The Dark Life of Lancy

And the Award goes to...!!!

The results are out...and the Award for Best Comedic Performance of the Year goes to......
ABDULLAH AHMAD BADAWI...!!!!!!
Seriously, I can think of no other award more befitting to our dear and very much beloved prime minister.
Taking into consideration all the extremely laughable statements he has made since beginning of the year, and how he has managed to turn our entire country into an international laughing stock, this gentleman should be getting the Guinness world record indeed.
I cannot imagine how a country leader can be so weak-minded and indecisive, and yet has such gall and balls as to pretend that he is the nation's hero.
And talking about indecisive, he takes the cake for the fastest change of government decisions, ever.

"No, no, no...I will not remarry..."
*POOF*...he gets married. Not that I could really care less, though.

"No, no, no...Parliament will not be dissolved so soon..."
*PPOOFF*...the Parliament was dissolved the VERY NEXT DAY.

"NO, NO, NO...! I love the rakyat, so there will be no fuel price increase yet..."
*KKAAABBBBOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!*
Petrol prices increased a mind-numbing 40% THE VERY FUCKING NEXT DAY!

And now...for the grand performance...
"No, No, NO, I tell you...! There'll be no more price hikes this year!"
Even the cows must be scared shitless when they heard this latest statement!

Woi, hullo...Mister Clean...! We may not be cow farmers...but we sure as hell know bullshit when we see one!
And what's all this talk about sharing the pain and burden of the rakyat?
What's that you say...? The leaders want to set an example?
How nice...!
"All cabinet ministers shall have a 10% cut on their monthly entertainment allowances, and paid vacations shall be reduced to only one week per annum, and only to ASEAN countries..."
WTF?
WTF???!!!
SO, because you feel my pain and burden, and you feel sorry for the people, and you want to set a good example, hence you will use less of my money to entertain each other, and use less of my money to bring your family and cronies to lavish holidays in ASEAN countries?!
(Under what conditions do ministers "entertain" others is totally beyond me...when I'm sure everybody will be tripping over themselves to lick your boots and more in return for government contracts)
(Then Chua Soi Lek comes to mind...)
And all this while, you tell me to change my lifestyle, start eating ubi kayu, plant my own vegetables at my balcony, etc etc etc...???!!!
I can't even afford a local holiday, and you are accorded a PAID vacation???!!!
I'm sorry, I must've misunderstood the "share your burdens" part...
How can I trust a prime minister and a government that cons me and constantly keeps giving me the raw end of the deal?  That issues a press statement only to retract it and does the exact opposite, a mere 24 hours later?
No offense, but to me, all your statements and promises are to me, as someone said, pretty much like fart coming out fresh from an asshole...it gives absolutely no benefit whatsoever to the current situation, all it does is make a funny noise, stinks the air around, and make everybody really uncomfortable.
DIU...!!!

Life's Priorities

I was listening to Leo Ku’s 2006 hit song recently, “To Have Loved Too Late”, and was still struck with the same emotions I felt the first time I heard the song, despite having listened to the same song hundreds of times.

One of the saddest and most painful of all human emotions is remorse.

I believe that I would much prefer to never realize I have done anything wrong and forever live in a state of denial, rather than to realize and regret.

Because remorse is something you will have to live with for the absolute rest of your life, no matter how many more years that will be.

The killer is: You will never forget, and you will never have another chance to make things right ever again.

It will gnaw at the very core of your soul, and will haunt you every single day for the rest of your existence.

The truth is: I am dead afraid of feeling remorseful.

I am afraid that one day, my parents will be leaving me permanently, and I will never get to hear their wise counsel and words of love and encouragement anymore.

I have the same fear that the girl I love will leave me one day because she felt that I have not loved her enough.

The fear that I will never again hear their laughter at my feeble attempts at lame jokes; never again to feel their ecstasy at my successes; to never again see their smiles.

Isn’t it time to act now?

Whatever it is we want to do or say, there is no better time to do it than right now.

Despite our wanting to believe in our own immortality, the truth is harsh: You only live once, and you only get one shot at making it a good one.

Hence, isn’t it prudent to live life to the fullest, for all it’s worth?

Isn’t it immensely stupid to waste the little time we have here on Earth on trivial and ultimately inconsequential things like quarreling, anger, fighting, and envy?

What is the use of winning the whole world, but end up losing your own soul?

What is the use of earning all those money, if your aging parents are no longer around to see and share your success?

Is it really so important to win every argument, especially with the ones you love?

