you really know how to break a girl's heart

I seem to be doing a whole lot of missing lately.

and I know there are pictures in here I've missed so there are a whole lot more people.
evil evil tim and nic.

Oriental crackers

You see these Oriental Crackers in a chips bag?

They're no ordinary chips.


They're keropok!!!!! They're actual Cassava chips!

and they don't taste like duck, I think someone went into the Asian grocery, bought a pack, decided hmm. This tastes good maybe we should manufacture this to the masses but we can't call it Cassava Crackers- too boring and risky sounding. and we can improve the packaging.

I KNOW!

ORIENTAL CRACKERS!

exotic, crackers that sound fun, and we'll name it something exotic like....PEKING DUCK!

That should sell! I mean, Asian flavours are So Hot Right Now.

Whatever, I'm going back to the Asian grocers for my fix.

the WHAT THE? post (rove reference)

Warner is filming BEOWULF???!!!????

***

Ah Hock's friend has the funniest note from the NLB.

I can't believe kiasu SG has this. And you wonder why we study in AIRPORTS AND BURGER KING hey?

I don't eat kittens for lunch

Kavi's friend Cass has a film in the Canon short film competition and I'd place a guess that she has a pretty damn good chance of winning since she's good and more Eric Khoo/Jack Neo while the other better films are more Wong Kar Wai.

If you're interested, her's is film11, "Story of Hong". and I'd also recommend Dusk.

Story of Hong is extremely "I Not Stupid" but in a darker Eric Khoo-ish kind of way. And it's reminicent of many many Singaporean childhoods if I say so myself. I can certainly see my childhood played before my eyes. And the temple they used is also the temple my maternal grandparents' ashes are housed in, the same temple my parents have booked lots for themselves. So yes, this is Singapura-bilia to the max for me.

Dusk is much more Wong Kar-Wai mood piece with a twist of Singapore added in. And I think that's why I liked it so much more than the other WKW-wannabe films. It didn't try to clone, but you can tell the influence, from the way people speak in different languages and yet seem to understand each other, right down to the Chris Doyle lighting. Also, plus points for a reasonably cute beng. And everyone knows about my soft spot for bengs.

Also, in my final semester at school, I read that collectivistic societies always think about others and the impact one's actions have on others. This was certainly shown in many films, especially in Dusk "why are jumping now? It's a bad time. When there are so many people. You have to jump when there is no one to see you- how do you think they would feel to see a dead body" along with praticalities- like jumping from the highest HDB...unlike in individualistic culture where people jump off things like the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of the day because hell, they might as well go off with a bang, and since they couldn't get attention when they're alive, why not when they're dead.

Strange films got in, such as "321" where the supposedly Malay prostitute looks extremely Chinese-Eurasian, or maybe Chindian- and what the hell was she doing in a/an (ill fitting) cheongsam when she should be in a baju or kebaya for authenticity? and that RI movie about racism, while good for raising awareness, made me stop halfway. Hackneyed is no good, and the LOOK! I HAVE ADOBE PREMIER EFFECTS! treatment was not good. It looked like something the MOE pulls out to warn us about drug taking. BAH. and that beating up sequenece? rofl. I swear it only got through because, well, it was RI, and you don't refuse the future leaders of tomorrow because you could end up bankrupt, or in exile.

and I have a question for you Singapore film-makers out there. Sure you can have the WKW influence all you want, as shown in Dusk, this can be a good thing. But one thing I find strangely puzzling is the Cantonese. Sure I'm Cantonese by default (my dad) but there aren't all that many of us, and even fewer of us who speak Canto anymore. Why not Hokkien? Sure it'd have been fine for a Malaysian-Chinese film but for a Singaporean-Chinese film...it was a little....off. Or even better, why were they no Nonya matriarchs? I would have loved a Bibik or two.

and in an even bigger show of racism, where the hell were the other non-Chinese entries? Were there simply no contestants? (plausible when you think about it since Chinese are the 75% majority)

EDIT: 4444 has been tomorrowed, and I took a look at it. It's a very short short film, but very cute nonetheless

(for the non-Chinese among us) "4" is traditionally seen as the number representing death given the similar intonations in almost all Chinese dialects, and even a homonym in Cantonese.

***
Well, you know how I've always maintained that I don't eat kittens for lunch, but babies taste pretty good?

Well, here's more information for the health concious among you.







Don't look at me.

Fern insisted I put it up, or she'd have shown me more gratituitous porn involving purple penises. The heinous cow. ;)

Look fern, I love you, and I do like Travis Fimmel, but purple penises are a big no no.

oh yeah. I also updated my profile, although the scarf question proves I'm no less neurotic.

Listening to: Tori Amos- Sleeps with Butterflies

ill and in denial

I. Am. Sick.

I didn't realise this till abotu 6pm tonight, which would be perfectly fine, until I tell you that I've actually been sick since Tuesday.

