Veritas et Aequitas

2005-04-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

I hate this contemporary, Rumsfeldian way of speaking where you ask a question and then answer it yourself. Example: “Does that mean things will be difficult for us? Yes. Does that mean we’ll quit? No.” It’s irritating and it displeases me, and when I have servants I will tell them so constantly.

Why don’t you just say “Things will be difficult but we won’t quit.” It’s shorter.

“Does it make you a douchebag if you answer your own questions out loud? Yes. Are you capturing my attention? No.”

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Apparently there was a local explosion of some sort, later in the evening. I was at the West Side today and on my way out I saw like, literally twenty fire engines scattered all over Clementi like a “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” bug.

Three or four fire engines is no big deal, you see it every day; twenty is scary. I checked my phone to see if today’s date was 9/11 upside down or something.

The firemen said a plastics place had caught fire. I didn’t smell anything but I’m sure it smelled terrific. I know because there’s construction underneath my apartment, and twice a month they turn on what sounds like a buzzsaw and immediately afterwards my apartment fills with the smell of burning plastic. For the first five minutes it’s terrible; for the second twenty minutes it’s bad; after that you can’t smell it anymore but you lose the ability to do math.

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I was never great at math to begin with; I somehow managed to defy my DNA imperative. I blame it on my attention deficit disorder. It’s an exquisitely cruel irony that the thing preventing me from being good at math is abbreviated "ADD."

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Jesus. I’m on a funk jag, and Average White Band’s “Cut the Cake” is the best thing to happen to me in a while.If you can listen to “Cut the Cake” without standing up at your desk, pushing the chair back and shuffling around then you are made out of wood. Like Jake Gyllenhaal. Yes he is, and you know it.

Pending Catchy Caption

2005-04-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

I like giving people directions. I don’t know when it started, but lately I find myself crossing the street and approaching map-peering tourists that are clearly lost. If you ever wanted directions you would love the ones I gave you because they are clear, succinct and accurate. “Go two blocks, make a left.” “Go a block south to Holland Village, make a left, then make your second right.”

Most people are thankful, but some people don’t want my directions. They clutch their maps tight and look at me with actual fear, as if all the rumors they’ve heard about Asians are true and I’m going to pistol-whip them before taking their sneakers. But I push my directions on them anyway. “That’s north, that’s south,” I say, pointing to each. If they don’t wanna tell me where they’re going, fine; but at least I oriented them.

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So I’m used to approaching people, not so used to people approaching me. Yesterday I’m down in front of the Jade for my dinner, knocking off a smoke and officially neglecting my duties as Desperate Umemployed Guy. I've been trying to get companies interested for hours and I figure I can make do for fifteen. Anyways this kid comes up to me, maybe early twenties. Dressed down. Crew cut, intense look.

“Can I ask you a question?” he says, getting right up in my ear. “I’m taking a survey for my school.”

At a glance I figure he’s not a threat. “Sure.”“What do you think happens to you after you die?”

I think about it. Ten seconds passes. A breeze blows smoke from my cigarette into the kid’s face, but he doesn’t blink.

“I don’t think anything happens,” I finally say. “I think you die, then that’s it.”

The kid scribbles something into a notepad and shakes his head. “I’ve been getting a lot of those today,” he says. Which I thought was odd, because I noticed the notepad was blank; he was scribbling on the first page. “Maybe it was different before 9/11, or what’s going on over in Iraq. Some people think nothing happens to you when you die. But after you die, that’s an eternity, right? You’re stuck in eternity, don’t you think?”

Now I’m suspicious. “What school?” I ask.

“What?” he says, even though he heard me.“What school do you go to?”

“SA,” he says, and suddenly he looks uncomfortable. “I have something for you,” he says, quickly changing topic and pulling something out of his bag.

It looks like a wallet with twenties sticking out of it, but as he presses it into my hand I see it’s just a photorealistic brochure that’s been cut and designed to look like that. I open it up. There are multiple-choice questions inside.

“Thank you for taking the time,” he says, and walks off without another word.

I put the cigarette back in my mouth and start reading the questions.

- Do you consider yourself a good person?
- Have you ever stolen anything?
- Where do people go after they die?
- If someone tells you they are a thief, do you think they are a good person?

I flip to the back, and see a passage from the Bible. The numbers, the colons.

I look after the kid, but he’s long gone. You know, if he wanted to talk to me about God he could’ve just said so. Survey. Sheesh.

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I think about the people who don’t want my directions. When I see them with a map I tell them which way north and south is anyway, because I assume they need them. Maybe the kid figured he’s doing the same thing. Maybe he can see my soul and my soul is holding a map, so he figures he’s orienting me. I dunno.

