Silence is Golden: First Impression: Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii ...

Silence is Golden: First Impression: Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii ...: "This is probably what I look like whenever I see Kirino XD Lelouch is that you?!"

My Country? It's Like This

This prompt is answered in conjunction with the Malaysia Day on September 16. I'm an average Malaysian who was born in Malaysia, also live in Malaysia until now.

So you know nothing about Malaysia? Here' let me tell you a thing or two about it. Assuming you know where is Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines, I can tell you Malaysia, on the map is located in the middle of those countries, in the middle of South East Asia. Yes, those countries are close neighbors to Malaysia; all of them have shared land or water borders with Malaysia. And for the record, Singapore was in fact part of Malaysia since it's independence from the British Empire until year 1969. Although the time Singapore spent as part of Malaysia was brief, it was fun and unforgettable.



Geographically, Malaysia is divided into two; West Malaysia which is comprised of 12 states in Malaysia Peninsula, and East Malaysia which is comprised of the states of Sabah and Sarawak (located to the north of the island of Borneo). The two land masses is divided by the South China Sea. Politically Malaysia is a federation of 14 states (Federal Territory is deemed as 1 free state in the federation). Our country practiced a form of democratic government known as constitutional monarchy, similar to the United Kingdom and Japan where we have our own king known as Yang Di-Pertuan Agong (literally means "Supreme Ruler") and a Prime Minister as the head of states. Our kings are elected, similar to the practice used in electing the Pope, although as opposed to the Pope, our kings are elected among hereditary sultans (the ruling royal families) from nine Malay states, all located in the Peninsula. For states without the sultans, they have Governors (locally known as "Yang Di-Pertua Negeri") appointed by the Council of Rulers. And unlike the Governors in the US, Governors in states in Malaysia have very little role in political system (just like the rest of the sultans) as the administration of individual states are directly under the jurisdiction of Chief Ministers.



Whenever I talk about my country I can't avoid to talk about its history as well. I think it's quite understandable why there are many people like yourself never heard about Malaysia before because our country has always been low profile for centuries. Actually it's not really our fault. We once had our own Golden Age too, during the reign of the Sultanate of Malacca. During that time The Malacca Empire was so prosperous; it covered almost half of South East Asia region. It was during this time Malaysia first become an Islamic nation and the religion has spread throughout this region since that time. We had hundred of years of relationship with the Chinese Empire and we were once the wealthiest trading nation in the world. It ended with the invasion by foreign powers from Europe such as the Portuguese and Netherlands. Later in the 18th and 19th century we were part of the British Empire and for a brief moment we were occupied by the Japanese armed forces during the World War II. Today Malacca is part of Malaysia as a free state, and because of the Portuguese occupation, Malacca has lost its hereditary line thus today Malacca has no sultan but instead it has the Governor.



Malaysia has a recorded history as far back as at least 2 thousand years. Although the locally available written historical sources may not dated as far as that time, there are foreign historical sources that have references to Malaysia that support this fact, mainly from China and India. Historically Malaysia also known by various names such as "Tanah Melayu" (literally "Land of the Malays"), The Spice Islands and a few more. To the ancient Chinese it was known as 'Nanyang' and to the westerns world it was known as The Golden Chersones as described by Ptolemy, and right before Malaysia was born, it was known internationally as The Malayan Federation or just Malaya. One of the main reason that strengthen the argument that Malaysia has long enough history is the reference given to Mount Ledang (located in Malacca) where in the western world it was once known as Mount Ophir. The world Ophir itself is believed to have been originated from the Hebrew language. Malaysia also was once a home for one ancient kingdom known as Langkasuka although its existence is still highly disputed among historians as some believe it has been existed before 10th century AD and through some unverified records, the king of Langkasuka once received a visit by the Roman envoys.



Throughout the history Malaysia always has a turbulent past due to the invasion of various foreign powers as mentioned earlier. Before the establishment of The Malacca Empire, this region has always in constant war between small kingdoms. Because of this local people has developed a way of life where they defended themselves with a unique martial art known as silat. Silat is unique to the Malay people (this includes the Indonesian) just like how kungfu/wushu is unique to the Chinese. Silat used to be taught only to the Malay people but since there are high demand from the non-Malays, they are now being taught to to them too. Right before the Portuguese invasion, there were only 2 most dominant empires in this region; the Malacca Empire and the Siam Empire. Perhaps if it's not because of the foreign invasion this region might have been unified by one of these two local powers because people in this region share many similarities in culture and language.



Well, it's true that Malaysia was once "The Land of The Malays" but under the British Empire, many immigrants, mostly from China and India has settled down and as a result Malaysia today has become one of the most diverse nation in the world. I'm not denying that there are racist people among us but most Malaysian today live in harmony and doesn't really care about the differences between ethnicity. Now we have the same goal; to make Malaysia a fully developed country by the year 2020. It's not an easy task to do and it can only be achieved by cooperation by all people regardless of their background.



Here I shall conclude that Malaysia may be new as a country but as a nation it has been existing for nearly 2000 years.

What I'm Avoiding

Generally speaking, I hate anything that gets in my way. Although I tend to avoid everything that I hate, if those things that I hate are happen to get in my way I'll face them because I feel like it. I'll keep harassing them until they get out of my way or until they follow my way. But all that has nothing to do with what I'm avoiding as per what explanation below.

Chuck Norris (1)

20 things that I'm avoiding:



1. Chuck Norris

He is the sum of all fears. Nobody in the right mind would voluntarily face him unless you're ready to be roundhouse-kicked out from this universe to another dimension. By the way he is the only one here that I avoid not because I hate him but rather because he's too awesome.



