the magic returns on june 30th.

well. it's settled.

date: friday, june 30th, 2006
time: 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.
venue: the impiana hotel.

what?

the biz council annual ball. going for either RM 90 or RM 80. but most probably RM 90.

at least all that is settled.

now comes the theme, which might have a slightly italian flavour.

bolognese. yea.

you're standing on my neck.

the rush of the post-assignment madness has come to a desired halt. i've managed to download all of daria, and have gone through the first three episodes. utter brilliance. or it can be really a droll, depending on how you look at it.

the meeting for the ball was amiable enough. i think that the main problem is that there's conflict. and everything's still a bit scattered. on the bright side, we have yet even more people helping us out with everything. and there're supposed to be less people this year in attendance than our previous balls, so how hard could it be, really?

mmm. sleep deprivation. i slept through the afternoon. it was raining, and nice and cool.

now it's a quarter to 3 in the morning and i should be sleeping. but i'm not.

do you? don't you? does she? doesn't she?

lights.

what she doesn't know.

been awake for the last 24 hours!

accounting assignment completed...a day ahead of time!

last day of classes for this week!

mindfucked and scared that driving to college will kill me!

still wondering what it all meant!

was it for real? or...um. mindfucked again?

ugh.

does she or doesn't she?

caffeine love come rescue me quickly.

i can feel this narcolepsy slide into another nightmare.

snakes on a plane.

the viewing backlog i've accumulated:

1. 24 - 5x08
2. 24 - 5x09
3. 24 - 5x10
   
4. 24 - 5x11
5. 24 - 5x12
   
6. boston legal - 2x14
7. boston legal - 2x15
8. boston legal - 2x16
9. boston legal - 2x17
10. boston legal - 2x18
11. boston legal - 2x19
12. lost - 2x14
13. lost - 2x15
14. 60++ episodes of red vs. blue
15. top secret (starring val kilmer)
    

i've currently got the o.c. - 2x18 on torrent, the only series i've kept up-to-date with. as for the backlog, i haven't included this week's episodes yet, which i can't really add until i've finished everything up there.

sunday morning feels quite sedated. i came across something yesterday that has me intrigued. i want to know from you. now.

------------------------------

there's something that's coming up later this year that i've got to watch. it just gets funnier each time i say it to myself.
yea...the internet phenomenon that it is.

my father has not duly shaven off his stubble below the nose. tom selleck, clark gable...it's just bizarre.

yea. seriously sedated.

release your inner goth.

silent hill 3's music is amazing. the soundtrack is superb. there're only 3 full-blown standard songs on it (the rest being trippy atmospheric pieces) but it all brings this incredibly dreary, grimey dark world into your head.

akira yamaoke is one sick, twisted man.

download mary elizabeth mcglynn's you're not here and melissa williamson's i want love. better yet, torrent the whole album.

i want a miracle;
and not someone's charity.

be my lil' rock 'n roll queen.

you drive me mad.

the day's gone by steadily enough. basketball started at about 4:30 and i came back at 7:30, about a quarter of an hour ago.

i watched akira prior to basketball. the older i get, the more i seem to actually understand the movie. maybe it helps that i actually sat through the whole thing as well, as opposed to sleeping during intervals as before. the movie's great, it really is...it's just that it tests your patience to a certain degree. the first time i watched it was ages ago when i borrowed the video off the masterful surprise. that was back in taylor's, so...6 years ago? it was made back in '86 or '87, and it's still an amazing piece of art to watch.

and it's just bizarre.

i wonder if i can ever maintain my accent when i'm speaking to someone local. i need the accent. not to impress people, but because i seem to drive messages through thick skulls easier. and it also works as a tool to gain the confidence of the White Man (the whole lot of them, not just any particular one). it works out to my advantage. i'm not going to dispute the authenticity of my accent. it's mine, and it's real. (sounds so futile, no?) and it creeps in when i talk to everyone else. but i think in it, which is weird, really.

reason is treason.

i mean, i know it's weird to see a chinese guy from kl speak like he's from san fernando, but, hey...you have to admit it's special. and i don't use it all the time; i'm quite economical with it. it creeps up all the time in basketball. blame the French. (if you ever read this, G + thom, i'm sorry). nonetheless, today we had an english-malay guy join us, and i didn't quite know what to do. i said hello with a modicum of the accent thrown in to show him that i wasn't totally beng.

hey. totally beng sounds like such an awesome brandname. and would anyone like to register bengdom.com for me?