The plain and simple truth is: You may win an argument, but you may well have lost a little bit of their love in the process as well. You scratch and fight and yell and say hurtful things, and you feel victorious when the other person has nothing else to say, but the reality is that you have by your own hands stabbed a knife deep into the relationship.

And deep wounds never truly heal.

In the end, you have to demand an honest answer from yourself: What is more important?

Does it really hurt your pride so much to lose an argument for the sake of the relationship? Is your pride worth more than the love and happiness you share with them?

Is venting your anger more important than the peace and harmony within the family?

Is career and money more important than being with your parents and your loved ones?

Are you prepared to live with remorse?

 

 

Are You Truly Happy?

What is Happiness in Life?

Is being rich the same as being happy?

Maybe I should put in some numbers to make it easier to determine.

Can you imagine someone giving you ONE MILLION BUCKS?

OK…let’s up the stakes and consider this: how about getting One BILLION Dollars?

No hassle, no strings attached, no catches…the money is for you totally free.

I could already hear people murmuring, “Of course it would make me happy! Why not?”

But now, consider this…

What if the money was INHERITED?

What if you got that money because your father or your mother or your siblings were involved in an accident and died?

Would you still be as happy as you thought you would be?

Would you still be happy knowing that someone you love had to DIE to make you rich?

I figured not.

 

There is an urban legend that the CEO of Coca-Cola once said, “To live is to be like a clown trying to juggle 5 balls. They are Work, Health, Family, Friendship and Soul. Of these 5 balls, only 1 ball is made of rubber, and that is Work. No matter how hard you drop the ball, it will still bounce back and you can catch it again. But the other 4 balls are all made of glass. Once you drop any one of them, it will be destroyed. Hence, please be very careful with them.”

 

A lion cub was playing in the field.

Turning to his mother, he asked, “Mom, where can we find happiness?”

The lioness replied, “Happiness is right there on the tip of your tail, dear!”

The lion cub was very excited and began chasing his own tail, trying to catch the happiness that his mother had mentioned.

But no matter how hard he tried, he could never catch his own tail.

His mother laughed and said, “My dear boy, you can never catch happiness like that! All you have to do is to lift your head up high and walk with pride, and Happiness will automatically follow you wherever you go!”

 

I have found that Happiness is not a product of your surroundings, and it is in fact independent of your surroundings.

Happiness is, in fact, a choice of the mind.

And this choice can be made in advance, regardless of your situation and surroundings.

It is a sad fact that not many people realize this.

To be human is to err, it is said.

Well, I say: To be human is to Choose.

Life may seem like a very complicated subject, but actually, when you seriously consider it, if you would just cut away all the excess junk in life, then everything, every single situation in Life, boils down to a simple choice.

 

Have you chosen to be happy today?

Say NO to English...and YES to Swahili.

I read this article many years ago, and just recently remembered about it. So I googled it and post it here for the benefit of those un-enlightened ones. Confirms my belief that English-speaking people are weird folks. Everybody should speak Swahili.

************************************************************************************************

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Park on driveways and drive on parkways? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible? And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it? English is a silly language — it doesn't know if it is coming or going.

The Power of Miracles

Miracles.
Some people dispute them, some people swear by them, some people desperately need them, some people pray for them.
But one thing is for sure: EVERYBODY wants them.
Especially miracles that work in your favor.
Personally, I have experienced miracles since as young as I could remember. Of course, you would probably also have to define what actually constitutes a valid miracle. In any case, however, I believe that miracles are a matter of personal perspective, hence my claim to experiencing miracles.
I dare say that since I was just a toddler, I have probably had no less than 5 or 6 near-death experiences in the 20-odd years of my life. The bulk of them happened within the past 10 years. And yet, till now, death has not been able to claim me just yet, and quite frankly, I attribute that to the grace of God, by granting me just-in-time miracles over and over again.
In fact, another miracle just happened a couple of days ago, though not on me personally, but I feel inclined to share it.
I got a call from my father sometime last week, sounding very serious and hesitant. I immediately sensed that something was horribly wrong, and to be perfectly honest, felt a sharp stab of fear. My heart went cold for a second before he announced the bad news: My sister's car was just stolen while she was at work.
I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way, but I actually felt a huge relief. Sure, a stolen car is a huge inconvenience, but at least my family is safe, alive and healthy. I was half-expecting that someone was in the hospital or something.
Still, that was bad news. I was told that my sister had lodged a police report, and I was planning to call her later that evening, knowing that she was probably still in a state of shock and probably too busy handling the police reports and stuff.
That was when the miracle was granted to us.
Less than two hours later, my sister called me herself, and told me the miracle: She had found her car again. Apparently the car broke down just when the thief was trying to make his getaway, and had stalled somewhere not too far away.
The car's engine was apparently faulty, with some loose mechanical component had been dislodged within the engine block sometime ago. My sister had been driving this second-hand car for the past 9 months or so, and it could have had failed anytime during that whole 9-month period. But, instead, the engine chose this EXACT day and this EXACT moment to fail.
Had the car failed anytime earlier, she would've gotten it fixed, and today she would probably never see her car again. Should the car fail anytime later, the thief would probably have made it to his hideout, wherever that is, and she would probably never see her car again either.
I mean, WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF THAT?!
Right now, she'll probably have to fork out an extra RM 2,000 to fix up the car, but hey, to me at least, this is not just a blessing in disguise...this is a full-blown miracle, in every sense of the word.
Miracles are all around us, every single day. We may not see the dead coming alive, or the sea parted, or water turned to wine, but the miracles are there, if we only look hard enough.
Have you experienced your miracle today?

