30.11.08

A Truly Discounted Black Friday

Wal-Mart’s advertising slogan of “Save Money, Live Better” took an ironic twist amid the frantic Black Friday shopping in Long Island, New York, when one of its temporary employees was trampled to death by a rushing mob of frenzied shoppers. This lynching mob of early vultures seemed to take the adage of “shop ‘til you drop” too seriously and, as a result, did not just leave meatless turkey carcass as Thanksgiving leftover.

I learned that this horrific incident happened last Friday morning when a long line of eager shoppers, some of them had been waiting in line from the night before, stormed into the store as soon as the door was opened. Ostensibly, they knew what lay in store for them: shelves of highly discounted MP3 players, electronic gadgets and toys up for grabs. Sadly, this did not hold true for the unfortunate employee who was obviously oblivious of what stood outside the store for him. God bless his soul.

This is truly a sad story. What is even heart-wrenching was the story that the poor guy was trampled underfoot for minutes(!) before he could get any help from his colleagues. And did the shoppers stop to help? Of course not, they came for a bargain, and sometimes even a bargain required a collateral. They were there for the loss leaders and doorbusters! Well, it looked more like loss of life and bonebusters to me. A truly discounted Black Friday.

25.11.08

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas

Coming to a city with alluring labels like “the Entertainment Capital of the World”, “the Ultimate Sin City”, or “the Brightest City on Earth”, would inevitably evoke a feeling of great anticipation, and this was exactly how I felt as I stepped out of the plane and treaded the terra firma of Las Vegas.

The short flight from Monterey was surprisingly smooth and the guide of Vegas provided on the plane only added to the anticipation. Well, the first thing to do would be securing a place to stay. I had already made a booking in Circus Circus, a circus-themed (surprise surprise) hotel located on the famous Las Vegas Strip which boasted 3,774 rooms and 9,833 m2 of casino area. It was not fancy, but it is one of the largest hotels in the world with more slot machines than you could ever need or want.

Okay, I have to say one thing about the slot machines: I think they’re all a scam, and exclusively built to rip you off! From what I read somewhere, slot machines are typically programmed to yield a “theoretical payout percentage”, which basically represents the amount of money you win back from your overall wager. The minimum number of percentage varies as typically established by law or regulation, and is 75% for the state of Nevada.


So let’s do the math then: I wagered my money that gave me 120 credits. That number would give me 120 one-credit chances of pulling the lever and trying to be richer. Well, I pulled and I pulled until my arm ached, but only ended up with 120 consecutive occasions of mismatched symbols. Statistically, is it even possible that a man like me (decent, hard-working, and good-looking) could be so down on his luck? Oh, well, at least I realized it on time and successfully refrain myself from chipping in another 120 credits.

Having squandered my government salary on gambling machines, I then proceeded to watch a topless, vampire-themed revue in the Stratosphere. The show was not spectacular, but I enjoyed it (4 out of 5), and it fittingly offered me a first bite of nocturnal Vegas. Afterwards, I thought, what’s the point of visiting THE Sin City if you don’t, well, sin? I always strive to keep up with the Joneses like a good Roman should. Hence, I checked out some of the vice-indulging activities Vegas had to offer, and settled on paying a visit to Sapphire, the so-called world’s largest nightclub. Well, I couldn’t care less about its size or practically much of anything else as soon as I stepped into the joint, though. The place was swarmed with beautiful people and the ambience was all girls, girls, girls. Details will be spared to protect the guilty. After all, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.



1.10.08

Oxymoron of the Day

"It was all about the consent of the majority."

-A Russian professor, recounting on how Russia assumed the role of sole successor to the Soviet Union. Realizing the oxymoron, he laughed so hard and woke the whole class-

22.9.08

Home is where the rice is

Ah, Monterey at last. A taxi ride, two long-haul flights, and a shuttle journey were what it took to get to this city on the northern side of the Monterey Peninsula. As soon as I set my feet upon terra firma, I was without ado whisked away to my new dwelling: a two-bedroom apartment near Downtown Monterey.

I crash-landed on my bed as soon as I saw it, and passed out for Heaven knows how long. I lost my sense of time, and had a headache of a mother when I woke up. My flight from Jakarta was not the longest flight I had ever taken, but somehow it was the most tiring.

