Written by lainie at 07:13 PM on May 1, 2007 in College, Events.

It's May Day, so, happy may day to you.

This weekend, I have two events to go for. Kakiseni's award show, the Cammies, on Sunday night. This show generally concerns the nominees, and the kind of people who go to exhibition openings and poetry readings for free alcohol.

The second event does concern you (kinda). It's for the People's Art Fest coming up at Pasar Seni, Annexe. You can see other events at the World Press Freedom Day blog, the one I'm taking part in is the workshop Katagender is conducting.

It's basically gonna be a bunch of wankers who'll try not to waste your time, while sharing skills on how to print your own tshirts, do some graffiti stuff, along with some mask thingie (I don't know what Dennis does with masks, really, but it looked theatrical when he was miming it by waving his arms around), illustrations and whatnot.

I'll be doing the illustrations part of the workshop - Should be a very casual thing, please don't scare me by bringing a brain the size of Africa. Someone said to me, "propaganda illustrations". I have no idea what that means, but just come on over and poke your nose round if you'd like.

Actually, anyone I know who can draw and doesn't mind waving a pencil with other people (am I the only one who thinks this sounds suggestive?), bell me at lainieyeoh@gmail.com and see if we pair up for Saturday?

The katagender email...I think this is the most legit thing katagender's ever come up with:

---

D.I.Y Aktivisma!

What in the world is an activist? Do you need a collective? Must you join an NGO? Is it necessary to have lots of button badges, chant slogans and hang out at demos?

Uhm… we don’t really know. But we reckon activism is whatever happens when someone does, says or thinks of something that doesn’t just involve the individual, but the larger context that we exist in. Something about relationship between the self and other people, public institutions like the media, school or government, animals small and big, air, water, sky or trees.

But hey, what do we know. Come hang out with us during the World Press Freedom Day Art Fest at Central Market, and set us straight

In the meantime, we’ll also be sharing skills like silk-screen, stenciling, playing with masks, illustrations and more! Oh, and a session on what to do when the police tries to arrest you (of course)

DoItYourself Aktivisma is happening at:

When? Saturday, 5 May 2007
Time? 4pm
Where? Central Market, between the main building at the Annex
Who the heck are we? katagender.blogspot.com
More info? kata.gender@gmail.com

---

D.I.Y. Aktivisma!

Apa benda tu aktivis? Perlu ada kolektif? Mesti join NGO? Kena pakai berpuluh-puluh button badge, sahut slogan-slogan semua dan lepak kat demo?

Uhm… kami pun tak tahu sebenarnya. Tapi, kami rasa, aktivisma berlaku apabila sesiapa melakukan, berkata atau memikirkan tentang apa-apa benda yang melibatkan bukan saja seseorang individu, tapi konteks yang lebih besar. Tentang perhubungan di antara diri-sendiri dengan orang lain, insitusi awam spt sekolah, media atau kerajaan, binatang2 yang comel dan juga hodoh, air, udara ataupun pokok.

Tapi bukannya kami tahu apa-apa. Datang pada Pesta Seni Hari Kebebasan Akhbar Sedunia dan ajarler kami apatu sebenarnya aktivisma

Pada masa yg sama, kita akan berkongsi pengetahuan tentang silk-screen, stensil, main2 dgn topeng, ilustrasi dsbgnya. Oh, dan juga (semestinya) sesi tentang hak2 asas bila ditahan polis.

DoItYourself Aktivisma akan berlaku pada:

Bila? Sabtu, 5 May 2007
Masa? 4pm – 6pm
Dimana? Pasar Seni, di antara Annex & bangunan utama
Kami ni siapa? katagender.blogspot.com
Nak tahu lagi? kata.gender@gmail.com

---

Katagender has posted a video online, a performance they did wayyy back, cross dressing, chalking sidewalks and slapping each other. And an Ani diFranco soundtrack............................... figures.

Video doesn't show them getting into trouble with the police though .

---

Woke up late today, to a message from Bernice asking if my paper was done. Ah, no holiday on the 1st of May. Texted to say I was done with the paper (which is not to say my paper is done), and briefly contemplated pontenging one of her classes for the first time ever......when my lecturer replied she was just round the corner and would swing by to pick me up.

So much for that, then. Yay Bernice for helping me save petrol money! Carpool! Was going through the playlist of new music on Zedeck's laptop, when Bernice picked me up....As she started to drive off, she slowed down.....and asked if I had my paper with me. Damn cannot escape handing in the paper la

Lainie: My brain's on a mini-holiday.

Bernice: Your brain's always on a mini-holiday.

Lainie: Extended mini holiday, then .

Had a short class where she gave us a pile of notes, had group hugs because the Cenfad students are stressed out over ICON show, then she took Serene and I for a bite at the mamak. Yay Bernice for lunch!

As we exited I passed by this presumably homeless man dressed only in unzipped blue jeans, his dong hanging out as he walked and picked up ciggie butts off the ground. I called him Barebutt Man, cause traffic was bad so he walked ahead of us most of the time, effectively mooning us the whole way (and flashing everyone ahead who looked back, I guess).

Bernice came over after the meal, and I helped her with some online stuff. I think it's funny that she's so intimidated by the internet. But yeah, Bernice shall be joining the dingy world of blogging and networking sites soon .

Written by lainie at 10:11 AM on May 2, 2007 in Daily Life.

This lot of stuff to pay for is...gah. I am officially the brokest I've been in a while, whoo whoo, whoo whoo. Bills, and helloadultlife.

Two full moons in the month of May. "Watch out, it's gonna get explosive," she said. The rechargeable batteries in my room won't recharge, snarky buggers, batteries. I am viewing today with the sang-froid of numbing headaches, bad sleep and meds. Something about all these makes me like, buddha, or somethin. I would say I'm surprised, but I am too tranquilised. Later, she asked if she could stand on her head, if I would mind.

On our way to get a teapot last night, I told the others that goddammit, we should take up tapdancing together. Then dress like penguins, and hold little waffy sticks, and put up surprise tapdance shows. Tippity tippity...tap tap.

There's a friend I need to call now, so. Mend some cracks that have emerged, so to speak. Laters, if we do.

Meanwhile: Happy Wesak day.

Written by lainie at 01:01 AM on May 4, 2007 in Daily Life.

Yesterday was quality time with Josie and Rach. Figured we should just have each other's company after the weekend - it's a little strange that the next one is already on the horizon.

We dined, went grocery shopping, and ended up playing Scrabble in Rach's apartment (I got 7 letters in with "Varsity", w00t). Ate chips, Rach plied me with sugar, and Josie with alcohol. Listened to the kind of music that reminds me of the both of them (I am the walruuuusss). Noticed that my photo wasn't on Rach's fridge (only because she made the disclaimer beforehand she didn't have photos of all of us). Wondering what kinda stuff we should put on our fridge at home, since Jerng observed it was kinda bare the other day.

Watched Wesak processions and rituals from the balcony. It was a huge full moon, and it was colourful and noisy downstairs. Drove home in the rain.

Did my laundry today in a daze. The washing machine has this pipe thing that lets out water, and I am supposed to point it into the bathroom so it drains there. I made a mental note to do it, got really distracted by something, dumped my clothes in, forgot about the pipe, had to take a nap.............and woke up in time to think "Aw, fuck".

Went downstairs, and sure enough, I had flooded the entire kitchen and living room with about an inch of water. So that was about two hours of mopping, or risk screwing up a lot of electronics downstairs.

I yelled once out of frustration; fortunately none of my housemates were home to be frightened. Stopped when I started to feel blisters on my hands, and decided the fans could deal with drying up the rest. I don't mean to sound like such a princess, but this is only the second time I'm living without household help of any sort, I'm not really geared for this kinda organised housework stuff. Gahh. Me and brooms, unloving relationship. Me and laundry, equal hate relationship - have lost count of how many clothes I've ruined, let's just say I really need boxers / shorts now.

Was really tired by then, so skipped a meal and slept again - am on meds as well, so it doesn't help. I've been sleeping a lot and still feel tired most of the time. I accidentally soaked Jerng's sleeping bag in water :/. Had some Baileys at night with Jemufo (I have decided that chemicals and alco mix juuuust fine), walked with them in the rain to the bank - I have less money in my pocket than I do in my bank account. In fact, I could add both sums together, and not have enough to top up my phone. So, hey. College life.

Speaking of college life, I've come up with an idea I'm pretty fond of, but the mindmaps I've been making lately are....Well, I'm better off not making mindmaps. Heck, download pimpage: I use FreeMind. It gets really useful.

There have been a few things here and there I don't feel like doing, or saying. Ah, well. I seem to be the only one who doesn't want to talk about stuff.

Rish is coming down over the weekend, and I've been griping at her because she returns to the Gold Coast a day before my birthday (which is coming up). She told me to shut it .

Was on the phone with Tei today, bit of a lark. She's juggling work and college, and I guess anyone who's done it knows how much room that creates for phone conversations. She nearly nodded off on the phone while rattling off a whole stream of things, and it's amazing that I'm the one who's been sleeping all day and have far less to say than she does (then again, it's Tei and me).

Was dealing with Zedeck jumping up and down on my mattress, chanting emonyeee emonyeee (I've been listening to Beth Orton, this coming from the guy with albums of Magnetic Fields music in his laptop), while I was on the phone with Tei. I laughed and briefly considered kicking him. Tei asked me why he wasn't stressed about the awards coming up - I think his brains are overloaded by now. I don't care how mega the brain is, I'm sure it's fried.

Got some music from Jemufo. w00t. She made me laugh by saying the most hilarious thing earlier - heh heh heh. We shall leave that out of the blog.

The last times I blogged photos of my hair, it looked like this, and then it looked like this. Now it's grown out, I need a haircut already, and it looks like this:



So, yknow. Really you guys can stop going "ZOMG, Lainie looks like a girl!" when you meet me.

Taken by Jemufo tonight while I was cheery on Baileys (and aptly, drinking outta a glass marked "Coffee"). Now I have caffeine cravings and....Grahhhhh. I want coffee.

Written by lainie at 05:06 PM on May 4, 2007 in Events.

WORLDPRESSFREEDOMDAY2007
People's Arts Fest

Date: Sat 5 - Sun 6, May 2007
Venue: Central Market & The Annexe
Tickets: FREE OF CHARGE!

Web: http://worldpressfreedomday.blogspot.com/

Brought to you by
CENTRE FOR INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM, MALAYSIAKINI & CENTRAL MARKET
Supported by Bau-Bau Cafe, The RiceCooker and Troubadours


5 May (Saturday)

At the Outdoor Stage
(at the front of Central Market)

12pm
Launch of People's Arts Fest by CIJ
COMEBACK KINGS

7.30pm
Wayang Kadbod by Komuniti Anak Seni Kg. Berembang
PETER BROWN
TAN SEI HON
KAMASUTRA
Installation and Performance Art: Commemorating U Win Tin
SHANON SHAH
CARBURETOR DUNG


The Annexe Studio
(Above the Mezzanine Floor of The Annexe)

11am : Art Workshop for kids
1pm: Poetry Reading
3pm: Film screening


At The Open Space
(in between CM & The Annexe)

12pm till 6 pm
DIY & BBB Cultural Group: t-shirts printing

4pm
DIY Activism by katagender

== == == == == ==

6 May (Sunday)

At the Outdoor Stage
(at the front of Central Market)

7.30pm
Kajang Cultural Group: 50 Years MERDEKA!
PANDA HEAD CURRY
Wayang Kadbod by Komuniti Anak Seni Kg. Berembang
PAK PANDIR
AZMYL YUNOR
MEI CHERN
MODAR

The Annexe Studio
(Above the Mezzanine Floor of The Annexe)

11am: Art Workshop for kids
11am: Talking Cartoons Exhibition by Zunar
12pm: CIJ Radio Production Workshop
3pm: Wayang Kadbod by Komuniti Anak Seni Kg. Berembang
5 to 7pm: Talk with Zunar on cartoons

At the Open Space
(in between CM & Annexe)

12pm - 6 pm: DIY & BBB Cultural Group: t-shirts printing


Web: http://worldpressfreedomday.blogspot.com/

---

D.I.Y Aktivisma!

