home alone. day 4?

Awoke at 12. Again.

Against my will, I got up, went to the dining room, checked my emails, and read pick me for a few more pages before brushing teeth.

Spent some time finishing up ads from yesterday. Still flailing my head from last night's left4dead session. Boy that went on for a while. Stupid fuckers only stayed in two's thinking they could hack it just the two of them. We bid goodbye to Mercy West hospital 2 hours in, but the clock struck half past 2 by then. And only one of us got out alive. It was blisteringly painful.

Fucking tards.

Anyway. Went out, had breakfast at the breakfast house downstairs. Waited in line like a good sheep at the bank to deposit Eric's money. Then headed home. Humming to myself all day.

Came back, disappointed myself Heroes and cheered for Terminator, hoping it doesn't get canceled. Worked on ads again. Roads that look like roller-coaster trails are surprisingly hard to draw.

It's Ivy, on msn. Hasn't she gone yet? Apparently not. Silly girl. No planning whatsoever. I just hope she gets a ticket. If she doesn't she'll just have to stay in London for a few more days. Which might be a good thing for me.

Told her about my mistake.

hardy har har.

Next time some retard asks of the prettiness of any of my friends I say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Sorry friends but it's to protect youse.

Oh hehe.

Hope he doesn't read this. If you are I'M SORRY.

Just had a coupla ideas or RyanAir. But I have no idea how to present them. Yet. It'l come. In fact, it came while I was writing this.

Joey calls. Talk shit for abit, and then tells me he's booked a table at four seasons at bayswater for 7pm.

hoooh boy.

At least Ivy will be able to taste the often-mentioned-always-referenced-but-I-haven't-tried Four Seasons Roast Duck©. Just because it is SO GOOD as I'm told. We'll see.

Also asked if I wanted to stay over at his place tonight so it would be easier to pick up Ivy at 8 tomorrow. Technically he's right. His abode is only a bus's ride away, 15 mins from Heathrow. Waking up late, PS3, all those are very good incentives. But then I remind myself I've been waking up late for the past few days already.

I'll have none of that.

So for all intents and purposes I declined his generous offer.
10 ten times at least.
Sigh.
He's cool tho, just a dick sometimes.
And very pushy.

Anyways. Tomorrow big day. Ivy coming. Wimbledon. Four Seasons. I'm letting Joseph pay this time. Better turn in early. After I do up the RyanAir ad of course.

Cog

Technically we're cogs in some kind of machine or other. The question is which cog do you aspire to be?

daily writing: Missed

This time it will be more daily than the last.

My books finally arrived yesterday, and I'm going with Pick me as my first read. It's as full of energy, enthusiasm and wit as a normal book about advertising, it just hasn't told me anything new so far. Whatever. I'm only 30 pages in, I'll judge after reading the whole thing.

Ivy is supposed to be coming tomorrow. 8am in the morning she arrives. big day.

daily writing: home alone day 1

I woke up at noon, but the sun wasn't up. Or at least it felt like it wasn't. Rain drizzled in that annoying way that English rain does, and the sun covered itself behind clouds of gray. Like it's ashamed of something.

The house is just the way I left it last night, not a door opened, a dust settled. Nothing happened without my knowledge. Even the dishes were still there, waiting to be washed. It's just depressing. I just hope this house doesn't turn into a full-on bachelor pad by the time I'm done.

I slept with the heating off, I figured I'd save some power make that 10 pounds last as long as I can. Bathed for the first time in 24 hours or more. The plumber specifically told me to tell my house-mates not to use the shower until the next day. Because otherwise all his work will be for naught and the leaking will continue.

I was a good boy and did as I was told. Luckily, when the shopkeeper came in yesterday he just assumed that I was renting this place, instead of sub-letting it from my friends. It worked out fine. He didn't suspect a thing. I'm SUCH a good liar.

Ann bought me Belgian Hot chocolate for Christmas (early Christmas I suppose), and I must say I'm pleasantly surprised, and mildly touched. Even though now that we're out of milk I've resorted to eating them as candy snacks, they still hold up. Chocolate will be chocolate I suppose.