i have a dream. not one of the dreams i keep on writing about, but a real aim, a lifetime's worth of achievement type of dream. i'd really love it if i became a celebrity restaurantuer with the opening of my first boutique restaurant, called...foo's.

i can see it now. in my head. people knowing who i am. i can open bottles of fine wine and liquor to good friends and big spenders. and maybe for a table of ladies. where everybody knows my name. and where everbody (mostly) knows everybody else's names.

it would be beautiful. it would be...blue. it would be foo's.

either that or i establish a lingerie company called taifoohing. which roughly translates into "popular underwear" from cantonese, or as theo likes to say, "happening panties". tres cool. and it might actually work (if marketed well). i'm not talking about any cheap kiki lala childrens' underwear. i'm talking about malaysia's first global lingerie company. a malaysian victoria's secret. yeah. called taifoohing.

a man can dream.

run, fatty, run!

sreeman shanker is a 16 year old indian boy in my neighbourhood whom i've ceaselessly mocked ever since he was a kid. he's short, stout, and very fat, and best of all, he's a vegetarian...his body size defies explanation, especially when you think about that last factor. i've been pissed off by him repeatedly while playing football, and he's been the inspiration for many of my indian jokes. bottom line: i just love insulting him and his race, and he probably derives some satisfaction from doing the same to me.

i had a dream. it was very indian-centric. i dreamt that he and satish (another neighbourhood indian, only blacker than mr. shanker) were over at my house (a rarity since i only usually invite one indian per sitting) playing one of the need for speed games. for some strange reason, we were racing vans. i then proceeded to beat him, which led him to run off with my game in tow. he was on a bike.

the dreamscape then shifted to somewhere that looked like that school opposite centrepoint in BU, except that it looked more like a condo. i basically chased him around there, until i got the game off him and proceeded to kick the living shit out of him. very violent. he then rode off, escaping, but satish and i managed to corner him after a bit. he then rode off again, and then the scene shifted back to my neighbourhood.

for some strange reason, the indian stall outside my house had turned into a tiki beach house, complete with alcohol and torches (a sign of things to come?), and sreeman was with yet another indian, satia, and i proceeded to go up to him and say: "don't you ever do that again. ever." mmmm. how uncharacteristically macho of me. that was the most vivid thing i remember, most probably because i say it to him all the fricking time.

we then looked at each other and bursted out laughing. friends again.

i then went into the tiki house and bought a drink, getting a side parlour seat, not unlike what you'd see in an old-school american diner. weird. i then went up to get a bar seat with satia and sreeman, and the dream stops there.

i really need an interpreter for all this rubbish. what'd the dream mean? tiki beach house right outside my place? tres cool. but yes.

it's saturday. and, as usual, since i didn't do anything yesterday, it feels like a sunday.

it's a little over dawn right now. nothing's stirring.

the world's most pathetic troubadour.

it's hard to be inspired when you can only play 8 notes on a guitar (minus solo parts that sound the same). i first picked up the guitar in school in year 8...when i was 13? i learnt the basics from there (and i've never moved past that stage ever since). a few weeks after starting, i remember buying a kapok from pearl point. it was RM 46, and it's still here with me today, sans any strings or tuning mechanisms. it's just a barren black shell, which looks quite imposing, in a way. who knew that the chinese could make such beautiful, cheap creations?

a few months later, for my birthday, my mother bought me my first, and only, electric guitar...a yamaha EG-303 that's since been under the custody of the masterful surprise. however, i've borrowed it from him, and it now rests here, in its case, along with the crate amp that came along with it (it was a guitar + case + amp set).

later, in laos, i bought a cheap guitar to keep myself entertained. it has since vanished. i honestly don't know what's happened to it. after a few more years, i swapped my electric yamaha for justin's acoustic classical yamaha. i did what everyone would do in that instance: get rid of the nylon strings and proceed to restring the whole thing with steel strings. very painful, but really, you gotta bleed for your art, no?

later, in brazil, i bought a classical guitar and decided not to give it a full-steel treatment. it could also have been because i could only point and make strange grunts in my purchasing decisions coz i wasn't too keen on learning portuguese. whatever works. my father had brought that guitar back and it also sits here, in my room.

recently, i'd borrowed an electric stony off a neighbourhood friend. and that also sits here in the room, against the window, on the far end of the couch.

i have four guitars in my room, none of them excessively expensive. none of them have anything in common aside from the obvious. and they're quite wasted on me.