What in the world is an activist? Do you need a collective? Must you join an NGO? Is it necessary to have lots of button badges, chant slogans and hang out at demos?

Uhm… we don’t really know. But we reckon activism is whatever happens when someone does, says or thinks of something that doesn’t just involve the individual, but the larger context that we exist in. Something about relationship between the self and other people, public institutions like the media, school or government, animals small and big, air, water, sky or trees.

But hey, what do we know. Come hang out with us during the World Press Freedom Day Art Fest at Central Market, and set us straight

In the meantime, we’ll also be sharing skills like silk-screen, stenciling, playing with masks, illustrations and more! Oh, and a session on what to do when the police tries to arrest you (of course)

DoItYourself Aktivisma is happening at:

When? Saturday, 5 May 2007
Time? 4pm
Where? Central Market, between the main building at the Annex
Who the heck are we? katagender.blogspot.com
More info? kata.gender@gmail.com

---

D.I.Y. Aktivisma!

Apa benda tu aktivis? Perlu ada kolektif? Mesti join NGO? Kena pakai berpuluh-puluh button badge, sahut slogan-slogan semua dan lepak kat demo?

Uhm… kami pun tak tahu sebenarnya. Tapi, kami rasa, aktivisma berlaku apabila sesiapa melakukan, berkata atau memikirkan tentang apa-apa benda yang melibatkan bukan saja seseorang individu, tapi konteks yang lebih besar. Tentang perhubungan di antara diri-sendiri dengan orang lain, insitusi awam spt sekolah, media atau kerajaan, binatang2 yang comel dan juga hodoh, air, udara ataupun pokok.

Tapi bukannya kami tahu apa-apa. Datang pada Pesta Seni Hari Kebebasan Akhbar Sedunia dan ajarler kami apatu sebenarnya aktivisma

Pada masa yg sama, kita akan berkongsi pengetahuan tentang silk-screen, stensil, main2 dgn topeng, ilustrasi dsbgnya. Oh, dan juga (semestinya) sesi tentang hak2 asas bila ditahan polis.

DoItYourself Aktivisma akan berlaku pada:

Bila? Sabtu, 5 May 2007
Masa? 4pm – 6pm
Dimana? Pasar Seni, di antara Annex & bangunan utama
Kami ni siapa? katagender.blogspot.com
Nak tahu lagi? kata.gender@gmail.com

Written by lainie at 10:40 PM on May 4, 2007.

1. Open your music library and click "shuffle".
2. Choose the first 20 songs.
3. Write your favorite line of each song and have your friends guess what it is (don't bloody cheat).

1. I hope you know you're my favorite thing about the west coast.
2. Got to get a new pair of shoes, to kick it with her, not kick it with you. (Fujiya & Miyagi - Collarbone)
3. High on amphetamines, the moon is a lightbulb breaking, it'll go around with anyone.
4. And I know they're going to laugh at us, when they, when they see us out together holding hands like this.
5. You know I’m such a fool for you, you got me wrapped around your finger, do you have to let it linger. (The Cranberries - Linger)
6. And everyday I miss you, and wonder and guess, what you are listening to.
7. Lets just see who's up on this screen, no one I know is more depressing then me.
8. I know just what you're saying, so please stop explaining. (No Doubt - Don't Speak)
9. Thought she was James Dean for a day, then I guess she had to crash. (Lou Reed - Walk on the Wild Side)
10. Nothing could save me from you, so long, tired but I ain't dreaming falling into solid air, and why I must be leaving or one of these days.
11. Theres something in the way she moves, or looks my way, or calls my name, that seems to leave this troubled world behind.
12. The language is leaving me. (Annie Lennox - No More I Love Yous)
13. I'll let you use me, and just abuse me, but girl I want you to be mine.
14. Geography's too stubborn and people are too clear, so let's go find a road-side motel with a clerk who won't tell.
15. We're going to win this, with spades and truncheons, guns and trowels.
16. It was a great big lie, cause I left that night.
17. Cocktail glasses glimmer like your eyes, they're making me feel old.
18. The weatherman says blue skies, but it's raining like the clouds all decided to cry, and every time you hurt me I say it's all right, it's all right, it's all right.
19. You're the cresendo to that melody, that melody I love.
20. I never thought that you wanted for me to stay, so I left you with the girls that came your way.

Somewhere embedded in this list is a song I used to listen to too much, and a song I'm still listening to, too much. My head is pounding. See y'all tomorrow at the Annexe if I do.

Written by lainie at 02:13 AM on May 6, 2007 in College, Friends, Events, Home.

I can't really remember what happened yesterday, was sick so memory's hazy.

But I remember walking downstairs to find Jemufo had pretty cream and orange papers laid out on the living room floor, and was sticking newspaper articles on (lack of) press freedom in Malaysia.

It was for CIJ's weekend World Press Freedom Day event in The Annexe. Ahhhh, life as a civil society activist's housemate, snarksnark. I helped her cut out the logo for their Freedom of Information campaign, a firefly.

Jemufo's job description includes reading the newspapers. The closest I come to reading the news here is the weekly editorial housemate #2, Zedeck, writes for Kakiseni.

=====

I woke up this morning to smses that I would have replacement Typography class in KLCC today - which ate into the time I was supposed to spend designing Katagender's logo.

Jac told me to do a logo, and I thought she wanted me to draw a frog. Jac and I, communications problem as usual (mostly because, I admit, I'm generally not paying attention). And I study communications design......sigh.

Bee and I were the only ones in Typography class. My god, if he had not turned up, that would have felt awkward for me..............

After class, I hopped on the train to Annexe, and watched the poetry / readings going on there. I've been playing with the idea of colonialism vs collaboration in the local poetry scene, because I like to waste time arguing with myself, but I didn't find much from the poetry performances today that could add to my thoughts.

Sharon Bakar was one of the readers (I liked what she read about writers in Turkey), so maybe she'll update us about it more. I'm reading one of Orhan Pahmuk's books right now (The Black Book). Good writer.

=====

After that, met up with Katagender people for our part in World Press Freedom Day in the Annexe.

Bought fabric dye for the silkscreen part of the workshop, along with cardboards and blades for stencilling. We sat at Bau Bau cafe drawing signs leading to where we had planted ourselves, drinking coffee. Due to lack of planning, our arrows pointed in conflicting directions, but I guess Jac figured out where to stick them so they made sense.

Katagender being Katagender, had the main plan, and a backup plan:

1) if people show up: a rough idea for "DIY Activism" workshop
(someone asked if I had an "outline" for my part of the workshop, illustration. Schmoutline? All I had was the question mark floating across my face, somewhere near the "Stupid" tattooed on my forehead).
This would be followed by some street action to introduce participants to activism.

2) if nobody shows up: we drink tea at Bau Bau cafe.

Katagender being Katagender, we had....a person....Yup. ONE PARTICIPANT! Which isn't a number that really fit in our "plans" of many or zero. The only person to layan us? Khailee's colleague from Mindvalley, young dude by the name of Timothy. Hello hello .

Timothy, upon saying "I design websites" to various members of Katagender, soon learned the spirit of giving and receiving from KG........Mostly the "giving" side, right now. I think Jac and Mien have both booked him to do website stuff for them, within a few minutes of meeting him. "DIY Activism" in this case, kinda meant "Do it Yourself: For Us, For Free, Tenkew......"

Made some stencils - some "Article 10" thing, imprisoned by all the stuff we have that pisses all over press freedom (OSA, ISA, LOOKMAACRONYMS, PPPA, ETC). Sprayed it on Bau Bau Cafe because they wanted it there - ("When it's allowed it's art, not vandalism" / "Who said vandalism isn't art??"). Timothy has a picture of the process.

Then spraypainted tshirts with "Inikah kebebasan media?" by holding parts of the stencil down with drinking straws and spritzing paint almost letter by letter. It's been some time since I've held a can of spraypaint.

Wrapped up Chi Too and Jac in newspapers - they looked ridiculous, and I don't actually know why we wrapped them as such, reminds me of fish and chips, but hey. Used markers to draw attention to some of the headlines they wore. If the intention was to make the newspapers look as bad as they read, then it worked.

I wore one of the stencilled tshirts over my own, it was like being baked slowly. We also wore pointy newspaper hats which made us look a bit Ku Klux Klan, so I flattened the tip a lil.

We were supposed to go out to the streets and divide the tasks as such

1) chalk down ridiculous headlines from newspapers, or
2) talk to people off the streets while distributing leaflets

- my problem largely being that I dislike talking to strangers, and I don't read the papers (headlines, what headlines?). Ganked headlines off others instead, and wrote them on the pavement.

We walked down the stairs towards the streets, armed with chalk, Chi Too and Jac quite....attention grabbing....In fact, Chi Too got the weirdest stare from some woman as we walked downstairs. And for once, KL traffic did not try to run down pedestrians, or even honk, as we jaywalked and crossed a busy road outside Pasar Seni. I think the drivers were a bit.....stunned.

Some messages we chalked got stamped out by angry men. Mostly the message about some ulama saying that Malaysia will be destroyed if Muslims were allowed to be apostates. The other messages were stuff like....Our tourism minister saying, on Intl Women's Day no less, that 80% of women bloggers are liars and unemployed (stats pulled out of anonymous ass, possibly his own)....And another dude calling it "fact" that single mothers are divorced because they are promiscuous / horny. I would call him an asshole, but I would then be forced to question whether anyone so full of shit has any such orifice, for so incredibly much to come back out through his mouth.

This is why I cannot read the newspapers. My blood pressure T___T.

Such fun newspaper headlines, really, I'm somewhat glad I remain unknowing of what goes on in print (I miss most of the blog rants about such stuff too).

We covered a small area, mostly Pasar Seni-ish - I think energy level was a bit low in the beginning, which tired us out, but built up later. We had to chalk and walk quicker because the sun was setting.

We wanted to chalk outside Pasar Seni LRT station. A bunch of us got there, squatted down and whipped out chalks - then someone spotted two coppers getting off the motorcycle. We did a pretty quick about turn in the opposite direction, as inconspicuously as a group of people in paper hats and stencilled tshirts, accompanied by a dude wrapped in newspapers chanting "Police! Police!", can....Some of the others had seen the police beforehand and were hanging further back, laughing at us as we retreated.

Chalked more in Pasar Seni, some others handed out badges (CIJ's press freedom badges), and leaflets on press freedom here (also ganked from CIJ's booths). The newspapers we'd wrapped around Chi Too and Jac were majorly disintegrating by then, falling off and getting ripped, making them an apt metaphor for the state of press freedom in Malaysia. Actually, I thought setting them on fire would have been great entertainment even more appropriate as a metaphor, but decided against it.

