disturbia

i blasted my stereo the other day and rihanna was on. i've already had a miserable week, ok relatively more miserable than any other weeks, so when she goes..

Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum
What's wrong with me?

and i was like, yeah, what's wrong with me?

Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum
Why do I feel like this?
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum
I'm going crazy now

oh yes, i'm so going crazy now. why? because there were still no words, no nothing. nil. nada. every morning i woke up with a glint of hope but by the time i glanced through my mail before dashing off for breakfast, all hope gone leaving me with this big heavy load in my chest.

No more gas in the rig
Can't even get it started
Nothing heard, nothing said
Can't even speak about it
All my life on my head
Don't want to think about it
Feels like I'm hurting my brain..

i swear, i felt as if i was in her video clip or something. this song could easily be my life anthem. did i write this in my sleep? because god knows my brain is hurting right now.

or else, tell me why on sunday afternoon when it was all rainy outside creating a perfect hybernation nest at home, i grabbed my car key and drove all the way to my company to check my e-mail? it's like badawi suddenly wakes up and decide to debate in parliment.

i felt like i was living in limbo. neither here nor there, and it's tiring. it's like, gosh, show me the way already! you see, even the annual chinese ghost earth-roaming time is almost up and they have to go back to their realm very soon.

i on the other hand, have to remain in standby-mode.

only that it's getting worse. i think i've become weird with this anticipation. for instance, everything i do now that has anything to do with this subject, i think i could jinx my chance.

like this entry, i wanted to put 'my heart will go on' as the title, but i was afraid it will sink my hope just like the titanic.

ridiculous huh. am i losing it?...

Your mind's in disturbia
It's like the darkness is the light
Disturbia
Am I scaring you tonight? Disturbia..

indeed. to tell you the truth, i'm scared myself.

but i guess, like i've always reminded myself, things happened for a reason. i just have to be patient and content.

so in the meantime i'd just go..

Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum (ba da da de din da)
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum (ba da da da din daa)
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum (disturbia ahh ohh)
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum

...ed

a nation in distress

so anwar ibrahim won the malaysia's permatang pauh by-election.

with a bigger majority too! you see, having found it impossible to topple anwar in this home turf, the ruling national front party resorted to this conception, where they would consider victory if they were able to only reduce the majority.

haha so eat that s*ckers!

now, do i think the EC is 100% reliable and clean from any misdeed? nope. there were far too many complaints, about the waxed voting papers, missing or duplicated registration names, phantom voters, to just to name a few. but at least, nobody think these so-accused-riggings have anything to do with anwar's victory.

this landslide win is all attributed to the power of the people, who have spoken loud and clear that they wanted anwar back in the parliment. personally, i hope he will quickly topple the current government because excuse me, i don't have much confidence in the government that only interested in investigating other people's anus and swearing on the holy book that they don't know a certain mongolian model.

seriously. i mean, what kind of government that increase and reduce petrol price to the function of election dates? where's the integrity of the government that sneaked in dna identification bill in parliment whilst the bulk of the opposition was campaigning in Permatang Pauh?

as long as there is almost 50-50 representative from the ruling national front coalition and the opposition in the parliment, they will continue condemning each others down. which means, we can safely assume that there will be zero development until at least the next 4 years, when it will be time again for the general election.

that's why i believe anwar wining is the first step towards creating an alternative govenment which hopefully can turn malaysia to a better future. until then, i would continue to hang my flag upside down.



...ed

the top spin affair

rafael nadal won the olympic gold!

wow i'm so ecstatic, i'm practically in cloud-nine mode. ok i know it was not like i share the winning money or the gold, but still it was such a big deal for me.

yahoo sports getty image


especially considering nothing much else happening in my life right now. nothing that big a scale anyway. on the application, nothing has been confirmed yet. would it be my happy ending? i certainly hope so but for now it's all still grey.

i just bought myself a notebook, a sleek white acer aspire one with intel atom, 120G hard drives, 1G RAM, windows XP, for SGD799.


