Ice creams ice creams, two fo' the pair

Ice creams ice creams this is warfare
Pharell Williams, The Ice Cream Man

It's only proper that the earth spirit( Gaia, Mother Nature, whatever weirdass name Scientologists would call her by) be referred to as a female entity - because she is the bringer and sustainer of life..


And also one helluva temperamental flamin bitch.

Quick someone get that crazy woman some Chunky Monkey!

Hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, floods, draughts, famines, plagues....

Oh yeah and goddamn British weather.

Anyhoo, just the other day i thought i'd celebrate getting my body clock back in order by having a morning swim/gym before my afternoon lectures. What with the morning being warm and sunny i packed mosturizer la - nice nice mandi lepas workout, taroh my hair stuff and everything and was just heading out to lects...when it was raining outside like FUCK liddat. By British standards, that was a right and proper shower - some parts of town were even mildly flooded apparently.

*Shake-dries himself like a wet dog*

Fast forward to today - the Tech Sci 2 lab report deadline is just days away and i'm still pussyfooting like fuck on it. Its now 5 am in the morning, and i'm bouncily lipsyncing to my Musicals playlist ( nope still not gay ) as i pen this entry. No matter how many things you think you've gotten out of the way of your work, something will always pop up like a freakin' whackamole for you to bash with the proverbial club that is your precious, lucid, productive time. You know you've got it bad when you've planned to procrastinate by blogging, and you don't even get to do THAT because you suddenly decide to wiki something totally random.

Today's rambling rant is brought to you by Elevated Crotch Temperatures Sdn.Bhd:

Them 'nads, them balls..

I'm sure we were all taught in basic biology that in most mammals the testes are kept outside of the body to maintain a lower , optimal temperature for the sperm. Which is fine, if you're a magnificent gazelle or cheetah or other quadruped running happily around the savannah, playing your part in the great circle of life while the wind cools your gonads.

Cheetah: "MMmm windy"

The males of our species dont have it so sweet tho, what with the whole concept of clothes ( 'specially underwear) and the fact that we sit around in the aforementioned clothes for a great deal of the day. And sitting with layers of fabric around your googlies with nothing but thighs for company lead to uncomfortable amounts of heat buildup. Even while you're moving around, the evil nature of cloth by which it shifts and flows, along with the heat necessitates some *adjustments* now and then. Failure to carry out the rearrangements discreetly and speedily can bring varied results from shocked stares to traffic accidents.

Its already canon that prolonged *hot packet* conditions can severely deteriorate sperm count and quality. Maybe thats why sarong clad fishermen sire so many more kids than Calvin-ed, suited execs hmn ( ignoring family planning the horrendous costs of raising and educating middle class-and above-children)?

You gotta wonder if everything had evolved differently. I'm sure a few little tweaks a few billion years ago woulda made sperm that happily swam around a body temperature, and we wouldn't hafta put up with our dangly bits (Well not THAT dangly bit). The female physique is so much better designed - its irritating how ova happily tolerate body temperatures while sperm don't.

But i guess when it comes to practicality, the sexes are kinda even. Women have bigger balls( a little higher, higher yep thats 'em) to constantly adjust and worry about( no i don't have all the time in the world to launch into a briefs/boxers vs panties/bra/lingerie/1000x more undergarments ramble) And a hysterectomy/tubectomy is just a darrrrn bit messier than a vasectomy no?

But getting back to clothes, i'm sure when our cro-mag forefathers fashioned nice furry clothes to drape over their bodies, it was more to not die from the freakin cold rather than to cover up their bits. Or maybe they realised they DO need to cover up their bits upon realising after a few hunting trips or *grunt grunt* fights over females or food that yes ,getting any kind of trauma there hurts. Screw sabretooth claws -

"When branch and twig flick Ug's happy stick Ug PAinNn "*points to crotch, mimes tears*

Obviously our 'nads have more than their fair share of receptors, so that you'd take better care of them to be able to procreate, and to enjoy the act of procreating . Biological directive and all. But you can be sure that physiological needs rather than shame or decorum were the first reasons for the covering of the crotch region in garments. Anthropologically i'd guess the evolution of more elaborate costuming came with the desire to display your prowess at resource acquiring and status in society. But thats another whole ramble.

But yeah, whatever. Even when i wear my kain pelikat at home i dont go commando, okay!

Back to less dangly things...