My new apartment mate advised me to fight the grogginess by going out to enjoy the sun. I obliged and strolled around the neighborhood, taking in the local scene and getting my bearing. The native were sure to welcome the newest member of the community, as an overeager pigeon unloaded its dump on my shaven head. Talking about Californian charm!

At first glance, Monterey was a small city with warm weather and pleasant ambiance. Due to the number of educational institutions in the city, there were many young students hovering around. Despite the size, it boasted itself as "The Language Capital of the World”, a statement that I’d be sure to verify during my sojourn here.

As my headache receded, my stomach growled and I realized that I had not eaten properly for hours. I went to do my grocery shopping and – being a compulsive shopper as always – ended up buying ingredients I didn’t really know how to concoct. Cooking was never really my talent, and I always managed to stay out of the kitchen.

Fortunately, people back at home had already foreseen this and had thus packed a box of truly Indonesian delight in my suitcase:


Now, it strongly occurred to me that there were one or two vital ingredients lacking on the box. I rummaged through the kitchen set of my apartment and voila! It’s Christmas on September:


A majestic, heaven-sent rice cooker! Hook it up with a sack of good old rice from the local grocery, and there you have it: the true and staple meaning of self-sustainment – Indonesian style! It felt like home already.

15.9.08

A Quarter of Non-Proliferation

Well…how is THIS for a getaway?


Monterey, a city with a population of 30,000 people or so in California, will be my stomping ground for the next three months.


Hmm, it does seem like a perfect place for someone who plans to spend his one-week holiday watching whales and dolphins. But me, I am sent here to rack my brain and hone my skills in non-proliferation issues. That's right Rambo, move aside. I'm taking over your place as an expert in weapons of mass

Actually, come to think of it, the term ‘a quarter of non-proliferation’ does not exactly exude excitement or a spirit of adventure. Quite the opposite, it somehow insinuates a bleak period of confinement and abstinence. Doesn't it? Or is it just my dirty mind?

At any rate, I always strive for the silver lining. So I’ll be sure to pack my suitcase with a healthy dose of curiosity, a tube of sun-block, and an extra key for my chastity belt. Hey, you never know.

5.9.08

Me and This Confounded Space

Could somebody - anybody - be caring enough as to tell me why I’m still here, all alone in this confounded cubicle, on a fine Friday evening…?

Oh dear, I don't think I even give a damn anymore. I really need to get away…

4.9.08

A Bootylicious Affair with A Paper Wrapper

It’s been exactly three weeks since I had my last cigarette.

No one ever promised anyone that quitting smoking would be easy, but somehow it was easier than I thought. Much to my wonder, all I need hitherto is my willpower. Well, that and a sore throat, reeking shirt, yellow teeth and tiny holes on my pants. Yeah, those should be good enough reasons for me to start chewing blueberry-mint-flavored chewing gum instead.

‘Course, so far I have managed to survive only three consecutive nicotine-free weekends. Negligible, to consider that I have been taking drags for 15 years. Wait, that’s...more than 700 weekends of smoking, and with my one-pack-a-day dose, amounts to...err...cough! cough!...lots of cigarette butts.

Well, it’s been nice knowing your butt, Miss Nicotine. But I hope we won’t cross each other’s path all over again.

2.7.08

A Bundle of Joy

A baby is an angel whose wings decrease as her legs increase. Meet my pink-faced niece as she tries tongue-bitingly to take off. Off you go, little one.

2.6.08

Turning Thirty


The club of thirty-something is so overrated.

I didn't get a decent candle for my cake, let alone a posh membership card. Only another year to ponder, another bone grows weary.

And another blessing to count.


26.5.08

Z’s-Inciting Flicks with Fat Budgets

Well, that was refreshing.


I almost felt asleep in a theater watching The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The title “The Lullaby of Narnia: Sleeping Caspian” would have been more fitting.

I confessed my mistake of not watching the first Narnia movie and ended up wondering who or what the hell Aslan was. I first made an uneducated guess that Aslan was a majestic-looking, authority-exuding monarch or wizard with a heavy staff, striking fear into enemies’ hearts and inspiring faith on allies’.

