Radcliffe who is now finally legal in the USA. Can’t say I’m dying to watch the last two HP movies but I’m looking forward to them.

more football thoughts…      6/12/2002

deal with it. I’m not going to get over this football mania at least till the week after the final match.

France didn’t get into the second round. I feel bad that I feel so good. Know what I mean? Sort of like, I feel validated because I always thought the team was overrated but at the same time, so many frenchies had so much hope. C’est la vie, n’est ce pas? Last note on France — if it wasn’t for the talent of one man, Zidane, these guys would have had no chance of even glimpsing the Cup 4 years ago.

Was talking to D tonight and she told me this idiot who wrote to USA Today about how soccer is such a violent sport (fans rioting) and that is why soccer never caught on in the States; because Americans are above all that. Um, yeah.. not even gonna waste my time

Can’t wait for tomorrow to be over. It’s rather nice to have a 3-day week. It still seems so darn long. At the very least, I’m off to northern cali this weekend. I heard them people are more laid back up there. I’ll have a report on that next week.

Instead, the words kept being about something else. Like, say, Ithaca by Constantine P. Cavafy.

Ithaca was shared with me by a very good friend some dozen years ago. Under what context I forget now. But to this day, whenever I set foot in a new part of the world I think to myself, hah, I made it. In Ithaca, these would’ve been my Phoenician markets and Egyptian cities… But more and more, the last line of the poem makes me think different: “that you should understand already what these Ithacas mean”.

These Ithacas? What’s with the plural? Hm… So, change of perspective in recent years — I no longer think of Ithaca as a someday-someplace thing. Ithaca is when I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb– no wait, wrong reality. Oh yea, Ithaca is when I learned to stop worrying about what others thought you were supposed to be doing.

If I did what others thought I was supposed to do I would have more than likely, to say nothing of where I’d be living and what kind of job I’d be holding down, be visiting the Tower of London in a theme park in Shenzhen; I wouldn’t be in London, looking at the Tower of London and getting drenched, while walking Tower Bridge, in a storm that was so quick and fierce it felt like getting sandblasted. How can one even begin to compare the experience of that to seeing a facsimile completely removed from context in a different continent?

My mother has an anecdote she likes to bore us with every so often: her scrooge-like bosshad once declared, “No need to travel lah, watch tv can already.” To which she responded (very wittyly too, she would tell you), “Ya lah, you also no need to eat lah, see pictures can already.”

Pictures, images, and miniatures only tell you so much of the story. The rest is for you to write your own. This entry is 3 months late. With any luck, the rest of this summer will be more productive for fatuitous thoughts, and more Ithacas to follow.

1. Bad spelling
This annoys me in general but if I have to see your sloppy, couldn’t-be-arsed, consistently atrocious spelling on my news feed it is annoying to the point where I will submit you to lamebook.com.

2. Using pics of their children as profile pictures.
I know you have an ugly mug, okay? Listen, you can’t live your life through your children. And while I’m talking about children and facebook… for the love of decency DON’T REFER TO YOUR CHILD AS YOUR PRINCESS OR PRINCE.

3. The abuse of the Retweet feature.
Does this really require an explanation?

Polystyrene window frame shock for house buyers [The Star]

BUTTERWORTH: Several house buyers in Taman Ampang Jajar here had a rude shock when they checked the houses – the outer frames of their windows were made from polystyrene.

A buyer, Lee Kim Tatt, 35, claimed that the polystyrene pieces were covered with a thin layer of cement.

…

A representative for the project’s architect said the frames were merely decorative pieces that should not be stepped on.

Unnnn-freaking-believable. I mean, if they were clever they would have at least tried to pass it off as some form of new energy saving insulation.

Note to self: Think twice before buying property back home.

That dress is all kinds of unfortunate.

Wish I had more to report. The only thing I know for sure is that Smarch spoke to a CNN guy, a AC360 guy, and this is what he has to say:

“I talked with that former Law and Order prosecutor/actress, Stephanie March, some. She was friendly, but seemed to get a little irritated when after everything she said I went, ‘DUH-DUNHT!’” [Source]

Everybody thinks they’re funny after the Correspondents’ Dinner…

And this is how my brains zigs and zags and zigs again when it really should be zagging.

Work is not blog material, life in Kuwait is work and sleep, and I’ve spent more hours in malls in this last year than in the previous 3 years.

I miss alcohol from time to time. I miss the climbing gym.

It gets very dusty here. Thank god for housekeepers.

I have a chronic pain on my left foot.

It’s nice to be somewhat gainfully employed with health insurance.

I haven’t gone to see the doctors yet about the pain.

SVU is a piece of crap. Stephanie March is still hot.

My ipod died its second — and seemingly final — death.

I have a Blackberry.

Even with a smartphone overall I’ve spent less time on the internet since starting work.

I went to Lebanon and saw the Mediterranean sea.

I miss tennis.

In about one week I’ll finally have set foot in Europe for the very first time. London calling!

That’s pretty much it for now.

Watch this space.

Also, ’tis CHINESE NEW YEAR. HOLLAAAAA.