Daily misery

I know I know, it’s not like I update Daily Misery with 10 posts per day or anything. But my draft ‘repository’ just keeps getting bigger because I find some drafts to have too little content to be turned into a post. But they are post-worthy nevertheless. Snippets are cool in a sense that most spontaneous moments in everyday’s life do not always involve elaboratory sequence of events followed by dramatic emotional attachment.

I could’ve added an ‘asides’ section in DM but it always makes me feel as if I’m posting a sub-content - something that is not so important or noteworthy. I imagine the sketchbook will be updated more frequently than DM.

Then Phu’s ambiru just give me the design idea to go ahead with the plan. It’s an awesome theme, despite some weird css layout implementation (using float for two main area when the theme is a one column layout?). So I hacked it like it was taking away the last piece of the cheesecake from me.

So let’s head over to the short version of Daily Misery.

I received a couple emails asking for photos from Malaysian Night. Well I’m sorry to say I don’t have any since I didn’t bring my camera with me that day. But I would recommend going to the official NUMSA site, or even my buddy, Huinee the sleeping piggie’s blog. They might have some photos at the end of the day, or week.

The night itself was awesome though. Having had the privilege to work as one of the production crew for this event for the last three years, I can honestly understand how much time and effort everyone had to put in to make it something worth remembering. This is also the first time I have almost no involvement whatsoever with the event’s production and it was a pleasant experience going there without knowing the program schedule beforehand.

Crash won the Best Picture awards at the Oscar. Well deserved, well deserved. Again, this is a really good movie and I think you all should watch it for the second time just for the heck of it. :-)

Ever since the current Daily Misery’s design went live about 3 months ago, I’d been receiving two to three emails almost daily from people saying what a great job I’d done. It is healthy for my ego and those emails can never get too much. I read every one of them and sometimes I shot a reply back if needed to.

While a large number of the emails ended up asking pretty much the same question - whether this design is going to be released as a theme? - there are some rather interesting ones that just made me chuckled like a 5 years old. This one guy provided me with this link to a recipe that claimed to make the best cheesecake on earth, and there’s this teenage girl who was just starting to pick up CSS and in fact bought her first CSS book after I gave her my recommendation. Some web developers/designers around the midwest area offered to meet up and buy me coffee. Two or three very business-like people came out with some pretty decent and professional proposals to buy my design too. Of course, that is not for sale ^_^.
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I have no clue who this Japanese singer is, but I heard a couple of her songs over the internet radio and damn, she’s good. Her songs bring calmity and that warm-fuzzy feeling you get after a great meal with a great companion. Some of my favorite tracks are Beloved child, Lost Butterfly and Tone.

If you guys have more information about her, I am here to listen. :)

…a housekeeper who doesn’t just clean, but rearranges, polishes and cares for my apartment.

The housekeeper has to be a SHE, since I’m not comfortable with the idea of a guy picking up my underwears and putting them into the laundry bag. My pink underwear has nothing to do with my discriminatory sexism here.

I will pay her well. In fact I will cook her lunch on days when my PC decides she has had too much of me. She does not have to be strikingly beautiful, sweet, hot or boob-stuffed. She however has to be witty, funny and knows the proper art of folding socks (no, you dont stuck them into each other and make it a round ball).

My apartment is pretty empty so she shouldnt have a lot to take care of. Her main duties would mostly be, but not limited to, wash dishes, make my bed, vacuum the floor, clean the restroom, dust and wipe my workstation, feed my fish (i will get one soon), wash my car, defrost food, do my laundry, arrange my shoe rack, put my letters into the mail box, rearrange my dvds/cds collection, empty the trash and some other misc. stuff.

It is my policy not to discriminate based on gender, age, disability, race, color, religion, marital status, veteran’s status, national or ethnic origin or sexual orientation. For those who wishes to apply, you can head over to the comment section.

1.) There’s a lady who works at one of the starbucks premises in our University Student Union. Every morning before I step into my office, I would get a grande hot chocolate from her. She makes the best hot chocolate. Not too sweet, not too bland, just the right amount of cream. Mmmmmm.

2.) Fried cheesecake in Wasabi, a Japanese restaurant situated near the campus. You take a frozen cheesecake and fry them for a couple of minutes and serve it with two scoops of vanilla ice cream. This thing saves life!

