Spoken in Anger

J. M. Coetzee, a renowned South African author, once said, “Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love.”

I disagree.

Anger is a strong emotion linked with thoughts such as dissent, denial and self-control. It is a survivalist thinking to express anger and thus, I believe some of the most truthful words uttered are spoken from anger

Truthful, hurtful words.

No matter how spontaneous it seems, angry words have more truth, revelations about the speaker, than any other emotions which words are expressed with. A man who is disappointed with his subordinates reveals his lack of trust, when spoken in anger.

Spoken with regret, not of his words, but of having had to say those words.

Most people don’t understand the lingering effects of communication. What you say, what they say, impacts human perceptions to the outside environment. How we think, what we think and... innermost thoughts revealed by a moment of outburst.

At times, their expression would fall and excuse themselves, saying things like, “I didn’t mean it”. I wonder, if they didn’t mean it, why did they speak it? And if they spoke without meaning, what has this anger been worth for?

No rational words is ever said in carelessness.

A time not so long ago, my dad once told me that he regretted having children, if he had known that two of them would turn out the way they did. The first had wasted his foreign university money and only now steadily rebuilding his future and the third child... was me.

He never said or acted that he was sorry he had uttered them. And I have since washed my hand from any effort to seek his pride in me.

Some of those who spoken quickly without repent don’t apologize for their words. Merely regret accidentally revealing their true feelings.

Such as in the after-effects of obsessive anger, we can be doomed to recall painful words every time paths are crossed. Either familial disagreements, relationship break-up, employer-to-employee arguments, even political debate.

A Chinese proverb said this;
“Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.”

Truthful, hurtful or both, whatever our thoughts reveal, spoken through words and coloured by anger, should never be said lightly.

Corrupt a Wish

Don’t you always wish for something you can’t have? Me and a billion people in the world. Whenever I’m at risk of day-dreaming myself away to near-unforgivable accidents (like slamming on car brakes or trying to impress a crush), a good does of reality check gets me back to focus.

Haha, of course, checking authenticity of reality doesn’t always count in getting back to authentic reality.Just to remind myself to stop day-dreaming and get back to work.

Recently, I’ve been day-dreaming a hell of a lot, need to think anti-dreaming thoughts. Here’s Brainy and Baddie to show you what I mean.

: I wish I could get a double cheeseburger.

: Granted, but your double cheeseburger is made out of worms, artificial cheese and, even worse... TOFU!



: I wish this homework project will write itself.

: Granted, but it also creates a virus that mutates into a dog. Now let’s see if you can explain that your Dog.EXE ate your Homework.DOC.



: I wish I could find my misplaced my Touch n’ Go card.

: Granted, but you can’t reach it because some fellow with a Malaya University jacket (you damn well know who you are *grrrr...*) is currently using it to take his girlfriend on an LRT cruise.



: I wish I could convert Lara Fabian’s No Big Deal video file into an MP4 file or an MP3 file.

: Granted, but all the circus ghost freaks in that video now haunts your Sony Ericsson phone, making ghostly wails every time your mother calls.



: I wish I could play a guitar like Santana.

: Granted, but now Santana sues you for identity theft.



: I wish someday my prince would come.

: Granted, but he also bring his mother, sister, uncles and aunties and cousins to the 3rd degree. And they all want to live in your cramped castle. Urg...



: I wish I could go to the Nuffnang Pajamas Party.

: Granted, but you’ll be struck with an incurable fear of the dark and could no longer go out after 7pm without going insane.



: I wish I have a way to actually get these wishes granted without them getting corrupted.

: Granted, but then you’ll be back to square one; day-dreaming away to near-incomplete jobs not-so-well done.

Helpful, aren’t they, these two?

How to be an Evil Overlord a.k.a Recycled TV Plots

Advice for the Evil Overlord:
1. Prior to kidnapping an older male scientist and forcing him to work for me, I will investigate his offspring and make sure that he has neither a beautiful but naive daughter who is willing to risk anything to get him back, nor an estranged son who works in the same field but had a falling-out with his father many years ago.

2. If I capture an enemy known for escaping via ingenious and fantastic little gadgets, I will order a full cavity search and confiscate all personal items before throwing him in my dungeon.

3. I will design all doomsday machines myself. If I must hire a mad scientist to assist me, I will make sure that he is sufficiently twisted that he'll never regret his evil ways and seek to undo the damage he's caused.

4. I will funnel some of my ill-gotten gains into urban renewal projects. Although slums add a quaint and picturesque quality to any city, they too often contain unexpected allies for heroes.

5. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.

Advice for the Hero:
1. If I have a copy of the Evil Overlord's plans and my capture is imminent, I will not send the only copy of those plans away with a cute little sidekick. I will make many copies of the plans and send them away with many cute little sidekicks.

2. If any of my associates mysteriously disappears, and then returns behaving in an uncharacteristic manner, I will immediately presume that their loyalty has been compromised by the Evil Overlord.

3. I will not trust a being with an inordinate number of tentacles.

Advice for the Bad Auxiliary Character
(Evil Overlord's Wicked but Beautiful Daughter):
Daddy's Trusted Lieutenant works for Daddy. If he catches you cavorting with the Hero, he will gleefully take whatever you offer for his silence, and then turn you in anyway.

(Evil Genius) :
1. I will remember that any robot/device/mental power that can be remotely controlled from ten feet can, with sufficient preparation, effort, and/or energy, be remotely controlled from 100 miles or more.

2. I will not experiment on myself.

Advice for the Good Auxiliary Character
(Good Guy's Sidekick):
If I fall in love with the Hero's True Love, I will inform the Hero first, and then the True Love, so that they can help me get over it and find someone else.

(Innocent Bystander):
1. Before going off the beaten path for your vacation, check the police archives, and with the old people who live in the region, taking note of any mysterious deaths or disappearances.

2. Do not attempt to duplicate the means by which the Hero gained his/her powers. You will either fail and die a lingering, agonizing death, or succeed, lose control of your powers, wreck half of the city, and make it necessary for the Hero to kill you to neutralize the threat you pose to everyone else.

Further Evil
(Advice for the Evil Empress):
My personal servants will be professional bodyguards and assassins, but will dress and behave as eunuchs and maidservants. Even if I dismiss my regular guards for a "private audience" with the Hero, these personal servants (just so much furniture after all, right?) will remain in my chambers.

(Miscellaneous Evil Resolution):
I've murdered tens of thousands in cold blood. If I can't ice the sad-eyed puppy too, I don't deserve the job.

Murphy's Laws of Combat:
- A little ignorance can go a long way in the direction of maximum harm.
- If your flank march is going well, the enemy expects you to outflank him.
- Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are.
- If you make it too tough for the enemy to get in, you can't get out.
- B-52s are the ultimate close support weapon.
- The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
- The best tank killer is another tank. Therefore tanks are always fighting each other, and have no time to help the infantry.
- Armored vehicles are bullet magnets.
- Avoid loud noises; there are few silent killers in a combat zone.
- The bursting radius of a grenade is always one foot greater than your jumping range.
- Try to look unimportant. The enemy may be low on ammo.
- As soon as you are served hot chow in the field, it rains.
- The law of the bayonet says the man with the bullet wins.

http://nielsenhayden.com/overlord/

Careless Drive-By Shooting

One of the reasons why I had wanted a cell phone with a camera is the ability to take pictures while driving. Granted it’s not the most legally safe form of driving but when you catch something you don’t often see, one can’t help but flip the plastic clamshell open and start clicking.

I’m not camera person (see Kyel’s blog and Satkuru.com for that), I'm just a JPEG addict.

Route between LDP and Subang exit highway. There's a lake fountain display on the other side of the road one cannot help but notice while being stuck in traffic jams.



I like driving in the rain, especially when I'm heading home. Its cooler, cleaner air and I can sing aloud to the CD player without other drivers catching me in the act.



Several days ago there was a fatal accident on the LDP Kelana Jaya. The police had closed the road but drivers driving out of area can catch the black tarp covering the dead motorcyclist. There were 6 police cars with flashing lights on the road.



Ai-yoooo, PakYong. The while Kancil car is the youngest-uncle-cum-neighbour, photo taken last month. He's the one whose big Nissan van we always borrow to transport the barbecue set for Adil-Adha. Apparently his wife knocked the Kancil into an accident and blew out the radiator. Mak helped tow the unstable car to the workshop (tow-truck charges too much).



Haha, the picture on a trip back to Pontian Kechil last Aidilfitri. This is one of my mother's cousin's house (Mom's a Javanese). The eldest living in this house, the eldest in the extended family, is - was - Wak Ram, my late grandfather's sister. She passed away peacefully not even 24 hours of this blog entry. This is the house my mother is heading to right now (I couldn't come since I got school).

Damn, I'm going to miss that nice old lady. She's been loosing her wits for some time but she's at the peak of health (still good vision and hearing, not bad).



