1. eat more
2. sleep more
3. flunk college

easy. don’t forget that life is led easier when everyone’s expectations of you are lowered. there’s nothing better than to surprise people and to prove them wrong once in a while…from a strategic position.

as opposed to all the hoopla regarding new year’s resolutions, i’d rather focus on goals that are so extreme that they require the utmost of dedication and persistence in attaining them. things to do before i die?

catch the Rolling Stones in concert.

kiss Hilary Duff.

get back to my optimal weight.

learn to play the guitar well enough to impress my peers.

the list could on forever. but these are being run off the top of my head immediately.

resolutions are so yesterday. i live for tomorrow.

bah.

i haven’t been to the location myself to verify this, but according to the masterful surprise, the 7-11 located at jalan bangkung at bukit bandaraya has closed its 24 hour doors…for good. many a slurpee, big gulp and conversation was appropriated there. it shall be missed. thank you for the great memories.

i pray that this is only some sort of renovation process, but if it’s not…thank you. you served me well.

i haven’t been to the location myself to verify this, but according to the masterful surprise, the 7-11 located at jalan bangkung at bukit bandaraya has closed its 24 hour doors…for good. many a slurpee, big gulp and conversation was appropriated there. it shall be missed. thank you for the great memories.

i pray that this is only some sort of renovation process, but if it’s not…thank you. you served me well.

Janeway managed to reach the Starfleet admiralty much quicker than Picard. In Nemesis, Janeway was already a Vice Admiral and ordering Professor X around. Which, if you think about it, is quite unfair. For starters, Picard had been through so much more. Some might claim that Janeway’s intimate knowledge of the Borg made her a priceless asset — that’s all good, but Picard was assimilated. Assimilated by the Borg. Stripped of his humanity. And then reclaimed it.

He’s Jean-Luc Picard.

Here’s some reasoning behind Janeway’s quick ascension: The reasons for Janeway’s rapid ascendance to the admiralty have never been fully explained. Some books have stated that, thanks to her extensive first-hand knowledge of the Borg, she was promoted to Rear Admiral to gain the proper security clearances to be able to access all available information on the Borg; however, these books are not considered canon. Others suggest it was her actions during the series finale episode ‘Endgame‘ (crippling Unimatrix One and destroying the Borg transwarp hub) coupled with Voyager’s successful return to Earth–with most of the ship’s crew intact and having collected an enormous amount of data from the Delta Quadrant–which made possible her fast climb through the ranks. Others have even surmised that, considering her spotty performance and record during her captaincy of Voyager, she may have been promoted to “get her out of the way”; in other words, to promote someone who was publically a hero to a higher rank in seeming reward, but in actuality to keep her from captaining another ship and causing more trouble in doing so.

Let’s hope so. She’s nothing but trouble. All women are — fictional or not, this particular one proves it.

Picard would kick her ass. And then slap it.

Jean-Luc for Admiral. I wish we could vote on it.

one thing that i love the most about the current festive period is that it ends with the biggest bang. with the new year only less than a week away from christmas, there’s always that fervour creeping in. i think most of us celebrate the coming of a new year as a chance at rebirth and renewal, whilst wiping the slate clean and turning over a new leaf. most of us believe in second, third, fourth, fifth, infinite chances…a new year only adds on to that belief (without doing much else).

when the clock strikes 00:00 on january 1st, you’re gonna party like it’s 1999. hold up…it was.

but before i become a lemming on new year’s eve and join the masses in welcoming a brand new shot at screwing things up, i’ve still got a few things left to do.

• the facehunt final still needs to be organized and i’m too lazy to do it (and i expect that everyone else is…blame that new year spirit being filled to the rim)
• there’re loads of furniture that still need to be unpacked and the house has to be ready for chinese new year
• i’ve got to re-colour my hair
• finish jagged alliance 2 (i haven’t been so geekified by a PC game in a long time)

did you know that boxing day is considered to be a public holiday itself in most commonwealth countries? which means that the malaysian government has been conning its citizens all along. monday and tuesday are meant to be holidays. the cunts.

they can never get it right.

on a different note, when i was a kid i always thought that boxing day had something to do with…boxing. i was a stupid kid. i still am.

a merry belated christmas to you.

it’s been about 3 weeks since my father returned to kuala lumpur from brazil. acclimatizing myself to the return of the dada has been a slow but comforting process. in the past, he’d visit for about a month, and i’d be put into a cycle of denial, detention, dependence and a slight case of despair when he left. with an upcoming, possibly acrimonious final leg of ongoing divorce hearings/proceedings around the corner, a facelifted house, and faced with my own possible expulsion from my “university college”…it can be said that life is an upheaval in itself. life is rotten, and hardly beautiful.

the last few weeks have been trying. i won’t claim to be under house arrest because i’m given all the freedom i want — if i can find a ride out. lamenting about the sudden loss of driving privileges would seem so spoilt of me. but it’s been known that i’ve been spoilt rotten all along. on the bright side, being kept at home has opened me up to a whole new world of possibilities. i’ve had time to help in the unpacking of a freighterload of furniture. i’ve managed to lose a few nights’ worth of sleep thanks to revisiting jagged alliance 2. and most of all, i’ve managed to master the art of frying ayamas’ crispy/spicy pieces of chicken.