I woke up on Tuesday with a sore throat and thought nothing of it (too much MSG in my dinner)
Then of course I nearly bit someone's head off because of my (what I thought) caffeine addiction.

Wed had a sore throat, nose started running. I thought it was from the cold winds. My body was sore, thought it was too much gymming.

Thu, I woke up with a body ache, sore throat, which disappeared later in the day. (Gym and/or slept in the wrong position, sore throat caused by sinus runny nose)

Then I turned up at work, made sure I had my coffee...but the headache and ill temper started again. Had 2 advils (I normally only take one)...head still hurt.

Then I sliced my finger on something I don't even remember- either a knife or the orders list. Wouldn't stop bleeding, had to stop work for 5 min to bandage myself. Proceeded to slice finger on other hand.

The penny dropped. Something....is....not right?

Then I dropped food. HMMMM. (wastage sheet says: Myst. Klutz Supreme)

Head wouldn't stop. Started feeling hot and cold. Got so desperate I rang Gerri up to ask her to close for me, and I hightailed home.

And here I am, with little men playing jumping castles in my head.

I'm going to sleep as soon as I cook dinner.

Listening to: Xavier Naidoo- Wo willst du hin

Caffeine Addiction- Full Blown

Latte poured by Kyle at Victrola Coffee
Originally uploaded by tonx.

you see this? This is a coffee.

I NEED COFFEE TO FUNCTION.















Yes. That's right. 2 cups a day to be precise.

When the clock struck 3 and there was nary a hint of caffeine in my system, I was flipping the finger out at everything.

The customers were driving me nuts and small little things were tipping me over and pouring me out like the little crackpot I am.

At one point in time, I simply glared at the glass cleaner sitting beside some wooden boards, vowing to KILLKILLKILL the person who had DARED to clean wood with glass cleaner.

I mean, who the hell does shit like that. Right?



Glass cleaner cleans....you guessed it! GLASS!! No shit sherlock!



and it's not like the cleaning solutions are indistinguishable. It's a very pretty blue (like one of my favourite chemicals in chem class....potassium sulphateII? Copper Sulphate II!!!!!). The others are yellow and purple (Iodide?? that stuff that turns to carbon when you add acid and you have to use that radiator thing to suck everything up, it was a pretty purple nonetheless)

and as far as I know, no one at work is colour blind. I mean, we all have varying levels of lactose tolerance, but as I can percieve no direct correlation between lactose intolerance and colour blindness, not to mention that most of the staff are female and this decreases our chances by about....30%, IT WAS PISSING ME OFF.

I was literally losing it. Over glass cleaner on wood.

So I asked (not very nicely) for an early break, skulled 2 cups of coffee (1 strong, 1 normal strength) and within half an hour, all was well with the world.

The customers were not growing 6 heads; I wasn't going to kill the coffee maker because she'd yelled at me about opening a second bottle of skinny to make my latte because dammit, she was in the way and I wanted my coffee NOW and she's lucky I kept my mouth shut because hell, if I had opened it her head might not still be attached to her neck; the glass cleaner issue was like. EH?

and I came to the sorry realisation that yes, I was an addict. and my name is myst.

Listening To: Billie Holiday- Speak Low (Bent remix) {kickass as kickass can be}

it's a cute idea.

I'll think about it.

I've just found waiterrant.net. I'm late I know. But this guy rocks.

He gets the same clientele we do! Man, I am so sick of Black Amex holders who think they're Da Shit.

There are nice black amex holders (tips hat to the 2 ladies who came in with 2 of those, bought $1300 of stuff AND were pleasant about it)

and then there are the jerks who ring in and try to get us to put it through the phone AND ask for discounts.

YOU HAVE A BLACK AMEX. YOU CAN BUY A JET, A CASINO AND AN ISLAND IN ONE TRANSACTION ON THAT THING, WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME FOR A DISCOUNT? ASK HEAD OFFICE IF YOU MUST!

yes. I believe I have a huge crazed fandom for waiterrant.

Click here if you're unsure what a black amex entails.

jetrosexual

the terms they come up with. This one's HILARIOUS.

11. Thou shalt have thine passport ready to go at a moment's notice
yep. but of course. I used to travel internationally twice a year. and my current one's valid to 2010. Count that with you toes.

10. Thou shalt have a favorite airport and be prepared to explain why it is thine fave
hmmm. Melbourne international for the pub, the requisite (and one of few) Burger Kings (vs Hungry Jacks) and memories. Changi because, well, because.

I have several least favourites too.

9. Thou shalt not be a Chatty Cathy with thine seatmate
Nope. Never ever. Not even with the friendly businessmen in 1st class.

Especially the crazy demanding (and unfortunately super duper Silver Kris Card carrying) businessmen who actually demand the SIA 1st class pyjamas (did you even know they had that?)

