Desktop Images: Female Characters in Fantasy

There never seem to be a shortage of roles to play for females when in comes to the fantasy genre. I suppose that the story pertaining to be a conflict driven fiction, one of the most unlikely sources to build up drama and suspense comes by giving a God-damn super power to an unlikely young feminine protagonist.

Who am I kidding?
Female authors use ladies because it’s something they can relate to while male authors use ladies because they think always only of sex.

Try it. Pick up any male-authored fantasy genre book in the local Popular Books store Borders and I promise you by chapter 3-5, you’ll find a girl in heat and she’s not afraid to get a man wet.

Haha, innuendos aside, it doesn’t matter whether I use both male or female characters in imaginary realm I weave. Both of them hold unique ends of perspective when it comes to handling a crisis.

If you’ve been following the Clinton vs. Obama campaign in US-of-A (you must have been stranded on an island with a volleyball if you hadn’t heard of them), check out the slings and arrows of outrageous stupidity written by the political media and compare notes. One out of four articles will definitely discuss their democratic issues based on gender standpoints.

Bah! Enough blabbing. Back to fantasy. This week, I’ve collected the artwork of which includes the theme of female characters in various situations. It fascinates me on how so diverse their variety are.

Menfolk art, although just as diverse, seemed to be restricted to mostly recurring images based toward medieval/futuristic soldiers in all so many kinds of brooding battle poses that it’s getting really monotonous.

I’ll keeping looking though. It’s not as if Google’s a small search engine... *hehehe!*

Oh Goddess! by Alon

Alas! Art by Alon from CGSociety.com

The story goes that a servant was trying to pour a glass of wine for the king, but the mischievous goddess from the wall painting crack a joke on him by rising his hand and pour the wine onto the king's head. The servant was terrified and didn't know why this happened and what to do, the others terrified too and hurried to get out of the way, because they knew -- he is dead for sure....

Touché.


New Order by Sunhee Lee

The artist, Sunhee Lee, didn’t have a website to commemorate a profolio nor does she even has a story to go along with this magnificent piece created using Painter and Photoshop. So I’m going to write my story for the art.

She’s a battle-weary regent appointed amongst a magickin folk for liberty against an oppressive unseen enemy. The clan had just finished a stalemate battle and things weren’t going any better. Her armour had been shed, wounds were being tended. You can see her wings were slowly healing. She was strategizing a new woodland-based tactical maneuver when a message arrived.

The great tree-home had been besieged. Both her children had been kidnapped. If she wants them back, she must sign the declaration of surrender...


Alienation by Michelle Chuang

She’s definitely one of my favourite portraiture artist, as opposed to landscape artists. I already have her other work, the commissioned Legend of the Vampire, as a tableau to one of my characters for my project assignment (which really needed a blog update; working on that!). She drew this from an inspiration while visiting the newly opened Taipei 101 tower.

For myself, I too have a story formed in my head the longer I look at it, a sequel to my project. It’ll be a much darker continuation and who knows if the original characters will survive what I’m throwing at them?

Or, maybe I can just grab someone’s hand that’s holding a goblet of wine and...


Kaguya Hime by Kagaya

Kljs of kennyljs.comonce posted a small image called ‘Madonna Blue’ by this artist as well. I knew immediately that the picture was an older rendition by the artist; the sky was all wrong.

This is another artwork by the same artist, his very latest masterpiece. Kagaya is a Japanese who uses Greek mythology as inspirations. Check out his Zodiac series on his website.

Or if you walk along Tesco hypermarket, you can find really bad quality of his art in the jigsaw puzzle shelves. I don’t know who pirated them, but trust me, it’s better that you check the website.

The picture here is a rare step to an old Japanese mythology/faerie tale called the Bamboo Princess.

...She tells the old foster-parents who found her in a bamboo thicket and have brought her up with lots of love;
"I am not a common human being in this world. I am a Moonian.
I came down from the Moon as I was destined to. And now it's time for me to return home.
My compatriots are coming for me on the night of next Full Moon. I must go with them.
I've been in sorrow since last spring to think that you will grieve over my leaving." ...

PS: Oh, one more thing. I've changed the picture for April's Ascension (see sidebar). The ole one just wasn't dramatic enough forthe story I had in mind. Check the end of April for the complete tale but I definately prefer you hurl suggestions on what the month's image means to you. *hahaha!*

If I Stay Single, I Go To Hell

Here’s the latest familial report of Quickening’s extended family. My cousin, maternal side, a year older than me, had just got married. She lives in Pontian, Johor, so on Malidur Rasul morning, Mak had left house at 4 pm and will be expected home by the evening, late night if she stopped to shop in Seremban.

Wow, it’s been a while since I had last saw Cik-Nong and/or her daughter. I decided not to follow the balik kampong trip, mainly because I don’t think I can stand 4 hours of Celine Dion plus ABBA, crooning on Mak’s MyVi’s CD-player.

In receiving those news, Mak and Ayah also turned their attentions to the latest round of media frenzy on the Paul McCartney vs. Heather Mills divorce case.

Other than the former Beatle’s lawyer had a quick shower in court (given to her in a jug by the ex-wife), the surprise comes as it was apparent that the melodramatic queen was very much less than satisfactory with the pittance - an enormous million dollar pittance, but a pittance nonetheless.

It’s funny how Miss Mills seem to demand the money legally earned and accumulated by Mr. McCartney, a godly amount which the musician made before his marriage. What’s up with that? I speculate a lot of the shoving and grabbing was due to the correct inheritance that should be stipulated for the young daughter, only child of the feuding couple.

A series of rocky avalanches. Next thing you’ll know, they’ll state “property and financial allocation also will be reserved for the family pet/maid/butler/nanny/sex worker/gardener/yogi guru/septic tank cleaner/street sweeper/oh-and-the-lawyers-too to an amount of no less than $$$.”

Brainy, Baddie, come sing along that song with me;

“I don’t care too, much for money;
Money can’t buy me love.
Can’t buy me looooove, oh,
Can’t buy me looooove, ooooh.
No-no-no-noooooooo!”

Well, I’m not the one to promote tabloid-ism in my blog unless I have a core reason and that one follows the comments tossed between the elderly two people over my breakfast.

Malays, Muslim actually, had a more structured course regarding division of property when it comes to divorce, which we all obeyed to the letter. The ex-es don’t touch each other’s money made before the day they cursed ‘I do’. This system greatly reduces the need for the westernized act of prenuptial contracts.

Of course, Mak and Ayah never stick to one subject and let it die. They tossed horribly-ever-after gossip marriage tales, one that includes a guy recovering from cancer only to face both his wives in a battle of property that was stipulated in the even of his death.

Gosh, the cancer guy wasn’t dead yet (in face, was recovering) and already the two vultures he married are snapping for his cash.

My point is, that in the light of this bad-choice-of-soulmate discussion, I decided to finally confess to my parents something which I had been considering for some years.

I told them I never want to get married.

Don’t laugh please, and don’t b***h me either. I had put in a lot of thought about it for a considerably long time. It’s not that I’m having a Bridget Jones’s Diary phase. Rather, for some years now, I’ve been growing up to be quite leaning towards the merits of being a single woman from now till doomsday.

Single women, other than the freedom and the lesser responsibility, will not need to be accountable to a husband for her actions. Or her money. Or her house. The merits are few I daresay, but the risky possibilities of being a married woman really... irks me, to say the polite least.

Misuse of property rights.
Unequal division of inheritance.
Back-stabbing infidelity.
Disrespect for familial obligations.
And most of all, rampant polygamy.
I swear I’ll die first than be introduced to the public by my husband as ‘his first/second/third/fourth wife.’

Yeah, I guess you can say I’ve been cynical and disillusion about choosing for a life partner. That and ever other granny-aunties shoving horror stories over nasi briyani at the wedding banquets I got dragged into. I’d like to say I’m keeping my mind - and my options open. And my wits with me.

Trust, courage, dependency, hope and mutual congenial affections.

Notice I took ‘love’ out of the equation. You may have heard me blogged this overly much but I’m a fan favourite of romanticism. In fantasy. And only in fantasy.

Romanticism in reality? That’s soooooooooo dead.

Don’t take my opinion for it, but to me, Love is a silly little putty of an emotion that’s good enough when confined to fictional characters going through a sequence of unfortunate events between the leaves of paperback novel or the reels of a blockbuster movie, best indulged with a Cadbury milk chocolate bar and a can of Seasons’ Ice Lemon Tea.

I don’t think I’ll seek ‘love’ if I ever have to need to fall for a guy in real life. I never let myself trust any guy I ever knew as deep as to include love, let alone posses a well-spring unconditional enough to reserve for any one person. Hell, I hadn’t had a crush on a man, any man, since I left hormone-induced secondary school.

: Maybe I’m gay?

WHAM!
*slams Baddie-self into the Dark Pit of Reasoning*

In short, I’m not the kind of girl who wears her heart on her sleeve or allow myself to bare my soul on bended knee.

That’s the part of Brutally-Honest-Me I keep only to myself.

Hence, my takes on marriage life. Zippo, gone, maybe-not, forget-it, tak-payah-lah, seram-nyeeeeeeea. I think I can be happy being single. A lonely future individually, but I have a large extended family, with cousins born by the hour (did I mention that twins run in my family?) and I know they won’t leave me to rot in a low-rate condominium and be devoured by wild dogs.

So I confessed my honest views to the two people I owe honor and obedience to.

Of course they thought I was joking.

So I made it extra clear in textbook English. I really don’t think I want to be a wife to any husband.

: By the way, as I’m writing this on my PC in mid-afternoon, a thunderstorm is brewing in. It just flashed lightning so damned big and loud and scary, cars alarms and house alarms in my neighbourhood turned haywire. Is this a sign from The Above, reading my blog?

WHAM!
*slams Brainy-self into the Dark Pit of Everything’s-Just-Coincidence*

My mom just rolled her eyes heavenward and my dad’s mouth turned grim. That’s usually the sign of a lecture to come. But then, Ayah always gave lecturers that didn’t mean nothing.

