I was watching the projected astro commercial at my workplace a few hours ago, the astro commercial was on, the one that advertises about the astro scholarship. It shows several students that obtained said scholarship in artistically taken still shots and stuff, and a number of them were studying art related stuff, performace arts, fine art, and things like that.
I told my friend, " I wanna do that lor." as I pointed at the girl taking bachelor of arts.
And then he said.
"Oi, bastard, don't steal people's chances la, scholarship for poor people la... rich people like you dont need one."
And then later that night after we all got off work I asked some of my senior co-workers for a drink, since they all had treated me a few times before, I thought I'd repay the favour.
Cut things short, we all ordered drinks and chit-chatted, when it was time to pay, I said, " aih, no money dy la." As I was really on a tight budget and my wallet was really almost empty.
Everyone's drinks cost 7.60 and I had 8 bucks.
Lucky me. Or rather silly me for not checking my wallet before opening my big mouth.
Anyway. After I said what I just said, my friend beside me was like "tipu punya, budak kaya budak kaya."
I have a problem wih being labeled a rich kid. The phrase itself conjures up images of spoilt brats flunking their money here and there like their wallet no bottom one. I realize it's just a label, but just as the backstreet boys don't like to be called a "boyband", I don't think that anyone wants to be called a "rich kid". Or a poor kid. Or any sort of labels for that matter. Labels suck. Being called something other than you own name sucks. Labels serve nothing more than to elevate a person's standard or degrade it above or below the social norm.
It alienates you from normal people. For instance. "Genius Adam" "Everybody loves Peter" or "the dumbest blonde in the world, Jessica Simpson". The former two may sound like good things to be called, but really, trust me when I say it isn't.
Personally, I wouldn't say I'm rich, I was just born into a family slightly more well off than some people. Saying that I'm rich and should not go for a scholarship makes my blood boil not only because it isn't true, but also because it's like using money as a means to evaluate a person's standard.
I don't like it.
In fact, I hate it.
The concept of currency has bought the world much good, but it has also bought with it much evil.
I'd like to think that my parents wanted me to get the best education, the best environment for stuyding, the best clothes,etc etc.
So they work their fuckin ASS off to provide me with that, I realize and acknowledge that they're fulfilling their responsibility as parents, and I believe I'm fulfilling MY duties by not asking too much of them.
But being born into a slightly more well off family than some people does not mean anything.
Corny and cheesy it may sound, but I believe it's what inside that counts.
He also told me that it's considered personal to ask a guy how much salary he earns a month. To that I told him it's only personal if you use money to measure a person's worth. Which to me is bullshit. A person can be the wealthiest guy in the world and still be the shittiest bastard you've ever met.
There's this story where a village was in need of a worship statue, and therefore gathered everybody to donate their extra metal objects to make the statue, those that donated the most metal were the rich people and aristrocrats. But no matter how strongly the fore burned the metal objects just would not let itself be melted.
Then along came this beggar, who donated only a coin , and soon after the coin was added into the pile of metal all the objects melted and a new, beautiful statue awas made out of it.
The story ended with an explantion that said the objects would't melt because the metal objects donated by the rich people and aristrocrats were filled with greed and material desires, while the coin donated by the beggar was given purely out of the spirit of charity and thats why the pile of metal melted when the coin was added to it.
Long, boring story, but my favourite fabel ever since I was kid. In closing, I just wish there were less idiots in the world that care only about money-makin'. I won't stop my wishful thinking, cause dreams are the stuff that make a person. Wether you believe it or not.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
insert credit, Shibuya-kei
So the other I was sitting around, playing this little game called we love katamari. I was really enjoying myself with the game, where you rolled up stuff that make exquisite noises and people and animals that scream in terror cos they know they're going to become incinerated and then transmuted into cosmic-space-material.
Right anyway, i noticed that the music in the game was fuckin incredible, well, not all of the music, but a large portion of the soundtrack was very memorable. So being the irresponsible teenager that I am, i seeked them out on such notorious file-sharing clients like kazzaa and limewire, mostly the latter, because the former sucks and I've uninstalled it's unholy presence from my hard drive.
So I went online and limewired Katamari as it was the keyword that both games have in common.(we love katamri is the sequel to another game called katamari damacy, which was equally as wonderful) And I downloaded the theme song for we love katamari, which was just heavenly. The song was a mix between Swing, Jazz, and Big Band, with japanese lyrics mixed with english lyrics. It called Katamari on the Swing.
As I was enjoying that song, I felt cheeky and googled "katamari damacy reviews" to see what the critics thought about the game. I came across rottentomatoes.com, which is a site that serves to aggregate all the reviews on the net(as many as they can, anyway) of a certain movie, or in this case video-game in one place. I scrolled down the list of reviews, seeing that most critics gave it a thumbs up, I then proceeded to tell myself that yes, katamari damacy for the PS2 is a fuckin good game. I read through some of the reviews that bashed it, mostly saying that the graphics suck. I called them idiots and moved on.