Chi Too and Jac walked around calling each other Press Freedom One and Press Freedom Two. They did some robot dance thing in their outfits, crackling with newspapers and looking like Robocop gone very, very, veeeeeeeeeeeery low budget (which is still better than looking like a high budget Robocop lookalike).

Laughed like hell when they did the dance. At one point, Chi Too couldn't see where Jac was, and I was a bit....."Uhm. She's over there. The one....covered in newspapers...and attracting stares". Which I suppose was a more reserved way of saying "Holy shit, you blind bat. THERE! THAT THING! IS JAC!".

Then we called it a day because security guards were about, and I think we were all kinda tired (also, frankly, running out of headlines because couldn't remember them, and in my case, never knew them). Headed back to Bau Bau Cafe to talk about the reactions those who had been distributing leaflets got from bystanders, and how we could have been hah hah hah hah more organised.

I think we did okay considering we came up with the plan pretty much on the spot at Bau Bau Cafe when we realised only one person would be available for the workshop ("What is the backup plan?" / "Backup plan??" / "Syiok sendiri, do action" / "Okay, syiok sendiri, what action do we do?" / "Well it is World Press Freedom Day").

Some people took photographs - I'm not sure who. We've got another action planned, that one mostly involves cross dressing and queering spaces. I think Mr. "High Budget Robocop" should join Katagender, if only because the "What The Fuck" looks he can gather will be...He'll fit right in.

Or at least, entertain me without me having to set anyone on fire. Good enough (to his credit, he looks just fine here).

Went for dinner, I was pretty weak by then from lack of food, and squatting down / standing up, my blood pressure makes me dizzy when I do that. Met the producer for Tsai Ming Liang's latest film, bought a pretty looking ticket, will attend the screening after my exhibition in two weeks.

======

Went for some of the WPFD performances after that - Tan Sei Hon singing cheeky songs, including one about Hannah Tan inspiring him to believe in walking on water and...second comings.......And Carburetor Dung, the band managed to get a lil mosh / circle pit going on again. Last year the crowd was heavier and crazier. I didn't spot any Special Branch police hanging around backstage this time, though I did see the blogger Jeffooi. Managed to leave after they performed "Jilat".

Briefly met Martyn See, a dude whose reputation precedes him because of the political films he made that got him in trouble in Singapore (Wikipedia article: note, the Said Zahari film is already out, I watched it last year).

Then came home, where I:


(photos by Jemufo)

Probably the only person in the world who'll let me at her head while I'm waving sharp objects? But I'm sure the razor I was holding is totally safe......

=====

And, tomorrow Rish is coming down. Will be spending some time with very good friends. My sister will also be back in Malaysia (well, I'm not sure which day, exactly, she could already be back for all I know), so my mother made her way to KL today.

Tomorrow night it's the Kakiseni Cammies. I may cut short the night there, for assignments. Next week is final week in college though, I expect to be fuckedoverbusy. I'm so overloaded I can't even *think* about it.

If I've been going on and on about World Press Freedom Day and you guys have no idea what the fuck it is, oh lookies: CIJ has quite a lot of information, you may begin at the Bluffer's Guide to this and that.

Good night.

Written by lainie at 09:50 AM on May 6, 2007.

Merepek.

Not very well-informed for an Information Minister, is he?

Written by lainie at 07:10 PM on May 6, 2007 in Friends.

Played Scrabble with Rach the other day - we really cramped up the lower right of the board, there was barely any space for another tile, and if you could have added a suffix / prefix to any of the words there, I'd salute you.

After the game we took the tiles and spelled out sentences. She made an angry, angry message, while I wrote a much shorter, happier, 21 points sentence .

=====

Today, worked on assignments in the day, then met up with Rish, Josie and Rach for lunch. I miss Rish so dearly when the arse is away, but when she's back it just seems so hard for us to jive our schedules. As usual I was the first to arrive, followed by Josie, and we waited for almost an hour before the other two got here. Today's the first time I met Rish since she came home, and tomorrow she's off on a plane to Australia again - but like she says, she comes back so frequently anyway.

Josie and Rach were talking about boys, and oh I don't know, but if I were to draw a diagram of the conversation I would include pink, glitter, make up and flowers all around the dialogue balloons.

Rach: Is this too girly for you? Too much make up?
Lainie: No, I'm good.
Josie: Oi! Whaaat?

Rach: Okay, Lainie....How was your activism thing yesterday?
Lainie: Hahahhaha
Josie: *whines*
Rach: No, but it's funny. She really went for one last night. So. How was activism?

Ohdeargod. Heh. Rish eventually arrived, and we talked awhile.

Rish: You're so quiet!
Lainie: But...I am quiet....
Rish: Why are you so quiet?!?!
Rach: It's Lainie...She's quiet...?

Rish: No..not this quiet.
Lainie:

It's been some time since I've been completely chatterboxy, and I suppose my mind was wandering since I had puh-len-ty of time to daydream while waiting for them. I caught up with the conversation, eventually. Rish is always the one who makes me laugh, so easily, till I cramp up.

Rish was talking two sides of the conversation while we were walking together, I told her it sounded schizo. And that she could carry off an entire conversation by herself. As can I. Because the two of us grew up talking and not listening to each other, while talking, and it's a happy way to co-exist. There's a mutual understanding that we just yammer what we want, without needing to be heard. Several years down the road, this has manifested into Rish talking by herself, and me, blogging .

After lunch we went for coffee at La Bodega lounge (basically, we parked our arses from one cafe to the next). There, we played Taboo. Rish and Rach teamed up as Team Cheepap / Chibai, Josie and I formed Team FooFoo. Team Chibai won - we stopped halfway cause Daph happened to call, a Beatles song was playing at the pub she was in and she wanted to let Rach know. She whined that we were all hanging out together without her. Rach said if we could have, we'd have put a laptop at our table during lunch and she could have joined us for a meal via videoconference.

Rish and I had wanted to team up for Taboo, I suppose because we thought we'd understand each other quite easily - but the seating arrangement wasn't too good for that .

Instant Taboo answers:

Josie: He's a villain...In a series of movies.
Lainie: Darth Vader!

Rish and Rach were like....woah.

Namescensoredforpersonalsafety: All our mothers go through this.
Namescensoredforpersonalsafety: Menopause!

Taboo answers that took a long time:

Lainie: You make juice from it! You get it from the supermarket! It looks like a dildo!
Josie: .......?

Carrot. Rach and Rish doing the whole, "Okay, a lesbian is playing Taboo" glances at each other.

Lainie: Nessa's hair!
Josie: Dirt! Dreadlock! Skanky! Oily!

Filth. It's not dirty anymore, but it's reputation lives on. If Princess Diana was a candle in the wind, Nessa's previous standard of hair hygiene is the waft of bad gas that blows out the light of life and stays in your darkest memories forever and ever. And ever. And ever.

Josie bought me lunch, which I didn't expect - as my birthday present. Rish and I laugh every year because we have an understanding, we don't do birthdays.....

I gave her a strip of chewing gum for her birthday once, so that was a few cents (a ringgit divided by six strips?). She still thinks I gave her moldy gum because Clorets comes with those black specks on them.

Then she topped how cheap I was by giving me, literally, 2 cents for my birthday the next time around.

Then another year I gave her the wishes of "fresh air and sunshine" and she gave me an...SMS.

This year, when we left, they handed me a postcard with an Orang Utan scratching itself on the head. I flipped it to the back and it said "A young 24 yr old Orang Utan", contained references to my boobs, and their signatures.

So this year, my birthday present is a postcard. It's actually heaps of fun this way.

=====

Family dinner has been postponed to Wednesday night for my birthday (from Tuesday night). I've never had my family plan my birthday so far ahead before, and we usually don't even do anything, so I'm semi weirded out (but as I understand it, this is mostly because my sister is back in town and I happened to be born around this time).

So yeah. My birthday is soon - 8th May.

Rish is leaving a day before. :/. I miss her already. But she'll be back soon. And I laughed so so so much today, talking with her about jabbing eyeballs out in clubs by accident *shrug*.

Written by lainie at 09:33 AM on May 8, 2007 in Daily Life.

TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee!

Right. College all day. Ciao.

Written by lainie at 12:43 AM on May 9, 2007 in Daily Life, Events.

Whoo. Been busy the past few days.

Thank you everybody for the birthday wishes! I'm 24 this year. Sorry I've been cancelling so many plans. The day mostly revolved around college (no parties, nothing - gonna delay the celebrations and dinners if there are any).

I'm also out of credit, the birthday messages started pouring through in the morning, at about 5am (which was good, kept me awake when I needed them). By afternoon my credit flatlined - I had just reloaded too, after helping a friend cheat in trivia games all the way in Australia (they won and celebrated with champagne).

Also helped Bernice set up her blog recently: Bernice Chauly: words and pictures. That woman and the innernets, a bit tak jadi . So yeah. Bernice is on the net!

Was supposed to attend her womens' literature class today, but her daughter had a high fever so it was cancelled (and, I stayed up last night doing assignments and going through the huge stack of reading material for her class too. Should have slept).

Just for fuck's sake, I counted the amount of notepads I got for my birthday: Fifty two. 52. Smack me if I buy anymore this year. And, a present from Zalina, much appreciated . It's so pretty....You's a darling, woman!

=====

Went for the Cammies award show the night before - am heaps happy that Second Link won best group performance. I was later than I expected, because I got a cabbie that didn't know where KLCC was, can you believe it. Ended up in some kampung nearby, pointing at the tallest structure in the country and going "THERE! THOSE! I want to get to the hotel next to it!".

Had finger food for dinner. I believe I'm one of those people organisers watch out for. Yknow, serve hors d'oeuvres and some people will treat it like a meal? They had lots of food leftover anyway, and I'm a brokeass arts student.

Is there any nutrition in smoked salmon, not that I give much of a shite?

Had an encounter with Zal. Basically I knew she was there because first I heard her, then next thing I knew she bodyslammed me into a wall. I think she said something about trying to squish my boobs flat. Well....I think she inverted my nipples, at the very least.

Zal made me, and some other victims, line up at the end of the hall when the Cammies was over, doing the "royal wave" thing at all the people leaving (and we didn't even know them), while she said stuff like "Thank you for coming, thank you for coming, please join the after-party downstairs, hope you enjoyed the show".....I mean. Shameless hussy don't even work for Kakiseni....I was waving unenthusiastically when Kathy Rowland (one of the co-founders of Kakiseni) walked by. Ah well.

=====

I got my hands on a prop in the Cammies: a whip. A real one. All woven and stuff, and really really loooooong. Never mind who owns the whip or where it's probably been, I was flicking it around, snapping it in the air and going....Oooooh. I like. Got whipped by it, was quite ouchies. I was told it was expensive by the person in charge of it, who made sure I handed it back before going off . Iwannaownawhip. And, I seriously considered ganking it.

Cmon, who wouldn't wanna?

I skipped the post-party where all the booze would be, because I had to prepare for a replacement class the next day. Bit of a bummer, since I really wanted to go for it, and a lot of my friends were there.

=====

Had dinner with Rach last night, just simple Chinese food. I'm happy she stays nearby, and we like eating the same stuff. Convenience. A long-time friend, Al Xavier, called and I invited her to join us. She said she had something to tell me...Turns out she's off to Birmingham soon. :/ And I'd just been thinking of asking her out after college was over.