He reminded me that when a Muslim dies, his worldly materials have no meaning. Only 3 considerations would be brought along; the good he had done to himself (prayers, religious obligations), the good he had done to the world... and a good child who prays diligently for you.

Apparently, a full ticket to heaven costs one third of which must have a pious offspring. That’s Ayah. In a sense, he’s right. I always think that everybody’s got to leave an impact deep enough during their lifetime that leaves a lasting good impression on a impressible kid.

One of these days I’ll get that holy book, learn Arabic and meticulously read between the lines myself. I wonder if the angels would look at single women having infant adoption as a bonus under consideration no. 2?

But as my step-grandmother would say, jodoh itu rezeki dan rezeki itu di tangan Tuhan. Most people are so in a rush to get married and legally start humpin’ and knock out each other with booze and sex that they forgot that there’s a blessing to actually have someone you can call ‘soulmate’.

Rezeki, kurniaan, a gift that comes along right in front of you. You don’t plan it, you can’t command it, but it comes to you if you decide that you’re up to it. And it really is up to you to either help it flower or let it die. Paul McCartney ought to sing that money can’t feed love either.

Trust, courage, dependency, hope and mutual congenial affections.

Not for me though, I think I’m a coward. But I’ll think about again in 10 or 20 years maybe.

Being Malay - Might May 13th History Repeat?

Surprise, surprise.

Actually, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. The time of Barisan Nasional’s absolute power has now been threatened with a bombshell result in which, in the words of PAS leader, Nik Aziz, ‘It’s a tsunami.’

Imagine that. Opposition won five states! Five! That’s more-or-less one third of the all states in this little cultural soup of a nation. It’s the biggest general election shocker since 1969 and the first real shaker for BN since the independence.

Granted, word on the news channel says that 4.9 million Malaysians didn’t join the voting society. Me thinks these consist of the youngest crew, the first-time voters of ages 22-30 fellows. Politics in the younger generation is just not so as serious to them as the forefathers did.

Ironic, considering it’s the younger crew that shaped the future.

With this attitude, 10 or 20 years down the line and I wonder how much will things change. Or stay the same. Without the 2/3 majority in the winnings, the ruling party now can’t make around new laws without inspection by the Opposition.

At last, a real parliamentary debate! Let’s just hope nobody throws any literal punches while they’re at it *cough*Taiwan*cough*. Not especially since most of the seat holders nowadays are newbies with good arms and small experience.

Well, yeah, call me a hypocrite if you wish. I myself am not so politically or nationally fancy (then again, I haven’t even got a job yet, let alone am qualified to pay taxes). So my opinion may not cover anything. But the truth is that I’m a bit... worried is too strong a word. Apprehensive? Anxious?

The last time an Opposition wins on this major scale was in 1969. DAP, aka, the Rocket Party, won a majority in Penang, just as they do now, this 2008 year. But... I don’t know what to think really, when I heard the news.

I just have to be thankful that each of all our races is now more open-minded than they were some 30 years ago.

Like I said, I’m not a political party member. I don’t have a real bias towards any party, no real vision to how the winning party might influence the way the country works in the next few years or so. Except that we should keep the peace.

I like the peace. I enjoy eating and not living on the streets.

30 years ago is nothing like Malaysia today.

There weren’t a lot of sharing of cultures like today, where Chinese, Indians and Malays can sit and eat the same restaurant in the heart of KL. Back then, there was a lot of racism. Polarisation in residential areas. The Chinese holds 90% of the nation’s economic business (freaking 90%!) because they’re good at it. Prior to the elections of 1969, those in Penang won’t sell anything to the Malays or the Indians.

Because that’s just the way things are 30 years ago.

There aren’t any Malay rights, no hak bumiputera back then. Malays, after centuries under the oppressive Western rule, suddenly found themselves with a freedom to build a nation. They’ve been farmers and miners for generations. There’s always some foreign ‘Resident’ to report to. Heck, now... they don’t know where to start. Blur and confused, and most sad of all, totally uneducated.

And that how the other races took advantage.

I hope I don’t offend anybody at this point. This was 30 years ago and we Malays are just damn stupid and confused people. Indians, those shipped in by the British to work, have families and connections back in their homeland. So does the Chinese, even more so because of their strong trading background.

But Malays are being left out. They don’t know how to develop big business, except being an underling.
Factory worker.
Chauffer.
Office assistant.
Working class and big business all belonged to the Chinese and the Indians because they got the guts and the willpower to survive leaving their homeland and crave a niche in a young foreign nation. A nation they can help build. Opportunities beckons.

So when the DAP won Penang in 1969, there was a parade on the Penang streets. It was a very nice celebrative parade too. But racial tolerance was... pretty slim. Freedom of speech was more open then but less controlled. DAP was fully owned by the Chinese people. Penang was full of Chinese due to the multi-cultural society we got cooked in this trading archipelago.

As they celebrated over the BN, the Malay-majority party, it was not a really nice kind of celebration... for a Malay. The party took to the streets and called out racial slurs against the Malays.

They laughed at how much better they were and that all Malays ought to serve them. They even carried brooms, swinging and waving them, saying that they’re going to sweep the Malays back into the jungle where they belong.

Throw this group of happy-go-lucky people into present day Malaysia... I don’t know actually. Would today’s Chinese be tolerant of them? Were we Malays back then was that bad? Would the Indian community be involved?

I’m guessing yeah. Heck, proof was in the economy and the standard of living. The other races were way ahead of the Malays way, waaaaay back then. Malays, you see, are at the risk of losing what being Malay was.

In terms of education, economy, land rights and scholarships, the other races of very young Malaysia are making Malays the same way what the Americans had turned the Red Indians into today; a lost sub-culture.

The same isolation in development had also suppressed and nearly destroyed the Australian aborigines by the Australian’s European descendants. New Zealand nearly killed the Maoris with polarisation just as the Spanish had destroyed the native South Americans (albeit, more literally).

Yet Malays were in Malaysia first.

By now I think I might have offended a few readers. I apologise if my writing had caused any harm to feelings to my fellow Indians and Chinese blog readers but I won’t retract my words in my blog. Because I don’t want to ignore or forget the significance what had happened in May 13, 1969.

Most of the youngsters of today in my age, toward the same said youngsters who didn’t came out to vote on 8th March 2008, might not be fully aware of what May 13, 1969 was. History books just said ‘racial riots’.

Now with CNN, Aljazeera and BBC exposure, we can pretty much guess that May 13 incident was as black as a day in any 3rd world country riots. Car bombs, makeshift weapons, Malays versus Chinese in a 24 hour murderous frenzy of Kampung Baru.

Hundreds of the Chinese were going to take a step too far into the heart of KL, into Kampung Baru, on May 13, 1969. Heck, they're still waving their brooms.

My dad was nearly in the middle of it. He was a Mara college student then. There were no cellphones nor SMS texting. The wider public didn’t know the Malays youths were planning a fight because of... yes, the polarisation attitude.

Nobody spoke to the Chinese or the Indians community, thus very few were warned of the riot. Those who were warned didn’t think Malays had the guts to do it.

Ayah and a few buddies was told by total gossip to hired the college bus, a mini bus nonetheless, and take part in a gathering or sorts. Maybe a speech. Maybe somebody important might turn up. He was a just a student and the most trouble he’s ever been in was smoking in the college library.

They were there at the spot, late afternoon. Just a whole lot of Malay people hanging around like a large scale lepak-ing guys. He knew something was super-wrong when, after getting out of the bus for a while, some of the present Malays, big rowdy roughnecks, started to single out some of the Chinese folks that were just passing on the outside, trying to get away.

Ayah knew it was becoming a really messy fight when some of the present Malays started to swing makeshift weapons. Parangs, knives and a whole lot of wooden sticks. Some of the rioters were damned well prepared.

He and his friends high-tailed out of the group and ran for the bus. He described to me of his shock when a car near him caught on fire and burst into flames. He also saw a Malay policeman beating up a Chine motorcyclist trying to escape the riots. A policeman, mind you.

The bus driver of the college also brought a weapon it seemed, but maybe it was compassion for the college kids, namely my dad and his friends, that he changed his mind and got them back on the bus. I like to think that way. Ayah was defenceless. The college students thought it was just a speech gathering.

For the rest of the bus trip, the driver had used this big wooden stick to jam the doors shut and drove the mini bus of the area. Ayah said that all he remembered were stones at the bus windows because he kept his head down. The riots had started at 5pm and the bus safely got back to Mara college at 7pm. At this point, all Ayah could say was the fear he felt during the 2-week curfew imposed by the government.

I never heard the May 13 incident being told that way. The last time it happened, Tun Abdul Razak formed some sort of a National Counsel appointed by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong and for 2 years, there was a semi-emergency state in Malaysia.

All gatherings restricted, freedom of speech suppressed and anybody suspected of racial violence, even the hint of racial violence... well, I can only imagine. Maybe there’s something in Wikipedia I can read about. It’s a shame, me being a Malay in Malaysia and not knowing the event that nearly tore up the honour and dignity of being a Malay.

Stupid Malays.

Those who are aware and felt concerned to be in the know, I like to think that we have more harmony today in 2008 than back then in 1969. A lot of Malay rights were made clear and acted upon. Rights given to your heritage as a Malay had already been voiced in the Constitution. Land rights, job rights, education rights.

Of course, these acts severely limited the rights and opportunity of the Chinese and the Indian community. They are Malaysians too. In fact, they practically built most of the country in its first few years and before that, more so while under the British rule. I’m not surprised that the Hindraf gave out voice about ethnic cleansing... and it could be very true, at the rate of how so much Malay rights are imposed.

Really, why should Malays have more rights in economy, politics and education anyway? What’s so great about Malay sultans and why should we even have them? Why should every Malay have to be a Muslim?

