Conversation With A Book Lover

My friend and I were talking about Stephen King's short story collection, Just After Sunset. He thought it was great. I told him Stephen King's short stories now aren't as good as the ones before.

Friend: "Nowadays, I only read short fiction. Novels just take too long for me. I prefer them short so I can finish one quickly and move on to the next."

Me: "So, your reading habit is like how you like your sex - short and sweet, fast and furious, wham bam, thank you, ma'am."

Friend: "Ya, I'm into one-night stands."

Me: "Well, I'm different. I'm into group sex. That's why I always read at least six books at a time."

Friend: "Ya, monogamy is so outdated."

The Twilight Zone

I told a friend how interesting and well-cut the trailer for New Moon is. I never saw Twilight; I'm just not interested in High School Musical vampires.

The friend then whipped out a movie magazine, and pointed to a page about New Moon. There was a still featuring a bunch of shirtless guys in tight jeans standing in something like the middle of a forest.

"A bunch of Marky Marks, eh?" he laughed.

Ya, it was true. Then I decided to see Twilight, but I was too cheap to get the DVD. I ended up watching it on YouTube.

In Italian.

Without subtitles.

But then it was kind of fun, when the first thing Edward says to Bella is "Ciao!" If it had been in English, I would have felt like I was watching Let The High School Musical One In. But in Italian? It was like watching a weird remake of an American teen vampire movie directed by Federico Fellini. So, it was alright, I guess.

Now, as a hot-blooded straight male, how do you react to a movie sequel with shirtless hottie shape-shifters? Simple. You piss all over it any chance you get, just to reaffirm your manly-manliness. Say you want to stab your eyes out with a pen, or you want to puke your liver and lungs out at the lovey-dovey scenes. Nevermind that people might wonder why you went to see it in the first place, if you already knew you were going to hate it so much. Well, look, I pissed all over Transformers, but went out and bought the limited edition DVD.

Anyway, here's a YouTube video of a werewolf, caught by someone back in the 90s. Warning: it's not for the faint-hearted.

Another Conversation With My Online Friend

More fun with my online friend, Ronnie. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent, just like the last blog entry featuring Ronnie. His real name is Rohan. So, don't say I didn't protect him.)

Ronnie: Why do you buy so many box sets?

Me: Because I need them so I can build a dam against the floods.

Ronnie: Damn!

Me: Hamster Damn in Amsterdam.

Ronnie: Coooooo ... l.

Me: It's the title of a new Van Damn movie.

Ronnie: Van Damme saves the hamsters.

Me: It's the other way around.

Ronnie: Are the hamsters CGI or real?

Me: They are real, Van Damn is CGI ... don't you know anything?

Ronnie: His eyes will look dead.

Me: Creepy zombie movie.

Ronnie: Just like Arnie in Terminator 4.

Me: Arnie was supposed to be a robot, you doofus!

Ronnie: Short Circuit is a robot as is Bishop. I don't have a point here.

Meanwhile, here's a dancing Van Damned, long before he became a lean, mean wooden-acting machine.

In The Dark In A Dark Cinema

Today, I went to see that creepy zombie movie, A Christmas Carol, in 3D. Well, it's not really a creepy zombie movie, but right before I went in for the movie, I met my friend Bryant who had just come out of watching The Box, another creepy zombie movie which I saw this past weekend.

Bryant, in our conversation, reminded me about how this motion-capture animation technique, which Robert "I made a cool 80s time-travel movie using an extinct sports car" Zemeckis has been using for Beowulf and The Polar Express, makes the characters a bit weird because everything else is life-like but their eyes are lifeless. Hence, "creepy zombie movie."

Actually, motion-capture animation may remind Bryant of zombies, but it reminds me of my friend Lazarus Auyong, whom we love to call Laz The Spaz, or - because Auyong is effectively two words, "Au" and "Yong" - his other moniker, Laz-Y-Ong.