Now that I'm finally about to be done with college, she's starting to study again.

Rach told me about La Queen, the new gay club that replaced Nouvo. One floor for men, one floor for women? So do the bi people jump both floors? Rach said she'll go with me, but she wants to go to the gay men floor and I want to check out the dyke floor.

I've heard conflicting stories about how happening (or not) it is, so I suspect it's a case of "plenty of gay men, and two lesbians".

=====

I'll be watching The Year That Was. Considering how much I loved the precursor, "In 1969", I totally expect to enjoy this. And I would recommend you give it a shot one night.

=====

Was chatting with Lola in the morning before class (she told me to get with lots of girls by buying a lot of candles and a cake because wishes come true on birthdays - dangerous words, Lola...).

She's in Italy right now, and will be back sooner than she likes. I reckon she's long made plans to return to Italy before she even gets on the plane back here. She said she'd consider introducing me to her (presumably hot) flatmates who might be coming to Malaysia in a year or two......And after she's acquired a taste for daily debaucheries and wine in Italy too.

Gee, she don't ask for much....Wine doesn't exactly come at the price of cola here, woman.

Lola, much love, but I don't think I can afford to be nice to you for so long (yet). Feel free to introduce me to the flatmates anyway. I'll trade it with dimsum, and free tourguide services to shopping malls - how's that?

======

Met up with Joyce today (wah, I get rainbow colours? But, le why? ). I happened to be thinking of coffee when she called, asking if I wanted to meet up for a drink.

I changed her suggestion to a cuppa in the cafe instead, had assignments to work on after .

She eyed me mauling the codfish tapas with a fork, and finally asked if I had any idea how to eat fish - actually, almost everyday, up till I left Ipoh. I think my parents thought it was brain food, so much for how well that works.

=====

Rano called and we had a laugh over how she decorated her university's recent event. She made a tunnel for people to walk into, and emerge in the hall.

Lainie: How Freudian.
Rano: When you say that, you make it sound perverse.
Lainie: But it could be going into a vagina. Some chute. Though to be fair, it could be anyone's anus.
Rano: Yes! Exactly! It could be anyone's anus!
Lainie: All those lil sperms travelling....

Rano:...... I thought the tunnel was so pretty till you said that.
Lainie: I'm sure it is.
Rano: Well, I like my tunnel.
Lainie: Hahahhahahhahahahahhaa.
Rano: What?
Lainie: For your future reference, "my tunnel" is not exactly something you want to say to me.

Let's just say I lovies Rano and she (still) lovies me, but she's forgotten how my humour goes.

====

Have been really bad with emails for about a month - if you know how bad I usually am with emails, double the time span for it. No time to go through my inbox now, still, though I promise I will by the end of next week. Or week after. Totally.

Did, however, manage to answer some questions just now - got interviewed for some magazine, and the dude said he needed to do up his article.

I missed another magazine interview recently because I confirmed late, so the writer thought I wasn't interested. Ah well, I don't mind. Explained in the email exchange I go through phases of bad email habits (really depends on college schedule).

It's awfully weird to be interviewed.

=====

Jemufo has taken to coming into my room all pad-footed, and standing quietly behind me (which is SO creepy whatever you say), while I surf the internet oblivious to her presence. I was watching music videos on Youtube. In return, I have taken to doing strong-man poses (HURR!) and giggling continuously in her room whenever I'm bored.

HURRRRR!!!

=====

You might see me somewhere in this Malaysiakini video on World Press Freedom Day in Annexe. I've spotted my housemate in it quite a few times .

I think the journalist interviewing Sonia was the one that came up to Katagender and asked to be informed if KG was doing anything interesting, so she could cover it. I don't think she was .

Good video.

=====

I have so many assignments to do, and I'm chugging at the speed of a snail. Basically my lecturer said my website was underdesigned, so now I'm going to get all pimped-out on him.

So reactionary .

=====

Gnite.

Written by lainie at 01:59 PM on May 9, 2007 in College.

Extremely. Frustrated.

Extremely. Worried.

Presented my website design today in class - I have till Friday for the mother of all final presentations, of which the website is likely only an itty titty bitty part of the final grade....But still a compulsory part of my assessment.....And my website design bombed, I think.

I'm still unsure what the problem is, which is bad, because I can't really fix what I can't identify. Worse, Alfredo told me he didn't know how to fix it either, because I was stumped and asked for more feedback on what to do, and got zilch. Gahhhhhh....GAHHHH.

Bee told me I might as well forget it and focus on other stuff, because we're running very short on time.

Basically, I was told my (second) design was, again, very well thought out, very functional, and would work great in practice.....But didn't look good enough? Because I designed it in such a way that it would be practical to implement in code, but have basically been told since that's not part of the assessment, I should forget that, and design it less on function and more on how it'll...look.

I think part of the problem is that I very consciously made it without frills because I didn't want to bloat up the navigation with all sorta stuff, and it comes with minimal static images (since the content is fluid and will already involve a lot of graphics).

Argh.

At least I know that the website wireframing works really well, so it wasn't a waste of time figuring information layout and making it sticky - except I seriously doubt that it will contribute towards my grades.

Now I'm thinking of adding all sorts of poofy stuff that will make it le pretty, and le giant pain in the ass waiting for each page to load. I suppose I could cache the larger images? Except I'm not supposed to be thinking of how this will load for the end-user, but how it'll look.

I guess that's what I'll do. More piccies. More style over content. Form over function. Cmon Lainie, you can do it! HURRRR!

Fuckdammit.

Should I do Flash like everyone else, then?

AHHHH!

I should have just made a website with 5 static pages, and left it as that. Now I'm off to design a website that if I were to visit, I'd go once, and get my information in the future from other metawebsites.

Ah, there I go. A problem to solve in a day. T_T

I'm not even sure if I'm right, because something about this approach feels really really wrong, and I'm not sure if I'm being stubborn or I've just misinterpreted criticism. And I'm running out of time. Stress.

And groggy.

Shit, I'm too groggy to think about this. And if I keep biting my finger out of nervousness and smacking my forehead, I'll have 9 fingers and a dented face by tonight.

Written by lainie at 11:50 PM on May 9, 2007 in Music.

Two two two two two two two..Because two assignments could be driving me crazy...

Two songs from one of Stephin Merritt's side project, The 6ths, off the second album Hyacinths and Thistles. The songs on the album are by Merritt, but sung by guests vocalists.

Downloads:

Track #2: Give Me Back My Dreams (vocalist: Sally Timms)
Track #3: He Didn't (vocalist: Bob Mould).

Click or whatever to save the files, yknow, figure it out (I don't know how long I'll leave these files available for download).

They pretty much sound as how you can expect The Magnetic Fields songs should, if they were sung by others. Lyrics (warning: heaps of emoness ahead - cmon, it's Merritt):

Give me back my dreams

Give me back my dreams
I've been counting these sheep
Since I can't remember when

Give me back my sleep
I'll be dreaming of you till I wake up crying again
I have lain awake through the longest hours
Wondering whether to cry or scream

You can take my heart
It was always yours
Just give me back my dreams

When the clock strikes three,
I don't care anymore about you or anything
When the clock strikes four,
I could sell my soul just to hear my telephone ring

You don't have to talk to me
the way we used to talk for hours
We don't have to talk at all,
but may I send you flowers?


He Didn't (title says it all, really).

Will you dance with me
Take my hands and lead me,
With all my faults
In the ballroom waltz
That we might have done
Had we ever been young

It will end in tears
But not for years
If you dance with me

Will you dance with me,
Me, with two left feet
You'd be showing me how
I'm no dancer now
But soon you and I
Could step into the sky
We'll go down in flames,
Of course, but love remains
If you dance with me

I'll make only sunny weather for you
The sky will be blue forever
I'll make only sunny weather for you
To keep me and you together

And you'll dance with me
In the rain, maybe
But we won't really mind
In the end we'll find
It was just a dance
And our little romance
It'll fall to dust
But only just
If you dance with me
It'll fall to dust
But only just
If you dance with me

Good album, like it much.

Written by lainie at 01:40 PM on May 10, 2007 in Music.

For shits and giggles:

Did you know Malaysia has a Ministry of Finance song?

AGENSI UNGGUL BERTARAF DUNIA
MENJANA EKONOMI NEGARA

I wonder if the other ministries have their own song too? Do they sing it every Monday morning along with the national anthem or something?

More interestingly, our Culture and Arts ministry website has audio downloads of Malaysian music: not the kind you get on the radio, but wayang kulit music, traditional music, folksongs, folklore etc.

I'm sure we've all had our childish moments over "Annus Horribilis", because Latin phrases can be fun that way. Someone on the Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya forum kinda took it wayyyy ahead.

Someone has taken on the nickname of AnusHoribilis, and leaving very sarcastic messages / advice to those with complaints on things that aren't fixed.

Part of the message:

By the way, let me introduce myself. I am AnusHoribilis. I am taking the role of the Administrator since the administrator is so busy these days. I self appoint myself because i want to pay back to the society. You can probably check and find out when was the last time the administrator logged in . regards. AH

Heh. Self proclaimed admin.
Basically, unless a datuk / senator / vip dies because of the stuff you're complaining of, nothing's gonna change. You're gonna have illegal racers, rubbish dumps, noisy cars and what not.

Check out the wanktastic forum thread here on how Google and netstupid people combined can give you much entertainment. Damn funny stuff. I'm not the only sadass reading these messages - you can actually tell which forum messages AnusHoribilis have replied to, because the hits for those are 20 more than the others on the forum's mainpage.

View the other AnusHoribilis messages here. Hah. Always thought government e-forums were ineffective, but this is......a display of exactly how ineffective it is through veeeery hilarious means.

You can go look at other government websites. Quite a few of them have videos / audio downloads, and heaps of stuff everyyyywhere.

Shits and giggles session over, assignments now.

Written by lainie at 09:41 PM on May 10, 2007 in Stupid, but fun..

I was surfing around some forums when I stumbled across this hilarious little gem, methinks you should read it too.

Let There Be Lite.
BY KEVIN BOLGER

- - - -

In the beginning was the void. Then She came along.

And naturally She could not be expected to abide even one day in such an infinite vacancy, devoid of form, dimension, or décor elements.

So She cast out the Dark.

(By dividing the Dark from the Light. With curtains.)

And so there was Light, and the Light was good.

And then She added Color, and the Colors were good, too: Soft Apricot, Amber Wave, Electric Lime, Mellow Coral with Relaxed Mint accents ...

The ground She made green. And the firmament She touched up with hues neutral but complementary. And the air She scented with the perfume of flowers.

But first, of course, She disinfected.

And it was all good. Even if some couldn't see what was wrong with the old carpet.

And at the end of the first day, She looked upon all She had created and saw that it was good. But then She said, "Actually, I think that would go better over there ..."

So it wasn't until the second day that She set about remaking Man into something more like the image She'd had in mind.

And if ever Man objected, She reminded him how he'd been nothing but a speck of dust before She came along and breathed life into him. And that shut him up, for Man knew that it was so.

Then on the third day She brought forth the teeming multitudes: the vanity mirrors, the watercolors, the framed affirmational sayings, the portraits of Edna who begat Doris who begat Aileen who begat Her Own Dear Mother, and every hanging thing that hangeth. And She bid these things be fruitful and multiply. And did they ever.