Enthusiasm is a luxury of the Ignorant

Well, 2007 came and gone...in what felt like less than a blink of an eye, which I'm sure a lot of you will agree with me.
Gone, never to come back...lost...forever to be referred to as HISTORY.
And me?
I'm still the same old me.
Same OLDER me.
These days, I just could not care less about what goes on around me anymore.
I mean, I was blissfully ignorant before...but these days, these days are different. These days I am so absorbed in my own thoughts, troubles and problems that I have absolutely NO INTEREST whatsoever in what goes on.
Our ex-Health Minister, who proved to us that at that ripe old age, he was very healthy indeed...the case of Edison Chen (no idea why people are so hyped up about it...people have sex, period. Celebrities, political figures, football stars, EVERYBODY has sex...OK, maybe except eunuchs and people who adopt celibacy. Hell, I'm pretty sure even Yoda has sex once in a while...!)...the upcoming general elections, bodies found in bags, kids missing, ex-presidents killed, Microsoft trying to take over Yahoo...you know, the whole lot.
Something must be wrong with me...or maybe the world is just sick.
Sick...or sickening, anyway.
Which is probably why I have not posted on the blog for such a long time...there's absolutely nothing meaningful to say anymore.
That, plus the fact that I'm bloody lazy, of course.
Will 2008 be any different?
We'll see...10 more months to go.
Time for some coffee.

The Negaraku Incident

Hang on...first of all, let me reinstate here that this blog is private, I did not invite you to come read this bullshit, and I do not propagate racial disharmony or claim that I am always telling the truth.
This is my private diary, and if you're reading this, then you're a lousy spying voyeur who's probably up to no good.
Shame on you.
You know...just so I don't get into trouble with Big Brother. You never know.

Anyways, to those who aspire to be totally ignorant, but sadly, are not ignorant enough (like me, unfortunately), I'm sure many would know about the Chinese Malaysian studying in Taiwan, who recently created quite a stir amongst our beloved politicians when he created a parody of our national anthem "Negaraku" in the form of a Mandarin rap song.
Our National Anthem in Mandarin, and littered with rude slangs and otherwise purportedly insensitive remarks about Islam and our fellow Malays, you can imagine that politicians, and many other hardcore fans of the Malaysian integrity, have been condemning the fellow and have even called for a ban on this video, and many have even gone so far as to call for him to be arrested and stripped of his nationality.
Well, I'm not one to judge and criticise blindly, so being the good little boy that I am, I went to Youtube and watched the entire clip.
Twice.
And downloaded it.
And I have to say: This dude is a bloody genius.
For one, rude slangs do not disturb me much. Considering my circle of friends and line of work, his so-called rude language actually seemed mild in comparison and, in many instances, even gut-wrenchingly hilarious.
Also, I can't say much for his "insensitive remarks towards Islam and the Malay community", as far as I am personally concerned. Maybe I am just being ignorant, but it seems to me that all he said about Islam was that the prayer recitals, blaring from the rooftops of local mosques, were sometimes off-key, and that they acted like alarms clocks, timely as they are.
Most of the flak has been on our government, actually. The snail-like performance of the government departments and their lackadaisical attitudes, the willingness of our police officers to enjoy a cup of steaming teh tarik with drivers everywhere, the folly of our education system...you know, THE TRUTH IN GENERAL.
This is the freakin' 21st century, men have been to the Moon and back, we have satellites that have sailed out of our solar system, we have the INTERNET, FOR GOODNESS' SAKES, and yet here we are, condemning a bloke who's (mostly) told the truth in general, and, to my knowledge, not really triggered any major consequences at all.
Perhaps, the only sin this poor fellow committed, was that his humor was seen by people who do not have any. People who are so simple and shallow-minded, and have so little confidence in the intelligence and maturity of our nation, that they worry that a parody song could jeopardize the integrity and stability of our nation, and bring down a millenia-old religion.
Humorless imbeciles with primitive lizard-brains should be banned against watching Youtube.