My AD seems to be less of a retard today, either that or I'm losing my intelligence.

MSN has kept me company, it seems to be my only link to the lame excuse of a social life that I possess.

Day one: uneventful, boring and tedious. This has to go on for 2 more weeks.

Lord help me.

daily writing: alone in the house

Today's the day Lyn leaves, and that means I get the whole house to myself. Even though it sounds like a good thing I assure you it's not.

An empty house, devoid of people, sounds, and the usual drama and complaining. It may be a little bit more peaceful, but nothing beats the company of friends.

To remind me that I need to do certain things to make sure the house is in working order, Lyn put up 3 pink post-its that say, "Turn off heater and lights", "Lock Door" and "Feed Fish", the latter two coming with their respective hand drawn symbols.

This should tell you how forgetful I am.

Well, at least I don't think I've missed a day in my "daily writings" project yet. Oh you didn't know I was conducting a project? Of course you didn't. How could you? It's not like you exist, dear constant reader.

There's been one, I think for every day in December so far. I think. It's been a really useful exercise. I get to practice my writing and add to my archives at the same time. Of course, being a writer I really should be writing more than this, but as someone once said to a cowboy, "take it slow."

Anyway, thus concludes my column on my daily column. I won't be able to cheat tomorrow by writing about my writing anymore. Any more times than one would be cheating. Right?

Daily writing: Chelsea

Today's the day of my first football match. In England anyway. A champion's league match, CHELSEA v CFR says the ticket. Kick off at 19:25. Stamford Bridge Stadium, WEST STAND LOWER, GATE: 2 ROW:21 SEAT 0034 25 pounds. PERSISTENT STANDING IS NOT ALLOWED.

Oh, and no smoking.

I'll be out by 4, walk around central London, window shopping, a cuppa coffee, scribbling ideas, before I join the not very big crowd. I hope.

The subject supporting football teams has always fascinated me. I can understand well enough to support you local team, pride and all that. But how does an outsider, who has no affiliation with clubs or local teams chooses who to support?

Personally, I've supported Chelsea since my college days. Before that I wasn't into football much.

A close friend of mine was an ardent fan of Chelsea. This is before they suddenly had millions of pounds in their pockets courtesy of Abromavich. Before Mourinho and before their first title win in 4 decades. I never asked him how he came to support the blues but I suspected it's because of one Frank Lampard.

He would go on for ages how Lampard never missed a match, was never switched out and how amazing he was. Eventually I got to be pretty good friends with this chap and slowly it grew on me. Then one day I decided, just like that, out of the blue, I'm for Chelsea. And that's what I've been saying for 3 or 4 years now.

And that's my bland, boring uninteresting anecdote to how I became a Chelsea guy.

I've not done research, but I'm willing to bet that many Manchester United fans, Arsenal fans and Liverpool fans outside the UK will have a similar story. A friend, a family member, or a figure in authority will have played a very important part in which team a football fan comes to support. Influence of peers, and individuals around oneself.

AH football. So wonderful and yet so divisive. Bringing people together and pushing then further apart at the same time.

Daily writing: some dude.

So some dude called Gordon Comstock (I am sure there's a joke in that name there somewhere, just not sure what) got noticed by Scamp, and subsequently suffered a mini-digg effect. It wasn't enough to crash his site, but noticeable enough that he put up a post addressing new readers.

I can't help but wonder if it's a coincidence that scamp picked up on him after he embedded Scamp's ad on his blog.



Probably just a coincidence.

In other news my AD is driving me nuts. I'm starting to think he's a fucking retard.

Thank god the nabs book club is happening soon.

daily writing: Suck it up.

It seems all my friends are in sorrow somewhat. I feel like I'm living Grey's anatomy. All this drama and soap opera. Breaking up and being sad. At least soap opera on TV will have characters find love or happiness sometimes.

Real life is so often a bitch. They whine and they talk about how it used to be. Memories they probably won't be able to relive. Sulking in their own tears and self pity. It's hard to blame them, but it's still annoying. Sure it makes for riveting stories and soap opera, but as events happening around your person they're hardly interesting, because everyone has the same story, the same tears.