the acer is that small, not my hand is that big

i had wanted a notebook from like ages ago. every person i know has one. ok every cool person i know has one. not having one is just like not having a handphone! or a botox fix...

just plain wrong.


ed's top 5 reasons why he needs a notebook:

1. can blog and chat anytime anyplace
2. useful while travelling to upload all the camera photos in the run
3. it was on sale, at a totally rip-off price so i was actually saving money
4. makes me look cool and business-like
5. ..err what else? ..to give something to do at starbucks?
   

so i bought it. in fact, i'm so happily typing this from the notebook right now, almost oblivious to the fact that the particular notebook is part of past week's costly expenditure.

seriously, the money has been flowing out like water. it was scary alright...


ed's past week's major expenses:

1. above acer aspire one notebook $799
2. wireless router to get it connected to the internet $82
3. wireless receiver adaptor that the shop person said i need, but didn't $50
4. house master bedroom's water heater replacement $580
5. kitchen's water heater servicing $50
   

hmm..

well i don't have much choice.

what am i supposed to do? bathe in cold water? surely that is a health hazard. look at the japanese, they always soak in hot ofuro and they live like a gazillion years long.

anyway, those sums up are still cheaper than, say.. a DLSR camera which i drool on despite having a G7. or maybe an LV bag for the ladies (which i don't understand the handbag brand craving but again, maybe i just don't have the proper hormones to digest that).

the point is, it's not like i'm throwing out money irresponsibly...

still, it would be marvellously wonderful if i have the ability to win an olympic gold medal and get all that prize money, while having some unknown stranger in some corner of the world gloating over my victory...

i wish..


...ed

i hate wireless routers!

i hate wireless routers.

the last time i tried to configure one, back when i was still staying in a rented place with that horrible housemate, things went horribly wrong.

ok that horrible housemate was the one configuring it on my pc because he wanted to share the connection, but still i was left a few days with sero internet! it was like living in a cave.

losing internet connection is such a nightmare. for me, it ranks out there with other horrid things, you know, like hunger, death, and abdullah ahmad badawi.

so when i bought this wireless router just now, i had a tiny whiny hope that everything would work out alright. after all, the shop person insisted that the installation should be simple enough and fool-proof.

yeah right.

so when lee chong wei was fighting for his life from being totally annihilated by lin dan in beijing olympics men's gold medal match, i was fighting for my life from being tangled up in all those ethernet wires.



in the end, i managed to get things right... in the next morning! the remedy? i just had to restart my modem, and voila! everything works in place and i don't feel like burning the whole pc system anymore.

but that doesn't change the fact that wireless router is the ultimate evil evil being that the world could be better without.

or at least, just during lee chong wei's final gold medal match...



...ed

p/s to keep to record straight, linksys router is wonderfully simple enough, just maybe i was just 'that' dumb when it comes to router setting...

the ball game

that's it.

i've pressed the button. now the ball is officially in their court.

there's no turning back. am i scared? honestly, a bit, yeah. but just like in malaysian politics, it's not a matter of whether can i afford to change things now, but rather can i afford not to?

now that i wrote this, i couldn't help feeling kinda deja-vu. you know, i've done this before. i've clicked the button too sometime last year but what where did the ball ended up to?

rot in their court.

but i'm sure this time is different. i mean, this is not like following the common trend and going with the flow without knowing if i really want it.

i had wanted this since years back.

in fact, this couldn't have come at a better time. it's as if the heaven's door was wide open when i was having my doubts about recent events and hoping for some enlightenment.

did i accidentally rub any magic lamp recently?

anyway, it's only fair. i've been in this tunnel long enough. longer than the time it took for my car to go through its first petrol kiosk car wash. heck, even cinderella has a midnight dateline.

what i'm going to do now, is just see how things go. if this doesn't work out, just like the almost-expired free movie passes i carry around in my bag failing to be utilized due to prolonged unmatched timings, so be it. everything must have happened for a reason so why fret over unsuspected turn of events?

except my friend said this is not enough. apparently wanting it just 80% will not get me what i want because i have 20% doubts. i need to be wanting it 110%. or at least the intention to cut my wrist if anything goes by negative.