2. Gays (that includes lesbos, yaoi and yuri)

Because I'll never know when they will assault me. Actually all gays should never be born in the first place because it's hypocritical if you are happy for being born but you yourself will never reproduce with your same-sex partner.



3. Atheists (and/or free thinkers, but not including pagans)

All they're doing is bitching and complaining and whining about God laws governing them, such as restrictions for gay marriage. Heck! Marriage is a religion thing to begin with so why must they being noisy about it when it has nothing to do with what they believe?



4. iFags (a.k.a. Apple fanboys/loyalists)

They think they are special just because they own a Mac/iPod/iPhone/iPad. Well, I'm not stylish (or stupid) enough to own iProducts. Even my T-shirts are bought from roadside stalls where I can get 3 for only 10 bucks.



5. Facebook

Although I used to be a Fagsbook user too it doesn't mean I love it to the point that I will never leave it. With tons of online doppelgangers inside it can be too annoying when people keep mistaking me as their acquaintance.



6. Feminazi

I don't mind with feminists if they keep it to the moderate level but most of the time those extremists feminazis will relate everything that seems not favoring their kind as "discrimination against women" even if it's just a simple thing like a guy trying to correct his girlfriend's mistakes by telling her what she's supposed to do (purely from his point of view, without resorting to any violence at all).



7. CLI (it stands for Command Line Interface, not the cli that you know)

I don't see any reason to prefer CLI over GUI (Graphical User Interface) when GUI is available. It may be faster and easier to code than GUI but with only a few milliseconds difference, coupled with the fact that computers today are powerful enough that some of them reaching the point of being overkill, it doesn't make sense anymore for power user to keep relying on it.



8. Bustin Jieber, Gady Laga, Ciley Myrus, Ladam Ambert (blahblah! You name it)

The words are not enough for me to describe just how "hate-able" those people are that I have to 'avoid' writing their names properly. Perhaps it's enough if I just say that by default all American artists deserve a rejection from me. Of course there are a few exceptions but this is only applicable to those who are exceptionally good, though that kind of artists are endangered species that are as rare as chicken's teeth.



9. Korean entertainment

It's not that I hate them by default but I can't easily forget how they steal everybody's attention while people are still enjoying Japanese entertainment (not limited to J-drama and J-rock/J-pop songs). If not people might have better terms with anime today. And I can't understand why there are significant number of anime fans like them as well when they have nothing to do with anime in the first place. Maybe those people are just confused between Korean and Japanese?



10. You

Yes, you. I hate you and I found that everything about you is "hate-able" like your musical preferences, the anime you watch, your friends, how you speak/write, your reactions towards me and even the websites you visit. I hate you too much to the point that I have to avoid writing down the names of all of you here, so it can't be helped. However you should feel 'honored' for being hated by me, because it's not easy to get my hate. In fact some people are dying or even died just for trying to get me to hate them. Yes, those people just love to be hated by me, and in return, along with the hatred, I respect them too for struggling for my hate and living up to their masochistic nature.



"HEY HALFEY WHERE ARE THE OTHER 10 DAMMIT?!" you asked? Sorry but I hate them too much that I have to 'avoid' writing them here as well.



(13/30 people avoid me for no apparent/real reason or simply just because they can't afford to face me alive)

My Stance In Swear Words, Goshdarnit

I have give my thoughts previously about swear words. This is the Part II of it, and this time I won't hold back, so if you find any 'unmasked' vulgarities below, please bear in mind that they are solely for the purpose of explanation, not to piss off anybody.

Fuck you

Lets start with the most popular swear word, 'fuck'. I still don't understand why people, especially the Americans like to use this words all the time to describe almost everything. For example "That's fucking weird" or "There's so fucking many of them out there". Is the word 'fuck' an adjective to begin with? No, its a verb, an action, which means in the examples above, the word 'fuck' is being used in inappropriate situations. No, I must say the word fuck there is a mistake. Oh so stupid people who use it that way.



And there's another situation where people tend to use the word 'fuck' wrongly. For example "Fuck (insert some subject here)!". Usually it's used that way to show displease or hatred. But then again does that word being used properly here? Fucking is something that people, including me loves to do. I mean who doesn't like to fuck? So if fucking is something that feels good then why must people use it as swear words? Oh so stupid people who use it that way (again).



I'm far from finished. I'm pretty sure many of you have heard the phrase "holy shit". In terms of vulgarity level, it may be just below the word 'fuck' but it is still as stupid as using the word fuck in situations given above. Why stupid? Lets do some analysis word by word here. Holy is, as far as I know is similar to sacred. Shit is you know what, which is a total opposite of sacred. So why must those words have to be combined together as a mean to swear when they are contradicting each other. Oh so stupid people who use it that way (it will never end).



(4/7 people who like to use the swear word 'fuck' are actually unable to fuck and can't get laid - literally)

My Superhero's Special Power

If you were a superhero, what special power would I like to have? Before anything else I should ask myself what kind of superhero I'd like to be? The one with single superpower (like the X-Men) or the one with multiple superpowers (like Superman)? Lets perform some analysis first before I can decide any further.

Superheroes go shopping

Take a look at Superman. Aside from his stupidity of wearing the underwear on the outside, how many superpowers does he has? He is invincible, he can fly, he has this deadly heat ray coming out from his eyes, he can see through everything, and he can live in outer space vacuum (he can live without breathing! - not sure to what extent though). So how many superpowers are there? There are at least five! Even Spiderman has at least two superpowers (to cling at walls like spider and even can produce spider web just like spider, albeit from his wrists instead of his abdomen).