8. Thou shalt never hold up the security line.

well. I TRY not to. I can't help it if they think I'm a drug dealer.

7. Thou shalt me able to order a beer in at least six different languages

I hate beer. But well, since brands are an international language. Asahi, Stella Artois, Hoegarden, QingTao, Kilkenny, Carlton Draught....Please? Gracias. xiexie. terima kasih. arigato. kumawa. and for good measure, danke.

6. Thou shalt respect the five minute rule when using thine lavatory

DEFINITELY. hate those people who go in there and do yoga, brush their teeth, and then proceed to clear the lavatory cabinets. GAH.

5. Thou shalt be able to pack a week's worth of clothes in a single carry-on bag
DUH. Been doing this since I was 14. ON MY OWN thankyouverymuch.

4. Thou shalt not own one of those inflatable neck pillows
I sometimes wish I had one. hate. cattle. class.

3. Thou shalt have at least one passport stamp from a country that now goes by a different name.

actually, I have several.

2. Thou shalt travel Economy class, on rare occasions, just to keep thine self humble
egawd. so that's why I shouldn't have neck rests. I NEED THEM IN ECONOMY!!!!! !@^*&&$

1. Thou shalt leave terra firma behind in order to move business and culture forward

ah. now you're testing my renaissance history?

sure thing. MAYTE. cheers.

aiyah no problem lah.

nothing but the radio on

Thank you for the music

Ibrahim Ferrer 1927-2005

***

I think this has been a rather funny little day.

According to some dudes on flickr, it did snow for a bit in the CBD, but only a few flakes at ground level.

Whatever it was, it even almost SMELT like Europe. Almost. It still smelt Melbourne. But more Europe than usual.

***

I'm listening to Dave Koz's Nothing But The Radio on repeat, just like I've been doing for the past hour.

It brings back happy-sad times, sitting in a car on borrowed time. Always the same old story.

"Don't take me home. I don't want to go home yet" I would plead, even though it would be 2am. and he would smile gently back at me. "What do you want to do?" "Anything."

So we did.

More often than not, he took me around Singapore. Its night sights, and around the new things that had sprung up during the year. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" I once exclaimed at the new glass building that encased a train station that most certainly wasn't there only 10 months ago.

He would laugh. Tell me what it was. What the Singapore situation was. The news, the happenings.

Sometimes, we would just drive. Drive into the dead 2am night, oblivious to the tropical air outside so full of salt and trees and the smell of rain we could both sense. Drive down empty highways as the streetlights swished past, so closely spaced that there never was that dichotomy of darkness and light. A softly orange-lit scene of tree-lined empty streets and highways that stretched on and on and on.

More often than not, it would also be raining. And so, with teardrops on the window screen, we drove. and Class 95 would be playing. And that cheesy voice would always intone. "and this is Simon, the Captain of Your Heart on Class 95FM" in a faux foreign sounding accent in a faux sexy low drawl with faux sympathy dripping from every sine-cosine sound wave at the lovelorn, the heartbroken, the in-love.

but the songs, you could not fault. Late night 95 was sexy, mushy easy-listening catered to the tropical breeze, the heavy salty air, the gentle rustle of your hair. The gentle lapping of waves on man-made beaches. all shroud in a softly-lit warm orange glow. For the lovelorn, the heartbroken, the in-love. The romantics, and the odd stressed up-all-night student who needed soothing music as they studied. A reprieve from a discussion of the thermodynamics of hell as described in the bible, or the human rights legislation that no one knew of.

And it was to this soundtrack that the two of us would drive along empty streets, on borrowed time. A ticking time bomb, as I helped to tarnish the soul, make him a little older, a little harder. Though he wouldn't know it till later.

Much later.

SNOW!

since I found out there's a forecast that there might be snow flurries in the CBD btwn midday and midnight today, I've been bopping.

I don't even know why I'm so excited when it's just a snow flurry, and I just saw snow by the tons in all shapes and forms a little over 8 months ago. Heavy snow, hard snow, powdery snow, snow men, slush, snow flurries, snow like rain but not heavy or hard...you wonder why inuits have something like 14 different words for types of snow....like how chinese have about 5 for rain. er, maybe snow flurries are like mao2 mao2 snow.

Anyway, offkilter was complaining about freezing her ass off, and saying Melbourne weather is nuts, winter starts in August. Don't worry babe, it may be the start of spring by 3pm. She thinks the weather is nuts. I love the nutty weather. Makes me feel at home in a mad world where I am mad.

Anyway, I was listening to Sohne Mannheims, a band I "discovered" in Switzerland, and getting all X'masy, and now I really want to download Pavarotti's O Holy Night and Aguilera's treatment of The X'mas Song. and we can go all Americana Christmas-y.

American X'mases. Even if you like nothing else about America, love their X'mases because truly, they sure know how to go about it.