And makes a Malay anyway? After all, aren’t all dark-skinned Equatorial mongoloids come from the Indonesians Isles? There shouldn’t even be a Malay race anyway. Let’s just throw away the silat culture, the heritage of the monarchy and the Kongsi-Raya/Deepa-Raya nonsense.

Really, if we had just let the Chinese rule the nation, like how Singapore is today, we’ll rule Asian’s trading economy. If we gave more rights and opportunities given to the Indians, their high-tech skills and company productions maybe even trumps over Japan.

But most of the rights had been given to the Malays. Sons of farmers, former colonists, fishermen’s blood and even (very sadly) carrying legacy of rioters. We open universities, give hundreds and hundreds of scholarships, no matter how undeserving they are.

30 years after the 1969 incident and the Malays still doesn’t even own 30% of the Malaysian economy. Even with all the hak bumiputera, we’re still so damn slow; we’re dragging our own feet and at times, even trip over them. I think half of us still feel like former colonists, just waiting for the next 1st world nation to eat our resources and spit sh**.

Granted, we did cough up a few international medals with the current BN ruling *cough*Twin Towers*cough. But... I hope times had changed. With the win of the Opposition and with the better and more open-minded between races, I hope we can prevent single-mindedness, close-mindedness and xenophobia.

Did BN actually think they can rule the land for another 50 years? Puh-leez!

In fact, the very proof of the Opposition winning shows that after 50 years of independence, we are growing more mature. Mature as voters, mature as fellow Malaysians, mature in terms of community between races. Mature as in we stand up for rights, for benefits, for stop-brainwashing-our-puny-little-minds-with-your-media-control-and-wasteful-banners-because-they-didn’t-work.

We need other races to teach Malays how to be more vigorous in having rights and making real use of those rights to support the other races. We need to knock the Malays on the head and tell them to stop being so lazy, backward-minded and stand up for themselves.

So the truth of the results of the General Elections 2008, I’m pretty okay with it. I’m not enthusiastic, but I’m more hopeful about the future than I was in 2004. There’s a lot of new people in the seats, new faces, new ideals and more importantly, exposure to other races based on harmony. Maybe there’ll be a real security of the Malay future and all rights will equalize for all races. For all those who need them.

30 years is 360 months ago, more-or-less 10,950 days in the past. Have we been more tolerant of each other since then? Less hostile and more community sharing? If something happened to one of the 3 races, will the other races help?

Someday we can really say the 3 major races can parade together, not in a bloody riot, but as Malaysian. True Malaysians.

Heck, we might even be friends.

I guess I’ll stick around to find out.

Peace Malaysia,
Quickening.

PS: For more info on the May 13th 1969 Incident, read Wikipedia article here.

Being a First-Time Voter

So on last Thursday, I asked a few buddies who were packing up from their rented homes and taking the homeward bound trip to their respective voting places.

“Oh! I’m going to Newcastle,” said one.
“Wha... not voting?” I asked.
“Voting-laar! That’s why I’m going to Newcastle.”

I was as blur as a flipped pancake as the rest of the girls laughed and they too confessed that they’re going to vote in somewhere called Golden Sands, White Sands and even Highcastle.

At first I thought it was some new areas that had opened up while I was in thesis project hibernation, places with new Euro-type names like Pavilion, The Curve or Sunway, etc. Then I realized the joke, and it was made funnier because I actually thought those were literal places...

Golden Sands = Pasir Emas
White Sands = Pasir Puteh
Highcastle = Kota Tinggi
Newcastle = ... Kota Bharu

Gee, I wonder who’s going to Rock Caves or Pineapple Town and who’s staying at Mud Capital. Ai-yo-yo-yoi, we KL-coverts all so nak glamour about our hometowns.

What about me? Where’s my address says I should vote?

Well, I haven’t changed my IC address in ages when I registered so it’s back to the old home’s MBPJ Hall in D’sara Utama (sorry, no glamour name there *hehehe*). MySis and my big brother Arsenal were voting in the same place too but tall-and-stick-man Genius is still under-aged.

We took off on an early morning, at 8.30am because forecast weather says that it might rain cats-dogs-and-politicians that afternoon. Naturally, MySis can’t be pried out of house so early in the day so she isn’t coming along at the same time as we were and AbangHuzir goes to another place to vote.

Aaaah, the ol’ multi-purpose hall.

The last time I was here, it was on some old-ladies’charity dinner. Or was it a Datin’s daughter’s wedding? I can’t tell; all halls look all the same after the last 10 or so fancy-lacy function/buffet.

There was quite a line when we got there and a lot of parked cars too. I’m surprised people actually turned up this early to vote for the future of the nation. Well, not really surprised. Just kind of subtle sense of zealousness if you get what I mean.


For the queue’s long length, the actual process was pretty quick; we kept on moving.

On a personal basis, I’m not into politics. I don’t have either the zest to be a public servant nor do I have any particular fondness for any political parties. Who did I vote for? Well that’s my business and your rampant speculations.

What I didn’t like were a couple of old ladies in blue (indirect support for You-Know-Which-Party) that came up out of the blue to random senior Malay citizens while lining up in the queue (including my parents) and made a short small talk, like “Hi! I’m a complete-stranger-pretending-I-want-to-know-who-you-are-when-in-reality-I-want-you-to-vote-for-the-Dark-Blue-Party.”

The old lady who approached us was probably too tired/intimidated to play with words so she just asked if we would vote for BN. Semi-promo; I thought even that sly move was illegal within the 50 metres range of the voting place. I suppose a devil-in-the-ear at the last minute was a just toe out of line. Heh.


Rows are divided between ages; youngsters, working class, semi-retired and the greyheads.

There were no photos allowed in the hall itself; at least, not for non-media people. I didn’t try to risk taking photos because security men in blue were pretty much everywhere.

Which was okay because I planned to use game sprites anyway. Did you know that D’sara Utama is full of really old people? Either that or the voters between ages 22-30 just don’t want to show up before noon. If they ever showed up at all.

After I presented my IC and confirmed my number at the SPR table, I took up the queue at Boxroom No. 4. A really, really short queue. The really long one was the first row, full of people born in the 1940s. I felt like a veritable baby in that big hall.


I call ‘em Boxrooms because, well, they’re just plastic walls with 4 sides and no ceiling. And there are boxes in the Boxrooms too!

Okay! Got my name confirmed, been presented with two pieces of paper; one for the location and the other for the Parliament. I’m behind the little white cubicle with my back to the wall.

The first thing that got in my mind when I got behind the hidden table was ‘is this what men feels in public urinals when they have a pointy stick in their hand and thinking what to decide?’.

Yeah, I was pretty weird that Saturday. I was trying to not to think about how my decision maybe the single grain of rice that tips the scales. Ah, well...

Tick, tick.

Slot, slot.

60 seconds was all it took and I was out of the boxrooms.


My first time voting in general elections.

I was wondering if there are a lot of voters coming in from Blissful Hospital in Point of Rambutan?

DIY Black Magic for the General Elections

You’re a big man, a G-man what’s more. The G-man of your area. But the general elections are coming up. Panic hour is coming this Saturday, 8th March. Will the people vote for you? Did you hired enough Mat Rempits carrying your party’s flag on their motorbikes? Maybe you ought to throw a last-minute open house party?

What about black magic?

Don’t be shy about using black magic during the upcoming elections. Lots of people are doing it all over the world.
http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1366/black-magic-spells/
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/292684
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/2007/12/03/133307/Thailand-fights.htm

Of course, that’s their magic. Maybe the system that works there won’t work here. After all, where can you find really fresh African crocodile dung? And what can be the correct substitute for Afghanistan opium powder?

Hey, come on, we got lots of tricks up our local sleeves. Just take a walk (discreetly) down to the local Tok-Bomoh/Dukun/Pawang office and ask for ‘special services’. Mayhap, there’s even one with a website!

But... you’ve never done this before. How can you tell if it works? To what extend do they offer? Are they even registered members of the Ikatan Bomoh Negara Sebelas Serangkai? Then again, maybe it’s better that they aren’t. You’re trying to win an election here, not empowering your manhood or looking for a new lady-bird (hint: take note for future references).

Of course, you can always try the underground market. Next to whatever exorbitant prices, you can’t really tell what they want in return. Or what might happened. Gosh, look at the old Mona Fandey case.

That is, if the bomohs’ stuff even works at all (hint: missing little girl).

Hey, is there a DIY manual you can use? Maybe you can try make some magic yourself! Anything goes in wooing voters, right? All’s fair in politics, right? If you get caught, you can just brush it off because nobody will ever believe black magic actually works, right?

Let’s just make some... just in case.

So! How do we start? Chants and incense? Séances? Odd bits and pieces? Surprisingly, yes-yes-and-yes. Just as every human have 5 extension to the body, get ready with 5 important points:
1. Your full name, including whatever nickname others used to address you.
2. What is it that you lack (in this case, possibility of losing your seat of power).
3. What is it that can aid you (in this case, get the mass public to vote for you).
4. What you stand to gain OTHER than your main goal (money? Influence? Downfall of your rival?)
5. Most importantly, the ‘true-name’ of the spirit you’re asking for help.

Okay, the fifth and last one is the tricky part. This is where most of the research is done. But where to get spirits? Try deep, dark and abandoned places, preferably places where a major event(s) had taken place (like an old mid-wife’s shack or a forgotten slaughtering house of an old meat farm). The rule of the ‘place’ is that it must have some life or death influences, because spirits feed on these kinds of energies for years.

What’s the ‘true name’ of a strong spirit? Well, don’t ask me, how would I know? But the name is greatly important because it is one of the only real possessions a spirit own in the living world. Try asking the kampung fellas about any old, abandoned buildings or woods so dark, nobody goes in there (preferably in the area where you want to win the elections).

Forget the graveyards, by the way. The world is getting too crowded to stand on and so are graveyards. Besides, jinns prefer dark open crypts.

