Monthly Archives: October 2004

No catchy title here

I’m sure you’ve read it in a newspaper article, Bulletin Board post or blog somewhere. Sumitra, rest in peace.

I’m not sad, just shocked. The irony of it all! She was day in day out sincerely happy. The only time she ever wore a look of distress was when I hid her phone from her. She wasn’t nauseatingly sweet. She was the first person to say that my new haircut made me look more attractive (a few days after, but still!)

I didn’t expect to see her coming down the escalator as I came down the stairs at KL Sentral. She was reloading her phone credit. Was I the last crew member to have met her? If I wasn’t off to the monorail in a hurry, could I have affected her course in a small way, like going to get a cone sundae together, having her unconsciously splitting her last RM10 note, so she could not reload, and had to abandon plans?

Even more odd was that Friday night, I went to Orange for an event with free flow of lychee martinis. After 3 tiny watered down glasses, I wanted to see if I was drunk by solving a Rubik’s cube under 2 minutes. Despite the low lighting, I managed 1:58, and a financier dude said, “dude, I’ll buy you any drink you want, on me.” I asked my inviter friend what he wanted, since I didn’t know. He got a jug of Long Island Tea. I liked this better than the martini and vodka since it tasted less alcoholic and more orange-ice-lemon-tea-ish. Thirsty, I sipped like a tropical mosquito. The financier dude took out his PDA and asked me to play Text Twist. Despite the drink’s supposed punch, I only felt dizzy when I craned over to play. I managed to walk to the toilet straight, and I wasn’t loud or noisy.

Had I escaped the genetic curse of my parents?

Heterosexual guys like myself sometimes jokingly flirt (because we make the best gay jokes!) but I kept quiet this time so as to not offend or suggest anything to my inviter’s gay friends. The inviter dude, however, was inebriatedly hitting on his gay friends. The inviter’s girlfriend looked away. She had something to drink, too. We had beef noodle before she sent me back. Lucky it was her small little Kelisa and not his souped up Satria. Lucky it was bumpy old Segambut.

I woke up at 1pm, 4 hours after I was supposed to report to work. No hangover, just two days of sleep. I should be thankful. Sure, the inviter’s girlfriend seemed sober, but there could be lack of acuity. I should be thankful.

She wasn’t a suicidal or depressed person. I know so many people who have wanted a fling with death. God, fate, or consequence, whichever you believe in, works in funny ways.

P.S. The catchy title was supposed to be “let her RIP“. She wouldn’t haunt me for it, she has a sense of humor. (Who else would arrest the cows?)

Holy.

I watched The Exorcist: The Beginning today. It was cool. I expected a straight up horror movie but got a bit more thriller. I managed to predict where the spirit was. Whoa am I psychic?

Still, I was engrossed in the Indiana Jones technicolor, and the story was uncomfortably close to what I knew. Add the irony of my cousin being a priest. One experience, however, helped my immersion:

It was 1999. I was a confirmant in Catholic upbringing, and as part of the program, I went for a Life in the Spirit Seminar. It was all song and games until a praying-over session.

We would stand still, eyes closed, while two people would pray over us. If we were touched by the Holy Spirit, we’d start talking in tongues, or feel weak and fall to the ground. As I waited my turn, I saw the people being prayed over being gently rocked back and forth. The skeptic in me held steady as they chanted over me. I thought I saw a light, but I cheated and opened my eyes a bit to see that it was just somebody adjusting the projector. I felt a breeze, but it was the air-conditioner.

They were done with me, and I sat down, untouched by the Holy Spirit.

They moved on to this lady who was with the church. When they started praying over her, she started shaking and howled like a banshee for ten minutes! She didn’t stop for air. Whoa humanly impossible. After removing her jade and constant chanting (and what I believe was exorcism), she was sweating and lay on the ground calmly after that.

Apparently, she was a convert; before this, she had precious jade (which was called footholds to spirits). She still wore it after converting.

Oh, and a woman in white drape-y cloth walked through the theater, from the front-left exit. She was walking so slow, I was sure she wasn’t looking for a seat – she was a cinema gimmick perhaps. Indeed she wasn’t, as she exited through the middle stairway. Sorry, wrong movie. Now the question was, if she was hired by the cinema, or if she was just a prankster. It would’ve been cool if she missed a step and tripped. I didn’t get to trip her since I sat way behind the middle stairway. 🙁

P.S. Would you suspect that the female heroine was once a Bond girl?