As you may have already guessed, Laz used to creep out the people in our office. Everything about him is life-like, but his eyes are lifeless. There used to be this horrible ghost story going around the office, about a terrifying ghost who sits at the stairwell behind the office building. They said the spectre appears in a cloud of mist, smells horrible and has the eyes of a corpse.

But, of course, we all knew it was Laz, because he loves to sit at the stairwell at night smoking his Sampoerna.

I wish I had a better photograph of Laz to show you, but this is the best I could come up with, because the guy is pretty elusive:

Here's another slgihtly better photo of Laz:

A Day In The Life

Some years ago, during a "dry spell," when nothing much happened, my friend Anselm Leong, a member of the Manestonian Society Of Master Architects, and I decided to head to a mall for a bit of R&R. As you will discover, it was a really slow day that day.

Now, a lot of our malls here are quite badly designed, and I'm basing my judgement on the strict and holistic guidelines set by the clandestine Manestonian Society Of Master Architects. Almost 500 years ago, its founder, Grandmaster Mabisma Foley Panayotou Swindon, had already possessed the great foresight of setting a limit to the size of a mall. This is back in the days when malls hadn't even existed! And that is why Grandmaster M.F.P. Swindon is, erm, grandmaster.

To escape the hot afternoon, Anselm and I sought refuge in one of those giant malls, the one that seems like an oversized rat's maze. If anything, malls are like great balls of goo that trap people in their ooze, slowing time down, and definitely slowing people down. Even a world-class athlete would suddenly lose all sense of time and adopt a sluggish gait.

But not Anselm and I. We were like Speedy Gonzales on, er, speed. We had a Masterplan. Every store would be made to serve its purpose. None would escape our evil eyes. We would show no mercy.

I darted into The Body Shop, went up to one of the salesgirls, and said, "I'd like to buy your body."

Needless to say, the reaction was one of shock and awe.

Anselm went into Burger King, and fired off, "I'd like aMushroomSwisswithlargefriesandaCoke,andmyfriendwouldliketohave
aBKFishSandwichwithlargeonionrings,andpleaseaddtwoIcedMilosanda
NorwegianWildSalmonBurgerwithcheeseandbarbecuesauce,
thankyouverymuch."

The guy at the counter looked appropriately annoyed and confused (or one or the other, we couldn't really tell from his lousy face), and asked, "Excuse me, sir, could you please repeat that?"

And Anselm did as requested. To which confused guy looked even more confused.

Sensing his prey on its final breath, Anselm delivered the killer blow, "Well, isn't this a fast-food restaurant?"

I went into McDonald's later and, wearing my best innocent-puppy look, said, "Could I have a haggis, please?"

"Eh?" said Confused Guy No. 2.

"Well, isn't this a Scottish restaurant?"

All in all, I would say it was a good day.

Conversation With My Online Friend

The kind of chats I have with my friends online. Sometimes they're quite insightful into the state of things in the world.

Me: Do you wear panties?

Ronnie: Yes, because of the financial crisis.

Me: Ya, I wear thongs ... they are cheaper cause they need less material.

Ronnie: Yeah, my panties are made of cardboard. Home-made.

Me: They're hard ... must be painful for your pussy.

Ronnie: Nah, she's alright. I wear one pair all week, then I use it for other things, like a crown. Reuse.

Me: That's environmentally friendly practice. I reuse my panties as tablecloth and I don't wash them cause I save water.

Ronnie: Yeah, that's noble.

Conversation With A Filmmaker

This was a recent chat I had with a filmmaker friend of mine who wanted to see Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, which features a briefly nude Brigitte Bardot.

After seeing the first opening moments of the film, he excitedly exclaimed: "Woah! There's a nude woman!"

I said: "Well, don't be too happy just yet. They're only brief scenes in the opening minutes. "

"Oh, well."

"Ya, Godard put in the nudity just to please the studio. Because, well they had Bardot, and all audiences want with her is some skin. It would sell the film. People might feel cheated if they go to a Bardot movie and don't see any skin. So they pressured Godard for it."

"Man, I wish studios would give me that kind of pressure."