So you got your spirit/jinn’s spot and its true name. Now, repeat the name in your mind correctly because if you don’t say it right, it might get insulted. Get your equipment ready too. You’ll need at least 5 items; 3 to direct the spirit and 2 to placate the jinn.

It’s like hiring a hitman really, except without the bad-ass guns or movie-type car chases. Pay up the first items up front and show that you got what it takes to pay by enticing with the second item. Oh and don’t forget your sheep buddy. By that, I mean the person wiling to get possessed by a jinn so you can talk to it.

Once you got to the dark and secluded spot, kill off any electronic devices that might interrupt you (cellphones, MP3 players, pagers, etc). Hypnotize your sheep buddy to a state of half-sleep. Then call out the ‘true name’ of the jinn residing in the area.

Heck, be wary. You’re invading his territory and as HSBC TV ads once taught us, it’s you who’s the tourist. Or the bomoh, for that matter.

You know that you’re on the right track when Mr. So-and-so answered back through the mouth of your pal. This is where you address yourself and say your name and tell the jinn what you want; namely the 3 important points (the lack, the aid and the gain).

It’s up to the jinn to say yea or nay to the request. In nay means that you got to pack up and try to look for another jinn (no point going to a reluctant disembodied entity). But if you score a “Yeah, I’ll do it but what’s the pay?”, then you can show the pay. If its unsatisfied, offer to pay with something else after the job is successful.

Then you can plan with the jinn a win of sorts. Show it the 3 items to direct it to the elections’ top persona. Maybe a map to show the location of the voting hall, a personal piece of the opposition and something that represents the general registered voters of the area. Some gravel from the grounds of their public hall - balai rakyat - or shorn hairs from the local barber shop or even (God forbid), some sewage water.

Hey, nobody said this was a clean job.

After you show these items for approval, pay up the first blunt. Money is useless to a jinn (they don’t shop at grocery stores or drive Mazda cars) but foodstuff they like. The most common item is a live chicken slaughtered on the spot. The energies that leaked after the removal of life is an appetizer.

Boil the dead bird until the meat fall right off the bones. Contract signed. This way, the jinn will be enticed to leave you buddy’s body so it can feed into the soup and you can safely wake up the hypnotized guy.

While the soup is still warm, dig a small hole into the ground, a straight hole 6 feet deep if you can. Drop the 3 helpful items into the hole and cover it with the still steaming pot of hot soup. Leave the items and the area.

In the next few days, round up the support and encourage your voters, jut as you planned as any natural candidate. Once you dream of this guy at night...

That means the deed is done.

If you win, returned to the jinn’s hiding spot. Slaughter another chicken and repeat the soup process but this time, pour it into the hole of the hidden items and bury the hole with solid earth. This is your thank you ritual to the spirit.

Then sit back, relax and do the work you’ve been elected to do.

Oh and don’t worry about, ghost, and demons and nightmares plaguing you at night. One of them might even come after your friends/family members but hey, that’s the risk of consorting with spirits. They’re volatile stuff anyway, often unappreciative. And if the opposition hears about it, they can hired the jinn you hired for tricks in blackmail.

Good luck!

Disclaimer: Shadow Pimpernel does not encourage the practise, or even the attempt to practise, any use of black magic. In fact, I HIGHLY DISCOURAGE it. I apologise if I cause any form of hurt or disrespect to anyone as it was not intentional. This entry was completely bogus, the process purely fictional, everything posted solely to entertain and poking fun. And you know how I very much like to tell stories.

Repentant Cyber Café Sneak Returned My Purse

Hello readers.

The embers of my incensed rage had finally died away today, leaving me feeling between RM$62.50 poorer but 100 times wiser.

Yesterday, I posted a blog entry about some guy that stole my purse. I was at cyber café and the purse had fallen out of my pocket and onto the floor. Granted, I was too busy being online to have noticed it but I’m no less guilty on the adjective ‘careless’.

So what’s it be? Good news? Bad news?

Well the entry title says it all of course. Like I’ve mention, the act of outright thievery was all caught on the café’s CCTV camera. The video caught the moment I entered the building to when the purse dropped out from my pocket without me noticing to the kid standing, looking very mild-mannered, to from being mild-mannered to being Gremlin’s little helper.

I had a few inconsistencies with the incident as I’ve described. It wasn’t a Chinese guy but a Malay boy. I couldn’t see the video properly at the time. A tall, skinny, light-skinned, very young Malay kid (still with ugly shirt and pinchy fingers however). The 14-year-old kid thought of a get-rich-quick by stealing. Too bad he didn’t have better friends.

I was so mad the other day that I badly wanted to get at the unknown thief with my TeakwonDo right hook (didn’t win silver medal at school championship for nothing). But instead, I turn like the Wicked Witch and semi-publicly steamed at the mamak guys who manned the counter. Them and their laid back approach to security.

I know these mamak fellas by sight for over 6 months now and they’re not always reliable (all disappeared at more than the twice the times I wanted to pay my fee; any kid worth his fingers can simply clean out the cash counter). But I supposed the words ‘police report’ was intimidating enough.

So while I was at Mutiara D’sara and meeting SargeH for the first time, the internet cafe staff managed to grab hold of a friend of the thief, namely the regular customers who played the games in the café’. The guy was shown the CCTV video and as a very good friend he was, identified the name, address and phone number of the thief.

Yeah, duuuuh the thief denied it. But his face on the video was too clear. He can either fess-up and come clean... or he can wait until I get my hands on the CCTV video and let me scream his misdeeds online every day until SargeH catches him in a full blazing civil charge. In fact, my mom was so warmed-up on her anger on what happened (her temper is more volatile); she was ready to get the kid a bus ticket to Henry Gurney’s School (Malaysia’s juvenile penitentiary).

Here's the best part.

His parents didn't know he was caught stealing.

I betcha the stupid teen didn't think I would go through the trouble of actually lodging a police report or that SargeH had an empty week (told me he had another internet cafe theft in D'sara Utama and was hoping the two cases connected). Then again, the thief didn't think internet cafes had CCTVs either.

Ayah says that I don’t need to meet him (which are good because my right fist is still itching). What I really want are my IC card and driver’s license back (I really, really, rather not have to go through all that application process, thank you very much).

There's no chance on getting the money back at all. RM$62.50 was gone, accoding to this Amir kid, he spent it on foodstuffs. There was no way to pay me back unless he faced his parents, which was the very last thing he wanted. At least he kept my wallet (maybe he thought he could sell the IC to some illegals).

I believe about as much as a bullsh**. If my dad had allowed he to get him face to face, I'll make him piss flood in his dirty blue jeans. But what's gone is gone and I take my money loss as a minor penance for my carelessness. He couldn't pay me back and he really, really didn't want his parents to find out.

I got my wallet and all the important cards and that's works for me.

I got back to Kt. D'sara police station and withdrew the police report charge. SargeH wasn't there (his day off it seemed) so I was given a re-check by two nice uniformed ladies. They ask me why I withdrew and I told them about the kid and how old he was and that he went to the nearby secondary school. Naturally, both of asked why I didn't demand a refund and I just said that I forgive the kid.

Case closed. So that’s it, drama ends. Part of me felt a bit down actually. I was thiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to being able to have the chance to commit one of Internet’s best kind of evil sin... ripping somebody’s reputation apart.

Slimy Cyber Café Sneak Stole My Purse!

Just as the sign says; doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out how’s my Saturday night. If you value your entire online identity, don’t ask if I’m screwed.

Seriously.

I mean it. Here’s my story.

I always prefer to come here because its got really fast connection.

Once upon a 6:20pm yesterday, in an internet café at Kota D’sara, a Chinese boy, about 5 feet 5 inches, spiky haired and skinny, between his teens and early twenties, wearing striped white and red shirt with blue jeans, saw someone’s purse on the floor.

That someone is obviously the girl with white headscarf and black shirt, immersed in the cyber world, tip-tapping away. She did not realize that her purse had fallen out of her pocket and onto the floor, right beside her chair, so immersed was she in her blog.

That wallet-purse is blue-turquoise with leather exterior, slightly larger than the size of a human palm. It’s a nice fold of 3 sections; it has the Malay girl’s IC card, her driver’s license, her mother’s Bonuslink card (whenever she pumps petrol at Shell station), her Maybank ATM card, her Popular Bookstore card and exactly RM$62.50 money in it.

Being a nice Malaysian as the Chinese boy was, he swiped the purse from the floor and disappeared into happily ever after.

F**k him at his The End.

All this had been captured on full view of CCTV camera. Extra stupid, wasn’t he? At 4:50pm, I checked into my old favourite internet cafe, a Chinese-owned business run by a few mamak-type fellas with no 3 cents in their heads. I’m a very regular customer of that place, due to my lack of home internet connections so believe me when I say those mamak fellas really don’t have much in their heads.


Got the café staff to playback the CCTV. I was there for 2 hours only.

So I was blogging away, uploading pictures of my soon-to-be-nephew but I didn’t realize that my purse had fallen out. Two hours after I checked in, I left the PC No. 5 to pay my RM$4 when it hit me that I couldn’t pay because MY FREAKING PURSE IS G-O-N-E!

I know what you’re probably thinking. Oooh, it’s was my fault in the first place, I shouldn’t have tempted that guy, I’m to blame too because I wasn’t secured enough, such a careless girl, there’s always idiots in the country and I’m just at the top of chain for yadayadayadayadyada, WELL SHADDUP!

If your mentality is that way then you’re just plain sporting yahoo! for the thief. Stop reading and go suck a dog’s cock.

I’m already angry at myself for having had to have something like this happened. It’s the second time in the last 6 years that I lost my wallet through my own negligence and stupidity. My parents are already mad at me and it’s taking every once of my self-control not to slam every door I close in the house, scaring the sh** out of little babies.

Time for a brutally honest fact about Quickening; I’m usually good natured and quite a joker. I don’t often get pissed and I’m hard to get pissed but when I do get pissed, I’m not so easily to turn un-pissed after I start to get really, really pissed.