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Alcohol free-Day 4

2004-10-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

By four in the morning I’m very, very tired. I click the lamp off, my head hits the pillow and I slowly begin descending into sleep. Fifteen seconds into it I hear a shockingly loud

BAMMM

and my eyes pop open.

Without a doubt that was the sound of a car accident, and judging by the volume of the crunch, the vehicle involved was huge. The lack of screeching preceding the impact means the driver didn’t even brake.

Well. I’m sure someone will call the police. There are plenty of other neighbors who probably heard it, I think, and close my eyes.

“Fuuuuck,” I say, opening them again. It’s attitudes like this that led to the Kitty Genovese thing, and I don’t want to be one of those people. (Do a Google if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) I get out of bed and start pulling clothes on.

It’s cold and raining outside. First thing I see is a newspaper delivery truck, massive and dinosaur-proportioned, pulled over by the curb. They often rocket up my block late at night, because if you really gun it you can catch all the lights in a row. The driver is standing in front of the truck with a cell phone pressed against his ear.

The yellowtop cab he T-boned is thirty feet behind, skewed crazily in the middle of the intersection, passenger side crunched in like a “C.” The taxi driver is still sitting in the driver’s seat, talking calmly into his cell. Next to the cab lies the massive front bumper from the News truck, torn off from the impact.

Another yellowtop cab cruises past the damaged one and slows conspicuously, the way I’d imagine Serengeti wildebeests might pause when passing a mortally-wounded brother. The drivers make eye contact and then the undamaged cab is on its way.

There’s nothing for me to do down here, so I go back inside.

Poor Ms. Genovese, reduced to a paragraph or two in sociology textbooks. A shame if you ask me.

Soulmates.Yeah.

2004-09-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

My Soulmate Sells Kumquats

THE SCENE: 11 p.m. on a Thursday. I`m eating noodles at a Korean outlet with L., an attractive 20-something professional. I`ve known her for five days

ME:Good noodles.
SHE:So, do you believe in "soulmates"?
ME:[choking] Uh...yes...no...maybe.
SHE:I believe in soulmates. I believe there`s someone out there for everyone. What do you think?
ME:Well...I think there`s absolutely no Cosmic Guarantee that there`s anyone on this planet with whom I`m destined to have a meaningful, entertaining, and durable relationship. And even if there is, with my luck she probably lives in Jakarta.
SHE:That`s...interesting.
ME:She lives in Jakarta and sells kumquats from a cart. She speaks three languages, none of them being English. But somehow, it`s been supernaturally ordained that she`s "The One."
SHE:So how do you decide who you want to date?
ME:I just play it by ear. The soulmate thing is too much to shoot for. For instance, I asked you on a date because...well, because you`re pretty and we smoke the same cigarettes. Figured I`d just, you know, see where it went.
SHE:Huh. I`m gonna get some more noodles. [gets up]

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I don`t know where people get this idea that there`s "somebody special" out there for everyone. "Oh, it`s fated," people say.

Lemme tell you a little something--God, Allah, Fate, or whoever`s up there for you--these are busy people. They`re dealing with things like floods, earthquakes, and world peace--they`ve got better things to do than sit around and map your romantic future. If God`s got a Palm Pilot, you can be damn sure "Hook Peter up with Jenny" isn`t on his To Do list today.

How could such a thing as "soulmates" be possible, when people are constantly changing and evolving? Are you the exact same person you were one year ago? I mean, this ain`t like back in the day, 700 years ago, when you were born a farmer and stayed a farmer.

In the year 2004, people are constantly reinventing themselves. People adapt to new situations, personalities change over the years. I`ve seen people changed by money, changed by careers, changed by drugs. Seen straight folk gone gay.

Bad news: People are unpredictable, quirky little organisms, and there is no cosmic guarantee that your perfect match is out there. And even if there was, look, there are over 2.5 billion people of the opposite sex on this planet; the odds of you finding her are 2.5-billion-to-1. (Bad news if you`re bisexual: you`ve got 5-billion-to-1 odds.)

And people fall in and out of love. If you`re lucky, when the music stops you`ll be in a good relationship with someone you care for, understand, and have really good sex with. If you`re unlucky, when the music stops you`ll own lots of cats, several of whom you`ll actually argue with.

I think it`s more realistic to just start with someone you`ve got some basic commonalities with, someone with whom you have a mutual attraction. If you like each other enough, if the energy is right, then hopefully you`ll get that little feeling in your chest, that feeling that makes everything OK when she keeps you waiting for an hour or throws up in your car. If the vibe is right, you`ll make your best efforts to make it work, and compensate for all surmountable incompatibilities.

In the absence of Fated Soulmates, I think we owe it to ourselves to have as many moments, as many connections, as possible. The globe keeps spinning with or without you; you might as well be having fun.

2004-08-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

That's me on the right.

