fickle

I doubt anyone reads this drivel anyway, but just for kicks, when I’m not here, I’m here .
It’s kind of like having two notebooks — one in your bag, with you at all times. And another bedside.  With the same Artline pen always at your service.

take you away

When you’re feeling down
And your sky is grey
And the people that you love
Well they have nothing lovely
To say

When your days are long
And lonelier than before
When your bed is cold
And the sheep are at your door

I’ll take you away
I’ll take you away
I’ll take you
I’ll take you away
I’ll take you away

When you’re tired of working
Like a slave
And the smell of the coffee beans
Well it just won’t go away
And your friends, well they’ve got
Nothing good to say
You just call out my name

And I’ll take you away
I’ll take you away
I’ll take you
I’ll take you away
I’ll take you away

 

catching up

This is f’ing ridiculous. Absurd. And to lend a phrase from my old friend Chazz Michael Michaels, it’s mind-bottling.

You see, when I was a 6-year-old, I vaguely recall my attempts to:

• Pull the pants off an A&W bear mascot by tugging on the brown and orange bugger’s tail.
• Barter trade my crap GI Joe toy for a far more expensive one with a classmate. I succeeded, but my entrepreneurship was a short-lived joy. My parents were summoned after 2 days.
• Set off a bank alarm. Since it is inherent that I will constantly flourish in the utterly pointless and damaging, I also succeeded, of course. Thankfully, it turned out that you can avoid arrest just by wailing and screaming “I DON’T WANT TO GO TO JAIL” for a good half an hour.

But apparently, if you’re 6 these days, you had better know how to multiply, recognise that Mars is a planet and not a gooey snack, understand the basic principles of physics and (very possibly) construct a small rocket capable of sending a sending a chimp into space.

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling dumber than I already am.
AND, these advanced little buggers are growing up!

What we learned when we were 23, these tots are mastering when they are 14. By the time they start work, they’d have seen, read and learned from case studies, ads, design, architecture and whatever else they could click and find here, there and bloody everywhere, online or not.

It doesn’t mean that they’re smarter. But surely knowing more earlier puts you in some kind of advantage. If they tell you to “absorb everything” and it’ll come in handy someday, then my memory bank is probably as good as a 11-year-old with speedy fibre connection and an ipad.

Every generation feels like the next one is the end of it all. But I think they’re lucky.

It makes me restless. It makes me feel like I haven’t learned enough, seen enough, done enough. That college kids are doing midterm projects today of the kind of thing we thought was bleeping revolutionary just last year. That the bag of tricks we constantly use at work is coming close to being as irrelevant as Arsenal’s annual title challenge. That unless we take in as much as we can, as quickly as we can, as often as we can, we’ll be the dinosaurs in the corner cubicle with the arthritis problem.

Good gosh, I sound like a grumpy old fart.

scribbles

a quiet hum
time waits for no one
before we knew it, it’s june
drink up, wise up, sing out of tune

sleep and i, sometimes we don’t see eye to eye
saying goodnight is a fight

push buttons, knock on doors, ask for seconds
don’t beat yourself up
it’s not their dreams waiting around the bend

hello, my friend, hello

Yes, as a matter of fact, I did deliberately use a line from a Neil Diamond (NEIL DIAMOND!) song as the title of this entry. See, the thing is, I couldn’t really see why this would be terribly embarrassing. In my books, singing “hello again, hello” while I take a piss is far more respectable than going “baybee, baybee ohhhh”.

It’s been four months since my last post, and a full 6 months since taking the short leap of faith across the causeway. So far, investigations have revealed fairly unsurprising results:

• one of the first things you miss about home is the food.
• they do not have a Casino War table at the Sands.
• ironing is a right bitch.

That aside, I think it’s safe to say that this island is how my homeland would be, if we let the Chinese run the country like a business. But that’s a story for another day.

During my free time, I try to cook, read and download movies I’ve always wanted to watch but never got around to. It all sounds fairly unspectacular and I can assure you that it is. Still, doing things apart from work is a joy in itself, so it’s time to strike out a few to do lists.