The Libran Librarian

I once had this conversation with a leggy beauty at a bar.

"So what do you do?" I asked.

"I'm a Libran," she replied, or so I thought.

"Oh, OK, I'm a Cancerian, but so far, it hasn't been quite a full-time occupation for me," I chuckled like I was really, really smart.

"Eh?"

"Erm, yeah. So what does that kind of a job involve?"

She looked incredulous and off-kilter for reasons I could not fathom at that moment. "Uh, books?"

"Oh ... books on astrology?"

"On almost everything. Excuse me, but are you OK?"

"Well, this is my seventh whisky, but I'm not seeing purple elephants yet, thanks for asking. Anyway, how did you land such a position? Do they advertise it in the papers? Like 'People born in October needed. Other signs need not apply'. Hehehehehehe!"

"Excuse me, but I think there's some confusion here."

"Eh? Didn't you say you work as a Libran?"

Boy, the eighth shot of whisky sure tasted damn good.

All Atoms Are Born Equal

So, I went to see that blockbuster event movie of the year, 2012. Ya, it was not bad, lots of falling buildings and people screaming. The usual disaster movie drill. But something disturbs me about the movie.

You know, it would be fine if it was about how our irresponsible way of living and using the natural resources on earth leads to destruction of the world. But the movie places the blame mostly on neutrinos influenced by the galactic alignment that occurs in 2012.

I strongly feel that is unfair. Just because there are a lot of neutrinos around, doesn't mean we should blame them for all our problems. Personally I've known a neutrino for some years. The way we met was kind of by accident.

I was walking in town one day, and a neutrino came up to me and asked if I needed my lawn mowed. I said no. Then it asked if I needed my car washed. I said I didn't own a car.

As I kept walking, the neutrino kept following me. I went into a 7-Eleven to see if it would finally give up. But it persisted. One thing about neutrinos, you've got to credit them for their persistence.

In the end, I did what any decent human being would do. I listened. I bought the neutrino a cup of coffee and sat and listened to its plight.

After about an hour, I understood and felt its pain, and I decided to give it some money.

"You don't have to wash my car or mow my lawn," I said. "But I will introduce you to a friend of mine who runs a store downtown. He needs a new worker."

So, the neutrino and I have been friends for some years now. And I'm glad I didn't ignore it and gave it the time of day, because when you have a neutrino as a friend, you have a friend for life.

Size Does Smarter

This just in:

Women with large breasts are smarter.

Well, I hate to say "I told you so," but all those times when I told people I like Pamela Anderson for her intelligence, did anyone believe me? Nooo! Instead, you made fun of me. Now you know.

This has some interesting implications for the world at large (ahem). For one thing, men can now pay compliments to a woman for her breast size without sounding like a perv.

"Hey, I really like your intelligence!"

"Hi, I see you're massively intelligent. I like!"

But then again, don't be too happy because there's also this piece of news.

Malfunctioning Function

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have been a firm supporter of your products for many years, and have always recommended them to my friends. However, after my last purchase, I came away terribly disappointed for the first time in such a long period of loyalty to your company.

I made the crucial decision of buying this product based on its rather unusual design and very interesting features. I have never seen one with more than four buttons, and certainly not one with a red glass top. Despite any reservations I might have had, I was immediately sold once I had read what the product promised to do.

However, once I got home, took the item out of its box, and plugged it in, it went back on its promises like a good politician. I applied the hand-held accessory to the correct part of my anatomy as instructed, but did not feel a thing. The desired effect of mental and physical proportions combined did not appear at all.

I returned to the store immediately, after I had soaped myself down after use, also as instructed. The salesgirl refused to entertain my complaints, and the manager reacted in a similar manner, citing my impotent physicality as the reason, which left me with no choice but to write this letter of complaint.

I must say, I am sorely disappointed with your company and your service. At this juncture, I am compelled to remind you and your staff that THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

Thank you and good afternoon.

PS. Included is the serial number of the product for your reference.