Shoulda Stuck With the "Friend" Thing

2004-08-29T05:29:00.000-07:00

ME:If you`re not attracted to me. I totally understand, and I won`t press it. You can`t date someone you`re not attracted to.

SHE:I am attracted to you. It`s just that...I don`t know....

ME:Well, shouldn`t we give it a shot? Look, we have a lot of fun together, we both live close enough.... What`s
your favorite movie?

SHE:Meet Joe Black.

ME:That`s in my Top Five! See, we`ve got a common vibe going on. I`ll prove it--I`m thinking of a number between one and twenty. Try to guess what it is. Just guess.

SHE:Thirteen.

ME:Okay that wasn`t it. But it was close....

SHE:Fourteen.

ME:...No.

SHE:Six.

ME:Uh, guess again.

SHE:I don`t know, seventeen.

ME:Close! It was nineteen! You were only off by two. Two is a close enough number that we should date, no?

Needless to say, this didn`t go anywhere. Which is just as well, because I usually end up dating the wrong chicks.
I go for the wrong types, I have poor filtering systems. My friends just shake their heads. "Why didn`t you say something?" I`ll say, after the girl has gutted me and broken one of my appliances.
"Well, you seemed really into her," they say. "Didn`t wanna burst your bubble." Then one day the bubble bursts, and I can`t make toast.

The Woman
The woman from the dialogue above, let`s call her Trouble, was absolutely the wrong woman for me, but I couldn`t tell. All I can say is, sometimes the trailer looks great, but the movie sucks.

The "trailer" for Trouble: a hip, confident, witty downtown-style chick. Stable job, well-read, studied martial arts but still smoked. A catch in my book.

The actual "movie": a confused, man-hating kneejerk Feminazi, though I wouldn`t discover this until months later (that`s another story). I should have read the reviews.

The Warning
I did hear one review. "Stay away from her," warned a mutual friend, who`d gone to school with Trouble. "She`s a judgmental girl. You might fall in her favor now, but once you do something that doesn`t line up with her vision of what you should be, you`ll be on the outs. Trust me." But did I listen? Nooooooo....

The Setup
Trouble and I are in a cafe downtown, late on a Thursday. We`ve been hanging out every other night for a week. Sparks aren`t flying just yet, but I figure they`re preparing for takeoff.

"I`m surprised we`ve seen each other so much lately," I say, as the gruesomely hip waitress throws the menus at us. "You don`t seem like the type of girl to give so much of her time to one person."

"I`m not, Ivan," she says, scanning the menu. "But I like spending time with you." Green light, or red herring? I started to fall for her. Even though she lived in the far east and I was going broke on the tolls.

Why Do You...
Trouble and I continue hanging out. When she moves from Bedok into Holland Village I see her even more, and before long there`s some chemistry happening, electrons trading places and all that sh-t. One night in her new apartment, I bring up the idea of the two of us dating, and our little burgeoning relationship slams into a pothole.

"Us, going out? But we`re friends," she says, and my teleprompter reads AH, F-CK on it. I`ve been shot down by Friendly Fire, the worst kind.

Later I go home to mop the floor. During periods of distress, I tend to clean. The upshot of things going wrong with women is that my kitchen usually ends up spotless.

Build Me Up, Buttercup, Baby...
Okay, I think. Trouble and I will just be friends, fine.
But one night we`re at my place, and she starts in with the flirting. Like an alcoholic trying to stay sober, I`m trying to stay in the Friend Zone so I lay it down. "Listen, Trouble," I say. "you`re gonna have to crank the flirting down a notch. Because frankly, you`re confusing the sh-t outta me."

"Well," she says, slowly, "you`re not the only one who`s confused."

Ai-yah. Ai-gu.
Later that night, we`re at her place, on her couch. I make the move, she`s receptive, and stuff starts happening. Nothing too hot and heavy, PG-13 all the way; but nevertheless, stuff. I`m thinking my Friend status has been revoked.

Just to Let Me Down
Two days later, the winds change and we have the conversation I printed up top. The deal is off, my show has been canceled, the gig is up. Why she changed her mind, I`ll never know.

I`m scrubbing the kitchen counter at 2 in the morning when my roommate comes home. "Girl trouble?" he says, eyeing the Scrubbing Bubbles. He`s been following the story, and I give him the update.

"Yo," he says, after I bring him up to speed. "Woman like that, who can`t make up her mind, sounds like trouble. She`d be even more trouble if you started dating her. It`s good that you didn`t get into it--later you`ll realize you dodged a bullet."

Turns out he was right; I later found out she is a pain in the ass, and I did dodge a bullet. Problem is, I think I subconsciously enjoy getting shot at.