So what if I have at least 5 superpowers too? If I'm given the chance to pick and choose what kind of superpowers I'd like to have, then here are what they would be:



1. The power to create and destroy

With this power I can create something from nothing or vice versa (turn something into nothingness). In battle I can just defeat my enemies by destroying their existence down to the quantum level.



2. The power to pull and push things

This power is similar to telekinesis but only limited to draw things towards me or pushing them away from me. Useful to stop the bullets from hitting me (literally makes me almost invincible) and return them back to the people who shoots me. I can also use this power to fly and cling to walls/ceilings as well as disarming my enemies.



3. Remove superpowers from villains and turn them into good people

Yes, instead of engaging in unnecessary battles why can't just turn your enemies into good people? This is the superpower all superheroes need.



4. The ability to retrieve any publicly available information in real time without the need of mediums like books/internet.

Remember McGuyver? See how cool he was with all his knowledge to solve problems? Imagine where we're pushed to a dead end to find a solution and this is where this 'superpower' is really needed.



5. The power to make any girls/women to fall in love with me.

This is self explanatory. I mean which male superheroes doesn't have woman behind them, just like the saying "Behind every successful men, there's a woman". Besides, as far as I can remember, there's no gay superhero so far.



But everybody knows virtually any superheroes have weaknesses. Not even Superman is spared as he is also so damn weak against the cryptonite. So what about me? In fact all of my superpowers are also my major weaknesses. Here are the explanations:



1. Although I can create something from nothing and turn anything into nothingness, it only works that way. It's impossible for me to turn something into other things directly, like turning my enemies into piles of gold bars.



2. Like I said, the power to pull or push something is not really telekinesis because I can't exactly move things remotely from point A to point B, unless the point B is located in straight line from me to point A (I mean I can't remotely move things vertically or sideways but only back and forth). Besides this superpower is not as cool as teleporting.



3. I maybe can turn villains into good people but they will lost their superpowers in the process, which might have been useful if they turned into my allies. Not only that, the definition of "good people" here really depends on me, which means they might still a bad people to some other people even after all the process.



4. Knowledge like McGuyver is power but it only works if there are enough tools. Of course I can just create any tools that I need from nothingness but it's not 100% guaranteed that I'll make the accurate tools if I have little experience in the problems I'm going to solve. And knowing things doesn't mean I mastered them too.



5. To make any girls/women to fall in love with me, I need a notebook, I need to know their face and their name too. I'd need to write down their names and the reasons/situations before any romantic events could take place. There's no guarantee how long the relationship will last (it does not guarantee I'll have great sex), and it won't work if the female also has superpower (in other words, this power is only applicable to normal females).



Actually I'd like to use the notebook (like the manga "Death Note") for my superpower #3 but you know villains always disguised themselves in costumes like superheroes too so there's no way I could know instantly their true identity without engaging myself in battles first (take note that their true identity is not publicly available so I can't use my superpower #4 either). So if I really need to avoid any battles, turning them straight away into good people is the only choice I can make.



(1/2 female villains fell in love with me after first encounter. The other half committed suicide)

My Dream House

This is about the home of my dream. Everybody has their own dream home, I mean who doesn't? People has always dreaming a perfect and ideal home for their life, even if it does not appear to be 'perfect' to other people. Perfect here doesn't have to be 100% because for most people, what they need is a "just enough" home with roof, and rooms, as long as it does provide a shelter for them. Here is mine. Read on.

Borudjerdis' House (Kashan)

I have three kind of dream houses. The first one is a double-storey detached house with a special design, combination of American and Japanese style. American design being adopted here is the underground water cooling system, the use of insulation layer in the walls (to keep the house cool from the heat of tropical climate here) and the 'gateless' frontage, where guests and visitors can go straight to my doorstep instead of ringing the bell from outside of the gate. I feel it's friendlier that way for them. For the cars, instead of parking them in the car porches, I'll park them in the garage, just like what the Americans do.



For the Japanese style, I'd like to adopt their distinctive doorway/hallway/corridor style. Unlike the Americans, we Asian does not bring shoes inside the house and leave them at the doorstep. However there's one thing that separates the Japanese from the rest of other Asians are who leave the shoes outside the house, the Japanese have special place for shoes inside the house, located just behind the main door. That's what I'm talking about. And I don't mean to leave our local house design. The kitchen will be made completely separated from the living room, and restrooms will not share the same place with bedrooms.



Speaking about bedrooms, I prefer there to be at least 4 bedrooms to be ideal. The master bedroom for mom and dad, one room for the boys, one room for the girls and another room reserved for the guests. For rest rooms, I'd like to make two sets of them. What I mean by 'set' here is one room will be consisted of separate three parts; toilet, bathroom and 'washroom'. For other cultures, washroom may be the same as toilet but for the local people here it is where we do general washings that is not related to bathing. Last but not least, in a tropical country here, a roof ventilator is a must to complement the underground water cooling system I mentioned earlier.



So where I would like to place the house? I am dreaming of a peaceful neighborhood with friendly neighbors, and I can virtually get everything I want just from a stone-throw away, or at least a walking distance to the stores that can provide me almost everything that I need (from anime, manga, games, computers, software, books, foods, clothes, etc.). It would be better too if it's within a walking distance from my workplace, and since I'm the online-type person, a free public wifi access is a plus point as well. It may not offer the best quality but it's free and at least I can stay online most of the time without having to worry about the expensive internet bills.