I’m pissed that I lost both IC and driver’s license. I’m pissed that I lost both big cash and book discount card (I haven’t brought any kind of paperback at all since my photo with my lazy feet up against the ones I have). I’m pissed that I lost my really nice purse (who my sister’s good friend passed it down to me) and most of all, I’m pissed at myself for being careless and idiotic.

There’s no point in being mad at myself if I’m just going to wallow in self-pity. So I directed most of my angry energy to trying to fix things as best as possible.

At the time of writing (which is offline, 1st March, 10:37pm), I’ve just got back from making a police report at Mutiara D’sara’s police station (nice place, clean, but got pictures of Top-Police-Guy Tan Sri Musa in almost every corner). After filling out the paperwork, I was direct to investigator, SargeH, and he gave me his cellphone number for any updates I could give.

My dad managed to contact the owner of the internet café and decided on a noon appointment for tomorrow about the CCTV video. I’m going save a portion of the incriminating video (freaking skinny Chinese kid with ugly shirt and pinchy fingers) and burn it onto a CD before passing it to SargeH.


Police report. I got to carry this around whenever I drive in my car now.

Not to mention my extra busy-ness days. I’ve already contacted Maybank to cancel my ATM card. I plan to get busy on Monday to re-apply my driver’s license and on Tuesday, re-apply my IC card (note2self: Photostat police report and get money to pay fine, just in case). I don’t know if I can vote in the upcoming general elections with temporary IC though but I’ll get to that bridge and cross it.

I had every intention to take screenshots and post them in this here blog too. I’ll let you guys know of any updates but don’t hold your breath yet. I’m not going back into that cyber café until this thing is completely settled. That means future blog entries are disrupted until further notice.

Now that I’ve threw up all that crap... please wish me good luck.

... *siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

My Baby Nephew No.2 - In UltraScan

It was raining like bathroom shower this morning; the weather just pours and pours and after that, the sky was still so cloudy and the light was so bright, it made sense for the lazy ones to creep back under the bedclothes, turn on our air-conditioning to 20’C, lullaby-ed by the Astro TV and wait for clear weather by night time so we can jamm and party.

Man, that’s sounds definitely bliss.

I would love to join the slug club but weekends signals the cleaning hour in this household. We don’t have a maid, so it’s vacuum, mop, dust, wipe, wash, scrape, scrub, polish, shine - and that’s just on the havoc made by the 2-year-old midget-demon.

Imagine what it’s like when MySis fully develops BabyNabil 2.0 and weekends will bring forth two brat-boys.

This is... NoNameYet.


Captured from another angle.


This is part of the video. He kept covering his face with his arm (aiyo, kecik-kecik dah camera-shy...).

MySis went to her gynaecologist in TTDI (the near-D’sara-Utama’s TTDI) and had a belly see-through, just to check on NoNameYet, who’s due in May. There’s every indication that he’s going to look like his big brother, possibly even (God forbid!) be something like his brother.

There’s a lot of baby males in clan of AbangHuzir (bro-in-law). His elder brother’s family possessed a pair of identical twin boys and their younger brother. The sister’s family has two boys as well and one very tomboyish little girl.

These babies below age 6 all gather under their Grandma’s roof almost every Saturday or Sunday. Seeing how BabyNabil was being the boss of everything without his cousins, I can only imagine what the scary situation is when 6 Devils vs. 1 Grandma.

I said I can only imagine, because I really, really rather not be around to witness it. MySis tells some pretty scary horror stories; screaming, shouting, barking, running, tugging, fighting, scratching, rolling, kicking, climbing, falling, crying.

Pretty much, what macho baby-boys always do.

Apparently, to keep the peace, Grandma keeps a whipping rotan for every child. I saw those rotans on one visit the other day, which is actually kind of short. I think it was mostly for intimidation as to a kid that short (and naughty), it was as long as his arm.

So MySis is going to give the paternal family another male infantile unit by May.

I can only hope for many, many sunny days in the future because, as seen today, babies have to stay indoors during the wet shower hour.

And I still haven’t cleaned up the slimy horror on the staircase. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get a mop.

What’s Your Favourite Death Wish?

I was listening to Pop Shuvit’s Mara Bahaya mp3 while tip-tapping away at the keyboards when it dawned to me how the music really makes me want to get up and going, do something that gets the adrenaline pumping.

Hardly a blog entry would achieve that.

It was either I stop listening to our local music bands (hehehe, not really...) else I get out of my chair and play chicken on the LDP freeway. Luckily there is a third option because the former would upset the local music industry and the latter would upset the MBPJ (chicken lady on LDP, news at eight).

My substitute was to look for a few good death wishes online (heaven praise to Google).

A death wish usually mean a person who is contemplating a last-act, final-resort action before succumbing to death. This term usually applied to depressed, nothing-left-to-lose folks.

However, in the confidence of a better outcome, to describe a death wish associated with an adrenaline junkie is just to say, “He’s plain crazy”. Hooked on the natural body’s response to a fight-or-flight situation; these things really get the juices pumping and is a healthy thing to do.

Of course, if in doing the said death wish don’t get you killed.



Mmm-mmmm, fast cars. A key to a girl’s heart is a key to a silver Mercedes Benz SLK (well, at least it works with this girl). Brutally honest fact, I love to drive. I take every opportunity to get into any of my parents’, siblings’, relatives’ friends’ car and be in charge of the steering wheel. Ask me to buy sugar in 7-Eleven at 3 in the morning? No problem! Let me get the car keys...

I suppose it’s one thing I inherited from my grandfather. He owned cars during the British era, when cars are so scarce, the roads are practically empty. His last car was a Kancil, since it’s so light and speedy.

Speedy is what I do best in a car. My death wish is to drive a real Mercedes Benz SLK and take it on the longest, straightest, emptiest highway in Germany (they got no speed limit!).



Aaaah yes. The gloves, the ropes, the carribena, the tight-strapped hip harness men won’t wear without a really good reason... I took a youth camp course when I was 14 and my favourite activity was definitely the rock climbing. Though it was a damn huge rock I was tasked to conquer, in retrospect, it was probably pretty tame.

In reality, I’m so scared of heights, I get nauseous just trying to walk on a pedestrian bridge. I’ve once got so nervous on a flying-fox at one course in (Outward Bound, Lumut), that I practically cried like a baby (the instructors let me down by ladder *shame-shame*).

Even so, given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (or rather the last-thing-I-might-do-in-a lifetime opportunity) and with a rock this big and precarious looking, I shake out my tracksuits.



Haha, the piece-de-resistance. Yes, I might be tempted to jump through the open door of an airplane with an oversized umbrella. Still, it’ll definitely be my ultimate death wish, suspended only by clouds. On a whimsical note, I often wonder if what skydivers felt is what birds feel on their first belly-flop before flight.

Believe it or not, there’s a sky-diving centre in Malaysia. Located in Segamat, Fras Skydiving Centre offers beginners’ static-line course (whatever that means). Read a first-hand report from someone who was probably forced to do it, here: http://allmalaysia.info/news/story.asp?file=/2005/2/12/interests/10119705&sec=mi_interests_outdoor

Racing cars, rock-climbing and sky-diving would be my favourite death wishes, the thing that I might do before I’ll die happy (Dear Big-Guy-Above, please don’t play ominous music, that was not a literal prayer).

So I’m going to throw this question out to all readers. What’s your favourite death wish? Do you think you can achieve it? How old would you think you’ll get around to it?

Violent Traditions: Crimes of Honour

There are 3 crimes in this world, either from history or in this day and age, that I hold a steadfast opinion about; terrorism, torture and rape.

That opinion, to put it bluntly, it sickens me.

I was reading the Star newspaper, World section - FYI, I always read the World section first – that I can’t help but take to root in my mind about the article from Guardian Newspapers Limited.

The article concerns the practices of forced marriages, marital rape, honour killings and some of other names but still in the same context. In short, when a person dishonours the family name and standing, say, a girl who wants to be a business woman instead of a businessman’s housewife, her rebellion, should she choose to proceed with it, gives her family license to kill her.

Crimes like these are widespread and often hushed up because ‘...it’s a family matter’.

F**k that.

And I don’t care if your sons, brothers and third-cousin come after me for saying that too.

Anything and everything family matters cover the fruits of the past, the close bonds and the future of the clan. They DO NOT have jurisdiction over a person’s life. Life is God’s gift and death is God’s will. Killing a girl because she rebelled and choose her own path is not ‘honourable’. It’s not even under ‘necessary’.

That’s f**king murder no matter how pretty the family covers it.

Why did they do it? Because going against the family’s wishes, making her own decisions against her elders’ life-long planning scheme shames the family name and standing in the close-knit community and - more dangerously - instil bad ideas into the younger generation and weaken the community as a structure.

No matter how good the maverick’s intentions, if it’s against the out-dated rules of the clan, his or her next step towards individuality would be paid with death. By death, it doesn’t really matter if the maverick truly deserves it or not. Death by dishonour is mostly so that the warning in drummed into others.

Rebel. Get killed.

Why do these families do it? Why do they kill for name and standing? Do they even check properly about the girl’s decision?

Crimes of honour is neither a new thing or a religious thing. It’s a cultural thing. Ever noticed that a really big attribute of honour killings were done by Asian families?

It’s a practise that dates back for so long; I rather not bother you with the background and reasoning on what started this stupidity. But here’s something all cultures agree upon.

Women are beautiful creatures. They should have fine skin and be adorned with jewels and silk. The prettiest women get the most charming man with lots of money and social standing. Basically, a prince charming.

The so-called prince charming will pay big money to the girl’s family. They have a big wedding and everybody lives happily ever after. The couple have kids and the cycle continues.

That’s the mindset mentality. Now imagine if that girl, instead of marrying her third-cousin (inbreeding to keep all the family fortunes within the family), she instead wants to go to New York, get her degree in fashion design, earn sponsors for her clothing line and she met a real charming (non-related) gentleman who, might not be so rich, but he loves her and supports business venture.