3.) Her name is Han Ga In (or at least that’s what Google tells me). She is the sweetest of all Goddess of all living girls. Not a drama crying queen but she can cry allright. Never would’ve thought I’m still young enough to have a celebrity crush.

4.) Apple Mac. So what’s the big fuss with all this Apple-mania? Oh ho ho, you have no idea how it hits you until you fully convert. And I think it’s misleading to think that Mac is only more productive and useful when you are doing graphics/multimedia works; it serves me like a charm while doing programming works and other misc. tasks too. Also, it can’t hurt to have some good looking desktop icons lying around.

Ok, this whole teenie-whinner thing has got to stop. New alternative emo bands are popping up faster than the rate people is dying from anti-depressant drugs overdose every year. And they all sound the same - guitar cheng cheng chang chang *i wake up this morning and find myself crying* cheng cheng chang chang *i go to school and girls don’t want to talk to me* cheng cheng cheng chang *my parents never understand me, they just dont’t listen. drum dum dum bang band cheng chang cheng. Oh God please!

I miss those days when quality and heart-warming lyric is accompanied by lovely, real melody tune (no, cheng cheng cheng is not real tunes). I am not saying that all punk bands suck big time. Power chords playing sounds like the best thing ever when Greenday and Sum 41 rock the scene. Relient K is ok. But now everyone just seems to overdo it. And don’t even get me started on screamo + emo genre. The worst double-mo ever!

I miss Josh Rouse, Elliot Smith, The Verve, Blur…. But then maybe I am just the younger version of our uncles and aunts who just can’t seem to stop worshipping Gun & Roses, Def Leppard, Sex Pistols, Neil Diamond or Elvis. Ok maybe not Elvis.

Here are some really nice indie alternative songs, come higly recommended by me.

• Nightmare of you - Please don’t answer me
• The Elliot Project - Without You
• The Hononary Title - Revealing too much

Life as a web developer is depressing enough with all the IE shitz and css bugs. But a couple links put back the smile on my face.

• Web 2.0 Awards Show - another brilliant web development comic entry by the hillarious bunch at WebJillion. They mock fun at almost everything!
• 37 Signals’ Marcel offered these expressionistic representations of what it’s like to wade through support email. I laughed so hard because it is so true. Evil support emails!

Some By Sea is performing at Chatterbox tommorow! You will see me there, hopefully. And hopefully, I will see you there.

Also Head Automotica is performing at Knickerbockers on March 29th! Check out their hit - Graduation Day. This is definitely a musical fiesta week for me!

Movie recommendations of the month: 16 blocks, V for Vendetta. Both brilliant. (By the way, do any of you know where can I get the recipe for that bread toast (bread-egg toast?) in V for Vendetta? It looks yummy.)

I’d decided to quit drinking for good. So far doing so good. It helps to have your bar-going buddies rallying behind you during process like this. Occasional tempting and teasing efforts by the naughty few are still there but I’m committed. :-)

Life is good. Work is good. Drinking is bad. (repeat after me….Life is good. Work is go…..)

This post is my little response in regards to the latest Malaysia political fiasco surrounding MP Loh Seng Kok’s parliament speech.

I’m not even going to comment about the content of that speech, nor will I try to justify the validity of MP Loh’s point of views. Anyone who read the news coverage on Malaysiakini and other local dailies would’ve easily noticed that that’s not the real issue here.

I am just plainly dumbfounded by the fact that EVERY SINGLE FREAKING time someone ever as much as try to bring up these sensitive issues, the various Islamic party fractions venomously slam and shoot down that poor lad faster than he could ever say ‘hear me out’. And this time, according to the press,

some 50 Umno Youth members, led by Kelana Jaya division chief Abdul Halim Samad, paid Loh a surprise visit at his Subang Jaya service centre at about 9.30pm. Loh was handed a protest letter. According to Malaysiakini, Abdul Halim told him, “We don’t want to hear any explanation now; this is our letter, you read and answer it.”

You can almost picture the scenario vividly: a swarm of Vikings accompanied by deafening war thrums and barbaric roars, launching a scathing blitzkrieg towards a small group of peasants living on the countryside. Of course, to those Vikings, they are not just ordinary peasants, they are troublesome whistleblowers, so called nation destablizer, rats that stir negative sentiments among the people of the nation.