Here is my dream house number two. It is an apartment in the middle of the city, where I can have a beautiful kaleidoscopic night view of the city from the windows. The apartment doesn't have to be a luxury one, even a cheap one with just one bedroom (with own kitchen and restroom) for a bachelor like me is enough (I can convert the living room into a bedroom for guests if there's a need to), or three bedrooms for family people. I'm also fine if it's just a residential floor in a 3 or 4-storey shophouse unit. Just like my dream house number one above, I'd appreciate it if there's a free public wifi access so I can cut the expenditure for the internet.



And since it's in a middle of a city I'd prefer it to be as close as possible to a convenience store. I'd want a 24-hours convenience store too but yeah this kind of store always sell their goods at more expensive price. A shopping complex within a walking distance is a good thing to where I can do window shopping whenever I feel like it. I'll need a hypermarket nearby too to buy fresh ingredients/foods. Also a restaurant (preferably a 24-hours one), a hardware store and a laundry shop is a must too, because I'll definitely need them.



Lastly for my dream house number three (the most unrealistic one), it is a small mansion on a parcel of land with an area no less than a football/soccer field. Yes, a piece of land enough to build a medium-sized stadium would be ideal. In the middle of the land there is the 4-storey house building with at least four rooms (for various purposes including bedrooms and workspace) in each floor. There will be numbers of maids and butlers to serve me, and enough bodyguards to keep an eye for my security. I have drivers and cars to take me to virtually any destination I want. In front of the mansion there are gardeners tending to keep the big landscape beautiful all year long. There are also small ponds and fountains at both left and right side of the house. Finally, a private swimming pool behind the house where I can dive in whenever I like or I can just organize a swimsuit party there every weekend.

How I Feel About Swear Words, Goshdarnit

Some people love to swear. For others it makes them cringe. So where do I stand, and why?

When only swearing will do

I like to categorize swearing into two categories; acceptable swearing and unacceptable swearing, depending on the level of harshness and vulgarity of the swearing words. For the acceptable ones, they are the less vulgar words such as 'damn' and "holy crap", which I'm fine with and don't really mind if people using them. In fact I also may use it sometimes. The unacceptable ones are of course the vulgar words including the overused 'f***' word, 'bull sh1t' and a few others (including hand signal as depicted in the picture above) that I can't afford to use here (even I have to mask them with asterisks and l33t in order to use them here).



So you think swearing is cool? I never think so, in fact swearing to the point that it becomes the daily occurrence in someone's life makes him/her look bad, if not being bad him/herself. I just don't understand why people, especially the Americans like to swear so much. I believe everybody was taught by their parents to "mind our language" when we were kids but why change as we grow older? Doesn't that means we're 'betraying' our parents?



People should stop making swearing (I mean the use of vulgar words) as an acceptable act, and never adopt it as a modern culture. What kind of culture that approves badmouthing? And have any of you ever think why swearing is called 'badmouthing' in the first place? Because, yes, it's bad. Some of you may think there's nothing bad about swearing but didn't your parents told you so when you were kids? And would you say it's not a bad thing to your kids? If you can't say swearing is a GOOD thing to begin with, then stop being hypocritical about it and stop swearing (again, the use of vulgar words) right away, right now.



(6/13 people who think their life sucks swearing at each other and think doing so will make their life better)

The Movie That Moved Me

If you think you're a big fan of Bruce Lee, I can say you're not until you learn more about Ip Man. I mean a real Bruce Lee's fan should know who Ip Man is and if you don't then be prepared Bruce Lee's ghost will hunt you and choke you to death.

Ip Man (may also spelled as "Yip Man" in Romanized Chinese) is a Chinese martial art (kung fu) movie and the title of the movie itself is after the name of the main role, a wealthy-yet-humble man named Ip Man, the most celebrated grandmaster of wing chun kung fu style in modern time.



As a fellow martial artist who have respect in Bruce Lee, I've always interested in knowing who is the person Bruce Lee learned his kung fu skills from. It seems like Ip Man is a forgotten legend because the first time I heard his name is around 15 years ago. Internet was still in its infancy on that time, and so does Google and Wikipedia so I was left in ignorance until year 2000 where me and a few of my friends in martial art class involved in a project to study the cause of Bruce Lee's death. Then I heard about a biographical movie "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" starring Jason Scott Lee and watched it (that's 7 years after the movie was released). Although the movie did not portray Ip Man as the man who trained Bruce Lee, the movie did remind me to look for him again. Lucky me the internet was already there and my search begins.



In the last 10 years, I was wondering why hasn't anybody make a biography movie about Ip Man? I keep wondering and finally in 2008 somebody is generous enough to make a movie about it at the right time everybody is still has the hots for martial art movies. A sequel titled "Ip Man 2" followed in 2010.



The movie has an awesome martial art features and not just focusing on wing chun. For example in the first movie we can see Ip Man fighting the Japanese soldiers whose practicing karate while in the second movie, we can see Ip Man having a head to head fight with a Western boxing champion. What amuses me the most is how well wing chun is depicted in the movie, thanks to Ip Man's own sons, Ip Chun and Ip Ching who act as advisors. Due to this I was able to see wing chun is quite similar to two martial art syles I've learned before, namely Silat Cekak Ust. Hanafi and Lian Padukan. Even the training is almost similar, except that I never have a touch on the wooden stacks.