She’s going to be living far away. She’s working. She’s going to marry a white man.

Yup, 3 strikes, she’s out. Papa, get the gun.

Here’s a contradiction. Majority of the reported honour killings cases are highlighted in those close-knit communities that are outside the native country. An Indian community in Canada had an unsolved murder case that had all ties to honour killings. Several Middle-Eastern communities in Britain had unsolved cases of rebellious girls gone missing or got murdered.

An odd contradiction indeed. One would think that more honour crimes should have been highlighted in the native country itself, being with the most number of ‘honourable’ families.

Here’s what I think. There are honour crimes in those native countries.

It’s hidden.

Here’s an example of the government quietly supports honour killings. In Jordan, if a woman tries to go to the police force for protection from her family against possible honour killing, she herself would be put to jail under ‘improper conduct’ since she approached the police force without a male relation (who wants to kill her). She’ll serve a prison sentence of humiliation and when that time is up - lo behold - her family will be notified her detention and she'll be returned to them.

So they can kill her.

Another reason why honour killings are so rampant in overseas communities is because of isolation and close-minded factions.

Asian countries, for a great deal of the last 2 centuries, had been invaded by all the major first-world nations. America, French, British, Dutch, etc had entered Asian countries under a dirty flag of goodwill before they took all our resources. And the people.

This history is still fresh in the minds of the elders in these close-knit honourable communities. It was the first-generation who had to wade through Western prejudices to carve a good-sized self-sufficient group for they-who-got-dumped-as-factory-workers-in-foreign-soil.

To quote Asians are for Asians, the elders remained a tight clique. They also remained as close-minded and harbour their own prejudices. Second-generation and third generation have absorbed these prejudices since infancy. Any new-fangled nonsense invented by their old slave-masters should never be accepted by their pure kin.

That’s how they build their so-called honour; by being ignorant of the changing times, ignorant of the more open-minded new generation.

Likewise, some maybe are abandoning old traditions. Some maybe got fed-up of the obligations and high expectations. Most wanted to express new ideas, their own ideas, and their own legacy in the world that has nothing to do with association of high-born or chaste-blood.

In my heart, nothing can justify honour killings.

Honour killings, death caused by family members, strike a deep cord in me. It’s really stupid, showing the stupidity, the backwardness and the freaking brutality that these families can impose on their own members, using fear to brainwash the true value of what honour is.

My thoughts on this won’t be the end though, because there are more to crimes of honour than brutality towards freedom of individual mind. True family honour comes in support. Love. Integrity. Open-mindedness. And above all, the right for sharing lives, not controlling lives.

Images: The Magic of Sketching

It’s Saturday! I would cheer like a schooldgirl if I hadn’t had to have class (groan!).

I had been working on something really good for the blog in these past few days. But the damn hosting server is so freaking BUGGY!! One minute it works, next minute it doesn’t, then it disappears completely.

They may give free service with no-ads but that’s still no excuse for being below standard. Heh, I guess I got what I paid for and all-that-cliché.

But at least I got the job done. A small tutorial for newbies section will be included in the Helpful Stuff tab from now on. I’ll get working on Part Two of the tutorial once I get some VR homework done and the server’s not pulling a prank again and then there’s the report for Dr. Visor that waaaay overdue and then...

Aww crap, it’ll be ready when it’s ready.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a Deviant Art browsing for some new favourites I could really get a liking to. I hope you guys don’t mind something little different this week.

This is the artwork from Deviant Artist Ecthelian. He did it for his art class at school and the detailing is amazing! It’s pretty big but you really need to click for the bigger picture to enjoy it.

When I first saw this picture, I immediately thought of Anita the Faerie, a character of mine I’m working on in Unlocking Pandora. She’s a faerie of the woods, on an enchanted island but her home had been turned to chaos some 500 years ago. She woke up to find that she’s the only wood faerie left on the island and she’s been alone ever since... until the humans arrived.

I have also found another sketch artwork picture to show because I really couldn’t pass this one up.




I’ve been visiting Saimain’s Deviant Art website for quite a while now. She’s does the artwork for her original fantasy series called The Wars of Avenan (still looking for them books). This artwork, however, is an entry for a contest by her fellow artist-writer, based on a haunting story called The Cradle of Whispers.

I really recommend that you check out her website because there’s a secret in this picture. I finally figured out what it is but I won’t tell (oooo, suspense...).

Chinese New Year is coming up soon, and with it, the holidays. I don’t celebrate it but I do celebrate the holidays (who doesn’t?). But...

I still don’t have Internet connection sadly. What’s worse is that MySis is finally cutting me my cellphone line off and transferring it to my father. He doesn’t care a whiff about internet so I won’t have Celcom phone internet as well.

Awww, crap, what am I going to do? Cyber cafes then! Blog updates then will be fewer but I hope my older posts will sufficient.

Happy Chinese New Year to all you bloggers! Now get your butts off from the PC or your relative won’t find you and accidentally forget to give you ang pow!

Night Brings Weird Messages

I’m not really into dreams and dream interpretations. Yeah, sure I’m really into magical theories and practises but my interest is mostly academic and for pleasure. Sorry, but when it comes to making serious dream study and possible connections with the metaphysical plane, I stand next to Freud.

So when the little girl Sharlinie kidnapping episode continues with the family actually hiring bomohs (witch doctors) to crack coconuts and free white birds, I felt more pity than disgust. It’s a hopeless task to go to witch doctors, but the family is desperate, just as desperate as the police force trying to locate her.

For me it’s prayers, not bomohs, that should be turned to in bringing hope to counter distress. Unless these bomohs work for free and they are actually proven to be successful, it’s best not to revert to them. The bomoh’s prediction that Sharlinie would be found in a week is bulls**t, in my opinion.

Magic, spells and folk practise is all good in checking the weather or if the paddy fields brings best harvest. But when a child’s life is at stake, for God’s sake, at least let it be done privately instead of giving them quacks free advertising. False hopes, false rumours, and when the deed doesn’t turn out the way it goes, the witch doctor still gets paid.

Family still get bumped.

Enough of the possibly devastating repeat of the tragic Nurin case. As Ron Weasley once interpreted Harry Potter’s tea cup as ‘going to suffer but be very happy’, here’s something I have that means completely nothing.

A Dream Book.

Yup, just as the title says.

I wasn’t always anti-prophetic dreams. In my younger years, I was a hell of a believer. I planned my days using horoscopes and toss pennies into wishing fountains. I arranged my bedroom furniture by feng-shui. What washed-coloured clothes I have are arranged to be worn on specific days.

By God was I ever a mystic fa**ot.

After I outgrew my magic markers, the souvenirs of those days had been reduced to just this little piggy from the book market. It was MySis’s friend’s book who, upon moving to overseas, didn’t know who to dump it to so I adopted it from the rubbish bin.

It’s basically a dictionary of sorts. You choose the prominent subjects on what you’ve dreamt before and basically connect the dots. Let’s see about this dream I had last week.

I was on the second floor at Giant Kelana Jaya hypermarket; I recognize the place well. There were other people there. Busy people, all rushing but they all seem to move in the same one direction. I was standing, or at least, walking very slowly.

I push pass the crowds and enter the market proper but the aisles were empty. Not product empty - there were items for sale - just nobody was around. Which is really odd because as I looked back, the crowd was full and moving but nobody had entered after me.

But then a guy wearing all black appeared from the crowd and walked towards me. I couldn’t see face, or rather I don’t remember his face but he was very tall and had black hair. I think he was stalking me as I started to run away really fast. I took a long route toward the produce section.

Looking back, I saw the dark guy also running toward me. He had long strides. I remembered feeling scared. I saw a stick and grabbed it (a broom? A mop?) and swung it at the dark guy. It hit his head and he fell back, staggering.

I guest I should have just ran off but I used the stick to fight him again but he ducked and grabbed my wrist so quickly that I dropped the stick. He pulled at the back of my neck and pushed me to the floor. I fell down. I thought he was going to hurt me and that’s when I knew that it was a dream.

Then I heard a series of loud bangs, like New Year’s fireworks had burst too close, and the area was filled with white smoke. The dark guy covered me on the floor with his body or maybe he dropped a big blanket over me. That’s when I began to think that he was protecting me. It was the way his arms were placed on both my sides.

When the bangs stopped, the guy pushed himself away from me. It was still smoky everywhere. I turned over and looked at him. This is when the memory of the dream was hazy. I think he said something and I answered. Then he gave me his large black coat and told me to go somewhere safe. And he got up and left, ran off.

I don’t know what caused this dream, but it might be the TV series Numbers DVD I watched that afternoon. Much of the stuff here are hazy, as dreams evaporates come daylight. But for the curiosity, let’s look into the Dream Book.


Staring with...

Market: Dreaming of an outdoor market in which all sorts of foodstuffs are temptingly displayed is an omen of prosperity, but if the food is wilted or otherwise spoiled, it predicts hard times.

I was running for my life. I didn’t stop to check the expiry date on the products.

Crowd: It is a portent of profitable new associations to dream of being in an orderly or good-natured crowd. To be in a crowd that is reading bulletins of war outside a newspaper office predicts a business victory that will be unexpected.

Didn’t say anything about a crowd that’s ignoring me. I can’t find the dream meaning for ‘stick’ so I try adding ‘broom’ and ‘mop’ together.

Broom: To see a broom means that thrift and better luck will come to you in the near future, if the broom is new. If the broom is an old one, you will lose in the stockmarket. If a woman loses a broom she will be a cross wife and a poor housekeeper.

Mop: Using a clean new mop in a dream foretells favourable comment on some of your work. Seeing an old and dirty mop in a pail of filthy water is a warning not to repeat evil rumours that you hear.

Neither of those two makes any sense.

Man: To dream of man in the abstract is a warning against too much brain work. For a woman to dream of a man foretells a meeting of an interesting person who will be a platonic friend.

