Waking up

It was a brightly lit room, with florescent lights lining the sides of all the metallic walls. In the middle of the circular chamber was a high chair surrounded by flashing control buttons. The place had a very sterile feel, and endless sea of aluminum punctuated with an occasional flashing red button.

One of the many doors let out a quiet hiss as it opened, and in strode a tall, chisel jawed man. He had a purposeful demeanour about him, eyes sharp in a no-nonsense way. His strides were quick and long, but as the approached the centre of the room, he started slowing down. He stared at the creature occupying the high seat and sighed.

"Every bloody morning, he takes the seat first. Stupid dick," he muttered under his breath.

On the receiving end of the scathing attack was a fat boy with a rat's nest for a head of hair. He wore a black T-shirt with the words 'I am emo' and had a perpetually glazed look in his eye as if he was high on blow. His chubby fingers danced absently over the controls, occasionally poking one of them. No one really knew if his actions were of his own volition or just another random response. If he heard the comment, he didn't show any response.

The doors opened again, and in strode a rather small fellow. He wore a brightly coloured tie-dye shirt and tattered jeans, and walked as if someone had taken to his testicles with a cricket bat. When he saw the fat kid in the seat, he sighed and turned to leave.

But before he could step out, the tall man spoke.

"Annoying bugger isn't he. Ever since he moved in, he's been hogging the controls at the start of the day. Hell, I can't even remember the day I started at the helm."

Facing the tall man, the flamboyant dude snorted. "You don't say."

"Oh, I guess its worse for you Impulse. Your size does make it a little hard for you to jostle your way in. But you have to say don't you, that ever since this kid came about we've been a lot worse off. I dare say that I'd win the approval of everyone should it go to vote, me against him."

"I'm sure you would, Confidence, but you know very well it would change nothing. He will still be there every morning, leaving whenever he feels like it."

"Can't he see that no one likes him? And that he is doing us all a lot of harm."

"Actually, I wouldn't say that everyone has a problem with him. Have you seen how Logic and him get along? Everytime Logic walks in and sees him, he thinks that there is a problem. You know, sullen looking Goth kid who looks like he could use a week in rehab? The problem starts when Logic starts spouting solutions. Those two cannot work together. Remember last week? I got dragged into that as well, and it turned out to be a bit of a mess. Especially when Anger stepped in."

"Yea. I remember that. You know, Anger is very useful sometimes, but I really hate it when he turns on us. He seems to have a bit of a tiff with you doesn't he Impulse?"

"Don't remind me. I still get aches in the places that he broke my bones the last time. But even he is no match for that kid. No one knows how he does it, but when you can turn the whole room black and start shooting lightning bolts out of nowhere, people stop messing with you."

"Yea, but it doesn't stop Anger trying though. Always leaves the room in a bloody mess after they fight."

There was a moment of silence at that point, both the men staring at the child in the chair.

Confidence tried what he tried every morning. "Excuse me, would you mind moving aside and letting someone else pilot for a moment?"he asked.

His reply was a dry crackling in the air as sparks started bursting around the kid.

"Okay. Okay. Just asking. I'll leave you alone." The two of them turned to leave the room.

As the walked down the corridor, they met Wit. "Hey guys! Same story again this morning?"

Confidence answered. "Yes, same thing again. No one seems to be able to dislodge Loneliness at the start of the day."

The world is doomed.

Every so often, you come across things that you wish you never knew existed. It could be some form of evil. Or stupidity. Or something else equally depressing.

And you wonder how things like this can exist? What kind of cruel twist of fate put them on Earth? To read work that is bad is one thing. To read stuff that is so shallow and yet at the same time, blindly narcissistic is depressing on a whole new level.

It can actually sap your will to live. It makes you want to shoot yourself.

Sigh. Why la?

Movie critics.

Seriously now, I'm starting to get a little annoyed with them. I understand that they are paid for their reviews and therefore are expected to give a good one. I know that comparative analysis is inevitable when reviewing movies, and having read the book that spawned most of the movies, most reviewers use their prior experience reading the book and compare it with the movie.