Boy, I was only half correct.

He was majestic alright, but he didn’t sport any staff. Not any that was visible to the eye, at least. Aslan was a lion?? Forgive my ignorance, but hey, great sequel movies didn’t call for a mandatory watching of the first. Take Godfather 2, Terminator 2, The Two Towers, or Basic Instinct 2 as examples. Well, the last-mentioned movie was an exception, but surely you get the picture.

It was the second time in a row that my eyelids drooped in front of a silver screen. The first was Speed Racer, a supposedly high-speed racing flick featuring slick, high-tech cars with outrageous driving. Not so, in my humble opinion. The actors talked too much when they should have concentrated more on driving, and got me asleep at the wheel. Don’t talk and drive!

Preposterous to think that I spend my hard-earned money to see such below-expectation shows.

SCANDALOUS!

A robbery!

Money-thieving scheme!

Yeah!

Well…

Hmm…

Zzzz Zzzz Zzz…

19.5.08

Off-the-cuff Quote of the day

"I was afraid of failing, now I’m afraid of succeeding."

-White stupid man, when asked about his chances of finally getting rid of his notorious, longstanding celibacy.-

16.5.08

Your Sins Will Catch Up With You

Now I’m terribly sure that I have heard this foreboding expression on a recent occasion. Was it a Bible verse, a movie, a book, or a soothsaying buddy?

I think it’s from that British movie “Dead Man’s Shoes” that I watched some time ago. A solid movie, but I am to write of the sins, not the flick.

Some of my old vices are surely catching up with me. And it comes on the form of a seasoned and persistent hag in a white robe. With a literal sleight of hand, she made me committed an all too familiar sin at a time when I didn’t want to.

It’s odd and it comes with a heavy price. I feel satiated, sad, enraged, and manipulated at the same time. I left the hag with a sunken feeling and cursed her over and over, while deep in my heart, I know that I am to curse myself.

Gotta run faster...

11.5.08

Second Encounter: Amusing Ignorance and Brazenness in the Big Apple

My visit in April found New York City at her best mood. The sun was shining graciously, the temperature was perfect, and the wind was blowing softly on my hair. A fine day, as aptly summoned up by an old man standing on the roadside when he audibly mumbled, “You just gotta love Manhattan in summer.” An opinion that I fully shared, and I chuckled wholeheartedly.

Alas, as with my previous, I was in NY for a business trip. The UNSC was holding yet another debate and my times in the Big Apple were mostly confined to chambers; both referred to my bedchamber and THE Chamber. I managed to have my fair share of sunlight though, not to say perspiration, of running back and forth between the Mission and the UN.

The Pope was in New York, too. His visit to NY was heavily covered in every newspapers and TV channels to make sure everybody was aware of it. With the exception of, as it turned out, the good people of the UK. They were unaware of the Papal visit, and unwittingly scheduled the visit of Gordon Brown at the same time as the Pope’s. Some papers made fun of it, and one printed a particularly catching headline:

"The Pope is in the Big Apple."
"And so is the British Prime Minister."

As the PM made the most of his visit by meeting Obama, Clinton, and McCain, I made the most of mine by watching late night TV programs. It wasn’t long though, before I got really annoyed by incessant commercials of black-suited lawyers playing Good Samaritan with their unnatural white teeth and offering legal counsel to unfortunate people recently involved in accidents. Be they work-related accidents; accidents due to poor public facilities; due to negligence by others; or simple you-should-have-known-better accidents, a horde of lawyers stood ready to sue anyone of your choice. Types of accidents covered knew no boundaries that a wild idea occurred to me to sue the lawyers themselves as I almost cracked my jaw laughing out loud at their shamelessness.

Well, I knew better. I didn’t cherish the idea of a neighbor suing me for his disturbed sleep over my boisterous laughter, so I turned off the telly and pulled my blanket. And so it was, a day in life that sometimes could be so full of amusing things, and I chuckled wholeheartedly.

10.5.08

The Songs of Wings

I’m a man of songs, as my karaoke-singing buddies would reluctantly attest. And these days, two songs in particular keep playing in my head. I would sing them over and over at heart, and feel mystified by the power of the lyrics.

