My biceps are still stiff and stinging. The soles of my feet pleading mercy.

All because of books.

It all started with a colleague  of mine, O.W.L, he came back from Amcorp Mall on lunch and he told of the most interesting news that The Big Bad Wolf Sale is back!

I’d known that this company had a book sale sometime in mid May, but at that time I was actually preparing for something really big, and so I had given it a miss.

I went there on the evening of the second day of the sale, so I was not to witness the long lines at the payment reportedly a hundred metres long blogged by others who went on the first day

There was though, a line at the entrance about forty people before me. Seeing the crowds of people inside the place I was actually thankful for being made to wait.

Anyone who was there  would agree with me that  it was apparent that a Carnival atmosphere pervades. Chaos, out of control and fun.

I’m proud to say that everyone there was cooperative and civil to each other.

So with a box grabbed from under a table, I jostled with the crowds flooding the aisles rummaging through the piles of books put there.

Time passed unnoticed to me while I was there. By the time acid had accumulated enough to sting my biceps and the soles of my feet, I then realised that four hours had passed!

The damage came to about MYR150.

Then the next Monday i went again after work bought some more…

But theres more… I bought these before the sale at BookXces at Amcorp a few days before the Big Bad Wolf sale…

She has a deep voice for a woman, smoky and a bit husky but calmingly soft. Her upbringing in a culture where to be soft-spoken is a virtue made her speak in a measured way, with word choices that have the right gravity to what she means to say.

Not too much nor too less, just right.

Hearing her speak is a relief to the whiny, uncouthness and general lack of care to what one says in these days.

Never a laugh out of place nor a stray pause.

She has her own beat , a rhythm of her choosing, a bit like raindrops.

She does overpronounce her ‘S’s though. Hissing them through her unseen teeth. Unseen while speaking but present when smiling.

He looks thirty but you would know he’s older than that. The manner of his movement through the world is smooth, unhurried and without waste of energy. It looks as if he practiced everything beforehand.

He would be unnoticed in a crowd, only those that pay attention to him moving would see his art.

He speaks clearly, so clearly that even the partially deaf could hear him. Never would anyone ask him to repeat what he was saying.

He does however, has a habit of using words that gone out of fashion, though not that often to humour or to come across as a snob.

Preferring one word if that is sufficient as a response or no word at all. when others speak to him, he would stay silent and the only thing one would see would be his eyes compelling you to not waste him time or tell falsehoods.

Her name is Fauziana and his name is Sani, and both are characters I’m using in my current writing project. Maybe I will trash this work as like the others, or I will complete it. Wait and see.

One Saturday evening after coming back from a charity event at a home for children with HIV/AIDS, while going to Berjaya Times Square to check out some MYR195.00 Seiko watches. On the way there my girlfriend and I walked on the set of a video shooting by my favourite Malaysian band, Butterfingers. Sorry guys. I really thought they were busking, was going to say hi when I saw Emmet the singer crossing the street towards some camera crews that were filming. Nothing to do but give my thumbs up. I hope I didn’t ruin anything.

Stopped at Low Yat looking for some stuffs, bought them and  My lovely girlfriend thought it would be nice to have some sushi.

I completely agree with her, but doing so would make us very late and seeing that we already had lunch, I said to her maybe after Times Square.

Looked at the watches,went to another shop, saw a limited edition watch that was half a thousand more than the non limited version of the same series. With the only difference being the use of the colour green on some elements of it’s typeface instead of orange on the normal one.

Saw some other watches that I liked, but any perfect match would have been a composite of parts from a few of them, the face from one, the bezel from another, etc. A childhood on LEGOs and customisable Swatch watches ruined me.

Went pass the cinema on the way to the Cold Storage, did not see anything worth watching.

After buying a drink, went up one level to survey the prices of these sets that the perfume counters were selling. Nothing of note though.

While walking past the main entrance, saw that there was a promo done  by Sony Malaysia of their new Walkman variety, The A series with the wireless (via Bluetooth) headphones. The GF inquired about the availability of the replacement rubber fittings of their earbuds. Knowing that it was overpriced and the unlikeliness that these marketing drones would ever know. I kind of already knew the answer.

I remember these in ear rubber fitting being sold at the Sony Style shop at KLCC in the under MYR100.00 range, I however held the opinion that they were more likely worth at the under MYR10.00 region.

Looked at these Walkman(men?) they were promoting, it was interesting but my own Walkman is still new and the bluetooth headphones needed to take advantage of the wireless capabilities are sold separately and tend to be expensive. I’m no audiophile, but I doubt that a bluetooth headphones have the same sound quality as a wired one with the same price.

Going back from Berjaya Times Square, saw that we had some time to spare, went back to Low Yat’s Sushi King.

Maybe they had a change of personnel or management because the service was not up to the standard I’ve had Sushi King. This is more like some nameless shop you go to because everywhere else is crowded.

Service was so slow, we were gesturing for ten minutes before a waitress came and waited on us. Also when our order came, they had forgotten my miso soup, I had to remind them, and the soup only came halfway through my rice

Had some Broiled Eel with rice (Una-Don) while the girlfriend had some noodles. We ate some of their Salmon Sushi (Sake Sushi). Everything was OK quality wise, not fantastic, nothing to rave home about.

They must for safety’s sake change their soup bowl to earthenware instead of plastic. Wait, shouldn’t it be the other way around you ask. Well after after finishing my bowl of rice, I was eager to have some soup. I picked up the lid only to see the bowl was still attached with it. Then it could not resist gravity anymore, and promptly spilled it’s high temperature contents on my stomach and left lap.