A few days back we were randomly lookin up some new watches , and actually learned what a minute repeater is - its a mechanism that is MUCH more complicated than a tourbillon that can be used to emit distinct chimes for hours and minutes, enabling the wearer of the watch to tell the time by sound alone. Here's a video of how one works - be sure to turn the sound up. Match the sound to the time on the watch and i'm sure you'll get how it works.

You can give all the gold, platinum and diamonds to the rappers and the tasteless nouveau riche. I'm sure being an engineer has a little bit to do with me being obsessed with the most intricate and beautiful mechanical movements.

Its so fuckin cool.

As with every other accessory or item of clothing i see, when i see something i like on first sight, its bound to be juuuust tad out of budget.



Gourgeous isnt it? In this case out of budget would be putting it mildly. More like stupidly crushingly off the hook goddamned tak ingat dunia expensive. You gotta pay through your bloody nose for the workmanship and rarity of these things. These bitches cost 800k Swiss francs each ( about 2.5mil RM), and they're only making 3 a year - there's already a waiting list of 17 . Vacheron & Constantin repeaters start at 300k USD. The simple non-calendar ones.


Even IWC repeaters start at 40k USD. Sigh, selling a kidney would probably get me the box and the warranty tag. I considered selling my soul, but i think i might already have done so for some frivolous thing when i was smaller and i cant find the receipt. Feh- doubt it'll fetch much more either. Its gonna be a while before i can hear the sweet , tinny mechanical gongs on my hand.

On a literary/timewasting note, i've just trolled upon a frickin sweet online comic - Questionable Content.Been spending the last few days reading the strips all the way from #1. The art is nice, but the real killer is the central storyline of the comic. Drama giler sehhh the love triangle. Also, its a very witty, snarky comic - some of the lines are just classic! They poke fun at everything from music, movies, pop culture,art, books, religion, computer games, EVERYTHING! I loveitloveitloveitloveit. Seriously, its worth going through the 600+ strips. GooooooOO!!


And now, with blogging done, there is nothing else to procrastinate on! I can finally get back to WORK!!

*schniff schniff* omgomg the muffins !!

"i feel unsafe without my titanium panda" - Lu

To err is human. To be able to strike down those who err against you with
lightning and brimstone is divine.

If you heard an unholy, indescribable noise a few days back ( kinda like a Balrog's roar + Fran Drescher's laugh + Gilbert Gottfried's voice) it was just me screaming in anguish after weighing in at the gym for the first time since Suraya's surprise posh posh b'day high tea on Monday.

A very *high* tea indeed....

Moseyed on down to Oxford last monday for a day trip. Kudos to Naz who did all the stressing-to-the-max organizing AND made a cake herself. Must have been a pleasant surprise ( albeit a little unsettling at first ) to have someone suddenly drop by, give you a dress to wear , and order you to follow them to an undisclosed location in town.

Even the weather cooperated that day...

*Insert own comment either about sheer number of candles or something else pertaining to the crazed look or the knife*

Maddeningly British ( and carb-laden ) high tea. This plate of shortbreads, scones, sandwiches is for two......and we also got a slice of super rich cake( not counting Naz's cake ) and a pot of tea each. btw its Lapsang Souchong, not Tapsome BongBong

Urm yeah. Phooo-toooo. Eh i wasnt the only guy there okay!

Naz trying to pull an Audrey Hepburn. Malangnya jadi macam the visually impaired woman in front of Globe Silk Store playing keyboard liddat.

The rest of the week? Normal generic-brand nondescriptness:

i. Try and do work. Get sidelined by facebook/googlevids/youtube/msn. Repeat
ii. Swim/gym. Come back too tired for (i)
iii. Semi constructive procrastinating in the kitchen. Refer to Fig.1

Fig. 1 - Apple tarts. Fresh outta the oven. Mmmmmm

Of apples and lies...

Tried an allnighter af F211 instead of the grid - and it was a helluva lot more constructive. Almost got in the whole "fuckfuckexamexammustwork" groove. Read: ALMOST.

Oh wait, i meant to say conducive. *blink blink*

Did a fair bit more progress on ze Lab Report and some reading alongside babysitting torrents on a few of the computers. New shows, work done! Win win situation!