The issue is just too sensitive. It’s better if everyone just shut their big ass mouth. Why talk about it when our founding fathers already agreed upon the terms and inked it in the constitution like 40+ years ago? Constitution is opened to fair and unbiased interpretation and should be reopened for intellectual digestion as the nation progress along? What? No no, you can’t talk like that - it is a very sensitive(again) and provoking topic. After all, “The country’s harmony is based on the nation’s history, where there was a consensus reached by the different ethnic groups… we shouldn’t just look at superficial issues.” (Mohamed Aziz (BN-Sri Gading)). Moreover, it could lead to a rift between the different races. (Salahuddin Ayub (PAS-Kubang Kerian)).

Superficial issues? Rift between different ethnic groups? Oh puhhh leeeezzzzzzz.

It just amaze me that these people really think that by not discussing these issues, they can actually suppress the voice and slip those issues under the rug and make it as if they are divine laws that you and I should ever so voluntarily conform to. I mean, seriously? All those meritocracy bullshit in our educational system, new prayer recital guidelines, disputable history books, corporate/govermental hirings and promotionals, so called special rights. I mean don’t get me wrong, I am not even saying ‘fuck this, why can’t we be equal’ or that sort of thing. I have no problem whatsoever with preferential treatment. In fact if you are willing to discuss this in a more open way, you will find out that actually the majority of the ethnic minorities agree to some extend that preferential treatment is of multitude importance to the stability of this nation.

But why can’t we be more transparent in drafting such laws or discuss it in more open terms? Why it has to be secretive and talk-and-you-get-jailed-under-ISA sort of thing? Is it so wrong and vile to try and find some common grounds here, figuring out the best way to offer such preferential treatments without discriminating other ethnic minorities? Is it really that sentiment-stirring to have an open forum or some sort so that everyone can understand why there’s such a vital need for us to be slightly unequal to be equal?

Why react as if I’d just massacred your entire family when such issues are being brought upon? Those 40 and 50 years old Ah pek and Ah sam in Chi Chiong Kai are not as well informed as Mr Loh and I might be, you know. They don’t know how to look at the bigger picture. We understand why it is vital to preserve preferential treatment laws but they don’t see it that way. The only thing they see is why their sons and daughters were rejected from well-recognized medical school even after they all scored 12 A1s in their SPM. or why their husbands were passed on for promotions after serving more than 25 years for the government. Do they not deserve even a simple, proper and polite dialogue, if not for anything else, to calm souls and for the sake of maintaining the harmony of our nation? You tell me.

Pick any given day on any venue, I will be more than happy to participate in an open forums with any of these UMNO Youth’s mafia wing fraction and talk about issues they feel so strongly about that go as far as justifying their marching-to-your-office-to-show-you-our-power action. I bet on my own life that I will end up being the one sounding more sensible (both intellectually and common sense wise) than the 50 of them combined. Hell they should feel lucky they get me instead of our nation’s fairness-peace loving-equality princess - Miss Su Ann. (no, I’m not trying to be funny)

Malaysia - a progressive and democratic nation that promotes freedom on speech and religious practice and all that harmony bla bla bla? Excuse my french but you can kiss my ass.

Until we all learn to lick the notion that the very fundamental ingredient to a tolerable, understanding and harmonic society comes from the way we communicate with each other everyday and our willingness to listen, we are steadily heading towards a very real and serious racial brouhaha, conscious or subconciously. If you think I tried to sound threatening, you obviously haven’t been paying attention to those bloggers, your aunties and my uncles kopitiam talks, friends, the press and well, the history itself.

I have a lot of muslim friends. Most of them are anything but the 50 Umno-nians - tolerable, witty, charming, polite with a deep sense of respect for each other, muslims or non-muslims. After reading this latest news, one of them caught me with this carefully worded question: Do you think we (muslims and other ethnics in Malaysia) will ever cross sword like the Serbs and the Albanians if things are to continue like this? I called him crazy, not because I don’t think we will ever fall that deep, but more of a fact that I am hoping such question will never ever have to pop up in any of our head.

I love Malaysia more than any other country in this world; and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

People has been awfully nice to me today. Thanks for the present and everything. And big hug to my family for sending this in a DIY card. *Holding back tears*

Look at my puny fingers…