The Phone (or lack thereof)

This morning was groggier than usual, as I soon realized as I was about to leave the PJ house.

I forgot my handphone… and house keys.

I knew exactly where they lay – on my bed in the KL house.

Helplessness set in as my mom dropped me off at the bus stop. I used my mom’s handphone to call the KL house, but alas! My dad was already on the way to the PJ house. Despite having a very nice number, he doesn’t use his handphone or remember to turn it on. And now, there was nobody to turn it off for me. (At least people who use message delivery reports will know I haven’t got it…)

Thank goodness my boss was kind enough to let me use her phone to spam my SMS inbox full (my old Nokia 3350 doesn’t have SMS memory on the phone!)

The worse part was that nobody would be at the KL house until 10-11pm. Since I didn’t have the keys, I wouldn’t be able to reunite with my phone sooner! This meant a mandatory night out, but I feel insecure going out without a phone. What a Catch-22.

Ironically, I remembered to take my AA batteries out of the charger.

People who know me know that I always answer phone calls, especially so from unknown numbers (since all my friends are unreliable credit-less prepaid users who end up borrowing their friends’ phones to call/SMS). I always call back missed calls, even unknown ones, to get some idiot who can accidentally call my number and say they didn’t call.

I can only imagine the dramatic missed calls. Passed oppurtunities.

It could even be a movie, playing on the dependence we have on our phones. It starts with the groggy protagonist waking up, passing his handphone and keys on the table. He then goes to work, and paranoia sets in.

The cinemagoers feel for the character as he looms over an ex who will call any minute, a friend in the hospital, a friend who owes him money… he doesn’t know who will call, and that is part of the insecurity. The camera follows him for the day (compressing it into a 90 minute movie). He goes around telling his colleagues that he forgot his phone, divulging his secrets to a colleague he didn’t talk to often anymore (he can’t call his regular phone buddy!)

“Hey, how’s Sarah?”
“Oh, I… dunno. She… disappeared.”
“Haha so who are you after now?”
“Oh well there’s Melissa… she suddenly wants to talk to me again.”
“But last time we talked wasn’t life with her great?”

He finds a friend to twiddle the evening away with, and there might even be a lost-in-the-mall scene. Coins are never enough to get his friend’s handphone. It reminds us of a lost tradition, where we’d be more specific than, “okay see you at KLCC at 8pm“. He could even search frantically for him in the mall.

Oh, and we can hear the protagonist’s thoughts. “Hmmm. If I was John, I’d probably head to Tower Records.” It would be very important for the viewer to feel and relate to the character. I’d probably pick a much younger Tom Hanks for this.

Now you probably are less susceptible to brain cancer than me and are thinking you don’t miss your phone that much. But hey, the movie can serve as a reminder never to become so dependent.

Lingo For Drawing Gold Balls

I saw Gary Thanesan in the office cafeteria during lunch sitting at the table behind me. Remember him? He was the host for Lingo, a gameshow on TV2. Jason and I loudly conversed:

Me: You may draw a ball!
Jason: Gold ball! Gold ball!

* conversation may not be accurate

Syefri and Jenifer didn’t get it until later.

It would be great if Lingo would come back. It would be even better if, since he was in the ASTRO cafeteria, that he would come back on ASTRO. It would be best if they shot Lingo in ASTRO itself! Ultimate coolness! Then, I could sneak in as a member of the audience and shout:

PEARS! DAMMIT! PEARS!

Oh.

BEARS! DAMMIT! BEARS!

The contestants were always oblivious to logic and obviousness. I had always dreamed of shouting the answer. Grrr. All that frustration back in school, when I probably wasn’t old enough to join.

Like Mastermind, I knew that they should’ve used words with lots of vowels; YEARN and LOTUS would be good as openers, since they both covered RSTLN and AEOUY.

And so, I dared Jason, the daresome straight-faced clown of the lot, to go up to him and ask, “can I draw a ball?

Sadly, he left before we could make a move. 🙁

MY FOURTH EVER QUIZ!

Okay so this isn’t as easy to creatively answer but here goes.