There might not be smartboards and plasma screens at F211, but there's still much amusement to be had! With netmessage for example - a 'run' command line that lets you send messages as windows system popups to other computers on the network - or the whole network. Beyond the obvious use of irritating friends working there, there's also the potential for some deviousness. Like on the first night, there was a girl working a few computers in front who's had an apple on her computer for the whole night. Conveniently just as we were packing up to leave she went out with her boyfriend for "water" so we netmessaged her the following from a computer a bit further away from us and all left the lab trying not to burst in fits of cheeky giggles.

" No apples please. We have a strict 'no apple' policy in F211"

We hung around at the corridors around the corner a safe distance away where we could barely see her reaction to the message. She seemed startled enough. AHhahahhaha

The next day one of the computers i usually worked/torented at had the monitor turned off and a handwritten note that said " Do not touch - running calculations ". I remembered having to clear some torrents on that workstation's temporary disk ( weird chinese videos ) to make room for my downloads so hMMMnnnn........

Sho nuff', there was nothing running on that comp except Bitspirit. Which was downloading nothing. Not only did that feller have the nerve to not babysit his torrents and clear the disk afterwards, he couldn't even be bothered to check whether his files were still there.

whoops.

PENIPU PALAT HARAM "calculations" konon.

Soooo this called for a double sided assault. I netmessaged that workstation "Please do not torrent in this lab, or your logon will be revoked.Sysadmin". KOFF KOFF hypocrite KOFF KOFF. Taib tambah sikit and left a Word file open that said something to the effect of " Calculations? yeah right"

Much ado about nothings that keep me from hitting the books

Still listening to too much Indonesian jiwangness -simmple tunes that stick in your head and simple lyrics that don't take too much reading into. I somehow forgot to mention Mocca along with Tangga and La Luna - they actually made me forget about PeterPan , Dewa and So7 for a while. But of course, there's balance in everything - Also listening to the new albums from Prince, Pharell and Jay-Z - some good shit right there. Preserve the sexxay!

Seriously man, some of these Mocca songs are so sweet and sappy yet so...soo.....like sedap liddat. Ignore the cacated video and just listen to the song.

While we're still on balance, y'all just HAVE to see the new Benny Benassi vid. Its a tribute to 70s porn movies - see if you can pick out any of the titles. In this case its all about the video - altho the song is pretty freakin catchy too....

Just imagine, this is the CENSOREd version. MMmmmmm. Makes "Satisfaction" look like an actual power tool ad no?

Also managed to read "Maus". Its a graphic novel where the author tells the story of his father, an Auschwitz survivor. I didn't care much for what was supposed to be one of the main drawing points of this graphic novel - the visual methapor where the jews are mice ( hence the german Maus) , Germans are cats, Americans are dogs and the Polish are pigs. Not only does it detract from the human element of the story - the core element of any Holocaust story - i personally thought that the metaphors messed up the story towards the end. It was a horribly sad story, as most Holocaust stories go but i wasn't anywhere near as moved as i was with Persepolis. I don't know whether its the scruffy illustration, the metaphorical anthromorphozation or just the fact that it wasn't very easy to identify with either him or his father.

I just can't see why every other half decent graphic novel's compared to it.

The best account of a Holocaust survivor i've seen is the screen adaptation of a survivor's diaries-cum-novel:"Out Of The Ashes" . The actual book is nigh on impossible to find nowadays. Its about a Jewish doctor- a Gisela Perl- who suffers the loss of her entire family and only made it through Auschwitz because of her medical skills where she was made a camp doctor. Not only did she have to stuggle to survive herself, she was also single handedly responsible for saving the lives of hundreds of women in the camps through her position combined with her sheer strength of will. After all this, she still had to endure harsh questioning in the US for her citizenship due to her having worked under Dr. Mengele.

Those of you who think "The Pianist" was a good representation of the Holocaust, you haven't seen anything yet. Fine the cinematography was good but the storytelling was so garbled , and the character development was rubbish. Also you had to put up with Adrien Brody's stonking huge schnozz on half the screen most of the time. Damn irritating. Dunno why Zegna used him in their ads also. The only thing a Brody Zegna ad will make me feel like buying are a pair of solid brogues i can use to bash his huge-ass nose in.

Started on my fairly ambitious booklist by ploughing through the first few chapters of Humanity: a moral history of the twentieth century. Its about understanding, if not justifying the atrocities of the last century through philosophy, politics and history : Hiroshima, Naziism, the Gulag, Rwanda and so on and so forth. The first few chapters covers quite a bit on Nietzche's writings - now i really can't wait to move on to study Nietzche proper. I have a feeling i'll like his work quite a bit. Anyone who forgot my birthday - "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and "The Genealogy of Morals" are on my Amazon wishlist *hinthinthint*

Well if engineering doesn't pan out ( hopefully not as drastically as computer science) there's always politics and philosophy. Heh. Or catering. Or dancing.