"Plenty of fish in the sea," says my roommate, gesturing towards our window, beyond which lies the rest of the island. He`s right, there`s a whole city of women out there for me to meet.

I`d better stock up on Mop `N Glo. ©

Bars...

2004-08-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

I used to walk into a bar or a party and think “My future girlfriend might be in here.” I don’t think that anymore.

Sometimes it scares me thinking about all the weird shit I’m into and how I’ll never be able to share it with anyone. Not just some of it, all of it. That sinking realization that there is no Right Woman; my tastes have become too insane and specific. With each passing year and its attendant accrual of idiosyncrasies and experiences, the chances of finding a match become more and more remote.

Sometimes I care, sometimes I don’t. I think these days I mostly just want the physical stuff. It’s so easy to understand, easy to see where you are and the feedback is immediate. Best of all it involves a minimum of talking.

My patience for bullshit has gone way, way down. I look back at some of the bullshit ex-girlfriends have put me through and I wonder what the fuck I was ever thinking. I wonder how I could have let some of these people trick me and/or completely waste my time. I’m ashamed at my own complicity.

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Whenever I start feeling bad for no reason, I tell myself it’s just chemical. An unlucky combination of ingredients stemming from having eaten the wrong foods or maintaining improper levels of sleep, endorphins, caffeine or nicotine. That tomorrow I will wake up and feel good and hear a fucking funny joke or read something interesting, or take a picture I like, or go into a bar with the proper level of expectations.

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Today was a long day, but tonight was a good night. I went into a bar with the proper level of expectations, and they were exceeded.

I’d like tomorrow to be a short day, but you cannot specify with these things. It would be nice if you could order days like catalog items. If you could do so my tomorrow would be short, productive and filled with much sleep.

My head hurts. It’s either the gin or the lack of sleep. Either way I am going to remedy the situation by lying prone until my breathing becomes even, my eyes close and my consciousness goes away.

I have this theory that when sleeping my consciousness doesn’t actually go away, it’s simply transferred to a person who’s just waking up on the other side of the planet. Then when they go to sleep I get it back. But I can’t decide if it’s the same person or a different person every day. Or if it’s a dude or a chick, young or old, good or evil. I’d put up a poll but I can barely keep my eyes open. Talk to you later.

Day 6

2004-08-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

Today’s soundtrack:I'll take you back to 73 before I ever had a multi-platinum sellin' CD...

Today at 8:02pm: Watching an incredibly depressing movie from mainland China. Don’t ever move to Datong

I have such random shit in my Bookmarks. Classic muscle cars, some banking shit, the blog of some strange female I’ve never met (nor read, except for that one time), some hotel rooms I don’t remember inquiring about, HMV pages, a link to the Mass MOCA.

Whatchu got in yours? It would be interesting to profile people based on what they had in their bookmarks (discounting the boringly obvious, like porn). They could have a magazine called Celebrity Bookmarks and I guarantee you some asshole would read it. “Let’s see what Tom Cruise has in his bookmarks!”

I can’t lie, that asshole might be me. Sometimes when I get home “Access Hollywood” is on, and I don’t turn it off like I should.

I have dreams about dressing D-onald R-umsfeld up in full combat gear and dropping his ass off in hostile territory. You want a war so fucking bad go fight it your fucking self. Get in there, Donald. Keep your head down.

Everyone knows Saddam needs to go, but an assault on Iraq seems like a ridiculously inelegant and karmically costly solution. We invented psychological warfare, rotating credit and fast food; I have a hard time believing we can’t think of some evil, sneaky shit to get rid of this guy. War seems so fucking 1940s.

Day 5

2004-08-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

Today’s soundtrack: unpaid bills...Afghanistan hills
Today at 7:02pm: Doing involuntary push-ups.

Midnight on a Wednesday and you have to ask yourself, do you really wanna go out to a bar? Do you really want to put your Outside Pants on and stuff some crumpled, miraculously unspent bills in your pocket and go?
Or do you want to just stay home and chill. Catch a little Conan, make a nice pot of decaf, write your silly little journals.

Last night I chose wrong, I went to the bar. You shouldn’t go simply because you have nothing better to do, right? I used to think some sensation, any sensation was better than no sensation at all but now I’m not so sure.

Speaking of sensation did you ever drink absinthe? I drank it last year in friend's house. I’m not much for drugs and shit but absinthe was fucking awesome. It felt like listening to all the best Def Leppard songs in a cloud filled with pretty girls.

I’m hiding from my “journal.” I put “journal” in quotes because until I make some significant fucking progress it’s just a joke, a loose collection of unintelligent sentences that all happen to be in the same Word file.

When I’m writing it I see the characters moving around, I hear the things they say and I transcribe it.