LAST:

cigarette: My road has been tarred, but never my lungs, first-hand
good cry: July, oh why?
library book checked out: Never checked out a library book. 🙂
movie seen: Eep. Princess Diaries 2
book read: Gameaxis Magazine
cuss word uttered: Dammit
beverage drank: Water
food consumed: free Domino’s for a dinner meeting! 🙂
crush: A year ago? I don’t crush anymore, weirdly
phone call: William
tv show watched: Pillow Talk featuring Shelley Leong and Az Samad
time showered: 7:30am
shoes worn: My one and only free not-in-the-market Nikes
CD played: Alter Bridge – One Day Remains
item bought: Mamee snack noodle. YAM YAM!
downloaded: Ukelele tabs for Super Mario Brothers
annoyance: he is not on my Friendster list. Isn’t this nice to read?
disappointment: Yesterday…
soda drank: today, at the free dinner meeting! 🙂
thing written: “has profile times and show names” – excerpt from meeting
key used: A minor. Jiwang sial
word spoken: Refresh!
IM: yesterday night with Joel
sexual fantasy: Whoa. Three hours ago. Am I pregnant?
weird encounter: on the bus home, with an old rich contractor
ice cream eaten: Probably two months ago
time amused: Before lunch, watching a blindfolded pianist play the entire Super Mario Bros theme!
time wanting to die: I’ve always wanted to LIVE!
time in love: with my computer? I still am
time hugged: Sometime this month. I should shower more often
time scolded: Yesterday
time resentful: Yesterday. Argh why did I miss THE gig at Paul’s Place?
chair sat in: The office one; still sitting.
chapstick used: I am naturally kissable
lipstick used: I am naturally kissable
underwear worn: Primary school, before boxers ruled
shirt worn: The official hitz.fm T-shirt, again, free
time dancing: Probably the Mont Kiara Jazz Fest
poster looked at: The one with my dad’s old company in it
show attended: KLue’s 4th anniversary, with Seven Collar T-shirt and Teh Tarik Crew
webpage visited: http://jenifur84.diaryland.com/041006_29.html (GEE)

CURRENT:

clothes: A hitz.fm T-shirt and jeans
mood: Self-amusing
music: Super Mario World theme
taste: GOOD as always
hair: Freshly cut
annoyance: Nothing
smell: Apparently, unhuggable
thing I should be doing: Working, being, after all, in an office
desktop picture: HAHAHAHA you should come here and see it for yourself
refreshment: Water
worry: If things will ever be the same again

Many Updates They Come

Saturday


I headed to the KLue 4th Anniversary at Asian Heritage Row. Those observant would’ve noticed that the second and third anniversaries weren’t celebrated. (The first was at Grappa Soho.) Funny thing about Asian Heritage Row was that the only thing really Asian restaurant among those fancily named bistros was La Senja. There, I had an excellent vanilla-tainted teh tarik with one of the many celebrities:

The event was a no-event; or rather, we’d make our own event. A power outage delayed Seven Collar T-shirt’s album launch at Bar Blonde (Asians, blonde, other than Russians?) I bumped into members of Prana and asked if they were performing. “Oh we’re going to perform at One Utama at 10:30pm.

That explained the small crowd; everybody was at the ICOM gig there!

I originally went hoping to WAZZAAAP people there. I did bump into celebrities, yes, but minor ones at that. When I did see four chicks walking past, I wondered if they used RentACrowd as featured in their magazine. Then again, if you can get minor celebrities to come on their own money, why not?

Sunday

I hung out at Subang.

Monday

Is there much to say about a Monday?

Tuesday

I headed to Long Black Cafe (under Mahogany, SS2) for Camp EA 2004. I pre-registered online, but I didn’t expect a sticker saying “Albert Ng, Astro/Xfresh”, with press kits and all. I thought I was going as a nosy gamer, not a journalist. They showcased final builds of FIFA 2005, Armies Of Exigo and personally-anticipated Need For Speed: Underground 2.


The Malaysian FIFA champions for World Cybergames 2003 and 2004 duke it out in FIFA 2005.

Need For Speed: Underground 2 was cool. While the game engine looked the same, there were more options; you could have a neat bonnet view:

You could customize more things, like the color of your speedometer dial, the color of the dots, and even the inlay of the gauge!

While I didn’t have time to explore all the menus, I found the one great option:

Oh, and it rains sometimes. The rain dropping on the window made a cool warping effect, refracting the surroundings realistically.

It took quite a while to find the eagerly awaited Free Run mode – you could just drive around the streets leisurely. If you saw another car, you could engage in a race by kissing its bumper. Then, he’d try to outrun you. The path for this impromptu race would not be set; the objective was to get as far and out of your sight. The car in the lead would get to choose the route.