Okaaaaaay... How bout...?

Assault: Grave danger is predicted by dreaming of an assault being made on a woman. If a man is the victim, the augury is of disquieting news. If you are the victim, there will be a serious altercation in your household.

Oh gee, I’m doomed.

Noise: If in a dream one hears noises that do not readily lend themselves to any particular happening, the portent is having to meet bills of long standing.

Actually, I don’t need a dream to remind me of that.

Smoke: To dream of smelling smoke and not know where it was coming from augurs worry for a long period. To see smoke coming from a fire or a chimney is a sign of increased income.

Sounds like my early 2008 is grim.

Coat: If you dream of putting a coat on a hanger in a closet, you will receive the approval of someone whose opinion you value highly. To wear a ragged coat in a dream is a portent of riches and easy living. To help someone put on a coat is a sign of lending money to a friend; but if another helps you put on a coat, you will have to borrow money. To loose a coat foretells that your feelings will be hurt by someone you admire. To throw away a coat is an omen of the loss of a friend; but to give one away predicts making new friends.

Never thought coats are so important for one’s future.

That’s as much as I can gather. No keywords like ‘rescue’ or ‘protect’ or ‘bombs’. Put the subjects together and I get a nonsensical nonsense since none was sensed save it.

I’m going to be prosperous and gain new business-friendly acquaintances (mostly likely ignoring me). But then a person who wants to be my friend shows up but he/she will have ulterior motives. Sometime later, I’m going to lose something I’ve invested in which results in a major potentially risky adjustment. I’ll still have to pay for outcome and I’ll be worrying about it for a very long time, in which I’ll have to borrow money.

...

She is still out there...

I don’t often make serious topics. There are times when my messages to my blog don’t usually reflect how I feel at the time of writing. It’s ironic and an insult to my conscience, seeing to the true purpose of this blog was for.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting pretty busy now. Seeing that at the past few days had been hectic, I rarely have time to read my usual quota of favorite books, let alone the newspapers.

But then the school server slowed down and I suddenly found myself being... quiet.

Still.

Although everybody else in the workstation is buzzing about like busy bees (and I know bees), I suddenly found myself at a mental halt. Detached and... closed.

The best way I could describe it was like you’re walking at an empty, grassy park. A really big one and there’s nobody else around. Then suddenly you stopped for no reason. There’s nothing to see and nothing different yet you still stopped.

Why did I stop? I don’t know. Maybe with the school server being down, I managed to orient myself to the latest news everybody had been listening to.

The Sharlinie Abduction.

This isn’t a message about the abduction, or about the parties involved or the ‘why’s and ‘what-if’s. If you want to know about all those, you can get it in 1001 sites all over the Internet. I refuse to be an affiliate to the online worries and speculation.

But I do worry. When the little Nurin girl’s body had been found, barely four months ago, I did feel very, very worried. And sad.

Would it be selfish of me to think of my own family instead of grieving for a child who met an unfortunate end?

My cousin has a very small child, a little girl younger than Nurin or Sharlinie. She’s an a-long-awaited girl for my cousin’s family (KakShaz only have one other child, now a big protective brother). She’s very pretty and extraordinarily fair for a Malay.

I know I may sound biased seeing that I’m family, but little UmmSweet is not my daughter. She’s very, very cute. Her grandmother is part Chinese and UmmSweet’s father is of Sarawakian origin. UmmSweet’s got the best physical aspect of both world... and a temper to boot.

Everybody in the family agreed that UmmSweet was too cute, too cute even for television.

Which in the light of the little girls’ kidnappings, this had got me scared for her. Scared for the family. We often mentioned about the abductions to KakShaz and her husband. They agreed to be more vigilant, at home and at shopping malls, even though they live miles away from Kampung Baru.

I guess Sharlinie’s ongoing rescue operation is why I found myself detached and got into deep thinking, right here in the middle of a workstation. There are 3 criminal acts which I hate most in the world; terrorism, torture and rape. And little Nurin’s abduction has one of all those three.

The kidnapper terrorized the child to obey him, to follow him and his rules.

The kidnapper tortured the child, mind and body and then he tortured the child’s family by dumping her broken body.

The kidnapper raped the child.

He raped her.
As a female and once a small little girl myself, I don’t wish to go into detail.

The school’s server is running fast and smooth again. I feel myself on the move. There’s a class waiting for me at 11.30am. My lecturer too will be packing her notes, books and checking the projector.

Other students will be there and then they’ll go to their other classes. Then they’ll go home and maybe watch the news before they go to sleep. Today is Tuesday and they’ll wake up to Wednesday.

Somewhere out there is a lost little girl trapped by a monster.

Game Review: Fairy Godmother Tycoon

Seeing as I’m away from the Internet again this week, I thought about making an entry about the current situation of national and international affairs. Of the late Benazir Bhutto and how Pakistan’s January polls had been postponed. Rumours have it that she was assassinated to stop her from revealing evidence that the polls would be rigged.

Or that our health minister, Datu' Seri Dr. Chua, had been caught in a video-taped sex affair in a hotel, incriminating evidence against his integrity, his marriage sanctity and his political career. Yet the newspapers posted his holy apology, a major contrary to the years back in the trial of Anwar Ibrahim. With its dubious facts and money-jelly witnesses, Anwar Ibrahim got the all the verbal flogging.

Half of my mind considers something’s really not right the way our newspapers handled their rat-talk, much less the politicians’ rat-talk. Unfortunately, since all this would be old news by the time I post this entry, my opinion is redundant.

So instead, I’ve devoted my time to playing cracked games. Here’s what I’ve fooling around with.

Fairy Godmother Tycoon.

Haha, I loved this a lot. I’ve realized that of all the downloaded games I could play, Lemonade Tycoon was definitely one I could play for hours. So it was happy for me when Fairy Godmother Tycoon came out.

The story goes that Fairy Godmother had her potion-making empire threatened by dragons, bears, bulls and not-so-handsome princes (financially speaking). Your job as family member is to open a store and drive the competitors out of business.


My favorite freelancer is the Robber Barons, aka Crooks-For-Hire.

The gameplay is something manager-based. You have a set amount of cash, a quirky town to conquer and its own 3 kinds of cursed problems which you cure with your potions. Between those, you decide how much to spend on supplies and marketing and research and how high the price for the potions based on cost and forecast.

Then you start the day and watch your decisions bring you either profit or doom.

All and all, I really liked it because of its political humor on the traditional nursery rhymes. The storyline was pretty good (watch out for Goldilocks and the Bearzinis) and the gameplay was challenging without being overbearing. The visuals, music and sound effects were mediocre but it kept very well to the spirit of the stories.


Occasionally, a random fairy tale member seeks your out to help with their problems, like this Giant who’s, for some bread-related reason, is losing customers.

There’s nothing much different in most tycoon-type games in Fairy Godmother Tycoon than most others. But what I really liked was the storyline and its eccentric punch-lines. There’s a news bulletin that shows random events as you start your days. Some of my favorites are:

"Snow White picked to live in a house with seven dwarves in new reality television series."
"Wolf's political career ruined after being discovered wearing sheep's clothing."
"Moon-Jumping Cow tests positive for Bovine Growth Hormone."
"Jack Sprat and Wife banned from all-you-can-eat buffet."
"Animal control called in to rescue french hens, turtle doves, and partridges in elaborate Christmas gift gone awry."


Dentist bills in Sweet Tooth Town are insane.

And these are not counting the other odd-and-funny instances such as when King Midas comes to town and turn doorknobs into gold, thus increasing peasants’ wealth and enabling you to set higher prices.

In fact, I think I’d rather read something like that in our local news instead of the health minister’s affair. Something like, due to the tragedy of Humpty Dumpty’s fall, our King, Ynag Di-Pertuan Agong, overturns the Law of Gravity, making Malaysians suffer a floaty epidemic.

Fat wish, but I really do want to look for a rainbow’s pot of gold after a Pahang floodstorm.

PS:Downloads for this game can be found in Reflexive Arcade. If you want the cracked version, ask me nicely.

My Things-To-Do List

Due to the fact that my concentration, motivation and common sense are all having a drunken party in my brain (and not inviting me), I’ve made a list of all the things I need to get done for this week before my memory gets dragged into the cough-syrup fray.

Things to do:

01-Get assignments done.
02-Study for SE exams.
03-Take medicine.
04-Submit second thesis application form.
05-Finish the rest of December’s Dream story.
06-Outline the endings for game project.
07-Take medicine.
08-Zip and upload Christmas presents for IRC pals.
09-Post more messages in GW and Guiltforge forums.
10-Take medicine.
11-Update Sony Ericsson phone.
12-Clean room (also include vacuuming the mattress).
13-Arrange own lunch.
14-Take medicine.
15-Make time to finish Aveyond game.
16-Harass Nessiah for her novella.
17-Harass self to take medicine.
18-Keep up to date with news.
19-Browse FSM site for new material.
20-Eat that salami.
21-Stay away from homicidal baby nephew.
22-Take medicine.
23-Finish up Mom’s tandoori chicken.
24-Get to GW IRC chatroom ASAP!
25-Download new mp3 songs.
26-Take medicine.
27-Buy shampoo.
28-Get back the Dresden Files series from cousin.
29-Check the car for tyres, radiator, etc.
30-Take the damn medicine.

Most of the things in the list I don’t think I’ll go ahead to do it urgently (when I could think at all), but at least I know that I got my priorities laid out.

I don’t like it that my head still feels woozy, maybe doubly than most normal people because I have had low-blood pressure all my life and is prone to faints.

Oh crap.
Now where the hell did I put my freaking medicine?

Flash Game: Grow Island.

Now if you’re a regular visitor here, you would probably guess I liked games a lot. Just between you, me and the rest of bloggers around the world, if I were a cheap junkie living in Money-land suburbia, I’ll whore myself to the industry indefinitely. Give me your number and I’ll give you my virginity in exchange for your Xbox 360.