When I’m not writing it I see the characters frozen in suspended animation, just sitting there floating. Doing nothing, saying nothing. They’re so sad when they’re not doing anything, it’s almost like they’re temporarily dead. Sometimes I go for a walk and they start moving again. Other times I look in the mirror and see a grim hack.

Lord of the Rings..

2004-08-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

Do NOT read below if you have not seen Lord of the Rings III: Return of the King, because I’m going to discuss the ending.

It was definitely satisfying, worth every penny of the ten bucks. They neatly tied up most of the storylines so you know what happens to everyone, but to me there are many questions they left unanswered.

So I think they should make a fourth one, Lord of the Rings IV: The Clean-Up. What a mess they made in this movie! From the battle at Minas Tirith to that city they trashed by the river to the destruction of Mount Doom and all of Mordor.

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Here are the unresolved issues:

1. Orc-aid. At the end of the movie, Mordor is destroyed and thousands of orcs flee into the countryside. This is a humanitarian disaster! Where are all these now-homeless orcs going to live, and what will they eat? And do you want an unemployed, displaced population of thousands running around carrying spiked iron balls and shit?

2. Lord of the EPA. After Frodo ditches the ring Mount Doom erupts, explodes and erodes. I’m no expert agriculturalist, but come on, all that molten lava can’t be good for the ecosystem. The fallout must have been crazy. Not to mention with that much soot in the air, Gandalf the White had better have plenty of detergent.

BILBO
Oh, you became Gandalf the Grey again!

GANDALF
No, I’m still Gandalf the White.

BILBO
But your robes are all--

GANDALF
I know, I know, I know, shut up about it already. Mordor’s covered in like three feet of soot so what do you want from me.

3. Clean-up in Aisle Seven. The war at Minas Tirith (the white city, the one that looked like a Parliament ad) left a huuuuge goddamned mess in front of the city. Broken catapults, ruined siege towers, gargantuan chunks of masonry, and thousands of corpses, including at least twelve of those gigantic elephant-things.

What do you do with the corpse of a forty-foot war mammoth? You can’t just leave it there to rot--can you imagine the smell? But you can’t exactly drag it away either, I mean where are you going to put it.

I guess they could cut them up and make elephant steak, but you can practically see the looks on kids’ faces (“We’re eating elephant again?”) and whatever they didn’t finish in a week would probably go bad, since they didn’t have refrigerators and stuff.

If I was mayor of Minas Tirith I would dictate the hobbits drag the corpses of all twelve war mammoths back to The Shire. “Oh, they’re little people all right, but don’t underestimate them! You saw what they did. Compared to getting rid of that ring this oughta be a piece of cake... Frodo! You want some rope?”

On the other hand, the broken catapults were probably easy to get rid off--they had wheels, so you could drag them to a lot behind the city and sell them at a discount. (“Like new! Low mileage! Only used once!”) And as far as the siege towers, I guess you could save those in case you needed to raid a neighboring city.

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Random Observations:

- For a wizard, Gandalf doesn’t seem to do a lot of goddamned magic. There’s one scene where he rides out and scares dragons away by turning his staff into a huge flashlight. Other than that he doesn’t do so much as pull a penny out of Frodo’s ear. Magicians at children’s birthday parties do more tricks than this guy.

- As Lam pointed out, Gandalf has an air freshener on the top of his staff. (Check it out.) I guess he has some personal odor issues.

- There seemed to be more than one scene where two hobbits take a tumble down a hill or battlefield and one of them lands on top of the other. And then, rather than standing and dusting themselves off, they recite several lines of dialogue to each other while in the prone position. Hmmm.

- I’m not afraid to say it: That scene at the end, where three hobbits are frolicking in a bed and then an extremely enthusiastic-looking dwarf shows up? Yeah, I got a little uncomfortable.

- Do you think Hobbits have huge penises? ‘Cause their feet are like HUGE.

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As with the previous two films, it’s a little difficult not to be disappointed with Frodo’s performance. Like if you were Frodo’s boss, you’d totally fire him. The paperwork might look like this:

Performance Review
Employee: Baggins, Frodo

Employee demonstrates:

- A lack of follow-through
- Inability to delegate tasks
- Inability to take command of a situation
- Inability to identify problems and implement synergistic solutions
- A tendency to pass out during times of danger
- A tendency to cry when scared or despairing
- Inability to correctly select which of two companions to align himself with: a) an honest, trustworthy, hardworking and lifelong friend, or b) a murderous, schizophrenic mutant.

Comments: Subject appears dazed and is perenially unshod. Recommend dismissal pending consultation with HR.

If you ask me, Sam is the one who does all the heavy lifting. That’s right, the gardener.

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So the end finally comes, and surprise surprise, Frodo can’t do the job. He can’t throw the ring into the fire. Gee, who could’ve seen this coming. All those times he cried and started whining, I said to myself “Now here’s a guy with some cojones.” But no!