Oh and a final distraction - those 2 small lego kits that i bought in Hamburg at the end of our Germany odyssey 3 years ago? I take'em apart and put together something random and new everytime my fingers get finicky.

Yesh again if you forgot my birthday, small lego kits are welcome too! NO its not kiddish - its engineering man. Lots of engineers tinker with Lego for designs - you can make functional clocks, even computers and logic machines from Lego dammit.

By the way, i just rifled through those videos of us playing with these back from Germany. A roomful of Imperial College students in their PJs playing with Legos. Complete with sound effects. (i still maintain its NOT kiddish).

DUUUDe you know you've got it bad when you're even procrastinating to blog, which is in turn an act of procrastination relative to studying.

"That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises are kept,
Or one would weep because another wept."

W.H.Auden

Feeling : Introspective, actual physical pain (never again will I play tennis, jog, swim and gym in the space of 4 hours)
Listening to : Tangga, La Luna , the Chorus Line original soundtrack

Barely got back from finally watching V for Vendetta at Odeon and figured I might as well get down to some blogging while my synapses are still warm from trying to pick out all the subtleties in the dialogue/plotline and trying to understand the psychology of the insane genius behind the mask. I know its been out for a while, so I will pass on inflicting yet another blogger’s 2 cents about it on you folks. ( mostly because in a bit, surprise, surprise, I’m gonna pop a book review in yo’ ass!)

In a nutshell, I loved it. Although the part at the end is daaamn fake.

Been going through quite a few books lately – although none are course related. Goddamn Amazon’s recommendations – its evil and spot on I tell you. Even catching up on some serial 3-4 parter comics ( some Aliens, Star Wars and Predator stuff – tres geek, I know) that I started but could never finish because I could never find the goddamn books.

I can’t remember how I stumbled across this particular recommendation, but I’ve found a fuckin gem in Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis”. Its an autobiography, in graphic novel form of the life of an Iranian girl, born to Marxist parents, who grew up during the Iran-Iraq war and Iran’s Islamic revolution. The first book focuses on the revolution and the people caught in it , both family and friends, through the eyes of a child-preteen. A well read, enlightened quick witted child – thanks to her parents’ emphasis on raising a smart, liberal and outspoken daughter – but still a child nonetheless.

Not only is it actually a somewhat educational read when it comes to the history of Persia/Iran , it is also thought-provoking, moving and even amusing at times. The author is apparently an illustrator by profession, and her simple black and white drawings belies the symbolism and the imagery that can convey more than the words themselves.

I just finished Persepolis 2 today, fresh out of the Amazon box it came in. The second book has a completely different feel to the first, but it is just as good. It picks up with our protégé continuing her studies at 14 in Vienna at the behest of her parents who thought it best to send her away instead of seeing her continually chafe under the cultural and intellectual oppression back home. We see her go through the typical throes of adolescence – and a little bit more – what with being torn between her liberal curiosity and being true to herself and her traditional upbringing and values AND also the desire to fit in in a foreign culture. Also, we see her return to her homeland where she gets even more lost and confused.

I'm sure many of you would identify with at least a few aspects of the protege's experiences, and if nothing else be thankful for the liberties and freedoms ( well, comparatively ) that we have back home that we've been taking for granted.

Nothing sums up both books better than this quote from Zadie Smith (author of White Teeth) :

“…reasserts the moral bankruptcy of all political dogma and religious conformity; how it bullies, how it murders, and how it may always be ridiculed by individual rebellions of the spirit and the intellect.”

Grab or bum a copy now! If you’re in Warwick, I’ll probably chase you down and whore you my copy myself. Muaahahha

After reading both books and watching Vendetta, something just clicked and I remembered something I wanted to write about some time ago.

Disclaimer : I'm gonna breach the subject of religion. If you do choose to read on, please keep an open mind. Or just skip this bit.

How religion and politics are as inseparable as dance and song. It’s just a matter of who’s leading to the music at the moment.