Sad people often fail to realize they're by no means unique in their disposition. When tears roll down and hearts are broken the outside world shuts itself off. Emotions take over and they encase themselves in a bubble. Life becomes all about one person. The one you want back so much.

I want to take a gun, scream "shut up!" and empty rounds into the ceiling, bringing about a cold silence before I pull out a cricket bat and bludgeon them all to death. Partly because when I'm faced with acquaintances like that, my mind draws blanks. I feel powerless to help them, mostly because I just don't know how. Bludgeoning may not solve things for anyone, but at least it's fun to pretend that it does. But mostly I listen and nod, pretending to be interested while picturing their bloodied skulls at the end of my bat, crimson red dripping down forming a thick, murky pool.

But I still like them and feel sorry for them. Am I sane or what?

daily writing: Waiting on a job

My art director of 2 days complained to me that it takes too long to get a job in the London ad agency. It's a nightmare, and everyone knows it. There's not much we can do about it though. It's said it takes an average of 2 years to get a job in the industry, by which time my visa would have run out.

It's an interesting dilemma, but I hope to at least gain some sort of experience by doing placements and crits before I get booted back to Malaysia. Hell, I'm desperate enough as it is.

At least my book arrived today.

The nice fellas at MCBD sent me off with an assignment. Read "Hey Whipple Squeeze this." I read the first 2 pages and already I'm cursing myself for not discovering it earlier. Homer, you're bumped off the top of my reading list for now.

7 pounds well spent.

Looking at some of my friends on facebook, it's reassuring to see I'm not the only one who has gained some weight.

Watched "aku suka jolok" video for the first time in 2 years. Ah, the long forgotten days of my misspent teenage years. Lyn and co vowed to kill me if I ever said it to their face again, so I'm saying it here. Where no fucking body is around.

haha.

2 years on and still nobody comes here regularly. Oh how I love the benefits of being not famous.

And now, I shall provide sound effects to a silent film.

daily writing: rants

The only other thing I need to feel Like Spider Jerusalem right now is a bald head and looks that kill, not because I'm pretty.

They say boredom kills. Whoever they are, I will do nothing to refute that statement. One year ago I thought all I wanted to do was to write great ads, win countless ad awards and work long, exhausting underpaid hours in the ad industry.

I still do, to some extent, but like everything else I've wanted to achieve, life gets in the way.Not my life, but the life everyone else is living. What do you do when nothing goes according to plan? When everything you do turns out out be a dud and nothing seems to make any sense?

Answer? Blog. Write and write and write. Vent your heart out and pour every single drop of blood, sweat and tears into this measly little text box that publishes this block of text into the great, insane world known as the internet. Every turn leads to a dead end, and a man can only take so many dead ends before breaks down and starts blogging about it. Some people wash it down with whiskey, some with beer, others with cigarettes, I do all three, all the while making sure I spell each word right and that every line of meaningless blabber is as interesting to read as possible. I like to write. Writing on a tobacco and alcohol fix is even better. It's not as good as an underpaid job, because at least you know something is going IN to your bank account, but it's good all the same. Keeps me sane, but not sane enough not to blog.

I've wanted to write for a living for quite some time, but now I'm asked to think for a living, which wouldn't be so bad, because thinking is fun too, but whats not so fun is to be asked how to think in order to make a living. It's almost like brain-washing. All these books and courses on how to be successful in the modern marketplace are effectively books on how you should think or act in society in order to make money. Which isn't bad, just frustrating.

There are numerous people who can get by or even get rich by doing what they love doing. Filthy rich even. Perhaps one can only get rich by doing what he loves. Every book I've read seems to support this ideal. Making sure you don;t fall out of love is the real challenge perhaps. I love writing, and I love doing up ads with a partner, the latter is hard because finding a partner is hard. Doing ads alone is not just hard-work. It's downright torture for me. Writing is relatively easy. Good writing is another story, But I haven't fallen out of love with it just yet.

Just as a writer needs an editor, a copywriter needs an art director. Good editors are hard to find, and so are good art directors. I hope I find one soon.