If I was Sam, at that point I would’ve double-drop-kicked Frodo right off that ledge. Then I would’ve picked Gollum up and twisted him into a pretzel, and sent him to keep Frodo company.

GANDALF
So what happened?

SAM
Job’s done.

GANDALF
What happened to Frodo?

SAM
Er...he fell.

Spidey....

2004-07-30T23:50:00.000-07:00

Today’s soundtrack: my mind spray

Today at 2.53pm: joyless lunch of instant noodles.

Spider-Man’s mask doesn’t have a mouth hole, which is crazy. Can you imagine trying to breathe through that thing? The mouth area would always be all wet and gross. I mean every time he’s got it on he’s doing hard work, all swinging around and stuff.

It doesn’t have a dedicated nose area either, so it must get pretty tight around the nose. Put your hand on your nose and press it tight--that’s what it feels like to be Spider-Man. Doesn’t seem like so much fun now, does it.

Because of how he gets around, the only city Spider-Man could live in is New York. He needs lots of tall buildings to swing from. Maybe some parts of Chicago but I don’t think the tall-building-area is as expansive. Definitely not in Singapore.

Just think if he lived in Singapore but didn’t have a car, how corny would that be. Like he would hear about some bad shit going on across town, so he’d put the suit on and just start walking. Waiting for the bus, then more walking. After an hour he’s like drenched in sweat and saying “Man I am gonna beat The Vulture’s ass when I get there. That motherfucker better bring it.”

Or, more than likely, he’d have to call up one of his friends ( that had a car. )

Movies I want to see:

- Spider-Man

- Fahrenheit 9/11

- Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

- Coffee and Cigarettes

- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

- The Terminal (kind of)

- Harry Potter

- Good Bye, Lenin!

Goddammit, that’s sixty-eight bucks.

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My spider sense is tingling.

Day 4

2004-07-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

Today’s soundtrack: Step by step.....oooo baby...

Today at 11:02pm: I don’t know ‘cause it’s only 7.34pm

Just remembered this book I read, Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. It’s a fascinating collection of scientific essays that provide psychological breakdowns of stupidity.

I won’t go into the specifics of psychological drives and the acts of satiating them here, but I will mention a couple things. Chapter Four lists a bunch of conditions people can suffer from that may ultimately lead them to do stupid things. I was alarmed to see I possess most of these characteristics. They are:

Impulsiveness - i.e. you’re in the middle of doing something but suddenly decide you need to go out and get a bacon cheeseburger or an angora sweater or laid.

Neglect - The opposite of Impulsiveness. While Impulsiveness implies you act too quickly, Neglect means you act too late or not at all. Is my assignment finished yet? Er, no.

Procrastination - Not quite the same as Neglect, Procrastination means you actively avoid work you have to do, perhaps by busying yourself with other, more trivial things. What should I be doing right now? Working on my assignment . What am I doing right now? Updating my freakin’ online diary.

Vacillation - i.e. dicking around while you’re trying to make up your mind. What should I have for dinner, a Big Mac or a Fried Rice? The Fried Rice is cheaper. But wait, I’m in the mood for a burger. But the burger place is farther. But I had the Fried Rice yesterday. Fuuuuckk...

Backsliding - Backsliding is when you adopt a new practice, but soon lapse back into the established way of doing things. Like saying “I am going to get up early from now on!” and doing it for three days before oversleeping by several hours.

Indulgence - Indulgence implies engaging in excess. Like “Man that chocolate cake was good, I should probably have another 97 helpings of it.” Cigarettes and Tiger ain’t a bad example either.

Overdoing - Overdoing is when you disguise Indulgence as something effortful. Like writing a lot in your online diary under the illusion that writing a lot of anything is better than writing nothing at all.

Well at least now I’ve identified my problem. Or seven of them anyway.

Life.....

2004-07-30T23:30:00.000-07:00

Help me, I am trapped. A heavy bookcase fell on me and now I am pinned at my desk and can just manage to reach the keyboard with one hand. That is why I haven’t been writing much lately. Definitely not because I’ve grown morose and uncommunicative from catching wind of events too horrific to recount or even think about.

Yes it is because I am trapped under many books and have been for days. First I tried to e-mail, then IM for help but no one is on. I shouldn’t have gotten all these books. Next time I buy a book I will give it away or sell it immediately after I finish it so that it cannot sit patiently on a shelf waiting to pin me to my desk with its brothers and sisters. In elementary school they told me books were good for me and goddammit they fucking lied.

She called me and told me she had become a junkie. I tried to listen and not freak out. I asked her if she was turning tricks or knocked up and she said no. Then I told her I thought that put her in the top 10th percentile of junkies and she laughed a little.