a few days back, paolo was talking to me online about visiting one of the troubadour acoustic/indie gigs that've been springing up around kl over the last 2 years. he plans to perform at one of them in the near future, as do i. the problem being is: i need a backing guitarist. strike that. obviously, mr. gomes relishes the chance to see me fumble my way silly onstage.

now, in the tai catalogue, there're a few songs that're actually stageworthy. and undoubtedly, i'm going to write a few more happy singalongs about lost loves and gaining weight and baldness, as well as my current course in heading towards a quarterlife crisis. but i can't go very far because the songs that i hear in my head need a full band. and that's not going to happen much, unless i use my mouth to mimick instruments (i've done it before and the results were....unsatisfactory).

which either means i give up now or try to make my fingers bleed even more. i suppose that the world could use one more whiney song about the complications of eating cereal and then sandwich ham.

speaking of which, i've restocked my fridge of sandwich ham and bacon. i am complete, once again. friday has popped its head up. the weekend is around the corner and i still haven't started on the accounting assignment yet. my life juices ebb away from me ever so slowly.

there's absolutely nothing to do now. my efforts in recording a song earlier with lines about "procrastination" and "playstation education" have been unfruitful. i've got a backing track laid down but i'm just lost for words. not a writer's block...more of me not really being bothered to try to etch my mark upon the world of sad, lonely troubadour-ism.

damn you, gomes! damn you!

arnold is my bitch.

i had a dream where i had written an article in the Star, which resulted in this massive backlash. i fought to clear my name somehow, since this involved a politician and investigative reporting gets frowned upon in kuala lumpur. for some strange reason, most of the drama took place in college...i was being chased upon, my friends all deserted me...it was strange. was it a dream about alienation? who knows? i woke up once the problem resolved itself and got some ribena from the fridge. my father was still awake, watching a movie...that was about 20 to 4 in the morning.

i went back to sleep.

now this is where it gets interesting.

i don't have a lot of cameo appearances from celebrities in my dreams...it's usually been limited to my friends and family. but just now i had arnold schwarzenegger. funnily enough, it started off with me alone on an espionage assignment in this ritzy hotel. i had to break into a particular hotel room which overlooked an interconnecting skybridge between the hotel's two towers and...um...for some strange reason, after breaking into the room i was shopping with some girls, who then decided to follow me back to the hotel room on the opposite side since there was a war going on all around us. we were also followed by some dudes. i ditched them all and hooked up with arnie and we shot our way out of there, though i have to say, he was pretty fucking incompetent, breaking into the room rooms and all. in the end, i just simply woke up, and...sigh.

doesn she or doesn't she? why should i care?

if i could have dreams that help me sort out my own problems, that'd be more than brilliant.

what is lost has been found again.

years ago, i was playing eutechnyx's le mans 24 hours pc racer...i loved the music that went along with its introductory movie, a amalgamation of video clips to what was probably the most gruelling (and tediously boring) race on the planet. i never knew the name of the song, but it had the first line of: "you got a great car".

it sounded fabulously retro. and artsy. the worst part was, i never knew the name of the song, and most people whom i went to didn't really know what song it was.

recently, a vodafone ad has been popping up on terrestrial televsion. and the song is in it.

thank god for lezel sharona asrie.

after six years, i've found out that the song that's been playing in my head all the time is the dandy warhols' bohemian like you.

yay yay yay. it still sounds fab. three and a half minutes of sheer ejaculatory brilliance. i shan't mince my words.

on to other things.

my father insists of keeping a moustache. he's shaven the stubble at sides and the bottom half of his mouth off. the experiment's being taken a bit too far.

"clark gable", he says. my uncle hearily agrees.

booyah.

the irony of it all. again.

i'm hardly going mad, but no amount of bacon is going to prepare me for the ramifications of the next few days. on a side note, i've just finished the last four streaks of it.

i'm a goner.

after 4 to 5 hours of sleep, i was rolling around on my trusty sofa, enjoying the sweet sounds of birds chirping and planes flying by. and then it hit me; people who're about to face earth-shattering experiences aren't allowed to feel happy. they must be prepared for the earth-shattering experiences they're about to face.

so i did what i had to do.

i woke up.

my father greeted me, looking more like a grizzly bear with his failed experiment of growing a beard. the amount of stubble on his face is actually quite well-spread, it's just that it refuses to grow. so yea; that should tell most 60 year old fathers not to listen to their sons' advice on growing a beard "for fun". well, maybe if you're caucasian, but it's definitely doomed to fail if you're asian.