Then She set to work populating their Paradise with the settees (Man: "The what?"), and the good dishes, and the fondue set, and the soup tureen (though no one made soup), and the bedspread that was only "for show," and all the other new and strictly necessary things.

And Man asked, "How are we going to pay for this spree?"

And She wept, and was hurt. And She said, "I suppose you'd rather go back to living in a void?"

So Man was sorry, and begged Her forgiveness, and sought to appease Her with flowers and other rich offerings, until finally it was good again.

And on the fourth day, She shopped.

And on the fifth.

And on the sixth.

Then, on the seventh day, the Animals arrived: Moose, and Bull, and Bear, and all the other Dumb Beasts that Man had known from college.

That was when She decided Man really ought to Evolve.

So the Beasts were cast out of Paradise, and Man began to grow apart from them.

Moons passed, and She made other improvements.

Like She decided that no more would they eat of such fare as the Meat Lover's "Death by Meat" 2-for-1. Instead, they would eat only of the fowl of the air (skinless), and of the poached and chipless fish of the sea, and of the reduced-fat margarine that melted on Man's toast like the dew, and tasted like it, also.

And Man knew that this was good, probably, though he would never again feel quite full.

More moons passed, singly and in pairs, and it was all good. Or so Man thought.

But in time She began to grow wroth. And when Man asked why She was wroth, She would say he ought to know, which only made Her more wroth.

But at last She gave Man a hint, in the form of a wise parable about some rural gentleman who would not invest in a cow because he was getting his dairy produce pro bono.

Man listened carefully to Her words, and pondered them.

Then Man said, "Are you saying you're lactose intolerant?"

Boy, was She wroth.

So Man gathered together all his chattels and all his kine (actually, he was pretty low on kine) and traded them for the one great and lavish offering that he judged would make Her happy again, so that they might go back to knowing each other as they had before, i.e., biblically.

And so, on bended knee, Man presented this offering unto Her.

It had a 42-inch wide-screen high-definition rear-projection liquid-crystal display, triple-stream picture-in-picture zoom, wireless digital surround sound, and three separate remotes just to turn it on. All this Man explained from his knees, as mentioned, for he had put his back out carrying the luxurious thing.

And so went She back to live with Mother.

Moons passed ...

Many, many moons ...

And when She finally consented to see Man again, he was heavy with rue and sorrow. But She was still pretty wroth.

And Mother stood by, wiping a meat cleaver on her apron with a scowl that made Man shiver.

Nevertheless, Man threw himself upon his knees, and said that without Her, he was as a soulless speck of dust, and Paradise a dull void.

And She folded Her arms across Her chest and said, "Uh-huh."

So Man was desperate. He made unto Her one last, frantic offering. It was a nothing, a useless trinket, a mere bauble on a tiny band of forged metal. But it was all Man could afford, on terms.

And She wept, but it was good.

And Mother stuck her meat cleaver in a wall out of the way, and hugged Man.

And that was how Eternity started.

=====

More from the McSweeneys website

Written by lainie at 07:57 PM on May 11, 2007 in College.

I've been listening to the kind of songs that when playing over the background of my phone conversations with friends, makes them go "Errr. Lainie...All cool?". So you know what? I'm just going to play 1, 2, 3, 4 all day. It sounds happy on the surface, and there's all these mass dancing stuff that I like so much.

Zedeck and I have been watching this video together, thinking it's unfair they look like they're having so much fun. I want to wear colour coded tshirts with lots of people and make funny music videos too. Preferably with some chick that looks like Feist in a glittery outfit, too. Heck, preferably with Feist.

====

Almost the last day of college, today. Had the mother of all final presentations: Last class ever, for Alfredo. I felt a tinge of regret at the end, despite how much I whine, and how little time I had for my studies with all the other things I do - I really do enjoy class very much and I think I'll really miss it.

Tuesday is Women's Lit with Bernice Chauly, a mega exam that'll include essay writing and heaps of subjective questions. Also have work deadlines coming up, so I don't have the holiday my classmates do . After maxing out every elective class Bernice has offered in Cenfad over the few short semesters I was there, Tuesday will be my last day as her somewhat errant student. At least I've made friends along the way, with her, and some of the students - no Farid, I won't stop calling you just cause we're graduating.

I met Farid for lunch yesterday - he bought me a meal for several reasons, but mainly because we might not see each other as frequently upon graduation. I had taken for granted that I'd be seeing my classmates as usual, because logic and I aren't very familiar with each other.

Anyway. Mother of all final presentations.

Me:
Sleep deprivation, brain numbness, hands shaking from lack of food and lack of overwhelming confidence all graphic students should be armed with before presenting an entire set of designs that some corporation should totally adopt because it would totally make everything so much prettier and better and more intelligent and impressive and all that.

Presentation:
Went as I expected. I think it's bad when I can anticipate what criticisms I will get, because it just means I've identified my weakness, I've just not dealt with it in time for the presentation.

Critique from lecturer:
Conceptually, my work's the strongest in class. Execution however, could be better. Lecturer likes the brochure a lot, and I have reason for where everything goes, the styles I used, and overall everything goes with my product really effectively and portrays the image - which is good.

Advert and poster was a disappointment because the idea was good, but I had adopted it from the postcard series I had designed first, and should have expanded upon the idea for them and not taken the easier way out (I ran out of time because I was cracking my head over website design - which by the way, the 3rd design went down well, except he'd have preferred to see it coded out). The class before, he'd told me that if I used the idea for the poster first, and adopted it for the postcards later, he'd have been fine with it. :/

Overall, a surprise from Alfredo: our class is the best (or was it, one of the best?) he's taught. He didn't say who designed the best work in class overall, but I know it should (quite easily) be Bee, who redid the National Museum.

Some Classmates:
told me they liked the concept, brochure, website and consistent theme in my design, which made me feel relieved, and kinda geekhappy.

Kacau:
Right before my preso, one of my classmates knocks over some iced tea on the table, which proceeds to spill over my LAPTOP, which suddenly looked so fragile and filled with life-changing-importance data to me.

Lecturer has just declared we have 5 minutes to set up our presentation, and I am mounting stuff on the wall with double sided tape (except the work is too heavy and they're falling off, so I improvised and did it standing up and flipping one board over another). Faras takes on drying my laptop for me, bless.

I check my printed work on the table. Tea has hit, and stained, the mock ups I've made for the stationery set. Classmate in his enthusiasm to dry the table, adds huge crumples to my stationery set - so I leave it out of the presentation (I have another set mounted up, this was just an extra so people could feel the smooooothness of the lovely lovely paper I had found for my letterhead, against the grittier texture of the envelope, but heck). Also splashed on one of my postcard designs, but no choice there, so I continued. It was negligible little dots anyway.

Breathed a huge sigh of relief that my laptop was still working.

Had the kind of numbing headache that meant if aliens landed in my classroom at that moment, I'd have tiredly offered to take them on a tour around the country after my presentation, and before scientists try to kidnap them and all that.

I wish:
I'd had more time on my assignments. I've been juggling a lot, and it hasn't helped. I'll be touching up the work for my portfolio.

Next:
Internship. Discussing with Bee on what we want to do. I'm interested in advertising, but am thinking I should intern at a design house first, train up my design sense.

I'll miss:
This.

And I'm off for some theatre watchin' now, so I'll update later, if I can . Dammit, when am I getting my bakuteh?

====

Update:

I just came home, from watching "That Was The Year" in KLPac with some friends. More on that, next post.

As I was walking back to my place, some petrol guzzling SUV honked at me. It had just come to the T-junction and wanted to turn out onto the road I was walking on - but I was in front of it. I walked faster. As it drove past me, the driver honked really loudly.

Surprised, I turned around, expecting maybe Rach or some friend whose car I did not recognised. It was some random woman. I got pissed, punched the car hard as it passed me (semi-reflex), and flipped them off all the way (fully intentional). Like, what the hell, bitch? Go on, get out of your car. Or try to run me over, whatever. The woman in the passenger seat looked surprised, I suppose the area I live in doesn't have the kind of pedestrians randomly kicking / punching vehicles.

Well, not random. Every car I've kicked in this area were those that had stupid jerks driving them.

I walked towards the road the SUV turned into (just next to my house), thinking if it parked in front of one of the houses we could have a nice big row about giving way to pedestrians, general courtesy (from me, ha ha ha ha), and if you like, we can invite every damn neighbour in town to witness exactly how pissed off I am at you. The SUV wasn't there, must be on some other road.

Fricking rude driver. It could, frankly, have been an aunt of mine who lives nearby or something, saying hi: though I doubt it.

See, this is exactly why I don't get that people think I'm nice, sedate, general air of calm or whatever. Friends going "But you never lose your temper!". I do, okay. I am so, so pissy, so, so easily.

I actually have a pretty bad temper .

=====

Going to meet mother tomorrow and stay over with her and aunt in Sg Buloh over the weekend. Which means I'm missing (from what I'm told), Rimbun Dahan exhibition opening tomorrow, Jerome and Zedeck's reading with Ciplak, and some booklaunch thing for declassified documents on May 13.

Written by lainie at 12:49 AM on May 13, 2007 in Family, Rants, Daily Life.

My mother and aunt baked uncle Fudge and me a (belated) birthday cake: Chocolate / orange pudding thing, actually, served with ice cream.

Here's a picture of the cake, topped by the pink of my mother's sense of humour:



It was initially a mint leaf on top, but my mother decided to remove it, and replace it with what her artistic sensibilities called for: .......a jellybean. Of that colour. Snarky woman, that.

When your mother starts baking boobs for you, you know it's time to go out and get laid already, my god. Well, at least she thought it was funny (so do I, really).

=====

Interesting how everytime I declare I don't read the news, people send me the news (this excludes Danlim, who sends me links every so often anyway). This time, it was a Sun article entitled Sexist MPs at Work Again.

I read that some MP from Umno said this about another (female) politician in Parliament:

The recording exposed Bung as saying: "Mana bocor, Batu Gajah pun tiap-tiap bulan pun bocor juga." ("Where is the leak? Batu Gajah MP also leaks every month.")

The dude who said that? Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib (sorry, obviously tak baca properly) Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin. Unimpressive lack of good manners.

Then I read that this matter was brought under question, and the person in charge came to the conclusion that the dude who said that, would not be called to the Parliamentary Rights and Privileges Committee for disciplinary action.

As an observer, I'm amazed at the lack of intellect. Wow, were they not kidding when they say our education is lacking, how the heck did we produce that?

Unfortunately, I'm also Malaysian. As a citizen, I must say I'm quite disgusted, appalled, mortified....You know, all those words that mean I'm dead embarrassed to be part of the system that produced these dudes, who are in any way a representation of what this country has to offer......much less the horror at the idea they're in any way involved in how the country is run.

Hailat habis.

Can we give them away to another country, please? I'll save up for their flight tickets. Heck, we can start a tabung. And when they get to the other country, don't mention they came from Malaysia.

Does he get paid to do this or something? ............Cause I cannot believe for the life of me someone gets money to go up and talk rubbish like that. And blatantly avoid work responsibilities. Get paid by Malaysia, to work for Malaysia, and that's the shit you come up with??????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

What the hell did I go to college for, if I could just be in Parliament and sound like some miserable cretin for a living?

Then I read that there were cries for other women MPs to make a statement, even those from the same political party (UMNO). Heck, I don't think this is something just the women should speak out against, but okay. Anyway, turns out it was quiet..........