Later we met up and I saw her for the first time in a long time and I now know there is nothing funny about being hooked on nasty fucking drugs. A guy put marks on her too. I felt very, very bad feelings welling up inside me when I saw that.

I tried to help but I can’t do much. I tried but I just can’t do very much. I felt like an asshole. It’s like the time I called tech support and when I got to the second part of my troubleshooting question the tech guy said “Sir I’m afraid that’s outside the boundaries of the support I can provide.” But I think my failure to provide adequate support was less eloquent. It was decidedly unbeautiful.

I remember one time sleeping with a girl I was involved with. We were asleep and wrapped around each other. She kept waking up with a start--she was having nightmares that kept waking her up. Bad nightmares I think. So every time it happened, I immediately tried to hold her tight and stroke her hair, you know? But it didn’t work; she kept having them. That was a bad feeling but I'm sure it was nothing compared to her nightmares.

No one is coming to get this bookcase off of me. I am going to lie here a little longer and then I will try to move it again.

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Jesus, where am I going with this entry. I don’t know if these sentences are making much sense, I’m running on very little sleep right now. But I feel compelled to write ‘cause I’m fucking stressed out. I used to think it was severe workloads that brought stress on but now I think it’s the increased people contact that comes with severe workloads.

In secondary school my table tennis coach sat me down in the lockerroom for a heart-to-heart and an apology after he’d roughed me up for doing something I thought insignificant.

“The things you don’t like about other people are the things you don’t like about yourself,” he told me, and I’ve never forgotten it. I know that statement sounds obvious to you now, but to a 16-year-old virgin, stuff like that changes your little virgin paradigms.

A couple weeks later I lost interest in going to class, and later that month I lost my virginity. It was, on balance, a good semester.

So I guess the answer is, I dislike being around people because I am people.

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I’m going to bed now. I know in two weeks I’m going to read this entry and be like “Who the fuck wrote this?” But I don’t care because I’m going to bed.

Sleep and Alarm Clocks.

2004-06-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about sleep, probably because I never get enough. And what little shuteye I manage to grab is always low-quality; I sleep like a war criminal with a conscience. Lots of tossing and turning, restless moaning, waking up in a cold sweat, the whole nine.

And the nightmares, oh my nightmares. Terror has a new name, and it’s Ivan’s Nightmares. Dante Alighieri would watch them and be like “Man this shit is scary.”

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Waking up is hard to do (and I know that makes me sound like Big Tom with a speech impediment). I once had a habit of eating right before going to bed, and it took me years to realize there’s a correlation between waking up groggy and having chowed late.

Did you know waking up is really bad for you? By alarm clock, anyway. Sleep is when the body repairs itself. Being suddenly jolted awake by a piercing alarm is a biologically traumatic event, and having it happen to you every day shaves years off your life.

So I’ve been seeking a more natural way to wake up. The latest thing I’d tried was drinking lots of water before I went to bed, so my bladder would be in charge of reveille, but those things are tricky to time. Last time I tried I had to pee after three hours, and then I had a problem getting back to sleep.

Another thing I tried was garlic. Actually that one happened by accident. A couple nights in a row I ate meals with heavy garlic and I noticed I woke up bright and early on the following mornings--because I had slight heartburn and hadn’t slept heavy. And anyways waking up on time isn’t worth it if your breath is gonna be fucked up all day.

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Couple years ago I read this article about alarm clocks. There’s a company called Bio-Brite that makes an alarm clock for deaf people. It wakes you up with a light that gradually ramps up and eventually becomes super-bright.

I think they call it a “dawn simulator” or something, it’s basically supposed to mimic the sun. But instead of being a gaseous ball of light that gives life to everything on our planet, it’s an incandescent bulb that helps you make it to the office on time. Imitating nature never works.

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I think the alarm clock of the future should be a glass of water and a machine that x-rays your stomach right before you go to bed. The machine figures out how much food is in your gullet and of what density, then calculates exactly how much water you’d have to drink to activate your bladder by whatever time you want to get up.

I’m sure my body would find a snooze button, though. I’d probably just wet the bed and continue sleeping.

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Other Alarm Clock Ideas

Clock-based:

- an alarm clock with a snooze button shaped like the Rubik’s Cube (you have to solve it to shut it off)
- an alarm clock on robot legs (you have to chase it around the apartment to turn it off)
- an alarm clock that releases pepper spray when you hit the snooze button (“Unnnnh...what time izzit...GAAAAAHHHHH!”)

Bed-based:

- a bed that slowly tilts to a full vertical position
- a freon-laced bed that gets really cold
- a bed that starts vibrating, like those old motel beds
- a waterbed filled with sleeping piranhas. But at 6am a silent alarm awakens them

Con-based:

- someone’s overgrown cellmate from Changi Prison comes to stay with you every night, and he climbs into your bed at 6am on the dot.