This is vividly illustrated in the entire slutarded geopolitical climate of the middle east, and more subtly ingrained in the last 2000 years ( and a little bit more ) of our recorded history. The Romans own take on ‘original’ Christianity that still remains in much of the ritual and symbolism of Catholicsm. The civil wars after the passing of Muhammad. The Crusades. The Spanish Inquisition. The many ways the Vatican crowned and deposed kings and queens during the rest of the medieval ages and the renaissance. The Holocaust. I’m sure you can’t help but wonder what the last 2000 years would have been like without the hand of the three major Monotheisic religions, hmmn?

Like what I said – the more you read into the history, the more flawed the concept of organized religion is especially when it comes to statecraft and the mandate of the rule.

From the ruling caste’s point of view, the people need a symbol to rally around and unite. In societies of old and even some today where a significant portion of the population remain illiterate or comparatively uneducated, monarchies or theocracies maintain control over the masses by claiming the divine mandate to rule, and relying on the subjects fear of divine retribution or eternal damnation for acts in contrivance to the set moral/religious codes.

…..To be continued. I need to do a bit more reading to get my facts straight. Especially about current governments. Its already gonna be fuckin peningfying , and that’s without involving crazy ass conspiracy theories and other parties like the Freemasons and other quasi-religious orders. Or I could just stop there and reiterate my point that organized religion was just a phase in the evolution of the science of government. Whether you think it is a success or failure is your own bag.

And that’s enough of me trying to be an all opinionated, pretentious literati wannabe. Bring on the superficialness!!

Back to our regular programming...

Been listening a lot to the whole West Side Story and Chorus Line soundtracks – I’ve seen neither on stage, but from listening to the songs and reading the stories, I bet I’d just LOVE Chorus line more than any other musical I’d ever seen if I actually would get to watch it. God knows when its coming to the UK again, but apparently they’re gonna start another run of it on Broadway.

Believe it or not, I’ve not been to a proper , old school – like Giselle or Swan Lake- ballet either. When better to further my cultural enrichment than the Bolshoi’s first UK tour in 16 years? But as luck would have it, its in bloody summer during the holidays. Haih. Looks like I gotta do with whatever they’ve got at the Royal Opera House next time I got some spare cash. I’m sure they’ll have something I’ve been dying to watch – but just cannot find kaki to go watch with.

Karma is , and always was, a bitch. I think I’ve told that story of the weather turning from sunny to a torrential hail in May a coupla years back over a game of tennis too many times. The other day managed to scrounge a threesome for tennis as the weather was KiNdA nice, and no sooner than when we got warmed up it started bloody snowing. Fuckin snowing. Kept playing through tho like the crazy people we are. Thank god when I played the next morning the weather was a skosh nicer. I coulda sworn I felt a faint tingle of sunburn on my face as well.

Its irritating when you’re stuck with going to the gym during the peak hours during holidays – its surprisingly just as busy as term time, if not busier. What is MORE irritating, however, are the fuckin twats who hog the weights machines like ni gym bapak diaorang. Yes, you’re entitled to catch your breath and rest up for a little bit if you’re doing multiple sets of reps or supersets but don’t fucking sit there for fucking 5 minutes scratching your balls and talking cock with your other inconsiderate iron monkey friends. Bloody asswipes hanging around holding on to the machines like bloody gorillas marking their territory. Bloody gorillas with protein shake tumblers.

Here’s more finger lickin prettiness from my kitchen that I just had to share. The first pic is some canapés I made outta smoked salmon ( that my housie greedily bought but couldn’t finish ), hummous, tomatoes , cucumber and chives.

And this is a colourful, tasty snack I fixed yesterday - grilled halloumi cheese, some nachos, guacamole, tomatoes and turkey ham. Was absolutely ravenous after an insanely physical morning( like I said earlier – tennis, quick jog, half hour of laps at the pool and an hour at the gym doing circuit ) which left me with killer cramps in my thighs.

Oh and a few pics from my recent London sojourn – at CC club- ( I wonder who’s that bumping into the camera on the bottom right ) that I just picked up courtesy of Elle’s Facebook page.

Oh yeah did I mention that? I’m on my way towards being a Facebook addict as well! For those of you not in the know, its basically a simpler Friendster, except that you gotta be part of a uni or college. Its all nice and uniform, meaning no keling karam unreadable colour schemes and those annoying music videos. That, and the fact that tagging walls are so much more fun than lameass testimonials.

Finishing of this longass bitch of a post with a link that you will find either really stupid or really funny. Or not get it at all. Curse you, Bakry for getting me hooked on ‘em.

“Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.”