For those who think this movie is really based on Ip Man's real life, take note that you're wrong. Apart from the names, fighting styles and the young Bruce Lee introduced at the end of the second movie, almost everything in the movie are fictional. However the movements in the movie aren't fakes. They are well choreographed by the trained wing chun pros, so in that sense this movie will not disappoint. And since wing chun incorporates almost no jumps, jumping is almost nowhere in the movie, which also means that wire works is almost non existent too (I didn't say there aren't any though).



So what's about this movie is great? I personally think it's a good introductory movie for those who are interested to know and learn martial art. Alright, I said 'introductory' so please don't rely on this movie to practice wing chun yourself. I do admit though many of the kung fu moves you see in the movie are effective but you should never learn martial art solely from any movies. If you want to learn some, go look for a real master. Although wing chun is relatively easy to learn, it doesn't mean it's easy to master without somebody to guide you.



Although this move did moved me to focus more in martial art training, it does not really moved me to learn wing chun myself. Besides since I found wing chun is quite similar to the styles I've learned before, I think it would be best for me to master what I already know rather than going for something new for now. Well, even if I wanted to chances are it would be very hard since real (full time) wing chun practitioners here is almost as rare as chicken's teeth.



(11/24 westerners think all kung fu are the same and think any Chinese-looking people knows how to kick someone's ass artistically)

The Movie That Moved Me (part II)

Ong Bak is a Thai movie starring Muay Thai martial artist Tony Jaa which released back in 2003. Since then another 2 movies under the same title has been released (Ong Bak 2 in 2008, followed by Ong Bak 3 in May this year, but all movies does not related in any way in each other, except for the presence of Ong Bak, the Buddha sculpture being the subject of attention).

So why did this movie affect me so much? It's because I'm a martial artist myself, and I did learn some Muay Thai (locally called tomoi/tomoy) in year 2000. Actually on that time I do personally felt that there's no more hope for martial art movies. Yes, there were still many of the so-called martial art movies from Hong Kong and Japan but as a martial artist, I was able to tell that most of them are fakes. Why? Because many of the fighting scenes rely too much on wire works, not to mention the excessive amount of acrobatics that is pretty much unnecessary and does not have any great effects in real fights. To make it worse, it is performed by actors who does not really practice any martial art in real life and rely solely on fighting choreographers for the fighting scenes.



As far as I can remember the last "almost true" martial art movie I watched is the "Once Upon A Time in China" starring Jet Li. I said almost here because like many stereotypical martial art (kung fu) movies from Hong Kong, wire works are still utilized albeit not as heavily done as in most other movies due to the fact that Jet Li still performed genuine fightings in the movie. I also like another notable Jet Li's kung fu movie, "Fong Sai Yuk".



In the first 10 years of my life, I enjoyed watching some Bruce Lee's movies as well as Jackie Chan's movies from the 70's. Even on that time I managed to tell Bruce Lee is lacking the 'art' factor in his kung fu since he have discarded many elements he deemed as unnecessary despite he was a wing chun kung fu student. However, his fighting scenes are genuine at least, as claimed by Jackie Chan who did appear in some of Bruce Lee's movies, thus I have a respect on him.



Jackie Chan on the other hand, is another kung fu star but I like his 70's kung fu movies more compared to those in the recent years. I mean in the past the kung fu he depicted in his movies look more genuine but as many of you can see today, he is still a good martial artist but his fighting scenes now are mostly comprised of stunt actions. By the way in the sense of martial art, I still respect him.



After the era of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li, I started to see a major decline in martial art movies. Although both Jackie Chan and Jet Li made more appearance in Hollywood after that, like I said it's not enough because like I said, Jackie Chan is more into stunt actions rather than real kung fu these days, while for Jet Li, his kung fu is badly depicted thanks to CG and SFX interventions (don't believe me? Go watch "The One" now). I thought there's no more hope for martial art movies, until...



In 2003, the world witnessed the emergence of a new breed of martial art star. If in the past martial art movies was dominated by kung fu (thanks to Hong Kong movie industries) now it's the time for South East Asia's martial art. Enter Muay Thai, popularized by the movie Ong Bak I introduced earlier. The story may not 'strong' enough to attract everybody but I believe this is a movie everybody who think they're martial artist should watch. I can guaranteed you everything (fighting scenes) you see in this movie are genuine, and there are no wire works at all. That is what I call martial art movie. In many ways this movie has moved me to focus more on martial art practice and I thanks to it now I'd like to meet Tony Jaa in person not as a fan but as a fellow martial artist.



After Ong Bak, I've seen a favorable rise of interest and demand in martial art movies. Their future is now brighter and since then we've seen a major increase in number of GENUINE (no fake fighting scenes) martial art movies, not only from Thailand but also other parts of South East Asia like Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. Even Hong Kong, Korea and Japan have followed suit by featuring more martial art or kung fu movies that utilize more genuine fightings and less faking it. I'm not against the use of real fighting movements because I know a true martial artist won't inflict permanent damage to each other since they are professionals who really know what they're doing. In other words, true martial artists won't have problems performing in real martial art movie like Ong Bak.



(9/14 people who watched martial art or kung fu movies think kicking someone's ass in an 'artistic' way is a lot cooler than doing it like a cowboy)

The Movie That Moved Me

Alright, it's "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy. Um, they're not really 'moved' me but they did it indirectly though. I mean it's the secondary effect of the movie that moved me instead of the movie itself.

So how did this movie affect me? Well since I have limited English I always feared of English books, including the original novel of The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. In that sense, this movie is a godsend to allow me to enjoy the story without having to actually read the book. Besides I don't really like the idea of having to virtually imagine how things are going on in a novel, any novel and not just LOTR. That's why I love manga more, because inside a manga, things are already in graphical appearance, which means when reading manga my brain doesn't need to do extra work for visualizing the story so I could save more "processing cycle" to enjoy the story more.