No, not really, not for games.
I’m still saving my soul for the perfect sex partner.

Passing over the subject before you start touching yourself, I made a point of playing around the internet looking for hosted Flash Games. You know those nice small programs with more graphic than game features but also get you these instant amateur gamers’ high (which I call quick-gasm). For today’s model I present Grow Island.

It’s not much to look at, the style is simplistic and the interface comes in only two languages (japanese and japanglish). But I liked it mostly because it’s very cute.

What? I’m a girl, dammit. Let me be cute-conscious.

The objective of the game is to click the little square boxes at the bottom of the screen in the correct order. Each box represents a department of development, like architecture or engineering or computer science. Damn nerdy japfags.



You get a different ending depending on your order of choice but there’s only 2 true ending. One is the maximum levels for all the departments and you get the happy ending. The other true ending is when you ignore certain things like the natural environment and engineering progression.



When that happens, aliens take over your island and proceed to screw up your island better than you did. Little green men kidnapped your alpha-male and multiply with your woman before they do a jig-jig-jiggity around their crop-circle.

Cute factor aside, it was a great fun if you’re looking for something that doesn’t take too much of your time. I particularly liked the robots of mechanical engineering (it evolves as your upgrade your other departments). Took me a week to finally get both 'true' endings.

If you’re looking for the game, link is here: http://www.gamegecko.com/growisland.php

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a cold shower. Because my next Flash Game segment is about a girl and all her potential boyfriends as her sweet 16th birthday present.

Trying to understand the HINDRAF

Now I’m not one for politics. Never had. Nope. No sir-ee. I’m practically mindset on the stuff that I just went Country-Leader?-Whatever during any kind of elections.

In fact, the only thing about politics I’ve ever come close to is this really cute and sophisticated guy I had a major crush on in secondary school; at 17 and already had aims for a high position in Barisan Nasional (that’s a political party for you non-my-countrymen).

And no, I’ve never heard from him since I left school so there’s no sudden re-acquaintanceship that might had invoked this new interest in the current political events. I suppose I’m just like every other sheep in the flock that just grouped together in the currents of a moving force.

It’s the HINDRAF movement.

So far I’ve only got a mildly half-hearted sense of curiosity on the What’s-The-Big-Deal, but I feel like it’s really something I should know about. Really, really know about. I’m neither politically-minded nor Hindu (nor being anti-Hindu for that matter). But I do support, steadfastly support, the right to freedom of speech.

Because I believe that suppression to freedom of speech leads to suppression of the individual mind. If you don’t say something (say an opinion), you loose your right to voice your ideas, your support. Thus, loosing your chance to make your life as part of your nation.

But the HINDRAF confuses me. Sure, I got the idea behind it. A race of people which the nation’s former colonial paleskins had brought over from India to turn into part-slaves as the paleskins suck the money-milk out of the rubber trees, laboured studiously by the part-slaves.

Now the descendents wants their money back from... the English? At least around 8 figures too. And they did a street protest last November 25th, even though their permit to protest peacefully had been rejected. It ended bloodily but not in a bloodbath. From what I’ve heard, it seemed that riot the police got the most injuries.

But then again, it’s probably hard for the newspaper reporters to interview members of the HINDRAF when they’re still running all over Kuala Lumpur, throwing sticks and stones. I was working on my thesis report during that riot event (it was due the following Monday, all 120+ pages of it) so I didn’t read the news fresh-of-the-press.

What interest me were the ones the newspaper did not report. There were no physical damages to the surrounding shops other than business having a slight down-time. The only vehicles damages were the police cars themselves. Nobody set anything on fire.

And Newton’s Law said that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction; thus the police had reported injuries but the newspaper didn’t report the injuries of HINDRAF members though. Maybe soaking wet and tear-bombed but that was just it.

More evidence that our newspapers are biased. Of course, if I were a really prejudiced girl, I’ll say that the government is completely controlling the hardcopy media, just as they did for years and years in Tun Dr. M’s reign of supremacy. In some ways that are subtle, I believe it so.

So now that the HINDRAF are claiming ethic cleansing of many, many of their people and they’re taking that matter to international level. The government then counters by saying the HINDRAF has links with the terrorist groups in India and Sri Lanka. And maybe that’s why New Delhi refuses to meet the HINDRAF leader. It’s turning into an ugly spitting, scratching contest.

Beyond the Fight Club agenda, I’m trying to get more information, for myself, about the group, its objectives and the motivation behind it. I want to know why they’re doing this, how peaceful or violent can they be. I want to hear more about it beyond the newspapers and the blogs that were full of strong words that’s actually more euphemistic than informative.

Most of all, I wanted to be in the Know, right Now. I don’t want to keep to the old stupid Malay attitude - since it doesn’t affect you, there’s no need to think about it. I want to know how the current interactions between HINDARF and the government might affect me as a Malay and a student.

In retrospect, I suppose my old crush had something to do about it. He was in the popular student’s category, way, waaaaaay out of my league. But he was passionate and likes to express strong but concrete views. He cited facts not coloured by opinions. He was open-minded and loved being so.

It was the kind of attitude I liked in a guy, and he made me think more about myself and the advantage of freely expressing the individual voice, having the power of the individual mind. Where ever he is right now, he’s probably collecting every kind of resource about the HINDRAF he could get his hands on (between getting his law degree). Thanks Ibrahim (yes, that’s his real name, by the way).

Malaysian Teenagers Going Down in the Street

They’re gonna clean up your looks,
With all the lies and the books
To make a citizen out of you.
Because they sleep with a gun
And keep an eye on your son
So they can watch all the things you do.

Although this is one of my favorite songs (or maybe because of it), I rather not speculate what the things that was going through the head of that song’s writer. I have trouble going through the things in my own head already. But it is a nice song and it helps for someone like me to zone out without getting to the drugs. Cheers to My Chemical Romance.

But hey, the subject of the song fits. Teenagers are scary, whether the adults want to admit it or not. But they won’t admit it because obviously as mature adults, each holds a sense of vanity that they might be somebody’s role model someday, whether the teens want to or not, and it’s low-class-lah to walk around blurting, “Oh yeah, teenagers. Nasty, filthy animals.”

Nasty and filthy. Like the streets of KL where they’ve taken to loitering. And according to the Star newspaper reports, they might even be filthy rich. But don’t too easily brand these as spawns of the ignorant, fat-wallet’d parents. Money comes from a grapevine of multi-layers exchanges, considering the reports of theft and the occasional tai kor or ‘big brother’ as whacamacallit.

Starting with the theft and the intimidation, of course the local restaurant owners along those streets would say it, either exaggeration or plain truth. Remember the rule of real estate? Location, location, location and it is devaluing power of location to have punk-haired teenagers smoking right outside their non-smoking sections.

Sure you can have the local Rakan Tetangga patrols (it’s something like a group of caffeine-empowered neighbourhood watchmen) making rounds. But for the sake of smart-ass mentality, nightwatch patrolling is like running through a flock of pigeons outside a Sri Paandi restaurant. The watchmen can walk through those streets many times over but the teenagers just flutter back to the streets the minute those backs are turned.

And these teenagers are a klik. They have cellphones, with service lines rates cheaper than rap stars’ name, so it’s no difficulty to coo-coo a warning when the fellows-in-uniform turn the corner. And those same said cellphones is used to herd in the money-hungry teenagers when the ‘big brother’ comes to their streets (as if the street belonged to them already).

One can only speculate what the tai kor wants in a street full of teenagers, more so since some of these teenagers hang out near parking lots. If you need another reason to bring a big, heavy umbrella after parking your car, open-air, on a Malaysian sunny day, this takes the cake as they might take your everything-else. Like I mentioned, there are other ways to finance those punk hairdos and designer bags than negligent parents. Rich or poor parents doesn’t matter; it’s the negligence.

This situation is worrying. Screw aside the ‘children are our future’, and ‘keep the city image clean’ slogans (since our Parliament is spouting those words almost every week) because when the tai kor comes, things get criminal. Think gang recruitment and I’m not joking s**t here. I don’t have to be a police officer or a news reporter to put two and two makes four. And I used to walk on some of those streets and know folks who still walk on those streets.

These aren’t bored teenager. They’re perverted teenagers. Next to being perverted means already being bored (which makes bored and perverted teenagers an over-use of adjectives), the possibilities of the kids' greater entry to criminal exposure and manipulations are so numerous, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a shark-grinning tai kor in the face.

If you want to get them teen creeps out of trouble, you got to play the same game as them ‘big brothers’ do. Because sure as the teenagers got soup for brains, these tai kor don’t wear law enforcement uniforms and they swing money bags instead of batons. Once the right kind of good guys put on these costumes, be nice with the teenagers. Hang money on a fish pole and herd them to a different direction as they follow hungrily. When you netted their respect, make them do community work for money.

Like pick up the street trash, maybe even sort by recyclables. Give money. Get them to paint the city’s iron fences. Give money. Encourage them to join the Rakan Tetangga and help make streets safer. Give money. Make them vomit the information about these dirty tai kor. Give money. Money, money, money; the root of all persuasion.

It’s not cheap (duh, they are rich kids!) but let’s scream out the music here. The reality remains that you can’t get kids off the streets, not as long as there are inattentive parents, nice streets and perverted teenagers. Hell, you might as well not have bothered. Let these kids do their syok-time, get on floating high and slur profanities at everybody in a skirt. Yeah, that how we want the tourists to remember Visit Malaysia Year 2007.

If the country ever got to something like that, doing nothing about the teenagers, then we know we’re truly running out of smart people. So at the very least to get something done for the sake of getting something done about it, very least for the overworked G-Men can do is to try to divert their attention away from the even more bad guys.

Because as school holidays are still going on, this country doesn’t need to keep digging its own 50 year old grave without its teenagers playing a High School Musicale version of My Chemical Romance.

Teenagers scare the living s***t out of me,
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes
Or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me!