The Rarest Sight In Town...

This morning, my housemate asked me to accompany him to the bank to ask for a loan. As I have nothing to do at home, I obliged and took a book with me (David Eddings' The Tamuli Trilogy, all 485 pages), knowing that I'll get bored waiting for him at the bank. I didn't want to use my iPad @ Paddington because... some might say it would be SO pretentious :P And I just got it, didn't wish it to get stolen yet...

So he parked his car a few hundreds meter from the bank and we continued on foot. As we were crossing the road, something hit me... Here am I, walking to the bank holding something that I've never seen anyone carrying in public, ever! Not this town, this district, even the big city. A story book!

This made me laugh out hard, in the middle of the busy road. (Yes, I do that sometimes, suddenly laughing at hidden jokes)

My housemate asked me why and I told him. He had no comment on this.

I love books. And I envied those of you who lived near good bookstores and huge public libraries. I'd hate you even more if you got SO MUCH money to buy every book you desire.

Books (that I want) are quite expensive here.... Cheap local books, mainly with tales of love and crappy matters are of no interest to me. Well, one man's poison might be another's bread eh?

I've seen people who read EVERYWHERE on tv, at the bus stand, waiting for their turn at the bank, picnic etc. A culture which reads is a great culture. 

The first verse in the Holy Quran ever dispatched by Gabriel to the Prophet begin as thus; "Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who has created all that exists." This shows that even God has a very high opinion to the culture of reading...

Ah, this is me rambling again.... Maybe the book owners of Malaysia read their books exclusively INDOORS, in the private safety of home or whatever. ebooks are not really popular here because they are so hard to get for the less computer savvy people.

Out of 10 youngsters here, 4-5 would have mobile phones in their hands... The age of MTV had killed radio stars. Cell phones had replaced books for the role of mobile amusement.

What a world we live in...

p.s. - anyway, the bank was CLOSED as the 1st of January fell on Sunday. We forgot about this and spent the rest of the morning amusing ourselves at the nearest Tesco...

The End Is Near (for Teachers here...)

Gosh! Only six days before the school STARTS?!! I wish to have another month of holiday. Christmas had just passed and I know you guys are having a lot of fun with your presents and stuff. I have a lot of FUN with my PlayStation 3 and iPad 2 too.

And I just found out how to download free ebooks a couple of days ago.... Yay for the internet!

I started to keep my aquarium alive again...

This is a fighting fish. Once upon a time they were abundant in the rice fields here, but as Malaysia has grown into a modernized country, the rice fields are fewer and the fishs are almost extinct. Nowadays, most fighting fish come from Thailand, the country up north. Only male fish got sails / plumage like this. The females are more dull and smaller. They come in a myriad of colours, my fav are blue and red. Most in metallic hues :)

Two male fishs cannot live in the same container... they will fight, thus the name.

And have a look at this box full of roses....

These came from my three rose bushes at the front of my house. The rain brings a lot of blooms and it would be a great waste to let the flowers wilt or rot. So we carefully cut every rose and then naturally dry them in a copper pan to make pot pourri. I have a huge bowl of them now :)

Ok, time to have late dinner. I might have some sausages fried.

It's name is PADDINGTON

I am sorry if I was absent for 10 days, because I was rather busy. Busy gaming my heart out with my PS3 and bonding with my iPad 2 ;)
I got both of these gadgets a week before Christmas. Some of you might remember a couple of years ago that I always mentioned about playing video games in my blog. Then the machine got broken, and all the king's horses and men couldn't put it together again... I was PlayStation-less for a year, and that was bad for me. No outlet to vent this vengeful soul's rage... Killing people in games is the next best thing after the real thing ;)
So the Man has been good enough to let us, the civil servants to get a month's pay bonus this December, a week before Christmas. And I bought a new PlayStation 3, and happy days are here again! Yay for gaming!
As for the iPad 2, a doctor friend of mine was willing to let it go after a couple of months use. He said that it was too complicated and was not really practical to do work with. He's right, I am using it now and me think it's sole purpose was to look good in our hands. And last night (Christmas eve) after discussing with my housemate, we christened him with the name 'Paddington'. (the PlayStation is too much an honourable brand to give it a nickname)
so now you know why I HAD to be busy these few days. Don't fret, I will always visit your blogs and after the frenzy has abated, maybe we'll hold hands and play with the fairies in Wonderland! Oh, that's me full of cough syrup.
Until then, a Happy Christmas to my Christian friends from all over the planet! Yay!

History of Hair

Rock Chef of the Rock Chef's Warren blogged about his hair a couple of hours ago and I decided to blog about mine too. Not the one now, but the one I coloured a long while ago.

Look at the character on the left... This is Iori Yagami of the King of Fighter, an arcade game franchise very popular in the late 90s. He happened to be my muse when I was in secondary school, 16 year old me, who was already seeped in irony, fights and evil. Much like his hero. <--

So during the midyear holidays that year, 1997 I coloured my hair with Clairol's 'Burgundy' hair colour. I did it myself and was rather lacking on the 'never let the dye touch the scalp' direction. I paid for ignoring that direction... but that comes later.

My hair was flaming red in the sun! Back then, in a society of 100% black hair, I stood out like a lighthouse! People pointed and children stared. It was not a natural colour for anyone.

My dad, who was always the silent one, one day remarked that he was now FAMOUS, having a son with bright red hair. Everybody in our small town knew about me he said. My mom, believing it was only teen-angst, left me be.

I returned back to boarding school in anticipation... My school mates were shocked, but never dared to comment (I was brutal back than to criticism). I was only worried about the reaction of the teachers.... as I thought the sun and moon of them, i.e. very highly. If they reacted badly, I would be so downcasted.