hmm actually he has a point. my brain just shut down and i stuttered like a retarded shabery during his live debate with anwar ibrahim in malaysian tv during last year's interview, because i didn't know how to answer why i wanted that position.

if i were to rate how much i had wanted that job, maybe somewhere around 5%.

that was just slightly more than how i wanted that pink shirt in EDC but eventually backed out because i already bought the discounted green striped one and i wanted to be frugal. or maybe how much i wanted to watch dark knight at the cinema now that people said it was all talk an no action.

the point is, i just need to make my decision and stick to it.

yes. i mean, i had thrown the ball to their court, so if they want to play beach volleyball with it, then so i will.

...no matter how hot the sand would be under my feet like last saturday noon sentosa game. at least this time i will be prepared not to get sun-burnt.




...ed

because the family is gold

it's the beijing olympic opening day today! sharp on 8 Aug 08 at 8.08pm.

wow it was such a great opening ceremony. i just loved the fireworks shaped like a foot step, shot into the sky one after another along the highway as if foot steps walking towards the bird's nest stadium. 29 steps altogether symbolizing the 29th olympic stop. creative right?

overall, it was such a grand, yet very culturistic performance. i think the performance managed to show the world what china is all about in just one evening. it was orchested by zhang yimou, so what do you expect?

it's almost scary how they managed to mobilized tens of thousands of people to create such a perfect show. i guess it helped that china has the most disciplined and most patriotic citizens i've ever known. seriously. i mean, hang the malaysian flag out of you window and you'd just be stamped as badawi ass-licker in no time.

i had just came back from a few days escapade in kota kinabalu. yes, again. twice in the last 3 months which is so unlike me, because when it comes to travelling, i prefer a one night stand approach. but this time was to bring my parents there.

to tell you the truth, i never thought a time off with my family would be so fun. not that we are not in good terms or anything, but things just somehow tend to get formal whenever i'm with them.

perhaps it all traced back during my childhood time when i used to be scared of my parents. i was the kind that ordered plain water during an eat-out session because i was afraid that other drinks would be too expensive.

in fact, now that i think about it, i was afraid of many things when i was little. ever heard of students getting caught smoking in the toilet, or skipped classes to sniff bicycle gums behind the school block? i never did those things because that would be against the norm and i so afraid to commit them.

that is why now when i'm all grown ups and no longer live with them, stepping my toes out of line feels like disneyland. freedom embraces me like drugs, i could get half of the singapore population into my bed and nobody's gonna even bother.

except those times when i'm in my parents company, when all these invisible rules come swooping back and haunts me like a lingering poltergeist. before i knew it, every words i said sound like work interview replies, and the shower room can expect me no later than 7pm everyday again.

so forgive me for being sceptical about this particular family trip at first. especially after i realized how fun it was spending time together, be it in our joined le meridien room, or while walking along the waterfront to find eating place that suited them, or even inside the cramped toyota uncer that brought us through 2-hours of bumpy ride to kundasang.

to make the trip even better, i managed to do thing that i missed out during my last visit. like spotting the raflesia, the world's biggest flower at kg kokob near ranau.

this flower takes 15 months to bloom and it lasts only 7 days

or so it was said because the version that i saw was just slightly bigger than a pensieve. nevermind that we had to pay RM10 per person just to see the flower, and we couldn't even get near to it to smell the stench.

the island outing also was better because this time it was all clear and sunny compared to heavy storm the last time i went. i believe that previous weather bitch must have had her ass kicked by the mt kinabalu bobohizans. we chose mamutik island because we have never been there, and it still has live corals.

where we managed to spot nemo! yeah apparently we don't need to carry like a tonne heavy air tank and dive to the sea bottom to spot one, just enough by glancing from the surface.

pulau mamutik escapade in such a blessed weather

at the end of the day, i just felt fulfilled. i mean after all, people might come and go, in and out of our beds but family will always be there to stay when you need them.

no wonder when sarah brightman sang the olympic song just now, i wished it was 'keep it together' by madonna instead.



...ed