Your truly,
A.K.



~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.



Dear Sir,

Your complaint has been duly noted and filed in the very large cabinet behind the General Manager's office in which most complaints are kept for an indeterminate period.

We regret that your purchase has not met with satisfaction. We also regret to inform you that the particular item you purchased was of a batch that came off a faulty production line.

However, we are happy to inform you that we have a replacement policy for all malfunctioning products. All you have to do is:

1. Come to our headquarters here in the most remote and inaccessible part of the highlands of Pahang.

2. Fill in forms number 23, 54, 68, 132, and 11A.

3. Participate in an interview with members of our customer satisfaction committee.

4. Participate in another interview with our quality control team.

5. Submit to a thorough medical examination by our in-house medical experts to determine that your physical health is not a factor in your dissatisfaction with our product.

6. Fill in forms number 34B, 55C, 78G, and 234II-A.

7. Attend a one-hour session with our in-house psychologist for an assessment of your mental well-being.

8. Go for an identification line-up, where you will be required to point out the offending product out of a line-up of 10 products.

We look forward to your visit. As always, we will do our very best to live up to our company motto: IF IT'S FAULTY, IT'S NOT US.

Thank you.


Regards,
Customer Service Support

Houston, We Have A Problem

NASA needs to come back down to earth. Unfortunately, as much as they would like to believe so, they aren't the first ones to discover water on the moon.

Celine Dion did it first.

Blame yourselves for not believing in her when she first told us about it back in 1993. That was, what, 16 years ago? She is indeed the greatest clairvoyant singer of our time, if not one of the most annoying vocalists of all time.

Granny knickers aside, NASA could learn a thing or two from her.

Conversation With A Bank Employee

It was with a total lack of surprise that I answered a call from the Bank, about my long overdue credit-card payment. It was one of those things that make you want to kick yourself in the nuts, if only the sole of your foot could reach high enough to touch your crotch. Then, with one swift swing of the leg, you could kill millions of sex tadpoles, and maybe even yourself.

I would normally avoid the telephone in grand fashion; I couldn't give two farts. However, this time I had no choice but to face the music of the Bank's legal papers swishing and wafting in the winds of my impending financial doom.

"Hello, Mr Koay, this is Wilhelmina calling from the Bank. It's about your overdue payment."

I, of course, feigned surprise. "Oh, wow, my goodness, alamak, atchoo! I didn't even realise it's April!"

"Yes, Mr Koay. We would just like to know if you can make payment this week."

"Oh my, let's see ... erm, well ... tell you what ... I really don't know."

"Well, would you be able to make the payment by the end of this week?"

"Uh, well ... hey, do you own an air pot?"

"A what? Airport?"

"No, no, an air pot. You know, one of those things that keep the water warm and ready for you to make a hot cup of coffee?"

"Er, no."

"Well, would you like to buy one?"

"No."

"But listen, our air pots are of the latest, state-of-the-art design. It has the new three-channel system, which helps to maintain water in three different temperatures, all in one air pot! Now, isn't that wonderful? And if you buy now, we will give you a very special and exclusive coffee and tea set for free!"

"Erm, sir, could you please make payment by this week?"

"Well, would you like to buy our air pot? Special low price, this week only!"

"Er, no thanks."

"OK, then. Thank you for your time, miss."

And I hung up.

Return Policy

I kept a blog for some years (OK, two years) and had fun updating it often. Then one day I ran out of things to say. I mean, I wallowed inside the things I wanted to say and one day I just decided to run outside.

And when I saw what was outside, I never turned back. Over the years I kept a few other blogs where I wrote things I didn't want to say. Just mindless nonsense. But fun nonsense, mind you. It helped that I was smitten with a girl at the time, and she was smitten with one of my blogs. She wasn't smitten with me, you see, just with my words. Then I guess the inevitable happened - they eloped. My words and her.

So then I ran out of words.

I spent a few years in the wilderness, before I decided to give this another try.

Some of the above are not true, of course. What do you think I am, a nut?

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