Feeling Suicidal?

I'm not sure how many people watch CSI on TV, but it amazes me everytime how good and imaginative the scriptwriters are.
A couple of weeks ago, I was just lazing around on my really comfortable sofa, with a cup of hot Nescafe in my left hand and the Astro remote in my right hand, browsing through the channels, when I came across CSI on one of the channels.
I kinda forgot the episode, but my greatest impression came right at the end of the episode, when one death-row inmate committed suicide in his prison cell.
OK, death-row inmates committing suicide is nothing new, granted. But here's the kicker: This fellow did it with...a sandwich.
I shit you not...our friend killed himself by eating a peanut-butter sandwich.
Apparently he was hyper-allergic to peanuts. A couple of minutes after eating it, he was convulsing and coughing up foam and just died.
I mean...like, how cool can you be?
Imagine the conversation between the guards:

Guard 1: Hey Fred, I heard one of them kicked it in his cell last night.
Guard 2: Yeah. Guess he didn't believe in the whole capital punishment business.
Guard 1: No kidding. By the way, how'd he do it?
Guard 2: Oh, you know, the usual...he ate a sandwich.

Makes you wonder how frail the human life is, and how little it takes to effectively kill someone. In another case, I read in a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip that by just playing innocently in a little rain, you may catch pneumonia, wind up a horrendous hospital bill, linger a few months and die.
I mean, like, WOW.
Hats off to the people who come up with these ideas on a daily basis.
Instead of killing hostages and bombing the subway, terrorists could now just force people to play football in the rain, after forcing them all to eat peanut-butter sandwiches.
Or durians, for that matter. I know some people who would rather punch the Devil on the nose than to touch the fruit.
Weird folks.

Reminiscence of days past

Years pass, seasons change, time and tide flow in an eternal fluidic motion like the event horizon of a cosmic black hole, sucking everything into the eye of its endless maelstrom from which no-one can escape. All light is lost, and hope becomes a luxury even for the extravagant.

Time is a cruel master. And yet, it is a fair one. No one can add a single second to his life beyond what was allocated, no one can decide if his days were to be longer than his nights, and no one, by his own will, can decide to live in any time other than the present. The Sun shines on the evil as well as on the good.

A full six years have passed since the first day I was introduced to all the members in this institution, since my real first step into society, since the first day I walked into another phase in my life, and never looked back.

Today marks the beginning of the seventh year. May the best of last year be the worst of this.

Bloodbath and Gore Galore

I recently went for a movie with a pal at One Utama, namely "300".

It was quite a cool movie, very nicely done. For those who have not watched it yet, it is about Leonidas I, King of the Spartans, who, in 480B.C., led 300 Spartan warriors to battle against the invading Persian army. Historians' opinions differ, but most put the estimated number of Persian soldiers at 250,000 to one million. The battle, which came to be known as The Battle at Thermopylae, though lost, sparked an all-out war between Greece and Persia one year later, and the Spartans became legendary for their courage, bravery, fighting skills and unrelenting will. They later became known as the greatest warriors that ever walked on the surface of the Earth.

However, that's not my point.

I just wanted to point out that there were a lot of gory scenes with hundreds of liters of human bloodshed, and I am pleased to say that I actually liked what I saw. That said, I was pleasantly surprised that the film made it through the censorship board at all.

I recently found that I am quite into this kind of thing...gore, bloodshed, people screaming out of fear and desperation, heads and limbs chopped off, people stabbed with swords, spears, knives, and whatever kind of sharp objects solely intended to inflict pain.

I just finished watching Saw 2 and Saw 3 as well, though I must admit, it didn't really compare well with the original Saw, in terms of psychological impact. I was actually feeling a bit bored halfway through both movies.

For the interested, "Hostel", inspired by Quentin Tarantino, is also an interesting watch, though it really focused more on the atmosphere rather than direct gore.

It really intrigued me how dark, evil, twisted and sadistic the human soul can be.

MMMmwwwaaahahahahahahaha...!!!!!!!!!

I think I need professional help.