I let out a little yelp and tried to stem the soup’s flow with the inadequate assistance from Sushi King’s paper napkins. The girlfriend hailed a waiter over in panic.

He promptly came over with a cloth and wiped away what was left of the soup from the table and took the bowl away.

what I think happened was that when after the soup had came, I didn’t open it’s lid to equalise the pressure of the air on the cooling broth and the air outside the bowl. Then the condensed steam was collecting between the bowl and lid forming a seal. so when I was picking up that lid, the air inside the bowl had a lower pressure than the air outside it. The same when one pulls back the piston of a syringe, the medium, in my case air, that have a higher pressure would rush in to fill a vacuum.

A small airhole on the lid would had made all the difference. To their credit though, Sushi King replaced my soup at no extra charge.

Next time I’m going to open any lids, expect me to use both hands, one manipulating the lid and one holding down the container.

finished my meal amidst the strange request of the customer nearest to my left. The man was asking for some chicken skin, the waiter actually went to the kitchen to ask his cook only to return and give a repy in the negative. Anyone for some chicken skin sushi?

After that, we went to the magazine shop/sundry shop/cybercafe on the corner between BB Plaza and Low Yat. It was there that I had found a periodical that dwserved more attention. A magazine named Monocle, selling for MYR15.90 even when the printed price on it is USD10.00. The same price for editions old and new.

What had caught my eye is the quality of design it employs on it’s coves. The photographs used are remarkably different in style and composition. What would come close in terms of aesthetics are covers of architecture magazines. There is a sense of timeless elegance.

The Monocle covers that I saw did not feature any celebrities, instead opting for instance, a well dressed Japanese man taking a picture of the front of a Shinkansen, or another that had a model looking though the viewfinder of a old looking camera (that I found out later is a new Fujifilm Klasse W) as if that is his monocle.

I bought one, the one that had the bullet train on it because I like trains.

There is a fine line that the magazine threads on very well. That slim line between true appreciation for quality and the smugness of elitism. The choice of articles are very refreshing in scope and depth for a current issues magazine, but at least it does not cover the same boring things as other magazines that seems to be too geo-centric to their publisher’s head office.

This magazine simplifies it by breaking up their sections to the alphabets A for affairs, B for business, C for culture, D for design and lastly E for edits and expo. Then throws in an extra Japanese manga for good measure.

A solid buy if not for the price. GBP5.00 for one issue and GBP75.00 for a year’s subscription of 10 magazines and access to their website.

Hope that shop in Bukit Bintang maintains it’s pricing…

Last night I played with this. >>http://mike-love.net/touchgraph/

I know that the connections are arbitrary supositions made by the author of the graph. Some of these names are not connected to people I think should be connected, but I could only be wrong, as always. Yet, I am really surprised by the range and limitedness of my own knowledge.

Some of these names I have never even heard before. One of my favourite author are so far away from who my culture reveres most.

Is there amongst us that belong on the graph and yet be unconnected? Any of us are really that original?

We quote our teachers dead and alive even when they err. Errors combined errors are errors still. Let us hope we are digesting wisdom instead of poison. I toast a vial of hemlock to that…

Last May, I, in my just recovered from a diseased tooth state of mind decided it would be cool for me to travel alone. In accordance to my plans of global ‘been-there’ dominion, I decided I’ll start with peninsular Malaysia.

I had planned to go to Penang, then south to Johor Bahru and then to the east coast. All this I intended by train. Alas, due to constraints of finance and of time, and with also due to my own pure, refined and amplified laziness brought forth by physical and mental exhaustion, I limit the journey to Johor Bahru.

Here, attached are pictures taken during this bout of wanderlust preceded with scans (thanks to the lovely pinkpurplecloud for scanning) of my travel journal.

(some information about Weld)

That concludes the journal scans. Click for larger size. Sorry for the handwriting, thats what you get writing on the move.

And now… for something completely different.

The train I rode on

The support train.

Early morning in Butterworth.

Georgetown’s firestation.

149!

This place stunk to high heavens.

Love Lane, heh.







These seats go both ways.

Cancer ward.

Arabic letter ‘Jim’ and ‘Ba’, the city’s initials.

Note the guy squatting on the planter, watching the world go by.
















Nahar

Dining with danger

The bus I rode home on…

(I’ll annotate some of these pictures later…)

a blog entry where in,
which the blogger posts what he wrote while taking shelter one rainy night at a bus stop.
This thing he wrote, although unfinished , became the central element of this blog post and therefore completes while being incomplete.
And,
the blogger will post a link, here, to the lyrics of the wonderful song by Elbow “Not A Job”. This would compel the reader of this blog to click on it and try to listen to the actual song which is really very good despite lack of attention from the maintream. The irony will then be, the blogger while blooging will try to give a different meaning to the song than what was on the link prior.
Additionally,
irony will arise in the realisation that this description is quite long itself.

I am the person that stands on street conners at night
Alone and silent
Sighing words of poetic consolotion to myself
A bit off center

I am one that says hello and good evening to strangers but hide when I see you
Odd and awkwardly I have no abilities for hissing bitter punchlines, but I know dreams that nobody understands eventhough for my personal one I am not even close to encapsulating it in words. This song have mentions some elements of imagery that I use as reference for emotions that I try to convey in my works.The walk through long grass is what I use for the emotion of peace without effort, The lovers at the station is the image for romanticism in modern times, notice the juxtaposition of human relationship taking place at a place associated with rapid transport. Even if the imagery is what I use, I have never been as good.

I saw an angel cross the street,
Eyes radiant, steps serene.
Managing not to overwhelm,
With skywide wings, made with light.

Grasping at words,
I said “Good Day.”

for T.S.Y.