..............See, this is why I think it's a mistake to ask for more women MPs (or rather, not specific enough) - it's not enough to have the female body count, it's in their brains. What's the use of having lots and lots of women MPs if they make no bloody difference? Well, okay, visibility etc...But still.
Why not just pull their tongue out and write "Patriarchy"* on it, then tattoo "Whipped" across their asses?

Kan? If Parliament is still filled with sexist mancows who don't do their jobs? And worse, sexist womencows cowed by mancows who don't do anything about that? I'm starting to lose track of what I'm saying about cows, now I just find myself thinking of grass. Anyway.

Blatantly sexist statement, no one will brand you an idiot to call him out (party traitor, maybe, if you're BN), be of fucking use lah tiu, let people know this won't be forgotten. Actually, I'm just talking. I can't even remember the dudes' names (so, bloody, long), and I'm still typing this blog post out.

You know what really pisses me off? Once every four years, I have the chance to let politicians know they've ticked me off and I don't want to vote for them. Bloody wow, no wonder no one gives a shit. And my alternative is the Opposition, whose political stand as far as I know is............ They're the Opposition.

Anyhow. Can we just admit that Malaysians should be pissed that our Parliament has even less dignity than an actual circus?

I can't even call it a circus, because if I worked in one, I'd be well unimpressed to be compared to Parliament.

*I actually still don't know how that word is spelled. Patriarchy? Patriachy? I'm typing this without the internet and I don't own a dictionary.

=====

I was running about the house yesterday trying to find my ATM card. When I got downstairs, Jemufo was sitting there surrounded by all these other female feminists. I stared at them, and realised I honestly couldn't tell if it was Jemufo's

1) colleagues, or
2) reading group, or
3) colleagues from Fiesta Feminista, or
4) friends from planning committee of godknowswhat she's doing, OR
5) fellow volunteers in whatever it is she volunteers for, OR
6) friends.

That a lotta feminists.

They're alllll the same people. I've never known anyone with such a high percentage of feminist friends before - and by feminist friends I mean I think these people are actually paid to do feminist work.

Later on, when I'm back from the play I was watching, Jemufo said she had wondered what I'd been thinking when I was looking at them. I think, verbatim, it went: "Woah. That a lotta feminists".

I'm quite simple that way. Jemufo and I had a laugh over this, then Zedeck, who was listening grinned

Zedeck: Fuck you.
Lainie: What?
Zedeck: This is why you're single.
Lainie: What?
Jemufo: Yeah.

Zedeck: Because you make fun of the people you could be dating.
Lainie: But I wasn't making fun of them (just now, anyway).
Zedeck: All these women you make fun of...
Lainie: ........ :O

I mean, if my love live depended upon me not making fun of people........Die.

Zedeck: At least my problem is entirely physical in nature!

Jemufo: ( ?? )
Lainie: (he's male and tends to like lesbians)
Jemufo: ( Oh.... )

Lainie: Fuck you. There's surgery for that.
Zedeck: ......That's true.
Lainie: I know.
Zedeck: But it won't be the same.
Lainie: Hey, you never know.

'Sides, it's easier for him to change his bits than for me to change my habits.

I told Tei this morning, that if he had surgery and became a woman, he'd just be finishing god's work. Of course, my humour at 9am is about as intelligent as our dear MPs in Parliament. See, I always knew I was born to rule the world, let me just drink the other half of my brain away and I'll be the Messiah, Ubermensch, Overlordess* of the World.

*Overlady sounds like some Mayo brand^.
^Then again, Overlordess sounds like a shop that sells fussy curtains.

=====

Watching a film kids from my cousin's secondary school made. About teenage affairs in co-ed secondary schools (or somethin). It's not bad, actually. I've seen worse at Malaysian Shorts in Help, who knows, we might see them there in a few years. Maybe I'm biased for films that have a narrative? ....Nah. I like those French films that don't make sense.

Unless I'm mistaken, this school has lots of videos on Youtube anyhow.

======

I still wanna talk about "That Was The Year", but got distracted by the MP thing.

Written by lainie at 10:56 AM on May 14, 2007 in Rants.

Bocorkan Umno - stop the only real leakage that is killing Malaysia

The general consensus among MPs was that it was all right to say “women leak every month.” Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz said Fong should have taken the matter in her stride."

If anyone in Ipoh sees some projectile vomit landing, from the sky, onto some building - it's just me propelling blood all the way from KL.

I upchucked it a few moments ago, it should land in about two hours.

Written by lainie at 03:03 AM on May 17, 2007 in College.

Because I'm 24 years old.

Because there are 24 hours in a day.

Because it feels like I've been awake and working throughout all 24 of them.

(Click for pictures. This will not be kind to dialup users. )


Because if I actually write about it, it will not be pretty. At all.

About to hit my computer. Foul mood.

Good night.

Written by lainie at 03:16 AM on May 19, 2007 in College, Events.

Hi there. Sorry it's been a crazy busy week, hence sporadic updates (well, for me anyway - I'm still more enthusiastic than most of you lot).

Just watched My Fair Lady. Got some pretty good seats cause Al and her friend Suet were kind with free tickets . I dressed for the formal event in under 5 minutes, and entered the hall without combing my hair (but Zal says it looked okay anyway).

As some of you may know, I've been studying in Cenfad (Center for Advanced Design) for a while now.

I had my last class on Tuesday. Tomorrow, Saturday, 830 pm, is the opening of the Icon show exhibition in Cenfad (Jalan Kia Peng). There will be a fashion show (from the fashion dept students), and the rest of us will be exhibiting a selection of works as well (except perhaps a majority of Broadcast arts students, last I heard they're boycotting Icon because of the lack of equipment for film students).

Gah. I am severely ill-prepared for tomorrow. And this is (unfortunately for me) not modesty speaking. The exhibition is open to public, so feel free to drop by if you do.

After Saturday, I can rest. I can stop imagining I hear the sound of my eyelids creaking. I can stop whining, dreaming, and talking about my sleep patterns. I can start having conversations I'll actually remember - as some people discovered today, I am fully capable of having very lengthy conversations without consciously realising a damn what it was about. If I'm kinda monosyllabic, slurring, and cannot remember when quizzed on what the conversation was about 3 sentences back, chances are, you're wasting your time.

That is, if you're saying anything useful. If you're just blabbering mindlessly, I'm great company.

I've only been 1/5 present in reality the past 2, 3 months or so.

I have to wake up in the morning, assemble a portfolio of 2 years of work (and it's not even begun, I am the champion) . And I have to find the files - though having two hard disk crashes in the course of studying in Cenfad means I don't have that many files to sort through. Under 20Gigs, including reference files.

Now take into account that my Illustrator CS2 takes about 20 seconds everytime I nudge a picture 1mm in any direction. Yeah.

Then I have to go print everythiiiing, including the lil bits that didn't work out at the exhibition today (I was in college at 1am setting part of it up), then I have to set up the rest of the exhibition, collect my drycleaning, fix my shoes if possible, get home, dress, and head back out again for the exhibition.

What a day to not be able to find my spectacles. I can't really see what I'm doing, or what the heck I'm typing. By the way, I've been sleeping with my new markers next to my pillow.

I may not have had time for them yet, in illustrations, but I'll damn well try to use them in my dreams and short of literally shoving them into my brain, this is the closest alternative.

I have new markers, yay yay yay yay.

I have exhibition I'm not prepared for. Fuckety.

WHO NEEDS SLEEP, BABY!

Actually, ideally I should stay awake, but I'm sleepy. Gniteys.

Written by lainie at 06:36 PM on May 20, 2007 in College, Friends, Home.

Had my final class in Cenfad on Tuesday. Women's Lit. We sat in the cafeteria for the class cause the students insisted - there were only four of us, and the way the questions went, it's not like we could cheat anyway.

Farid and I sat together and got massive giggles trying to answer the questions. I think mine was largely because my brain refused to move.

I explained to Farid that "Misogyny is....the study of Japanese cuisine", and after that we both imitated sumo wrestlers and demanding for food. I don't know why Bernice puts up with us, honestly.

My writings were based on

1) the place of feminist criticisms in the study of literature (which my classmate said we should all answer in honour of Jemufo).
2) importance of a feminist critic's responsibility in dealing with various forms of social injustice / stereotypes / marginilisation, and how this enriches our understanding of a body of work
3) a comparison of victimisation as a theme in Stevie Smith and Sylvia Plath's poetry.

Trust me, the questions sound a lot better than my answers. Farid started out his question (also #1), with "My friend Lainie, who is a feminist, says....". I nearly bopped him on the head before I realised I could write "My friend Farid, who is a misogynist, says...".

Anyway, Farid and I discovered a loophole in the question paper - it did not actually require our answer in writing.

So I proposed I do some interpretive dance that included gestures with chest thumping (man vibes), sky opening (illumination), cowering struggle (process of assimilating feminist values), while Farid reads poetry, or something. And the other two can ring bells or play cellphone tunes to accompany.

Bernice tak layan that suggestion.

=====

Last night was my ICON show, and the last time I walked out the gates a student of Cenfad. Wheeee!

Pmsing and preparing for an Icon show last minute is BAD. BAD. BAD. Right after I pasted everything on the wall, I popped some pills for my headache and...smiled.

Let's just say, I had a nasty shock last morning, discovering

1) my version of Illustrator rearranges the location of all the elements in my files. So ALL my pictures were thrown out of alignment.

Lecturer says it's because it's a pirated version. And it only started this in the morning, on the very day I needed to print everything.

2) The alarm clock I borrowed from Jemufo (because my cellphone alarm has taken to ringing silently), doesn't tick when I put it on anything surface that isn't flat. I put it on an opened book.

So I woke up in the morning with that cold, cold feeling that something was wrong because the clock was set to ring well before sunrise, and I could hear buses.

I didn't even have time to check the clock to see what happened - later on, I noticed the second hand was struggling to tick up, but couldn't, so the time was still set at when I went to sleep.

Rushed continuously, dragged Jemufo out last minute to drive me around and help me out - and yknow, I was so crazily hormonal and stressed from rushing for Icon show. I made Jemufo go to college with me to help stick double sided tape on my work

Jemufo: I'm in my pajamas, and I haven't brushed my teeth. I thought I was just dropping you off.
Lainie: No! But it's an art college! No one will care!

[ Pause ]

Lainie: Wow. I can't believe I just said that.

Must have been the desperation talking. I dont think I'd have managed to set up in time if she didn't help me. Much thanks, you.

At the eleventh hour, the woman in charge of the college came into our room and started making really loud complaints that she'd told us to be ready by 6pm, and how it was almost time and we still weren't, yada yada yada.

I was already very stressed, and moving as fast as we could. Decided to let her whines run out of steam, but after bit too much continuous loud gusto from her I decided I could barely focus on my bloody wall.

Lainie: Nani. You are not helping. REALLY.

I said it really curtly too. She stopped. It was rude, but fuck, when people are rushing stuff, you don't stand around complaining loudly about how everything could be. Either be useful or don't add to the tension.

Finished setting up, nearly brained another classmate while we were cleaning up because we were both very irate - I don't think he realised exactly how close he was to making the list of people I've beaten up when I'm pissed off, I had a huge metal ruler raised behind his head.

Like, jesus, first alarm clock, then Illustrator goes crazy on me, then I lost Jemufo's thumbdrive with my files - which I needed to print my work, then I have to set up an exhibition, and now YOU? ......grrrr.