Buena Vista Social Club

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

And he was my favourite singer on the album too!

I said they were coming and I wanted to change my flight just to see them because, well, when the album was made in the 1990s they were already the "aging greats".

Now they're about 80 or 90. I don't mean to sound mean, but YOU NEVER KNOW when they're gonna just cark it and kick the bucket.

To quote Arundhati Roy, it's a viable, die-able age.

So? Anyone else want to come and watch them?

Listening to: Buena Vista Social Club- De Camino A La Vereda

Didn't fly

Good night! good night! parting is such sweet sorrow

Time races at the speed of light, pops in and out of existence like one of those electrons.

and all of a sudden, I'm grasping at what cannot be grasped. Trying to clutch at this immaterial thing called time. Inexorable, intangible, a concept and a reality.

While my anxiety kicks in, my sadness takes me by the hand. I'm pumped with adrenaline and sedated, all at the same time. Like alcohol. An accelerant seeming depressant.

I will never see the beautiful smile and khol rimmed eyes, cocktail umbrella tucked behind one ear in wild bouffant hair. and I will never see the tea-cosy beanie firmly planted on wispy stringy blonde hair. I will never hear politically incorrect insults jokingly yelled at me in words that would have been strung together like a script on Dawson's Creek- by the hippie character from the Joey end of the tracks with the seth cohen quips. Or hear lyrical mandarin muttered in my ear saying the meanest thing about the meanest people, the voice belonging to a girl with a great shoe collection, and a spark in her eyes that speaks of untamable fire, like a wild horse.

and I realise that for 6 months, I will not see the two beautiful and proud owners of Ketchup, with their equally beautiful and proud fuel-related children. the ammendable, gentle, sweet, intelligent Diesel may not remember me. Amber will be needy. Ash will be sad, her mop hair hanging over her eyes, looking for all the world like a little lost schoolgirl. Six months their dads will be in London, being barista, in Spain staring at the serpentine Goya bench, the cathedral. Living in a real Spanish Apartment.

and where am I? Across the many seas. While they are leaving on their jet planes, I shall be in my little island home, as opposed to my big island home. The island so big they defined it a continent, an island that defied the concept of an island, with deserts, and winters.

and I won't be there to bid them goodbye. Goodbye from across the emerald expanses, that I often stare at from the plane while the still silvery moon turns yellow as we get closer to the tropics, and little lights appear. Marking where there may be hints of civilisation. Where the reach of the moon suddenly seems to huge when you see moonlight reflected on sheets and sheets of rippling water, 1000 miles up in a tin can with wings.

And hello to childhood friends, remembered at 3ft high. Skin as pale as snow. just for a while. While I say goodbye silently, across the green shimmering sea.

That I shall say good night till it be morrow

For I come from the salt water people
We always live by the sea
-My Island Home

No one believes me when I say I'm fat. I'm OVERWEIGHT. gawd. See? The WHO says so.

http://www.mydr.com.au/default.asp?Article=3735

shades of grey

When you're young you have this image of your life:
That you'll be scrupulous and one day even make a wife.
And you make boundaries you'd never dream to cross,
And if you happen to you wake completely lost.
-Missy Higgins: The Special Two

She was all alone, suffering from depression. Sick of the backstabbing, the stories, the rumours. Sick of the happy shiny faces that hid cruel metallic laughter. Sick of kindess that translated to contempt the moment she was out of sight.

She made a promise to herself that if she ever had a problem with anyone, she would tell them to their faces. They would either take it or leave it. If they were strong enough, they would stay. If they didn't, then too bad. For them, for her. It was a pity, but it wasn't the end of the world.

Then the real world outside the goldfish bowl came crashing in.

There was no black and white. No one really was ever wrong. The best villans are always the ones who think that they're right.

She learnt to temper her temper. She learnt not to bottle up so many emotions, leaving them on a shelf to simmer. She learnt the art of brokerage. She learnt tact in neccessary situations. She learnt how to play the game. How to play and beat the game of harlequin.

She still preferred to offset her forthright tendencies with tact, but she was able to play the game as well as anyone else.

+

It had been a long time coming. Tempers simmering.

She still preferred to tell people up front. She knew she would. It was too deeply ingrained.

Plenty was at stake. Egos, the fact that she was circumventing the hierachy, her friendship.


It was better that she came out and said it, she reasoned. She was not one of those backstabbers. It was better that the recipient hear it from her, a person who liked them, than to hear it being thrown at her in harsh words and fresh ink over officiating watchful eyes. It was better that she prepare her for what was to come.

She closed her eyes. This was the beginning. The crux. The matter with it all.

She realised she could lose everything. She realised that she was playing with fire, a game of quicksilver harlequin. She could lose the tenuous friendship, and most of all, her happiness.

She slept on it.

Listening to: Sinead O' Connor- One More Day