In Bruges

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/

It was nearly a year ago when i was travelling around Cambodia and ended up in Phnom Penh twice as part of my journey to nowhere. On the first occasion I stayed in a $3 USD 3m x 3m cubicle at a lakeside guesthouse. on the second arrival, i tried hard to avoid a guesthouse which has been syndicated by all, and i do mean all the tuk tuk and motorcycles in the bustling city, believing that something must be wrong with it. After walking around for hours with my eyes glued to my lonely planet map i finally gave in and checked myself into OK Guesthouse and demanded the cheapest $2 USD a night room.

At night after having explored a very large and practical joke called the Olympic Stadium, witnessed the single largest and unorganized mass dance i've seen in my life, warned off by a well meaning auntie and an aerobics instructor about bad boys who will rob me of my camera - i'm still at the stadium, and survived a sudden downpour, i retreated back to OK Guesthouse for dinner.

It was the kind of guesthouse with a cosy interior stacked with books and dvds, a very decent temporal lodge for a melting pot of nationalities and one Singaporean. Over dinner I set my eyes on the tv where a film was already playing and remained at the dining area still transfixed to the screen long after the last of my banana milkshake had been sucked out, and so did the rest of the United Nations. Bloody good film i thought to myself but promptly failed to register the title in my head... Tried as i did, i couldn't recall any searching clue of the films until moments ago as i browsed through imdb's top 250 again and caught the somewhat familiar looking dvd cover.

In Bruges! Written and directed by Martin McDonagh.

Lovely night.

Lovely night until i remember the incessant chattering by this fuckin retard sitting behind me while i was catching The Tunnel at Cinema Europa. For the third or fourth movie in a row i got pissed by idiots who dunno how to keep their mouth shut in cinemas. Cinemas should wage a new campaign against them.

it irks me that i can't make masterpieces out of everything, yet it's the hard truth that i must face.

in fact, have i even created anything that steals your eyes for half a minute?

i wonder.

hmm.

anyway here's a bit Yogyakarta.

god's will.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1009242/1/.html

The death toll from a week of catastrophes across Asia-Pacific neared 2,000 on Sunday as rescuers raced to reach the survivors of a series of earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons.

"This is a test from God and we accept it, but we're angry and sad that help hasn't come,"

So are you angry with the government, or god?

if it's god's who is testing you, wouldn't god be in control of when help arrives?

Or when it doesn't arrive?

Since he is almighty, and great, and hey, god's just testing you.

And you accepted it.

If I've offended any religious souls, i'm sorry that i'm not in the least bit sorry, because it's probably god's will that he trained me as an engineer.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1009335/1/.html

This is a time to thank God not only for those who are lost, but the rest who are still alive

Thank god for those who are lost?

You've really lost me now.

ohhhh brilliant

i have a blog, called ohh-brilliant, just that it's not so brilliant these days.

time hasn't been kind. i've been kept busy, with a seemingly endless streams of tiny conquests to achieve. some too minor for words, others mere pulses to maintain this semblance of life.

life. mine has carried on its daily business in recent time with remarkable predictability, right down to the bus - the one that means i'm late - that i catch every god damn morning.

am i still hanging on to long standing illusions? i might be. or meaningless shenanigans? most probably. could that be the self inflicted definition of my life? i'll wait for hindsight to arrive.

so that's it for now. no clever punch lines to to lift the gloom, nor brilliant last words to string all thoughts to make some sense.

a series of unfortunate events

this is just about the worst night i can remember over the past 1.5 years.
i'll need to call in sick in the morning.

The favourite lad from Spain

If there's one singular, defining mistake that Rafael Benitez has made in his much vaunted managing career, it would be the one made in the summer of 2008, when he attempted to sell Xabi Alonso for Gareth Barry. A Barry for an Alonso. A painter's roller for an artist's brush.

One year on, the saddest news of this summer is the one that we've pleaded so hard against, but materialize it did, and with it, departs half of our annual league ambitions.

Adios Alonso. It's gonna be a paler fields of Anfield Road.

Taking the plunge

Hello blog, it's been a while hasn't it.

Occupied. That's the one word to describe my last few months of existence. No need for much details now but it's Tues and I'm home because of a virus and my new computer is down with a virus as well. Productivity is down to negative value and hopefully not too much have been infected or affected.

I'm in the midst of installing Windows 7 over my old infected XP. Let's hope it works out.

Michelin Baby Little

wah lau eh

crybaby

those michelin baby arms

those strong fingers. i'll train her to pose with the tv remote next

already showing signs of being a world class couch potato

rolling good time in the crib

still working on it

ah flowers.

Oh Liverpool.

On the back of the penultimate game of the 2008-09 season which culminated in a 0-2 win over West Brom, and relegating them.

We played like crap today, and at one point Carragher got so pissed with Arbeloa he looked like he wanna beat the daylight out of him too, but settled for a few shoves after Alonso mediated. They are all teammates by the way. It's disappointing in the fact that we didn't get a 3rd goal. That would have been the 7th straight game we scored 3 or more goals, extending the record of 6 games from the current streak.