i am whole again.

as i collide head-on into an approaching new year, which is bound to be just as fabulous as 2005, i’m going to look back and give myself a pat on the back. and then a bullet to the head. things could’ve been better. but hey…life is peachy.

mmm. i still haven’t presented you the packing list and i’m too arsed to type it all out now.

i’ve spent the night playing jagged alliance 2. in fact, i’ve spent the last few days playing the game…just that tonight i pulled an all-nighter. ja2 is a turn-based rpg/strategy game that’s set in an isometric perspective, released back in ‘99. you take control of mercenaries and proceed to reclaim the nation of arulco for enrico chivaldori, disposed former leader whose wife, deidrianna, seized it from him via a military coup.

fantastic. and the game is fantastic as well. one of the greatest turn-based pc sims ever, apparently. i wouldn’t have known. between controlling a wide variety of lovable mercs and the incredibly lame yet effective one-liners, i’ve lost myself in the game.

the past week has gone by uneventfully. i suppose that my days of fun and frolicking are over; the return of the dada has imposed on me a domestic restrain like no other.

plus, the furniture in my room has been re-moved. apparently my father thinks that plopping everything on a nice, long coffee table in the middle of the room without a sofa is a ridiculous idea. i disgress, of course, but i shall concede a partial defeat. bookcases shall divide the room into two. photos will come. when it’s ready. eventually.

It’s always awe-inspiring to see a gigantic freight container parked on the opposite side of the road outside your house. It’s a lot more impressive when you realize that the contents within the aforementioned container belong to you. And it’s slightly disturbing when your driveway is filled with boxes. And you walk into the house…surrounded by boxes. You go up to your living room…boxes. And then you realize: the furniture’s back from Brazil.

The day was spent well enough. It started with a morning drive to the Maju Junction shopping mall downtown, where I had to register for my MyKad. When I got to the location, it was packed with people. And that was just the line to get the waiting tickets that told you what number you were in the queue to wait to be actually served.

Hell, no. I drove to Putrajaya.

After a fun time wandering around, I finally found the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara. You’ve got to cross the bridge at the Prime Minister’s Office and then take the long route down to the convention center and make a u-turn. It’ll be the second of third large building (they’re all a set of large buildings) on the left.

The line was long. I got to my turn within 4 hours. Suffice to say, I wasn’t that impressed. But at least they had a cafeteria (they’ve even installed the counter display machines to tell you where the queue is at).

Thereafter I visited the Alamanda mall and found that Parkson and Carrefour (the two anchor retailers) were not open. The mall’s basically a mini-Curve. Which is quite bad.

Anyway, I came home to find my father and uncle frantically unpacking.

And, after considering moving stuff around, here’re my long-term plans for Ops. Please note that this is gonna take a few months to a year to achieve. I might be dead by then.

I’ve also found out from all the stuff that my dad has three sets of golf clubs (and a golf bag carrying cart). I don’t know if this is normal but it’s just annoying. I’ll regurgitate the complete box list tomorrow when I’m free. For now, I’m shit tired.

i’m typing this from the comforts of the indian media centre. everyone’s gone out to dinner. it’s more or less half past 10 at night. i’ve been here since 9:30 in the morning.

i’ve been told to stay put with two other guys while the girls have gone home. i suppose it’s for the better, but i’m not really sure what it is we’re meant to do. frustration screams, but on the brightside, the boys might actually be paid more (renumeration depends on the hours you put in, apparently). excellent. the experience? it hasn’t been much. my first ever full-paying part time job is just…a part time job. i haven’t made new indian friends, but on the brightside, i have felt some ironic indian humour.

a british journalist had walked in to ask about a particular indian senior official. the journalists present had a brief explanation of who he was, and then she thanked them and left.

indie #1: “that was short-lived”.
indie #2: “what was?”
indie #1: “the joy was short-lived”.
indie #2: “oh, fuck”.

ah. indians. not malaysian indians, mind you…true blue national indians. they’re quite a great bunch.

there’s the stereotypical drunk, old, unkempt, unshaven, gruff journalist who looks like he just came off a freight train.

and then you’ve got the #2 media glog who could’ve been a faggot. “tiger, tiger, burning bright”. william blake. excellent.

and then you’ve got the dude who looks like he just came out of a matinee. with the moustache and panache and looks and accent to boot.

and the one with the british accent; concise and to the point.

indians. you gotta love them.

tomorrow’s their last day here. i hope i can wake up in time. and have a good shirt to wear.

on a bright note: i’ve learnt how to properly tie…a tie.

tai.

if i’m at the headend of a 14 hour workday, let me just say this:

GREETINGS FROM THE INDIAN MEDIA CENTRE AT THE MUTIARA CROWNE PLAZA, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE INDIAN HIGH COMMISSION OF KUALA LUMPUR! I AM PILFERING OFFICE RESOURCES TO SEND YOU THIS SHOUTOUT! THANK ME LATER!