The first school assembly with red haired me, I admitted that I was so afraid they would call me up to the front and have a row. But NOTHING towards that happened. The teachers were aware of me (the gossiping escalated a notch at their seats), as I stood right in the front of my class row. The Principal and Vice Principal noticed too.  I had my heart drumming like crazy, but NOTHING happened...


On the third day of school, at last I dared to ask my History teacher (who was quite chummy with us) about the why. He said, yes, the teachers saw me and right after that assembly they went searching inside the school's rule book about hair dyes... and they found there was NO RULE against it. No rule, so I was legally safe. (Synthetic hair dyes were quite new to Malaysia back then). So there will be one in the NEXT YEAR'S rule book.


Sometimes I didn't believe those days happened, but they did. The only boy in school with red hair. Unfortunately I didn't have pictures, (no camera rule) :P But I did look good back then.

Now to the part when I ignored the direction... As I coloured my hair myself, it was a messy and sticky job and I might have used too much colouring too. And my scalp was totally seeped with it... My red hair lasted for almost TWO YEARS because of that one time of colouring. Fortunately I didn't get bald or I'll kill myself for my own stupidity. The reddish tint disappeared by the second year gradually.

Talking about long lasting hair colour...


So that's all folks. Now we can see people with colourful hair walking the streets with no one batting an eyelid. The world has changed.


What colour is your hair today? :)

I am a Wyrm, who waited for any opportunity...

 My housemate and I went to meet an old school friend at the local Secret Recipe. We are of the same age, and as I was divorced, he was never into any real relationships before. Our conversations had a wide spectrum; from the impoliteness of today's youth to the rising price of cosmetics at Guardian (you must ask? Maybe I was born with it, but SOME people do depend on creams and such :P)

And in the middle of snacking (the heavy slices of chocolate cheese cake) he told me that he already have a new laptop computer and is willing to let go of his iPad 2 for half the price. My housemate head perked up at this because he is REALLY interested in that offer. I told my friend that my housemate was looking for a touchscreen computer and would he sell it to him.

My housemate was hesitant, mainly because he didn't know my friend that well and partly, he didn't have that much money. Than suddenly, that dreadful dragon inside me roared 'AN OPPORTUNITY, TAKE IT!!!' And without ceremony I offered to buy my friend's iPad instead for myself.

My housemate face changed at this.

In the previous post, i think I wrote about me not needing a new computer. But this is a spanking new iPad 2 costing at half of its price. And next year, if God and Government permits, I will have that raise promised. PlayStation 3 and iPad 2 before Christmas. Sounds good.

No need to shout hypocrite that loud! :)

On the way back, I had to placate my housemate in the car. It took some time for an angry guy to listen to reason. I told him I knew he didn't have enough money and although the iPad will be mine, I'd let him use it as he allows me to use his laptop for gaming.

A win-win situation. Don't you think?

(some of you would think.... now I know why he has so few friends) :P

Needful Things

I already have a laptop computer, but I am using my housemate's because it is the more powerful to play games with. I do not see the need to buy a better computer.

I already have a car. It's big, dusty, battered and not as shiny as it used to. Some people asked me why I didn't buy a new car. I don't see the point to owe more money from the bank.

I have clothes that might be a decade old, yet I still wear them. Why throw away good garments as long as they aren't torn? I RARELY go shopping for clothes, even for any festivities.

I love my boots. I wear construction boots to school. I started to wear boots when I was first posted in the backwaters of Borneo. That was 8 years ago... I gave away that first pair of boots to a favourite student of mine and bought another one in 2007 (brown). I am still using the same pair, but usually I wear the black pair, the one I got for my wedding in 2008.... Years of wear. Gosh, they ARE durable.

The thing is.... why we need to be so wasteful? The last time I met my youngest brother (last week), I saw he had a new pair of shoes, a new backpack, some rather expensive clothes and toiletries that I would think twice before buying. And he has not finished his study yet (insert 'parasitic organism' here). My mom paid for all that. This is sad because if I had a say in this, he would get a single penny from Mom.

Be grateful with what we have. I do not need that wonderful tablet computer because my ol laptop is still working. I don't need a new cat because I already have one and three ferrets (two ferrets were given to me by desperate owners with problems). I don't need those shiny set of pots and woks because my steel pan is still great in fry ups. And of course, just because you have a bad-ass sound system you think I'll run crying back to Mommy.

It's nice to have new, expensive stuff. Everybody wants them. But do we really have the NEED?

...........

Oh OK, I might buy a new PlayStation 3 soon. But I NEED it! It has been a year since my ol PS3 was not in working order, and the games in the laptop were rather sketchy because of the average machine.

Oh, and I might NEED that train set I had my eyes on...

And those collars for my cat. She NEEDS it.

Tra la la la la.

p.s. - That's me sitting on the carpet. We have chairs in this house but I always prefer to sit on the floor while watching tv, playing computer games, eating, heck, almost everything. See? Save the wear and tear of my sofas and dining table set :P

Long Time No Siege

Finally, I got my permanent internet connection hooked up this afternoon. I regrettably had to abandon this blog for a long while because of the previous unsatisfactory broadband service I paid monthly.

It's the holidays..... School will only start at the end of December and I have lots of days to laze around, sleep or do anything we can do with so much time in our hand. For instance, today, I woke up at 11.30 pm and took this video of Kiki before I took my very belated bath.



I never consider myself as lonely. Heck, I was posted in the middle of the jungle for 4 years, and a literal lone wolf since I was a child. But it's nice to have someone who sits next to you without judgment.

While stroking her, I found out that her fur has grown too long.... Now I see the wisdom of sending your pets to those saloon for fur clipping.

Just wanna tell you guys that I am back :)

p.s. And yes, that's me in my towel still!