Just as I was about to exit rotten tomatoes, my cursor stopped at the "back" button, I noticed this review, which gave katamari a 'fresh' rating, and yet it's sub headline said " I don't play this game anymore.". Which was, at a glance, obviously contradictory to the "fresh" rating bestowed upon the game. This particular review had caught my attention, and so I clicked on the link that directed me to the review. What followed next was the cleverest game review, that I have ever read. It was more intelligent than all of the mainstream reviews put together times ten. It was the best piece of criticismfor a game that I have ever read. I was hooked.
The site hosting the review was called "insert credit". And to me it was the best thing since sliced bread. I devoured all of their articles, reading like a maniac ale into the night, and after all that jazz I went back to the katamari review. At the end of the review he made a mock-soundtrack for the game, corresponding to his views on the game, which I will not discuss here, since the article is thousands of words long and pretty much speaks for itself. Digressing, the soundtrack had such names as, pizzicato five, lemon jelly, tokyo ska paradise, and a host of others I haven't checked out yet. Referring back to the begining of the entry, I said that the music in katamari damacay and we love katamari is absolutely excellent, and so, detecting that these pieces of music would somehow relate to how the game made me feel, how it played, and other realted stuff, I limewired them.
This japanese band mentioned, pizzicato five, had me hooked on their music. It was a blend of jazz, funk, psychaedelic, electronica and traditional japanese music elements. I thought that they were damn good. So I did a little research on them, and along the way I found out that they were classified under a genre called "shibuya-kei". The wikipedia entry for shibuya-kei listed some other interesting artist that may have rockin good music. As of writing I've already downloaded more than fourty songs under what I suspect would be shibuya-kei music. I'm drenching myself in a whole new world of musical goodness. The last time I felt like this was when I discovered that there was something called jazz in music.
Damn it feels good to be this way.To feel like you've discoevered a new toy to play with, a new continent to explore, a new planet the claim as your own. And to think all this started with a videogame. A very GOOD videogame at that.
Man I love my videogames.
Links to those who might be interested.
Pizzicato five
insert credit
Shibuya-kei
Right anyway, i noticed that the music in the game was fuckin incredible, well, not all of the music, but a large portion of the soundtrack was very memorable. So being the irresponsible teenager that I am, i seeked them out on such notorious file-sharing clients like kazzaa and limewire, mostly the latter, because the former sucks and I've uninstalled it's unholy presence from my hard drive.
So I went online and limewired Katamari as it was the keyword that both games have in common.(we love katamri is the sequel to another game called katamari damacy, which was equally as wonderful) And I downloaded the theme song for we love katamari, which was just heavenly. The song was a mix between Swing, Jazz, and Big Band, with japanese lyrics mixed with english lyrics. It called Katamari on the Swing.
As I was enjoying that song, I felt cheeky and googled "katamari damacy reviews" to see what the critics thought about the game. I came across rottentomatoes.com, which is a site that serves to aggregate all the reviews on the net(as many as they can, anyway) of a certain movie, or in this case video-game in one place. I scrolled down the list of reviews, seeing that most critics gave it a thumbs up, I then proceeded to tell myself that yes, katamari damacy for the PS2 is a fuckin good game. I read through some of the reviews that bashed it, mostly saying that the graphics suck. I called them idiots and moved on.
Just as I was about to exit rotten tomatoes, my cursor stopped at the "back" button, I noticed this review, which gave katamari a 'fresh' rating, and yet it's sub headline said " I don't play this game anymore.". Which was, at a glance, obviously contradictory to the "fresh" rating bestowed upon the game. This particular review had caught my attention, and so I clicked on the link that directed me to the review. What followed next was the cleverest game review, that I have ever read. It was more intelligent than all of the mainstream reviews put together times ten. It was the best piece of criticismfor a game that I have ever read. I was hooked.
The site hosting the review was called "insert credit". And to me it was the best thing since sliced bread. I devoured all of their articles, reading like a maniac ale into the night, and after all that jazz I went back to the katamari review. At the end of the review he made a mock-soundtrack for the game, corresponding to his views on the game, which I will not discuss here, since the article is thousands of words long and pretty much speaks for itself. Digressing, the soundtrack had such names as, pizzicato five, lemon jelly, tokyo ska paradise, and a host of others I haven't checked out yet. Referring back to the begining of the entry, I said that the music in katamari damacay and we love katamari is absolutely excellent, and so, detecting that these pieces of music would somehow relate to how the game made me feel, how it played, and other realted stuff, I limewired them.
This japanese band mentioned, pizzicato five, had me hooked on their music. It was a blend of jazz, funk, psychaedelic, electronica and traditional japanese music elements. I thought that they were damn good. So I did a little research on them, and along the way I found out that they were classified under a genre called "shibuya-kei". The wikipedia entry for shibuya-kei listed some other interesting artist that may have rockin good music. As of writing I've already downloaded more than fourty songs under what I suspect would be shibuya-kei music. I'm drenching myself in a whole new world of musical goodness. The last time I felt like this was when I discovered that there was something called jazz in music.