But he wasn't worth it. People I know usually aren't. It's the strangers that usually manage to make me...lose my vision and see, literally, white flashes, when I'm angry.

Who knows, he may have wanted to lose his temper more directly at me as well. But I can vouch between the two of us, I know one of us has a history of actually carrying it out.

=====

Set up the show, rushed to the washrooms, put on a dress and changed my shoes. Haha...My shoes. Needed new soles because the hells are damaged and the stiletto parts end in...nails.

Basically I was punching holes in the wooden boards in college everywhere I walked, but I really had no time to fix the shoes.

Alfredo showed up to see the exhibition (Ton didn't come, I'd really wanted to meet him ), dressed all spiffy. I asked him if my side was okay (actually, I thought the space was a bit crowded).

He nodded a few times and said yeah.

I was thinking who would tell a harried looking student otherwise on exhibition day, anyway? And am I punching holes in the wooden floorboards? Heh. Now that I've graduated I want to go try out Alfredo's restaurant. I thought it would be bloody weird to go before, for some reason.

My part of the exhibition was okay....a lot of work isn't up. But heck. I'm applying for jobs via interviews and portfolio anyway (which I have started designing). I feel that the Icon show is more for the college than the students.

=====

Farid said broadcast arts cancelled the boycott because Nani promised the students that there would be equipment next semester for the students. These aren't the sort of things that have to be promised in the first place, and I know there have been these problems since I started studying in Cenfad.

Broadcast students had basically said there was no way they could exhibit anything because there was NO EQUIPMENT at all for them, so what work did she expect? What if potential students wanted to come to Cenfad to study broadcast arts with no equipment.

We really like Nani's reply. It doesn't matter, because "It's not like they'll know the equipment's broken". Wahlaowei.

That was the reason for the students doing the boycott, they didn't want to be part of some promotion campaign and making people sign up for a college that would waste their time in broadcast.

Farid got some nice Kinokuniya vouchers as a prize, for doing best work in New Media course. Shweet.

Was surprised a bit before the fashion show began, I got a call from Joycethefairy asking where my college was. Yay, didn't think I'd see anyone I knew from outside college. Nazrul was there too!

We watched the fashion show together (Reza's work was really nice). I alternated between talking with Bernice and Farid, and trotting over to Joyce and Jiji. All the while aware that gravel was probably killing my shoes.

Joyce said she had to see the work I'd been complaining about so much, so I brought her around the student exhibitions . I've had a few people say this year's student exhibition is good.

Hung around a bit more, chatted with some lecturers, students...Watched Farid's short film based on Capote. At about 11pm, we left college tired. Farid helped me with my bags - I told him I liked that I was spending my last day of college, with him and Bernice (whom we called out for some wine), since I get along with them the most from college.

Wanted to go to Ceylon Bar, but it was filled with all big dudes surrounding the bar, yelling at the tv because some massive football match was on. We couldn't be bothered.

So instead, Vin, Bernice, Farid and I went to Ciccio for wine and cocktails. Vin is a regular Cenfad visitor, Bernice lectures there, I had my last day in college, and Farid has a semester to go.

After Ciccio closed, we went to Vin's place. Vin has a gallery / art space set up on Ceylon hill, which was just down the road. I liked some of the work there. Farid's thinking of commissioning some owrk from them.

It's called Sputnik, which is a pretty funky name. There were some works by Mr Teh there (my ex-lecturer). I like the space.

Sputnik's nice to hang out in. I was pretty tired, but had a sip of red wine while we were on the balcony which looked out at the KL Tower. Bernice and Farid never knew I had a tattoo

Vin has art classes there, for painting. I'm actually pretty interested - have to inform Cyril about this place, really.

======

I met Cal the other day, and she asked "Are you lainie of the blog?"

Poor girl, I handled it most ungraciously, wanting to know if it was Tei, Zedeck, Juliet, or one of the other Kakiseni staff who had set her up to asking me that.

=====

I was aimlessly walking around today, when I saw some people wearing sandwich boards with
"I'm a Slut" / Borat-y messages written on them.

I would have stayed to chat them up, but I was hauling my drycleaning, and busy....wondering if I should get earrings and whether to buy Zedeck noodles or a sandwich for lunch....which upon reflection sounds like a vacuous excuse not to talk to people, but yknow, doesn't take much to discourage me.

Anyway, I figured it would probably be one of these three things:

1) advertising students.
2) other social studies of some sort.
3) activisty people. Had a glimpse of what it must be like for people to see Katagender running around with signs like that.

Their blogs had a URL listed: Intuchinq.

I see on their website that they have this checklist of things they wanna do, what I encountered was the fourth on the list:

The Check List

sing on the streets for money
become lemonade vendor
start own business
tell people an important message via sandwich sign

Well, whyever you guys set up the blog, have fun.

=====

Bugging my housemate online, though she's just in the next room:

Jemufo
I'm trying to work....

Lainie
hahhahaaha
NO
we go mabuks
mabook
mabook ook oook ooook

Jemufo
WORKING, DAMNIT
shoo

Lainie
sniffle..

Fortunately, I have contingency plan. Or rather, beer awaits me in the fridge. Beer, and a lot of new markers. And a new sketchbook. I am quite happy

Written by lainie at 10:59 PM on May 20, 2007 in Daily Life.

I bought some cheapie boxers, just cause I've been whining for the need of shorts for.....well, since college started. And I'm already practically done with it.

I walked by some boxers for sale instead, and now I have four pairs. They're comfy, as shorts are - even if they leave a lot of ambitious, empty package space around the zip area.

I bought something for the house that gave me the giggles. It's called a "Magic Cleaning Sponge"! Basically it's meant to clean sinks and bathroom stuff without the need for detergent (I didn't even know sponges were used with detergent?).

I tried it out just now, and it cleaned the sink just fine, though I suspect any ol regular sponge will do. Was giggling in the supermarket aisle at the variety of magic sponges they had. It looks like the same sponge, but packaged differently for....kitchens...bathrooms....living rooms. Or whatever the fuck.

Got told off by friends for treating household chores as a novelty...Yeah, whatever, wait till I find a magic mop .

Jerng: Well if you're using it, it must be magic.

Okay fine, he has a point. This does not mean you give me brooms and washclothes or whatever and tell me they're magic too, okay. I won't believe you. Unless I see it for sale in the supermarket, whereby it must obviously be the truth.

Magic cleaning sponge! Wearing new boxers! Reading design magazines, about to watch Shortbus while eating wasabe flavoured chips, and drawing.

Also sneezing a lot! Back downstairs now to bug the housemates, Jemufo is cooking dinner......an hour before midnight.

Written by lainie at 07:58 PM on May 21, 2007 in Daily Life.

Cosmic twinnette says she found someone who looks like me.

I think we only look alike in the few photos, but hey hey . Right! Off for dinner with Rach, then meeting up with more friends later.

Written by lainie at 06:03 PM on May 22, 2007.

I have decided that when I have my own company, and some employees.....I will make kettle whistling noises everytime I get pissed off. I'll just look at em, and make high pitched "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" noises. Water boiling, water boiling.

Employee: I can't take the stress anymore! My boss whistles like a kettle!

Wahahhaha....And when I am pleased, I shall crinkle my nose and purr like a wookie.

.......One day, google will be my ruin.

======

Since Sunday: My holiday of sorts (and I wonder if I make a mistake assuming I'm on one) has been largely spent with friends.

I've finally read Kam Raslan's book, Confessions of an Old Boy. I like it much, and I think I'll join all the crowing that bookfiends have been making about having a book by local author we can recommend.

Have also finished up another two books - one is the application of Jungian philosophy on male psychology in the search for the Holy Grail (terrible writing, but interesting content - even if I disagree with much), and another is from a series of essays.

And read some design magazines, though I definitely need to read more. Finally had time to start up Corel Painter again, and feel pangs at missing my wacom tablet. Did some paintings there, will be messing around with vectors on Illustrator later.

Started another book of short stories by an author from India, borrowed from Auntyboss' ample bookshelves.

Went for lunch with Zal and Eugene (basically, I bugged their arses because I had cravings for chicken). Ended up in some shop where Eugene got duck, I got chicken, and Zal got halal food from elsewhere. Watched the awesome Warhammer Online Trailer.

They fed me so much I nearly rolled back home. But instead, I ended up in Hartamas, looking at dvds, drinking coffee, reading Kam's book. Josie was gonna be in the area real soon, and Rach was there having yoga classes, but I was too sweaty and had to shower. Briefly contemplated getting something else done, but couldn't find the shop.

Showered, hopped out again for dinner with Rach - we went over to get Trish from her bar, and ended up talking about hairy guys and stuff.

Then went to PJ to discuss some work-ish things with a few other friends. I know I'm on holiday...but......Anyway, it promises to be interesting (it already is, we're just in the drudgery process now). Some bald dude came up, I presume he thought he was being suave as he tried to pick up my friend.

He said some fucking cheesy lines. I couldn't help it, I started giggling from the first sentence he said, till after he left. I tried to maintain, but everytime I reined in a giggle he'd say something ridiculously cheesy.

Dude, your lines damn cannot make it okay. And he had this look like he thought he was being so.......charming. He left, I think fully aware that I had burst into giggles throughout because of him.

I apologised to my friend after he left, but I don't think she minded . Then we went for pancakes. Then we drafted out some stuff. Progress, wheeee!

=====

Stayed over at friend's place, came home not too long ago.

=====

Cooked lunch. Filled Jemufo with awe at nutritional content.

I know I have a fuckinload of appointments everywhere - chances are, I've forgotten them. You may wanna remind me.

Written by lainie at 04:24 PM on May 24, 2007 in Daily Life.

I have a lot to blog about. But it seems, the more time I've given, the less I have. I know I occasionally say I have no social life, but my gawd. So not true. How the hell did this happen???

And with no sense of irony whatsoever, I shall now continue this blog post with two things:

1) I notice Youtube now has this feature on my profile that shows a list of the smutty gayman porn educational entertainment videos I've been watching for the past 30 minutes.

2) Suanie has a suggestion for you. If you dig piracy and local music, there's information available at her website right now that combines both - though not in the way I expected .

Later tonight, cheers.

Written by lainie at 10:41 AM on May 26, 2007.

There have been in the past few days:

Home cooked food and scrabble tiles. Jemufo taught us a new game called Take 2.

Farewell gig for Rhapsody (which deserves more time than I have, so far).

Wine. A lot.

A lot of reading.

I cleaned my room - it took three days.

I did my laundry - I've still not seen the bottom of the basket since January, when I moved in.

Cooked pasta - of which not only did Jemufo, Zedeck and I survive, but so did the kitchen. Jemufo says I'm not Malaysian because I'm not really fond of rice.

Watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 with Zedeck and Juliet of teh Kakiseni, Zal of teh used to be Kakiseni, and Eugene of teh married to Zal. I forgot to pay Zal for my ticket.....

Going for Design Dayz.

and following that, at 3pm, a reading in Seksan gallery (Bernice is reading!).

I've sketched out portfolio layouts - and started freelancing again.

If anything, I've not spent much time in front of the computer at all. I left my chat application on for a long time, and came back to messages like "You've been folding clothes for two days!" (and a slightly more hopeful one from Joyce asking if I'd fold hers too - darling, you probably wayyyy more organised than I am with laundry, okay?).