Almost always, the movie ends up taking a beating. I have two examples. The Golden Compass was written based on the book Northern Lights, and the one review I have read has slammed the director for 'destroying one of the best pieces of child fiction ever written'. I know how he feels. I believe him when he said that the movie had been dumbed down by Hollywood. The generally happy, cheery feel to the movie doesn't quite capture a sense of epicness the way a dark tale spun around a properly scary Magisterium would. And not having happy endings is never an option with Hollywood, but it is in the world of books. So I guess for a sense of realism and immersability, book audiences will always be expecting something more than the usual children's fare.

I am Legend suffers from the same fate. The context of the title has been completely turned around, and now I actually find myself wanting to read the book, even if it is 50 year old science fiction. The movie is so much simpler than the book, but the idea in the book is just so bloody brilliant, I am actually a little upset that the producers didn't try to make it work on screen.

This is where my rant comes in. These movie reviewers are so used to a fare of intelligent story telling that everything else seems to suck in comparison. Most people I know found the Golden Compass to be a good movie. I didn't like it for the way the director made the movie or for the way the special effects were done. I loved it for the concept. I loved the idea of a nation of warrior polar bears and of a world that operates using a completely different set of rules of the universe. I'm sure the book did all that better, but it doesn't change the fact that the unacquainted will still be rightly impressed.

What I'm trying to say is very simple. If movie reviewers were wine tasters, they are only catering to the connoisseurs, the elitist bastards that uncork a bottle and sniff at the wine before pouring it in a glass and swirling it gently to oxygenate the bloody alcohol. Very few of their readers are that kind of people. We are social drinkers, happy we're even drinking wine at all. So fuck the flavour of the bloody thing, as long as it hasn't turned to bloody vinegar (which means very bad movie, like anything with Britney Spears or Madonna in it) then we would happily wolf it down and ask for a refill.

Social responsibility.

I'm sometimes too generous with my opinions. I try to justify that by telling myself that I'm making a positive change, but I can't help but to wonder just how positive is positive. If I hadn't been such a nihilist in the past, I might have spread more gloom over the future. That would have been bad.

Having long talks with people has me asking if spreading the ideas that I have cultivated is really something that I should be doing at all. I mean, its instinctive, but I can at least try an put a cap to it.

Am I doing a service to society or am I spreading misguided half truths? I am fairly certain that I will find the ideas that I hold now to be quite childish and naive in the future, the same way I find the world view I had five years ago to be badly lacking proper perspective.

I know of people who think that I am better off not expressing anything at all. Those are the people who also have a tendency to try and sway others to their philosophies as well, so I'm not surprised at that kind of view. We sometimes hold diametrically opposed viewpoints.

But good thing or not, I do seem to have a lot of faith in my stands, however flawed they may be. With these kinds of posts, I might seem riddled with self doubt, but thats just the checks and balances that keep me somewhat rooted.

So I'll keep preaching.

Whats with Lim Kit Siang?

I don't know the full details of what he actually says, but that man sound to me like a bloody loose cannon. He seems to oppose for the sake of opposing, even if there really are little grounds to pick a fight. Provoking the BN MPs seems to be some past time that he enjoys very much.

Apparently, he called somebody a goblok in Parliament the other day. His defense was that he meant 'go blog', meaning that he was telling that person to start blogging. I'm sure there are contexts in which that phrase can make sense, but I am very skeptical that Kit Siang wasn't out to cause trouble.

I've seen his antics in parliament as well, and they aren't what I would call civilized. I mean, the BN backbenchers are a bunch of uncouth monkeys, but that doesn't mean that the opposition lender needs to stoop to their level to engage with them. I actually pity the speaker of the parliament. He always seems helpless in those situations, his repeated pleas for everyone to sit down and calm down are always ignored. Its like he's scared of the MPs or something. How is a mediator supposed to do his job when he has no power?

Watching the way Kit Siang handle situations has substantially eroded the credibility that he has with me. It makes me question the questions that he raises and every allegation that he makes is greeted with a healthy dose mistrust. I actually wonder why he is still opposition leader because I seriously doubt DAP is that devoid of talent. Maybe its one of those 'old farts that refuse to let go' problems that seem to plague other political parties.

Kiam Siap.