So what's so great about the movie? I admit that I like fantasy stuff like this. However there's almost nothing that I like about this movie but I just like to see some interesting and silly things like people living with other 'races' like elves, hobbits, dwarves, orcs, goblins, etc. And what's the difference between hobbits and dwarves anyway? They're both short. And elves are very limited in their hairstyle because they need to show off their pointy ears all the time. And I wonder how do they describe young and old in elf community (apart from a child and an adult) when everybody is immortal? And what kind of planet is Middle-Earth actually? Those questions keep running in my mind until right now.



So should I recommend other people to see it? I don't think I should though because I can tell not many people around me would want to watch it considering how their mindset work. No, I'm not looking down on them and I know they're not into this kind of thing (the fantasy, magics, imaginary creatures, all would seem to be childish to those people).



(38/55 people who have watched LOTR believe the events in the movie did took place on actual Earth many ages ago)

If I Could Relive Any Day of My Life

Everybody have their own regrets. However that is not the only reason who people would want to relive their past. Some might want to re-experiencing the happiest moment in their life. Some others might just never had enough of the previous events. Thinking about reliving our past maybe stupid, childish and just a wishful thinking because it's impossible to go back in time but it doesn't mean it's a waste of time to do so. It's just one of many ways for people to reflect on themselves.

Ieri e oggi, Yesterday and today, young and old

If I'm given the chance go back and relive one day of my life, I think it would always be yesterdays, regardless what day I'm currently in. To be honest, regretting mistakes that happened the day before is my daily occurrence, almost like a routine. It doesn't necessarily big or small mistakes but a regret is still a regret. You know, I always screwed up things, that's why I wish I could go back in time and fix those 'errors'. Don't tell me I'm like a loser that also applies to everybody. Everybody makes mistakes and nobody can escape from that 'curse' either.



Now that I think about it, wouldn't it be interesting if I could relive my yesterday's life, and the next day after that (which is supposed to be today) I got the chance to go back again? That makes me think going back one day is the perfect choice because I won't have to wait for too long for another chance like this and I shall repeat the process until I think I've had enough. Well, that is only if the chance to go back still available after I go back in time though. After all, who in the right mind wouldn't want to correct their own mistakes?



(8/35 attempts to go back in time always failed, while the rest just give up on trying)

This Poem Is Brought to You By the Letter 'S'

Damn this is the most difficult blogging task I ever have. Write a poem using only words that start with "s"? What the...? It would be easier if it's in Malay but to do that in English is quite a challenge for me with my limited English. Alright, I'll accept the challenge. So when I think about multiple 'S', the first thing that came up in my head is the triple-S. Surely this would ring a bell for many anime fans like myself. And now the (simple) poem is ready. Read on.

'S.S.S.' sounds so super



That's all and I hope that's enough because I couldn't think of any more than that right now. So what is that SSS stands for? Like I said it would only sounds familiar among anime fans, or particularly Angel Beats! fans. If you watch the series, you'll find the SSS is the name of a high school 'club' inside. The SSS is a short for Shinda Sekai Sensen (死んだ世界戦線) or literally Afterlife Battlefront. Go watch the series if you haven't. Believe me it's awesome.

My Neighbor(s)

A poem to my neighbors. I could have wrote more but 10 lines seems to be most I could do right now with my limited English.

Colorful hillside neighborhood in Lisbon, Portugal in the morning sun

O my neighbors you all are kind,

Even if I make noise you won't mind,

To the left Mr. Ayub always with his cats,

Did you know that I'd love to keep them as pets?

Since they alway come by jumping over the gates,

To the right Ms. Siah the young widow,

Has fair bright white skin like snow,

But I have a girlfriend better keep my sight low,

O my neighbors you all are kind,

I'm writing this hope you don't mind.



(1/3 of my neighbors don't mind since they don't speak English while the rest just don't give a damn about this post)

The Best Advice I Ever Received

Just like quotes, I rarely (almost never) abide to people's advices. It's not that I'm selfish or what but I take them as a mere suggestions, which means in the end things will always depend on myself, and luck, and even God's intervention (if you atheist people out there are laughing at me because I believe in God, then you are wrong). And more often than enough, people thought they're giving advice to me although they were just shoving their ideals upon me.

Advice

Anyways, this is one of the best advices I ever received, "A good relationship must based on mutual give and take". This advice can be viewed from both positive and negative side. For example, we may think a relationship like that is insincere or hypocritical because a payback is expected, but on a positive note, a payback is always necessary in order to make the relationship healthy a.k.a. symbiotic instead of parasitic. Isn't it better if both parties win, right?



Like I said earlier, advice is more of a suggestion, because it's always based on one's past experiences. However one thing people should note is, if it works on you it doesn't mean it will work on others too. Also if you think you might have better solution to certain problems than other people, think again. I'm not against giving advice but before doing so, we should do enough assessment about it and not ending up forcing others to follow our ways.



Now what if I put a little twist to the 'advice' I received above? "Give and take advice to and from each other". That would be better because advice won't work if it only goes one way. And even if we think we really need to give advice, please remember this; try to do so in good intention for the sake of everybody, also do it with patience because it's normal if people don't listen to you on the first time. And here comes another good advice, "Never give up".