But when I did bum in front of the comp (occasionally getting a few Italian cusses from Lola for saying inappropriate things about sausages and wine), a large part of that was spent on Youtube watching Battle Royale again. And reading the profiles in Unknown Armies, a rocking website Zedeck pointed me to.

Went to Loft last night with Zedeck, Sonia, and Jennifer(?). If it wasn't for these people, and the few friends who briefly popped upstairs after the Cleo Bachelor Party, I wouldn't have known anyone there. That is not right, for Loft.
We even almost paid cover charge because the doorbitches didn't recognise either of us (mutual), and the DJ guestlist wasn't there - turns out it was Singaporean DJs that night. That was the goodiest Loft night I've ever ever had.

I'm late for Design Dayz. Crap. I need to call Tim!
Did I mention, wine?

Written by lainie at 06:33 PM on May 27, 2007 in Links / Email, Arty stuff.

Am reading Family Complex comic downloaded from Dragon Voice. It's about a family of beautiful people, I just thought I'd mention that the elder daughter is a girl who gets mistaken as a really good looking boy.

Not that I'm insinuating my readers might like gay-ish comics, of course. But just so you know, Volume 1, Chapter 3 deals specifically with how the eldest daughter gets treated in her all-girls school. I just thought some products of all-girls schools might identify.

Oh, and David Ayton's CDisplay comic reader for those who intend to download and read lots of scanlation comics.

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SIMILE seeks to enhance inter-operability among digital assets, schemata/vocabularies/ontologies, metadata, and services. A key challenge is that the collections which must inter-operate are often distributed across individual, community, and institutional stores. We seek to be able to provide end-user services by drawing upon the assets, schemata/vocabularies/ontologies, and metadata held in such stores. from here

I wanted to download and try out from Simile a Firefox extension: Piggy Bank. Read more about Piggy Bank here. I decided not to download it after all, though it looks interesting. You know why?

Niamafulat. Who got so much space for extension??

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A few days back I went with Cyril to Wei-Ling Gallery, because Joyce blogged about it, and I had a few hours to spare before going for Rhapsody's farewell gig with some friends. Wei-Ling Gallery is in Brickfields, on Jalan Scott (very near Villa Scott).

I called Cyril because amongst all my exclassmates, I presume he has the most interest in visiting galleries. Cyril will be exhibiting his paintings in the coming Notthatbalai Art Fest 2007.

This is what the ground floor looks like from the entrance (it's a multi-level gallery). A lot of antique furniture on the ground floor, surrounded by paintings

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Mirror's reflection reminds me a lot of where I stayed in KL. The floorboards above our heads looked damn dodgy, all broken and we could see parts of the gallery upstairs through them.

Then we went upstairs and saw that this was an intentional effect. So you can look at what's going on downstairs through these little panels installed.

More paintings as we went up higher, we saw the exhibition "filtered". This is Cyril looking at Ahmad Shukri Mohamed's work, Air Filter.

Paiman had a series of watercolour paintings up with silly, weird looking characters, accompanied by quotes on current issues by politicians.

Two floors at a go - one series by Marvin Chan downstairs (Immaculate Politician is the threatening clown-masked dude there). The stuff above are by Khairul Azmir Shoib, and they were all dark looking stuff done in a style that reminded me heaps (perhaps too much) of Tim Burton and some Studio Ghibli anime.

Closer look at Marvin Chan's work. Immaculate Politician, Perpetual Child and Evil Good-doer.

The two works above are by Zulkifli Yusof, "Raja Maimunah V" and "Reformasi". I liked his work most in the gallery, largely due to Reformasi.

check out the official page for Filtered, which has (clearer) pictures of the works there . Better yet, head to the gallery where there are HEAPS more stuff to look at than what I've put up here.

I was at Valentine Willie Fine Arts Gallery last night for the Cilukba! (Peekaboo!) exhibition. Anyone knows of anything else I might wanna pop by and see?

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Yesterday was a whole day of events, so. More on that laaater.

Simply put, I'd been drinking wine from morning till morning, when I came home much drunker than I'd realised I was - Zedeck had to open the door for me because my hands were too numb to rummage for my housekeys

I woke up with a headache and promised myself not to have any more wine for.......at least a day. I cooked lunch for myself, and Zedeck. No alcohol was imbibed during the process.

Then a lil while later:

I went back on my word. Fortunately, there are no hard feelings between me, and...me. In fact, merry feelings would be more apt as a description. Right-o. Later!

Written by lainie at 06:16 PM on May 28, 2007 in Links / Email.

Damn, how many of us missed Talk Like Bob Dylan Day? Found this just as I was listening to Mr. Tambourine Man too.

Anyway. Grant/ Intensecure, yoohooo: The Vault: Hüsker Dü's And Don'ts.

And, I bring news of manga Shakespeare. Doesn't look awesome so far.

Death Note is quite fun, if somewhat filled with plot holes. Leads to awesome, if somewhat vindictive, daydreaming.

Someone going by Foo Wei Xiang recently caused a little scuffle on a mailing list I'm subscribed to (malaysian-cinema). He claims to be an accounting student from Utar learning filmmaking, and asked for some professional help in reviewing his latest work, "A".

Of course, the first reply is an unfabulously bitchy "Do us a favour. Just stick to accounting.". Niamafulat, what "us"? It's nice when someone ever so generously provides himself as a representative of our collective opinion, and in such a learned, professional manner as seeked too.

Thus ensues way too many emails for my attention span (and workload - I'm still freelancing) regarding film criticism, with the function it serves, and how. Actually, I don't even know if Wei Xiang is a guy or girl name, I'm just presuming "guy" on the basis that all my Foo cousins are male. Wahah.

You can watch "A" on Youtube. Form your own opinion on it. I can vouch that it's better than quite a few films I've watched from people who actually PAY colleges to teach them about it (which is not the same as actually having learned anything).

More about film. I have a copy of The Fountain. Now I realise why I'm so attracted to Hugh Jackman. From the 3/4 angle, he resembles Bruce Springsteen, minus the look from the Very Tight Pants era (but with, of course, an alternative).

Clarification: I am just totally lesbian and all these Bruce Springsteen stuff are meant to mislead you and make you think about all kindsa issues. Yknow. Cause I's socially conscious and certainly did not laugh at all the midget exploitation scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Every salah thing I say is to make you a better person. Cause I'm so giving that way, and everyone appreciates fucked upness that way.

.... [ shut up and stick to blogging? ]

Written by lainie at 02:41 PM on May 29, 2007 in Links / Email, Home.

There's an article in Malaysiakini called "Rela chief: Give us more power". And this is where I enclose a link for your perusal, as per old school blogging - before the days of 20 personal photos in kawaii poses per post (wow, check out the alliteration).

It feels a bit strange linking to that title, since it seems inadequate in capturing the true spirit of the article. Yknow, that's a very tactfully newspaperly title. I'm more a latest celebrity divorce / boobjob / prison term tabloidy blogger - minus the celebrity gossip, because I can't stop blogging about.....myself.

Moving along, attention away from my giant ego on my blog. Here's my spin on it:

There's an article in Malaysiakini called Rela chief: Batshit insane.

Still not there yet. Let's try again.

There's an article in Malaysiakini called
Rela chief: BATSHIT INSANE!! INSANE!!!!!!11eleventyoneoneone.

Ahhh. That feels better, ngam-er.

Anyhow, I was at Malaysiakini because someone told me my housemate's letter (about The Star making a factual error in some article I never really read) has been published.

I just cooked lunch. I've been cooking a lot lately. Zedeck (who's been sick the past few days) walked up behind me the other day and

Zedeck: Who are you and what have you done to Lainie?

I still don't know how to cook. I mean, I'm doing it, I just have no idea what the hell it is I'm doing. Anyhows. Have lotsa work. Ciao.

Written by lainie at 06:16 PM on May 29, 2007 in Daily Life.

Sigh.

I just flashed a whole busload of people.

Well. Going out now.

Written by lainie at 02:01 PM on May 30, 2007.

I cleared out a HUGE chunk of my MP3 collection a while ago cause some heavyduty Photoshopping called for all the scratchdisk space I could bear to part with.

Now I have very little punk music on my laptop and am suffering withdrawal symptoms. I listen to very gay music (passing off as indie), and very depressing music (passing off as very depressing music).

Like I've said...*gestures vaguely* somewhere on this blog, I've been cooking lately. Usually I cook vegetarian pasta, pomodoro if I can. I recently started adding chicken.

Then last night I met these two for dinner, and in between discussing that the government doesn't make sense, how DC and Marvel's been manhandling their movies, mild Batman vs Daredevil disses, comic hunting, and poking at each other with dildonic looking balloon cutlasses we got free with strawberry cotton candy, I was imparted the secrets of a really easy pasta dish to make.

Meek: It's really easy!
Lainie: Lies woman, that's what they all say!
Moobs: No, even I can make it, that's how easy it is.

Then I can't remember what he did, but I imagine him rolling his eyes back into a heavenwards vacant stare, and drool probably seeped out the corner of his mouth.

Lainie: Shit, okay, if he can do it so can I!

So I present thee:


The unhealthiest pasta I've ever cooked.

And by "unhealthy", I mean ingredients, not diarrhoea-inducing dishes, of which I have a splendid repertoire not merely limited to Italian knockoff dishes. Half a teaspoon of olive oil, and the bacon took care of the rest of the glisten.....Did the smoked bacon leave an oil stain on your screen? Tak halal, wipe wipe.

This led to Jemufo having to talk with me about how I want a pet bacon. Not a pet pig, I don't want to have to carve up stuff just for food. I want it to be a bacon pet, with four little bacon legs, and it'll run around pooping bacon and pissing lard, or something. She says I'm really good at entertaining myself........

Right. Gotta go to college soon. Tear down my exhibition.

[ Oh, and I'm in some magazine for some interview, I saw it yesterday. I can't remember the title of the magazine, and I didn't buy it because I looked at the cover and said "NINE FRICKIN BUCKS???", which is like a bottle of beer, and I decided alcohol rules over buying a magazine for an interview where I already know, errr, what I said. Does that make sense? I mean, if I'd been completely mental and drunk while answering the questions, then I might have wanted to check for damage control, but since I wasn't - nahhhhh. ]

By the way, Passive Aggressive notes - is this blog not so fun?

I want to say I don't understand the world, but maybe it's just some people in this country. And of that, I'm afraid I actually do understand too much on what I don't identify with. I don't like what I see.

I need chocolate. Or my behaviour today shall be ghastly. This is not a (conscious) decision of mine, merely an observation.

Oh, excuses.

Written by lainie at 07:22 PM on May 31, 2007.

Three events for you:


Friday - Sunday: Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari looks damn interesting. An exploration of wayang kulit and the dalangs. At Central Market, Annexe.


Saturday: Maskara - a reading, mostly Bahasa texts from what I've been told, organised by Dunia Vovin.



Sunday: Sharanya has a solo poetry performance coming up in No Black Tie - should be cool.

Click on posters for info. Basically, an option for every night over the weekend

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I went out last night for some beef noodles with this woman here, and am much aware that the advertising industry is gonna have sucktastic hours.

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I heard Lola met Mir in Rome.

My first reaction:
Of all that is unholy.....

My second reaction:
OHMYGOD, THE POPE!

What if he spontaneously combusts upon those two making contact?

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Brian Molko is ridiculously sexay.