I dun usually do this but hey, why not. This is about the best team we've had since the swashbuckling, though sometimes just buckling, flamboyant days of '96. Here's my first XI, and prolly Rafa's too, in a 4-2-3-1 formation:

Pepe Reina

Alvaro Arbeloa, Jamie Carragher, Martin Skrtel, Emiliano Insua

Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano

Dirk Kuyt, Steven Gerrard, Yossi Benayoun

Fernando Torres

And good bye Sami Hyypia, it's been a pleasure.

hello again

3.40am, i gotta be up and running in less than 5 hours' time. yet i dun care. scrolling through, i think i kinda miss my blog. hello hello, here's a h-u-g from the keyboard.

work has been sucking up great portions of my life, but i've been generally happy these days. and did i mention about my long trip? was a blast. hanoi, halong, cat ba, lao cai, sapa, bangkok, ayutthaya, manado, lembeh straits.. along the way i know i've touched the lives of at least a family in sapa, and seen my mimic octopus in the fabled seas of lembeh straits.

anyway in one of those self reflecting days i noted down the list of places that i've yet to account for since last year

kinabalu, lata cemeron, hk, macau, cambodia, malacca, taman negara and now vietnam thailand and indonesia. some day i'll gather enough strength and stamina to put the pics up.

but ZHIYONG UR PHOTOS ARE TAKING PRIORITY NOW, fret not.

alright, tmr looks set to be another long day of slogging and right now i'm best off tucked under the covers snoozing against rhythmic thunder from afar.

to show you that i'm really working on them

A Wedding

Sorry for the long wait, I'm still working on it old friend.
Dun worry, everything should be out by the time you have your wedding dinner.. haha.

and away.

One up for the newly weds.
Sorrie bro, didn't have enough time on hand.



and i'm off, till 12th April.
bye folks

it is at moments after i have dreamed

it is at moments after i have dreamed

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.

i really like ee cummings' poems.

i had strange dreams this morning too. the family took a plane out for a holiday, which is rare enough by itself. upon exit, we found ourselves somewhere in america. we dashed across a busy road and at the entrance of a mall, we realised that it wasn't cold at all and pulled off the jackets that we were wearing. we hailed a passing cab and the driver was malay.

.

we had fun in taman negara.


ended on a happy note.

highway to nowhere

Suddenly waking up in the middle of precious sleep with parched lips and knitted brows isn't the best of things that can happen hours before embarking on another dreadful working day that lasted till after 1am the following day when most are having their distinctly different and prettier dreams.

Why were i in your car, in the backseat alone, when the car suddenly stopped in the middle of the highway and i got out to find you slumped lifeless in the seat and my frantic calling and slapping wouldn't wake you up so i looked around and shouted for help and spotted a man 20m ahead who didn't want to see me and so i stuck my head back into the car to find you vanished from where you were dead moments ago but turned my head to find you in the backseat with your eyes on me and a smirk on your face.

it was you, though it shouldn't be.

i sprang awake all knotted up and needing a drink.

now i need the bed. it's 3 bloody am yet again.

pain and its relative relativity.

Caught something cool on Discovery Channel last night, as i was stoning about with another damn late dinner. Our human sensation of pain comes from signals that got sent from the source through to the spinal cords, which then jumps over a gap in the wiring called synapse before passing all over the brain; that's when we feel pain. I always know that endorphins can relieve pain but what i didn't know is that the brain can actually counter-send signals down across the synapse to effectively block out the pain signals, which is prolly what happened to me in that motorbike accidents when i was 6 and didn't really register the pain despite the gruesome wound on my ankle.

another strange thing that's happening to me is that despite being drop dead tired for the past couple weeks, i'd suddenly be wide awake and unsleepable at 1.30am. yes, unsleepable, like now.

.

19th feb.

i wore black shoes today.

Best Pictures

I found out moments ago that I've watched or possess 18 out of 20 of the Academy Awards Best Pictures from the last two decades. The remaining two, Rain Man and Driving Miss Daisy, were in my hands as I was browsing through Gramaphone a week ago but I put them down for something else. No choice here it seems, but to extend my dvd spree and head back for them now. And after which, I will have over 190 titles to my name. Feeling rich.

.

Happy valentine's day, for whatever it means to you. had a good night out with my jolly diving buddies.

testing testing

this looks much nicer when it's all blown up.

why i'm still up at 3am.

The Reader

Superb.
Walked out of the cinema feeling peaceful for once in a series of sleepless nights.


and she,
was mere an arm away.

.


i need the quiet of a midnight charm.

my new bitch.

wah lau eh..

so nervous, i nearly dropped the lens while trying it at the shop.

okie zhiyong, i'm nearly ready.

oh bother

Words from an old friend, once good, now mere acquaintance, somehow managed to stick themselves into my mind for some time since.

Don't trouble trouble.

i used not to make much sense out of it, or to take much heed, but these days they drift back in the form of voices in the head, in their own good time and good health.

But i did not!! trouble trouble that is; largely peaceful and quietly contemplative men don't. Rather, trouble troubles me, taking all the initiatives and without me lifting a finger at times, to the extent that my allocated quota for piss taking for the next 3 years has since been expended in putting out the arson jobs in me. and i would like to not give too much of a damn hence on.

.

on an entirely separate note, dinner with peiyi and jacq was good today. i ate parts of a cow.

taking check

the year so far, sucks.

sick for the whole of the week, flu, cough, sorethroat, the whole lot. terrible time handling the mother sometimes, burnt out from putting up with things. and more things. the whole house painting affair was taxing, even though painting only starts tomorrow. buying a sofa was like fighting an expensive war. more shit at work. potentially no pay increment for the year. months on, right wrist seems permanently damaged from the stupid accident, as are my ankle and knee even though i haven't been running. can i still run? losing my new slippers en route to cambodia. lost count of the number of times i fell asleep this week with the lights on and burning the whole night, searing through the tatters of my dreams. january has been a warzone, a state of emergency. every step that i took vulnerable to igniting a land mine and i inevitably set off quite a few, so much so that at times i didn't feel like moving, or talking. silence was my safety net.
.

far too much unhappiness in the whole of my life. they sneak up on you, deal you a blow and scamper off into crevices unseen. sometimes you dun even know what wrong you have done - there might not be any - it's just fate's way of telling you that you're no more than a flick of snort.

i'd like to, for once, be happy this year, or more precisely, the remaining of this year.

fuck fate and all that shit.