The World Would Be a Better Place If... (part II)

The world would be a better place if we could make cigars and smoking habit completely vanished. I was a smoker too and I start smoking when I was still a teenager. However I managed to quit even before I graduated from my high school, and completely quit before I reach 20. Now I hate cigars and smoking. The truth about smoking is it turns one into a loser because addiction is a characteristic of a loser. Don't agree with me? Then you're wrong.

No Smoking

Smoking is a 'deliberate' addiction. What I mean by deliberate here is, the addiction is 'created' because as far as I know, unlike more stronger drugs like morphine, heroine and cocaine, nicotine by itself is not very addictive in nature. In other words, addiction towards smoking will not happen if one smoke only once or twice, unless one doing it repetitively to the point of addiction. So it's actually an avoidable addiction.



Why do people smoke anyway? Like I said above I was a smoker myself when I was still in high school. After I quit smoking I did asked myself the above question. My answer is "I just feel like too". Implying that most other smokers also share the same answer, I must say most smokers don't have any real reason for smoking, and even if they do, chances are they just came up with it to as excuses to rationalize why they smoke.



Actually smoking addiction is just a bad habit and not really addiction actually. What I'm talking here is, there are already many alternatives for nicotine delivery system out there, like nicotine pills, nicotine chewing gums, nicotine patch, and even nicotine inhaler, if nicotine is what those smokers really need. But most of them chose not to switch, because of the unreasonable fear they have; they can't imagine life without smoking!



Why the hell is that? It's because puffing a cigar is a HABIT. If they really want to satisfy their addiction they can just use any of the alternatives mentioned above but they didn't because for them nothing can match the 'coolness' of lighting a cigar, holding it with two fingers, putting the filter-end between the lips, inhaling the smoke and blowing the smoke. Believe me doing that ain't cool; it's stupid, and I know I was stupid too.



People said there's no use to ban smoking because people will still do it anyway and work around it. That's bullsh1t. Hey! Speeding on the legal road is also against the law but why people still do illegal racing there? The point is not about the banning itself, because both smoking and illegal racing are damaging in nature and people will always try to do it. However we can't just let people keep damaging their own life without doing a thing.

My Favorite 'Quote(s)' of All Time - part II

My 10 favorite 'quotes':



"Everybody lies" - House

"Everybody's a hypocrite" - House

"Nobody's perfect, but everybody does" - Me

"God made relatives, thank God we can choose our friends" - Me

"Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so why practice?" - Me

"Behind every successful men, there's one woman; behind every unsuccessful men, there are two" - Me

"If I give a poor man a fish, I only feed him for one day. If I give a poor man a fishing rod and teach him how to catch fish himself, he better pay me back by feeding me everyday" - Me

"Don't judge a book by its cover, instead judge it by its author" - Me

"Drink, don't drive" - Me

"Knowledge is power, but not vice versa" - Me

My Prophetic Dream

Prophetic dream may sound stupid because, who in the right mind would believe in their dream? Actually dream is there to make our sleep more 'enjoyable', interesting and not just boring. And dream is always based on our deep unconscious desire. Believe it or not sleepwalking may be caused by one's deepest desire to do things that can't be done while awake. The truth is, just because we had one or two prophetic dreams doesn't mean it is reliable to predict the future.

Dreaming

I'm saying that but it doesn't mean it never happened to me before. It did happen, many times. In my experience, usually prophetic dream shares similar characteristics. They feel/seem so real, and more often than enough, they are extremely unusual or rare. For example, I don't buy lottery tickets but there are a few times I dreamed about buying one and win the first prize. The next day I told my lottery-addict friends about it, then they went buying the exact number right away and announced as the winners the next day. Quite freaking and creepy, ain't it?



And there are not just good prophecies, there are also about the bad ones as well. For example, I dreamed about the fall of the US as the world super power in year 2XXX. The dream made me feel uneasy, not because I like America but because I'm more interested to know how the world would be without the US. So I can't wait and I switched on my time machine, went forward into time several centuries and I stopped at year 2XXX. Indeed my dream was true! Not only America is no longer a world superpower on that time, the role is then hold by a most unlikely small nation,... let just say the nation's name is 'N' because I don't want to give any more spoilers on what will happen in the future.



Prophetic dream may be stupid but it's not all that bad. In fact there are times too I have to rely on dreams. I don't believe in dreams but I believe that in order for us to solve problems that can't be solved while we're awake, going to sleep and dreaming might be the best solution for it. The dream is not really the problem solver but we might find clues to the solution we're trying to find. Who knows there might be the moments of "why didn't I think of that?" in our dreams? It's not really about predicting the future here but one thing clear is, our dreams may be the key to solve our future problems. So dreaming is not really worthless as it seems.



(17/21 people dreamed about Hitler comes back to life and believe it will happen someday)

My Favorite Quote of All Time

Actually I don't really have this "favorite quote" because I never really pay attention to them or try to remember them. Besides I always stumbled upon many interesting quotes that it's hard to pick which one that I like. However, if I were to put one of many that I remember, I'll just pick this:



"He who knows, controls" or "He who knows, rules". Not sure which one is correct and I'm not sure either who coined those but one thing for sure is both of them have the exactly same meaning. It literally means a knowledgeable person is a superior one.



Interesting quote is interesting but that's all there is to it. I never really give a damn to live up to it. An interesting quote rarely gives any effect to me since most of my actions are driven by my own will. The quote above is to motivate one to learn and study, but I'm always interested to know everything even before I heard/read that quote.



Anyways, people should not treat quotes as facts and use them as a point to back their arguments. The best quote would be the one that is originally from you, not from other people.