The Chinese are scrooges. Thats the stereotype that has been perpetuated for generations, and I was a little skeptical about it. I figured times have changed, and so have people. Working has just shown me that old habits really do die hard.

For the first few weeks of work, I was content with taking orders and punching them in. Until the store manager decided that we need to make more money and told us all to push the average purchase of each customer up. There are a number of ways to do this, of which the easiest is to suggest extra cheese. Then we could ask if they would like some fries or some more bread or ice cream for dessert. RM15 per customer is supposed to be the target.

It was only when I made a conscious effort to see if I can sell more did I notice who were the people that usually do the buying. Customers coming in are split pretty even between the Chinese and the Malays. Indians show up only occasionally. Of the groups, this is how I would rank their tight-fistedness. The freest spenders are the middle easterners, (who thanks to MMU show up in respectable numbers) followed by the Malays, Indians and then the Chinese.

The middle easterners are not really open to suggestions. They typically know exactly what they want, and will order a lot of it. Screw combo meals, its ala carte all the way. And I never have to ask if they want extra cheese. They will ask for it right after making a pizza selection.

The Malays on the other hand, always seem to be looking for a good time and are normally quite happy to follow you as you lead them around the menu. "Nak extra cheese tak?" A lot of the time, the answer is "Boleh lah". They are also more likely to pander to their kid's request for a milkshake which would add substantially to the bill.

Now when I ask if a Chinese family if they want extra cheese, the person with the menu normally furrows his/her eyebrows and look at the rest of the family. The whole clan will then come to the conclusion that the extra expense is unnecessary and will politely decline. The Chinese are also much more likely to try and make the set meals work for them, adjusting preferences and decisions so that they may save RM14.50. And when I walk away from a table with a order for one set, and nothing else to go with it, you can bet that it was a Chinese family.

I think all this scrooginess is in the Chinese blood. Its been passed down from generations ago, and I think the position that the Chinese have in the economy right now can be credited to the kedekutness that they show. Its not really a bad thing actually. I think I have a bit of that streak as well. =)

Am I just being too cynical?

I'm a bit annoyed right now because I just sacrificed one mark from my tennis subject. I missed out on that one attendance credit because I was trying to explain what I thought to the Soka Gakkai people in the CLC on Wednesday.

They were there collecting signatures to petition the Malaysian Government to do its part in nuclear non-proliferation. I'm all for nuclear non-proliferation, but I didn't sign the damned thing.

I'm not too clear as to why myself. It could be the religious tangent that these people were taking. They seemed completely convinced that peace on this planet can be achieved if we just believed very, very hard that it can be. If we can get humans to think peace first when they are faced with any conflict, then we will not have wars. I like the concept, but I just find it a little bit flimsy.

I argued long and hard that humanity is programmed to serve itself first, then look at lofty ideals. Find some food, don't get killed, get married. All those always take priority over the principle of non-violence. At least thats how I see the world. In response, I was shown the greatness of Ghandi and Nelson Mendela. When I asked the dude I was talking to if he actually believed that it was Ghandi's non-violent protests that put the British in the mood to be charitable to the Indian people and to give them the independence that they want, he actually gave me a solid yes.

I should have wised up at that point and just thanked him and walked away. It really is quite pointless trying to engage him when we disagree on such a fundamental level about human nature. But I kept going on.

I might have offended him a bit when I told him that I thought the entire exhibition made a mockery of an actual peace process. I thought it made a mockery of humanity, for them to assume that something can be achieved if we repeatedly tell people the same intangible moral principle. Any solution that isn't rooted in the basest urges of humanity is doomed to fail. There is always a reason, and if we can understand the reasons behind the actions that lead to conflict, then we can try to stop it degenerating into violence. Admittedly, my take on it is just as intangible, but I concede that every conflict is different. To propose a blanket solution that will bring world peace is just something that I expect to hear from a beauty pageant contestant.

At least I did tell him that I was going to be honest, and wasn't trying to offend him before I actually said all that. Being a good, but perhaps slightly confused Buddhist, he kept a perfectly straight face.

But they really did make me wonder for a moment if such blind faith in the natural goodness of humanity can actually work out. I've certainly seen stranger things happen.

I'm still a bit sore about that mark lost though. =P