After work, I headed to Bangkok Bank to get my bus home; however, the bus was half-hour late, and took another half-hour to crawl to Sultan Ismail. Traffic was unusually bad that day, and so I got off the bus and took the STAR LRT to PWTC, where I took a cab home. Alas, he too was not spared from the day’s particularly massive traffic. He then relayed stories of the pitiful life of a taxi driver. Once, he was a minibus driver (those death-trap kings of the road!) He then became a PUTRA feeder bus driver at Taman Jaya. There, it was the life – medical benefits, a booth to hang out and read newspapers at, a decent pay (what a fresh degree holder would get!), being able to take leave, doing the relatively jam-free Taman Jaya area; he got bored after a couple of years and moved to a much more challenging job – Klang Valley cabbie. Once he paid off the cab, he’d go back to being a bus driver though.

Wednesday

Oh hey since you probably noticed the unexcited, lethargic delivery of the previous days, there is an explanation.

Sometime last semester, I came late to class and there were questions written on the board. I copied them down, as the lecturer said it was the assignment. I enhanced my eyebags to hand it on time. However, one week before the final exam, she went “Eh Albert you know ah you failed your assignment? You didn’t do Part 1.

As far as I remembered, I did everything, and even took out the paper where I copied the questions to. Apparently what she copied was just Part 2 as she needed to explain them; all the assignment questions were online.

Dammit, she could’ve told me earlier that I failed. Okay so it was my fault for not checking, but couldn’t she give me a chance? She knew that if I knew there was a Part 1, I would do it well and pass.

About a month after the exam, I checked my results online; I found out that my login didn’t work anymore, so I went to college to ask them to reset my password. I wrote my email address, student ID, and phone number on a piece of paper, and they said they’d take care of it.

I tried again at the office, and it still didn’t work; so, I headed to college to ask again. I gave them my student ID, and they went, “oh we sent you an email already what!” They even printed it out, with my new password. Problem was, the email was addressed to albnole@hotmail.com. Okay I shall remember to write my K’s properly.

Frustrated, I went to a cybercafe in Ampang Park to check my results with my new password. Fail/Refer, it said. Take the exam again, it meant.

I went to KLCC to get superglue for my Rubik’s Cube project. I finally figured out how to repair the oversized ones (article will come later) and so, I sat outside Isetan KLCC on a bench, screwing a center piece back on. I then warmed it up, but it popped again! So I screwed it in again, messed it up, and it popped off again. This time, since the cube was already messed up, I had to take everything apart. As I reassembled it, a balding white guy walked past, saying, “hey that’s cheating!” I showed him the center piece, going, “but this part came out! It usually doesn’t come out!” Without slowing down, he walked off into Isetan, going “hey that’s cheating!

After all that misfortune, this was something I could laugh at.

Since I was on a roll of bad luck, I decided to take a cab and not risk waiting for/in an Intrakota. All was fine till I found out I had no money! Out came ancient 1 Ringgit notes from the secret reserves.

How was your day?

Freeloadin’

Good morning Albert hey do
you know how to get tickets to
the Malaysian Idol finale? I
really wanna go…

Such SMSes before my teh tarik breakfast will result in delayed reply.

Now the funny thing is, how does she know that I know how to get tickets?

She doesn’t know that I know people who work in 8tv. I’m not exactly a shareholder who can demand 10 tickets be delivered to my doorstep (or get VIP backstage access to shows), I just have ex-colleagues there.

She doesn’t know Jasmine or how I helped her get tickets.

I don’t talk about Malaysian Idol all day; I don’t even watch it, and my 8tv reception is baaad.

Perhaps, then, my friend messaged everybody in her phonebook, but took the effort to include my name. Perhaps she only bothered to do so for the first few people in her phonebook. Alphabetically.

Perhaps, it was my aura of freeloading, wearing a different free T-shirt each day. And no, I don’t have William‘s “I have no professional training” 8tv T-shirt.

Now if you’re a nubile schoolgirl reading this and panting Vick’s name… pant my name and maybe I’ll help you. 😉

Now for a real ancient pet peeve. It can be very disheartening for a hot chick to SMS me, asking me to help her book two tickets for a movie. First off I’m not in the plan, and secondly, I never agreed to be anyone’s pet brother/emergency crutch. It can be worse when I have two free tickets, where I offer one and she says she’s busy, but later asks for both.