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Well, Graham Bell I ain’t.

Day 3 (9/1/2002)

2004-06-01T01:28:00.000-07:00

Today’s soundtrack: Hey jude....

Today at 1:02pm: Cursin' at the parkin' fine I got.

Y’ever find yourself just walking down the sidewalk and scowling? Yeah that’s no good.

Financial reality stared me in the face today. I tried staring back but then it slapped me, pushed me to the ground and kicked me. Basically I have to find another job. Not “another job” as in a job to replace the one I have now, but a job on top of the fucking job I’ve got now. Once again I’m gonna be one of those assholes with more than one business card.

Did you know the WTC was only the second time in human history that a skyscraper has ever collapsed? The first time was in Brazil, which is a country that I guess is not known for its structural engineering anyway. I think most of the structural marvels there have to do with mammary glands.

Lim pointed out that Brazil does have that huge Jesus statue, and that seems to stand up okay. But I think if you looked inside, the whole thing is held up by schoolchildren holding ropes. I don’t really know though. That’s probably something I would bring up at a cocktail party, causing people to walk away from me.

Day 2 (8/31/2002)

2004-06-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

Today’s soundtrack: Wake up Wake up! Woah Woah!

Today at 9:02pm: Stomache's renacting the iraqi war, popped in a few charcoals for special effect.

Today was one of those days whereit’s not enough for me to sit around and listen to Elvis or Def Leppard tracks. I hate this feeling: I don’t want to go out, but I don’t want to stay home.

Restlessness is marginally tolerable as a college student but outright nefarious in your early 20s. Still trying to get a handle on adulthood.

In my early 20s I never owned a couch and had no use for one; I was constantly busy with work or zealously conducting my social life. Now I’ve got a couch, and today after snooker I collapsed into it. Watched The Simpsons, thankful for the cheap laughs, and fell asleep before the end of the episode. Only a fucking Tuesday and I’m already out of gas.

How do MP3s get mislabeled? I’ve downloaded Queen tracks misleadingly labeled “Roy Orbison,” John Denver as “Elvis Costello,” etc. Do these errors occur at the time of ripping, or does some misguided revisionist rename and redistribute them?

Not that I’m complaining. My philosophy is, when you’re getting something for free, you shut your yap and either eat it or don’t. Which is why I think people who complain about FREEopendiary services or other people’s blogs are retarded. Eat it or don’t. And bring your plates to the sink.

The Brats(my three 11 yr old tuition kids) have some teacher's day celebration, so I won’t be going in the rest of this week. Most people would be excited to have 2/5ths of the week off, I’m not because it means I’ll get zilch.

To offset this I’ve got to make sure I have a productive 2 days. Working on finishing these journals, with all the torturous self-doubt and second-guessing that entails. I hope I can get something out, anything. You know what the writer’s curse is? When you’re busy, you wish you had more time to write; and when you’re free, you can’t write a damn thing.

Blogger Day 1 ( 8/30/02 )

2004-06-01T01:03:00.000-07:00

Today’s soundtrack: I wish I could fly,fly to the moon....

Today at 3:02pm: Wiggling my way to the front of the pack on the Pan Island Expressway

Hi, my name is Ivan and I’m new to Blogger. I don’t know who to sit with in the cafeteria.

One: I’m 23 years old, but I look 16 and feel 35. I’m like a heavily processed food; it looks fresh but after you take a bite you’re like, “Damn! This thing’s gone bad.”

Two: I’m an unabashed Singaporean. This is the only country in the world where a dog can walk down the street and step in human shit. I enjoy going away, and I really enjoy returning.

Three: I have a black camry, lousy memory and bad skin. If I spend too long a period without alcohol, I find most of my personality goes away.

Four: People often think I’m half Eurasion, on account of my freakishly large nose that defies Asian DNA. There are teams of Singaporean scientists dedicated to around-the-clock study of my nose. They draw lots of diagrams and then rip them up in frustration. You’ve never seen so much yelling.

Five: I pay my dues by babysitting 3 brats who made me jump queue in my appointment with God. I’d tell you about my job, but the tale of it is so boring you could use it for anesthetic.

Six: Six is the loneliest number. Oh wait a sec, that’s one. My bad.

Seven: Did you ever have one of those dreams where you go to school without your pants on? --Well, I haven’t. You’re a total freak man.

Eight: I spent the christmas of '2000 by myself in a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Orchard. Bad planning, cheap chicken.

Nine: The other day I realized that, all things considered, I’m actually kind of a jerk. But of a slightly novel strain; I’m more of a refreshing jerk. I’d tell you more but hey, I hardly know you.

Ten: I have to go now.