Okay, soooo...
This isn't a drive by shot, not was Dusty the Cat was ever involved in a drive by shooting. But if he ever was in a drive by shot, he would probably pose this way (it was curtains washing day at the time).

Lions are Loose in the Kelana Mall!

Okay, I said I’m going to pay attention more to homework instead of blogging but it’s really hard to concerntrate on lines of code when there’s a freaking tum-tum-chang noise just next door to school.

Between 15 minutes later and on my fifth time my error-filled program refused to work (how the hell do I change this Java application into Java applet?!), I decided to call it quits, pack my bags and save this problem for another day (preferably a day when I didn’t forget to bring my textbook).

Like rats to the Pipe Piper’s music, I followed the horde to investigate the not-so-mysterious music of drums and cymbals.

The interior of Kelana Mall is pretty big for such a small place.

Kelana Mall isn’t really a packed place. Most of the store lots are still as closed as sea clams (apt description, I must say) and so any noise within the building is pretty much applified by echoes.

And at this time of the year, where there is drums and cymbals... There’s a troop of lion dancers. A least I think they’re lion dancers. I can never tell the difference between a lion and dragon get-up (sorry me). So I’m going to refer to them as lion dancers because they look so golden (heh...).


A parent pointing out the lions on the second floor to his kid.


Musicians (is that what they’re called?) banging on the drums. They take turns when one of the gets tired - somehow they have to keep the beat going.


Ooo, the lion and his escorts.

So apparently some property development company had just opened a branch in Kelana Mall. Chinese company of course. I think sending for the lion dancers is a form of blessing? Prosperity? Whatever it means, it sure beats the hell of sitting down at the PC Lab and working out programming.

The troop had started on the entrance of the Kelana Mall and worked their vigour right up to the front entrance, ground floor, of the new office building. Then they went up to the second floor and hang around that entrance too.


Both lions display their strength.


What’s this? An citrus offering?


Don’t mind if we help ourselves.

I’ve never seen a lion dance up close before. Oh, I had been present during a few (and once on an opening ceremony my dad MC’d for) but never by myself. So things time without having family members to watch out for (my lil’ bro usually hates the noise), I was able to capture the team in action to its finish.

It was quite noisy was my first impression but I eventually got used to it and managed to stand closer and closer to take shots. Of couse, half of my mind was asking me why the heck am I getting so near to a ceremony that have no affiliation with me, either educational or recreational.

Simply put, I wouldn’t miss a chance to see something different from my norm.


While one lion was busy with the fruits, his buddy chased after innocent bystanders with mandrin oranges.


The oranges and the pamelo had been cut and was served to the branch manager.


The procession concluded when the lion had eaten his veggie-on-a-string.

I must say it was pretty facinating to watch. I was so scared of getting mobbed by the lion that I missed my chance at getting my own mandrin oranges. Damn, it would have been a great picture shot.

I didn’t stick around to see the very end of lion dance; I was there for about half-an-hour at least. When I looked behind me, I wasn’t looking at the lions (which were invited inside the office) but rather, I saw the people watching the dance.

Like me, they too were awed. Who says there’s prejudice amongst races?


The appreciative audience. And these are only on the ground floor!

When a Blogger Looks for Puns...

: Hi! It’s us.
: And us.
: Which makes both of one to make a whole me.
: So it’s just me.
: And me.
: To the point, Quickening can’t come to the blog right now.
: Actually she can but she doesn’t want to think too much.
: So instead of our regularly sceduled 250+ word post-,
: I’m - we're - both of me - is just going to enter some nonsensical nonsense since none had sense save we.
: Don’t cut me off.
: I didn’t.
: Yes you did, I was going to say all that-,
: But I said them for you.
: You cut me off again!
: Did not!
: You always cut me off!
: So what if I did? We share one head anyway.
: You occupy too much space. I barely have room to think.
: That’s not true. I don’t think so.
: You don’t think, alright.
: Why you lil’ piece of-

*Fights like angel-devil they are. But they both like punts. Here are some pretty interesting ones the English language plays around with.*

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.

The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.

The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal.

Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.

We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply.

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.

The math professor went crazy with the blackboard. He did a number on it.

The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.

The dead batteries were given out free of charge.

If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.

A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.

A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

A will is a dead giveaway.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

A backward poet writes inverse.

In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.

He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

A calendar's days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

A plateau is a high form of flattery.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Acupuncture: a jab well done.

: Right! That’s about it.
: And remember...!

What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.