The first is Jimi Hendrix’s iconic Little Wing:

Well she's walking, through the clouds
With a circus mind that's running wild
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams, and fairy tales
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind
When I'm sad she comes to me
With a thousand smiles she gives to me free
It's all right she said, it's all right
Take anything you want from me
Anything

Fly on Little Wing
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Little Wing

The second is Westlife’s pop Flying Without Wings:

So impossible as they may seem
You've got to fight for every dream
'Cause who's to know
Which one you let go
Would have made you complete

Well, for me it's waking up beside you
To watch the sunrise on your face
To know that I can say I love you
In any given time or place
It's little things that only I know
Those are the things that make you mine

And it's like flying without wings
'Cause you're my special thing
I'm flying without wings

I tell you, it is not a coincidence that both songs have the elements of “wings” on them. Angelic things in life can really make you ‘fly’ without wings, but ‘wings’ do not always get you flying, as Icarus (not my karaoke buddy) would reluctantly attest.

2.5.08

Dear Grandma

Dear Grandma,

I dreamt of you today.

In my dream, you exclaimed with joy and had that childish but toothless grin when you saw me. How I miss your smile…

You were hugging me, and your first words were “You are alive!” What an odd thing to hear from you, Grandma.

I staggered on my knees and stammered as I returned your embrace. I glanced above your bony shoulder and realized that we were in a room littered with boys’ toys. Were they mine?

I picked up an old photo album from the floor and started to show you the pictures inside. I wanted to explain why I felt odd to see you. I wanted to show you your last picture, where you had an eternal smile etched on your face but everyone else was crying.

Instead, I found pictures of me from the past. Old pictures of myself when I was still young and naïve, and pictures of me when I grew older and still naïve. You flipped through them, smiled affectionately at most and knowingly at few.

I was happy and I could tell that you were, too. But the pictures came to an end, and so did you. You were gone, and I was left standing in a dark room, clutching an old photo album.

I woke up, and tears rolled down on my cheeks. These were ones of sadness, happiness, and apology. How real surreal things could be. And how odd it was when the dead had to come to comfort the living.

30.1.08

A Killing Field in Burma

Picking up where I left off, Burma has become the center of attention again. Only this time, it’s on the silver screen with the launching of Rambo IV: Rambo.


I went to the movie harboring no great expectations, only a mood for nostalgia. I am part of the generation that grew up fixated in front of the TV screen (and VCR), watching the half-naked, M60-wielding killing machine that was Rambo. His name had become an eponym for heroism by means of extreme violence against overwhelming number of adversaries, or downright foolish murderous rampage. Along with the persona, his killing tools also gained immortality, like the notorious expression “Rambo Knifes” which people had used back then to dub any wickedly sharp or big knife.

This time around, the only man on earth capable to turn anything into “weapons of mass destruction” packs his faithful longbow and a large heavy blade with a thick spine. I could not tell for sure, but I believe the latter was the weapon he used in the movie to relieve Major Tint - the main antagonist - from his chronic constipation. J. Rambo also used his bare hands to rip off the throat of an unlucky rapist-to-be, and borrowed the Burmese 50 cal machine gun to give them a taste of their own medicine. Overall, his choice of weapons tends to be cruder in this supposedly last Rambo installment.

Rambo IV is also the most intense Rambo movie, as far as I can remember. It holds the record with the most kills out of the entire Rambo series, with 236 kills and an average of 2.59 kills per minute. Check out this Rambo kill chart if you feel like having a good laugh. The violence in the movie was very graphic, but what I found more disturbing was a guy sitting behind me who laughed hysterically every time J. Rambo embarked on yet another brutal frenzy. I don't know why, maybe he got his kicks seeing blood and was having an orgasm, or he just found the movie outrageously hilarious.

I have no idea whether the Burmese will appreciate watching this movie with so many Burmese body counts - if they ever get the chance to see it at all, that is. In any case, Sly had the decency to keep his shirt on throughout the movie. Maybe he didn’t want his aging muscles to be seen, or maybe it’s just the mosquitoes. Bites me.