I also suppose there is some good in making use of this space, so I’ll try to say hello a little more.
Until then, don’t kill them sparks.

start again

Sometimes, we care too much about the things that make us feel good because that’s what makes us look good in front of other people.

See, I forgot about my job for a while and didn’t even bother keeping it crisp and short.

It is time perhaps, to do more.
New things. The kind we wouldn’t normally do. To invest in them. Set up a corner. Find the time. Make the effort. Get our hands dirty. Stick things up on the wall. Frame them up. Ignore the returns.

It could be something, anything, everything.

For starters, let’s not just write for a living.

the name’s Leo, damnit!

Since I’ve been out of this for a while, I’ve decided to be both informative and cheap at the same time.

The informative bit:

Leonardo da Vinci was both a perfectionist and a procrastinator. A strange combination of traits, but hey, look where it got him.

The bloke was also a vegetarian, for humanitarian reasons, apparently. Still, he dissected humans to study anatomy and took a job designing weapons for the military. I suppose he just loved animals more.

Among many other things, he also invented the scissors. Edward must be thankful.

It took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips. And people ask me why I need more time “to write a simple script”.

The cheap bit:

So apparently, if I blog about this, I stand to get two free tix to the Da Vinci The Genius exhibition, now running at the Pusat Sains Negara. You can read all about it here, but if I may just add, respectfully, referring to the fella just as “da Vinci” simply means “from Vinci”. Leonardo (or as I personally prefer: “Leo”) would be more appropriate, if like me, you feel a need to be a stickler on a Monday. Just so you know

And no, I didn’t find out about that last bit of info while I was googling “did you know Leonardo da Vinci” just minutes ago. As it turns out, being a football fan teaches you more than just heckling.

Oh, if you’re a cheap Chinaman too, you may also be interested to know how to get your 2 free tix here.

Proper blog post coming soon, when I feel like it! In the meantime, happy deepavali. I had a mini celebration in the elevator today.

what could have been

I would blog about how I noticed that the skies are beautiful today.
Or how I look forward to mornings and the day that comes with it.
I might have also written about how wonderful it is to wake up and do what I do.
How much I love the possibilities and the organised mess that is work.
I could have told you about how the little things in life never fail to make me smile.
And how my optimism keeps me alive.
Perhaps I would have also mentioned that I love the smell of freshly-baked muffins, or something banal like that.
I might have also added something about how my favourite tunes can always get me going again.

I would have done all that but unfortunately, at least for today, none of them seem true.

a message

My song is love
Love to the loveless shown
And it goes up
You don’t have to be alone
Your heavy heart
Is made of stone
And it’s so hard to see you clearly
You don’t have to be on your own
You don’t have to be on your own

And I’m not gonna take it back
And I’m not gonna say I don’t mean that
You’re the target that I’m aiming at
Got to get that message home

My song is love
My song is love, unknown
But I’m on fire for you, clearly
You don’t have to be alone
You don’t have to be on your own

And I’m not gonna take it back
And I’m not gonna say I don’t mean that
You’re the target that I’m aiming at
And I’m nothing on my own
Got to get that message home

And I’m not gonna stand and wait
Not gonna leave it until it’s much too late
On a platform I’m gonna stand and say
That I’m nothing on my own
And I love you, please come home

My song is love, is love unknown
And I’ve got to get that message home.

Because I love this song, you can learn how to love it too.
Acoustic version for download here.

to each their own

So, before we even realise, it’s bloody June already.

That means the year is halfway done. And for most of us, a sense of panic almost always creeps in.

You can’t really help but ask the common questions:
So, what have we done so far?
Is there anything that we can be remotely proud of thus far?
I’m getting older?!

For others, it’s perhaps a good time to figure out if change can bring about some kind of greater good. Perhaps it’ll provide the kick up the arse that you’ve been needing for so long.

Perhaps.

After all, we always have a choice.