i bought the paper and some bread, fried my bacon, and now i'm here. back in my solace, my own little home away from home away from home. this trusty little textbox guiding me, my instincts alive and alight, my inner flame burning even more strongly with each passing word i type, each letter and character that comes out of my hands and onto the screen.

are you still reading this?

after much thought, agonizing contemplation and hardly a good night's sleep, i've decided that in order for my life to be full, i must be full of life. i must be zesty and zen-like in thought. i have to relax and not be so worked up. and most of all, i need to have the confidence that will take me forward til death and kingdom come.

that's right...you heard it here first.

i'm going to become a father.

no, just kidding.

does she or doesn't she? the question just pops up every now and then. do i even have the courage to find out? must something this incredibly juvenile and mundane be so hard to handle? especially in the hands of someone who's used to the notion that there's a cosmic imbalance somewhere that allows these kinds of things to happen?

i'm alright.

it was so much easier defeating nobunaga. scoring 3081 in snake 2 was a cakewalk. and i've shot a basketball into a hoop from a halfcourt (and a bit more) away.

this sucks.

636.

after the painstaking process of transferring the posts from the satellite blogs, the tripartite is finally complete. i know i said that i wasn't going to change anything anymore, but i suppose that all my efforts of making a nice, conducive environment for reading weren't meant to go to waste. since i'm doing a joe quesada, i've decided to remind everyone who reads (all 7 of you) that this is the sixth hundredth and thiry-sixth post. yes, we're back to the original numbering, and rest assured, this certainly is the original funkyhippopotamus blog.

this post serves no purpose at all, really. but it's nice to have the true one blog to rule them all back.

and just in time, too.

hunger pangs.

but seriously, now: does she or doesn't she?

counterfeit life.

i'm a last minute kind of guy, i suppose. i really don't leave things til the absolute last minute. it's an ugly habit that i won't be changing anytime soon.

it's almost 2 in the morning and i'm still awake. this is one bad habit that hasn't reared it's ugly head. ultimately i'll probably turn in after sending the masterful surprise his masterfully requested coldplay number.

does she or doesn't she?

it continues.

sunday to regression.

it feels like a saturday. either way, it was a well spent morning...i woke up at 6:30 and caught the AI performances that i'd missed, and then i took the perdana out to DJ and back. i made about 140 in it, but that's not really pushing it. then again, i might be asking for trouble. it feels good to just try my best to pedal it down as much as possible, without worries of the car shaking wildly or lifting.

i came back home to wash the perdana and the landeater, which hasn't been driven in 2 days. and it was fricking dirty, full of...organic tree droppings. both are somewhat cleaner today. which is good, because today might turn out to be one of the best sundays that i've had in ages.

but i've got to wait and see.

sigh.

when're you gonna come my way?

saturday to progression.

it feels like a sunday.

the star is extra thick today.

i woke up thinking it was sunday.

and the birds chirping are sunday birds.

i made that last part up.

but, really. it feels like a sunday.

shangri-la doo da.

the accounting 2 assignment is a pain in the ass. not because of the questions, which aren't really that bad, but because we're required to use excel 97. 97. as in released in 1996. that's 2 years before i got my first pc...and that itself was '98. i don't understand why we're required to use it. i suppose that we can always just use excel xp and then save it as an excel 97 spreadsheet, but that's not really the point...HELP should really supply our lecturers with better equipment. or at least something a little more recent so it won't look so embarassingly bad to the world at large.

is that asking for too much? i hope not. then again, HELP's run by chinamen uncles (and possibly one of their wives). and they're stereotypically miserly...so i suppose it's already predicted. but what's the point of promoting yourself as the place to come to and get educated at when even the lecturers are shortchanged?

yea, well.

the circus is already in town. michlle yeoh and jean todt have been seen at all the gala functions in conjunction with sunday's race. it might sound crude, but i wonder if they have any sex. tallish, lanky, slimmish chinese woman with...jean todt. ugggggh.

then again, naomi probably fucked flavio. and heidi klum had his kid.

uggggggh.

i don't get it. i just don't get it.

siarang langsung? not anymore.

you have to admit, it looks relatively safe and tidy. it's not everyday a cosworth gets into 6th and 7th.

that's one "petronas" car going out in flames. poor jacques. bmw on fire! achtung!

it's not everyday that you see a honda overtaking a mercedes. button on fire! banzai!

