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?)

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?

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.

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. 🙁

After over a year on Friendster (yes, they’ve been around that long!) I finally changed my “first name“. Go look for it. If you find it funny, laugh. Support me if you will, and change your name too!