Damn it feels good to be this way.To feel like you've discoevered a new toy to play with, a new continent to explore, a new planet the claim as your own. And to think all this started with a videogame. A very GOOD videogame at that.
Man I love my videogames.
Links to those who might be interested.
Pizzicato five
insert credit
Shibuya-kei
Monday, December 05, 2005
R.I.P first drug blog in Malaysia. Long Live Sixthseal.
So this is it. This is where (or when, depending on your point of view) the line get's drawn. I've never known Poh Huai Bin personally. I don't really frequent his blog, but this nevertheless saddens me. Greatly. Saddens me in a way that makes me wanna punch someone. Much has been said about this. I agree with Lainie that after going theough almost all of his drug-related posts, I was convinced that I would never ever try drugs myself. If anything, the drug-related posts and videos were an insiparation to not try drugs.
And what's this shit about the paper's saying thast he's trying to PROMOTE drugs to everybody?
"Graduan komputer ajar cara jadi pakar dadah?"
Fuck that. What the Hell?
This only deepens my hatred for the newspapers in Malaysia in General. As a rule of thumb, whenever I hear some shit going on about the political world in Malaysia, I mostly go to Jeff Ooi's blog for further details. I've learned not too trust the Malaysian newspapers too much, but this? It's just plain misleading. First of all, he did NOT condone the use of illicit substances.(It sayd so in his profile damnit! Learn to read, motherfuckers!) It was more of a documentation of these subtances, an effort to provide the truth, to answer any questions you may have about these substances. The clear, un-adulterated truth, what the government is afraid of showing to the public. For me drugs have always been a curiosity, and knowing myself I probably would not try anything in the near future, but before feeling that way, while I was still in the 'kitty wants to play with fire stage', I came across sixthseal through Lainie's site, and after figuring out that this Huai Bin fella and this Verita's guy were basically the same person, I devoured their(his) entries like cookie monster on cookies. The entries on drugs, of course.
Fast forward. Today I'm still clean, the only addictive substances I consume are caffeine and alcohol.I haven't even tried weed for god's sake. And I don't see how anyone(anyone with a sound mind), after reading those posts, would want to try drugs. If anything, tose posts and videos were somewhat scary.
But after all that, it doesn't really matter. The authorities don't care. They don't care wether or not he condoned the usage drugs. They don't care what effect those posts had on our minds and psyche after reading them. They don't think about other ways to solve this problem. Because to them it's just like every other kissing scene in a movie, they don't give a damn. They think the people are stupid, and they need to control them. Democracy is almost non-existant here. To them, the only way combat these problems is censorship. By that they are stripping us of our options. Desacrating our rights. But this after all, is Malaysia.
I know it's been over a week since the incident. Everyone's probably gotten over it by now. Or perhaps trying to forget the terrible ordeal.
You know what? screw freedom of speech on the internet. Screw people trying to express themselves.
Freedom of Speech 0
vs
Malaysian Authorities 1
Links.
Sixthseal
And what's this shit about the paper's saying thast he's trying to PROMOTE drugs to everybody?
"Graduan komputer ajar cara jadi pakar dadah?"
Fuck that. What the Hell?
This only deepens my hatred for the newspapers in Malaysia in General. As a rule of thumb, whenever I hear some shit going on about the political world in Malaysia, I mostly go to Jeff Ooi's blog for further details. I've learned not too trust the Malaysian newspapers too much, but this? It's just plain misleading. First of all, he did NOT condone the use of illicit substances.(It sayd so in his profile damnit! Learn to read, motherfuckers!) It was more of a documentation of these subtances, an effort to provide the truth, to answer any questions you may have about these substances. The clear, un-adulterated truth, what the government is afraid of showing to the public. For me drugs have always been a curiosity, and knowing myself I probably would not try anything in the near future, but before feeling that way, while I was still in the 'kitty wants to play with fire stage', I came across sixthseal through Lainie's site, and after figuring out that this Huai Bin fella and this Verita's guy were basically the same person, I devoured their(his) entries like cookie monster on cookies. The entries on drugs, of course.
Fast forward. Today I'm still clean, the only addictive substances I consume are caffeine and alcohol.I haven't even tried weed for god's sake. And I don't see how anyone(anyone with a sound mind), after reading those posts, would want to try drugs. If anything, tose posts and videos were somewhat scary.
But after all that, it doesn't really matter. The authorities don't care. They don't care wether or not he condoned the usage drugs. They don't care what effect those posts had on our minds and psyche after reading them. They don't think about other ways to solve this problem. Because to them it's just like every other kissing scene in a movie, they don't give a damn. They think the people are stupid, and they need to control them. Democracy is almost non-existant here. To them, the only way combat these problems is censorship. By that they are stripping us of our options. Desacrating our rights. But this after all, is Malaysia.
I know it's been over a week since the incident. Everyone's probably gotten over it by now. Or perhaps trying to forget the terrible ordeal.
You know what? screw freedom of speech on the internet. Screw people trying to express themselves.
Freedom of Speech 0
vs
Malaysian Authorities 1
Links.
Sixthseal
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)