i know a lot of people who would've been happy if massa had taken out alonso. gutless weasel. he could've earned my respect.

one thing i didn't like about last night's telecast was the telecast itself. 8tv decided to run its news at 8 as opposed to delaying it until after the race (which is what rtm did when it was the licensed broadcaster). among the items of interest for the night was an interview with siti nurhaliza, the Big Forehead. she's cute, yes, but i want to see my race....live.

at least they were nice enough to resume the playback once the news was over, but come on...it's just shitty. the funny thing is, they still had their advertising obligations to fulfill, so the ads were still playing and we never really got to the action. i'm not entirely sure who controls the advertising periods...itv or 8tv...but i'm pretty sure that they could've compensated by showing more speed and less shite.

then again, everyone else watches it on astro. but astro doesn't have the itv crew.

i suppose that a delayed telecast is better than nothing, but seriously...logik sedikit, bang.

suicide kings.

i wholeheartedly respect formula one drivers. they drive their asses off, while at the same time risking life and limb (literally). i mean, sure...the money more tha compensates, but there's only so far someone would go, y'know?

bahrain's race was fricking fun. but, alas, alonso won with schumacher almost there but not quite.

that rosburg dude is a nut. who could've known that a cosworth could do so? props to marky mark in the williams. shite. the brits are in.

the Iceman remained as such.

but shit, alonso's got a face i'd love to punch. some stills from the race, hopefully tomorrow.

seacrest, out!

i like girls with good heats and nice eyes.

my feet smell.

past the point of tolerance.

i'm sweating from head to toe. hence, the smelly feet. but i feel good.

because of a basketball game. a good, sweaty, active basketball game. i feel healthy.

but. but. but.

i feel hungry.

shit.

i shiver at how easily my own emotions and opinions can be swayed by very little things. i think i take the little things a little too seriously...that sometimes i don't focus on the bigger picture. my anal retentiveness is my greatest asset and downfall. i don't always nitpick...but when i do, i start getting carried away and start getting anxious and worried. it's funny how i only go into details when i want to, as opposed to when i have to. if i did the latter, there're a lot of things that i would've achieved by now...i would probably be in a better place than the one i'm currently in.

yes, well, as my dad prepares dinner once again, i'm standing in a mini-crossroad. something that can be earth-shattering and life-altering if i let it be. so, i shall let it be. to ease my mind. whatever happens, does. whatever doesn't, won't.

though...who would want to be the Dog of Abject Despondency?

not i. not yet.

my bodily orifices warily wear on.

bacon tastes great in the morning. it's a real pity that i can't eat it right now because it's about 10 to noon, and all i've had has been a bowl of frosties. i don't know if my father has a lunch agenda, but i wish he'd make up his mind before he gets a heart attack and i have to earn money for the medical expenses.

okay, that was a bad joke, but i am hungry.

i went down to kuala selangor yesterday for a seafood lunch, and had the time of my life smashing up a crab's pincers with a mini-hammer. i love food that's made to have the consumer interact with it, and there's nothing more liberating than gleefully whacking away at a claw or two. i also made it a point to call the pincer "motherfucker" in preparation for the battle that i was about to partake in.

no, seriously.

it was during the journey to and fro that i realized how good a tourer the perdana is. it's relatively comfortable to drive in over long distances. as long as the relatives aren't around to make life a living hell (as they were yesterday).

my aunt has been stating that she'd like to get a car made in china, one of the geelys or cherrys or whatever they're called. i would like to say that i don't like my aunt much, but even then i was trying to dissuade her from being an idiot, which most educated lawyers do not become. then again, this is the same woman who's been telling me she's been wanting a camry for the last six years, so...ugh. what an idiot.

i thought politicians were meant to be smart, wily people. then again, she isn't much of a politician, either.

in all honesty, most of the people in my family are power-hungry...but not powermongers. in the pursuit of respect and excellence, everyone in this family's a chimp --- we all think we're smarter than the monkeys but we all eat the same bananas. be it my father's arrogance in knowing everything, or my aunt's unfazed parroting of facts, figures and unfounded shoulder rubbing, or my two idiot uncles who never get their facts right, to even me and my tendency to get pop culture discrepancies righted, we're all fucking chimps.

no, i didn't meant to say that we fornicate with chimps, i'm just saying that we are chimps. strike that metaphor.