Opportunity is just as important as hard work.

Putting in hours in equally as important.

Bananas are yellow and they taste nice.

Pyramids are pyramids in shape.

Dinosaurs are majestic and sad.

Maybe the whole point of life is to drive you insane and your job is to fight it.

...

Every time I wonder why is life worth living so much, I remind myself that life is finite, then suddenly it's all ok.

daily writing: something awful and pointless.

Being aware and conscious is a deeply strange and wonderful feeling to me. The evolution of consciousness fascinates me, and our awareness of who we are and what everything around us are and what it means to us are things that I find infinitely interesting and I don't think I will ever stop wondering about it.

Cultural awareness then, seems small in the grand scale of things.

In reading "Outliers" by Mr. Gladwell, I'm amazed by his ability to talk about cultural differences and stereotypes without sounding the least insulting or otherwise. I've always had a fear of offending people, mainly because I'm so damn good at it, I tend to piss off the wrong people. But that's besides the point. In his book Gladwell discusses the importance of cultural legacy; how where our ancestors grew up, how they were brought up and what they did for a living is more important in understanding our own behaviour then we initially thought.

This got me thinking about my own "Legacies" and how it is significant to what I do now.

Asian societies in general have a very high "power distance index",which basically means we respect those in power a lot more than cultures with a low PDI.

Example, my housemates are all older than me by 4 or 3 years. Thus I feel I'm somewhat in a subservient position whenever I have a discussion with them. I tend to mitigate my speeches, end up being very diplomatic, and sometimes I disgust myself how indecisive and insecure I end up sounding. Regardless of whether or not I may feel that way. I may think they're dicks sometimes but I don't come out and say it.

Am I being nice or am I just a pussy? Am I wrong for recognizing as maturity?

In a creative team, what would this mean?

If I am unable to see my partner as a peer, it's probably going to be difficult working with him.

Somehow it feels right for me to be acting this way, because whenever I try to overstep these boundaries I end up sounding like a prick.

After all these years, I still can't say what I mean without pissing someone off. Maybe it's a matter of how one views any given subject. Like being optimistic. I don't know.

*sigh*

*sigh*

*sigh*

Life is a strange conundrum. How can something so beautiful be so frustrating at the same time?

Dreams, Outliers.

Yesterday night before I slept I told myself that I was going to keep a dream journal.
This morning I woke up having a vague recollection of the dream I had.
It had something to do with Veronica Mars.
I've been watching too much of that lately.
It's really good. You should try it.
Then I went to fry 2 eggs, eat 3 pieces of toast, some yogurt and a glass of juice.
Now I can't remember What I was supposed to be writing about.

How DO people keep dream journals anyway?

It just struck me that I had no idea what they're for.
Maybe later.

Funny how dreams almost wants us to forget them when we wake up.

**

My copy of "outliers" arrived yesterday or the day before.
I've been devouring it since. Malcolm Gladwell has been one of my favourite writers ever since I read "blink". I got the hardcover version for 7 pounds. yay.

Reading "Outliers", it's easy to think that success, big league, Microsoft, Apple kind of success is only possible by circumstance. Maybe it's what's the book about. I'll have to read further to judge, but it's been interesting, as his books or talks usually are.

Insights abundant.

Doesn't hurt that the man writes like a genius. Short, succinct, yet never lacking in details.

The bland cover belies it's true secrets. If you've enjoyed any of his previous books, give this one a try.

Job hunting.

I still haven't given up though.

tagging posts.

I was tagging up my previous posts up til now when something hit me.

If I tag a post advertising and not life, it feels like I'm not considering advertising part of life, which it clearly is, but if I tag it life as well, then it feels like I'm missing something, If I'm not making sense then yeah, I agree, but somehow it don't feel right yeah?

Maybe I should just remove all the "life" tags since it seems redundant.

But the life tags make it sound like I'm actually having a life outside shit I post here.

Which I clearly do. *ahem*

.....

But if I tag advertising "life" then I'd have to tag everything else life too. Cause it seems to work out logically that way, since everything here is part of life for some sort...


.... I need to find a new definition for life.