also, is it so wrong to secretly long to be younger so that i can court a neurotic 16 year old? i think it is. not that i care much for ethics anymore. chimps don't know the meaning of ethics.

ooo ooo aaah aaah, you wankers.

of fish and fitness.

i've just had this dream in which my father took in a second wife who was younger (but still not my age --- no spoilt goods around). she was the daughter of a restaurant chain baron, and marrying her meant that he was going to become heir to the chain. for some strange reason, we had a massive celebatory lunch where the attendees were all stafff members of the ministry of foreign affairs. except that i wasn't there...i was in a suv with two malay girls (one of them being my father's first wife), looking for food in a place that looked like kepong, whilst all of a sudden it went up this greatly exagerrated ascent that was meant to be genting...and it tipped over and fell to the side. luckily, it straightened itself out somehow, and it was back to its merry way, though with a dent. funnily enough, the way down looked like a warped version of the road leading down to jalan damansara from the tivoli appartments...a very long way down, with a steep descent, while our driver was going down surprisingly fast.

my father called the carphone and the first wife picked up, and told him that she was "packing", for some strange reason. suddenly, a change of scene: we were in front of a friend's house (presumably the restaurant baron's) and i could hear my father saying that she was lying. wife #1's friend was gone. we went into the house where i met most of his staff members, and one of them told me about the 12 fishes that my father had ordered for the 12 tables that were having lunch in his honour at a mamak. he paid for everybody's meals, of course.

i woke up at that point.

ugh. kooky.

dancing barefoot when hearts go astray.

it's quiet. it's loud. thunder and lightning are about. i'm quasi-hungry. besides all that, i haven't fallen prey to the ravages of the bird flu. today's a real test: i had some fried chicken from the indian stall opposite my house. if i get the symptoms in 2 days, someone's going to get a big hurting.

yesterday's thunderstorm didn't stop my father from using logic and pulling out all the wires from the modem. however, i think he's misinformed when he assumes that turning the monitor off leads to the pc being turned off. no matter.

and on a side note, the hp deskjet 400 that's graced my life for 7 years is starting to show its age. i broke the metal tab that's meant to hold the cartridge, but i somehow managed to beat the system and connect it back on. it works for now. i was wrestling with the printer for 10 minutes. and let's not get started about the price of a cartridge for a ancient printer. unfair.

as the world turns, all i can think about is steak. well done. with A1 sauce. and mashed potatoes.

flawless. beautiful. so far away.

oh baby.

oh baby.

oh baby.

awkward, awkweird.

andrew wong, if you read my blog, i am truly sorry...i am not going to lend you any category III VCDs that i have. you've got to learn how to buy them yourself, especially since you're a porn virgin. although explaining the differences between category III and hardcore porn was strange, i think you've gotten the gist of it. i feel that you could've kept the little list i'd given you better as opposed to losing it in class.

now, you're 21 but asking questions that a 15 year old would ask. except that i didn't ask these questions when i was 15 because i took it upon myself to learn. and yes, yahoo! played a big part.

dude, you gotta lighten up. most male netsurfers download porn, myself included. we're only human.

but you should heed my advice for most addictions: if you've never started, then don't start.

nationalistic pride gone awry.

sometimes i wonder if my father joined the ministry of foreign affairs out of love for the country, and how much of that love played a part when he was performing his tasks that came with the job. do diplomats need to have some sort of attachment with their homeland to perform admirably? or is it all really a charade?

last night, the deputy prime minister came on terrestrial television and explained why the petrol prices have been hiked up. he was questioned by one of the bigwigs of the bernama press, as well as some other dude who wanted to butt in all the time (must be the attention seeker amongst the two). now, i like najib tun razak...he looks like a friendly kind of guy, with a pleasant demeanour, slightly chubby...the kind of man who'd lead your country who you'd go awwwwwwww for. however, i feel compelled to say that since the q&a session was pre-planned and pre-approved by the government, there was no excitement...no fireworks.

i'm not a professional political commentator. all i can say is that the interview wasn't fun to watch. there wasn't any excitement in it. then again, this is malaysian politics. where're the rogues? where's the fun? is my generation and the next going to look up at a bunch of stodgy, uppity, middle-aged malay men and wonder...where's the firebrand?

indeed we are. there's a very thin line betwen meritocracy and nepotism in the majority parties.

strike that. there's no such thing as a meritocracy.

but, despite all these obvious shortcomings, my father still hodged his life away for over 25 years. granted, he got a nifty title for his service, but still...could you really believe in this country so much?