The No-Fail Way to Make Me Roll My Eyes (Or to Make My Eyes Roll)

10+5 things that are guaranteed to make my eyes roll without fail:

eyes roll back around

1. American jokes; because they would make me think "what's funny about it?" most of the time.

2. Feminist who are bitching about the "discrimination against women" where such discrimination does not really exist.

3. People who go against death penalty but hypocritically they are OK with something torturing like lifetime imprisonment.

4. Cryptic command line interface on Linux OS, thinking why the programmers are still so reluctant to make a complete shift/migration of modern computing to GUI.

5. Girls who support gay marriage but hypocritically enraged after they found out that their boyfriends are gays/bi and ended up dumping them because of their non-straight sexual orientation.

6. Groups of people who think they are best friends and getting along well although what they are doing are just butt-kissing each other.

7. Chubby girls who cosplaying slim female anime characters.

8. People who spend more on pointless modification on the outer appearance of a normal car instead of using the money to make the car faster.

9. People scooped my eyes out of their sockets and make them rolling on the floor.

10. People made eyerolls out of my eyes, just like meatrolls being made out of meat.



Bonus (extra things that will make my eyes roll):

- eye-coaster made from my eyes, an equivalent to the roller-coaster

- roller-eye, an equivalent to roller-blade

- eye 'n' roll - a new music genre, an equivalent to rock 'n' roll

- eyeroller (not eyerolls) - an equivalent to steamroller

- "Eyes! Roll! Action!" - thing a director said before filming



(8/15 people rolled their eyes because they couldn't get what I'm talking about)

My Favorite Comfort Food

When I heard about this "comfort food" then I think it is about food that is not only 'comfortable' (easy, not much hassle) to eat but also makes the one who eat feels 'comfortable' as well. And when I'm talking about 'comfortable', it has to be something with soothing effect and calms us down, practical and is safe to be consumed regularly.

chocolate & vanilla.

If it's me I must say it's ice cream. Ice cream is easy to eat where you almost don't need any effort to crunch it since it melts well in our mouth. The coldness is also refreshing and the creamy taste of the milk leaves a deep sensation to our tongue. The most important thing is, ice cream doesn't not burn your tongue and lips.



However it's not just a random flavored ice cream I'm talking about here. For me it has to be the combination of vanilla and chocolate flavors. It doesn't matter of how it is prepared, either vanilla with chocolate chips/chunks/cookies or just a simple combo of equally scooped amount of both vanilla and chocolate as shown in the picture above.



The only problem about ice cream is it requires a special machine to prepare it, the ice cream maker. The machine is actually DIY-able but then again even if we do have the machine, we might still need to wait at least 45 minutes to 1 hour before we could have a taste on it. So I can say ice cream is comfortable to eat but inconvenient to make it ourself.

Me, as a Teen (part II)

This is the 'memoir' about how I looked like in my teenage. However it will only cover my life between my 13th to 19th years of life. I'd have included 11th and 12th but since there is not 'teen' in them (we pronounce them as 'eleventh' and 'twelfth' respectively) and the 'teen' only started from 'thirteen', so I have them omitted. Well, the 'teen' starts with 13 so I guess that's one of the reasons why 13 is always a special (luck or curse) everywhere.

Delightful group of teens - Two Girls shown here - Beach Scenes at Morro Bay, CA

(Take note: the picture above is just a picture. I AM a man.)



Between my 13th – 15th, I looked like a pure, innocent kid. I attract people everywhere and I could easily get their money too by acting cutely. You can pretty much say that I was like Bustin Jieber and I believe if I am 13 right now I am sure people would be annoyed of me as much as how they are annoyed of Bustin Jieber. In school I used that as a weapon, and as the result, I got many “big sisters”. The advantages? I can have free meals and sex.



During my 15th – 17th, I was like a person that will kill you if I am not happy with you being in my sight. During this time I have killed more people than the average of one POW did in World War II. Yes, killing people was my hobby on that time, and it was fun to see blood splashing, limbs flying and headless bodies rolling. And I don't waste those bodies since I'm quite an environmentalist. So what I did with those dead bodies? I consume them of course.



And finally in my 17th – 19th, which is the final part of my teenage life episode. During this time I have become a fully grown women-magnet. I was so hot that I got many offers for underwear modeling, nude modeling at art colleges as well as to perform in pornos. Not to mention many women offer their bodies to me for one night stand. And I did all that, I mean who in the right mind would reject free money and sex? After all teenage life is supposed to be enjoyed to it's fullest, right?



(1/5 teenagers don't realize that by enjoying their teenage life to it's fullest, they have shortened their lifespan by half)

What Keeps Me Up at Night

These are stuff that usually makes me feel hesitated to go to sleep. It's not that I'm unaware about the importance of having adequate sleep but it's just that I feel like don't want to let go some chances at those times by going to sleep. I mean sleep can be postponed but good chance might only come once in a life time. And I don't really care whether I'm going to work the next day or not.

Playstation 3 in Full HD !!

One of them is the internet itself. Usually the time I spent on internet (non-idle) is average 4 hours a day. Sounds don't much but that time usually takes place at nights and when I say 'average' I really mean it because there are times I might go for it 8 hrs straight until morning or none at all. What do I do on that time then? Various stuff. Mostly reading awesome articles I stumbled upon the net, followed by blogging.



Next is gaming. Once I fire up my PS2/PS3, it would be hard for me to stop, even for natural calls. I not really an avid gamer because I only play very few titles but even with just that much, I give them everything I have. Analogically, it's like a little boy who savoring his favorite meal very slowly, little by little, even if it's in very little quantity because he don't want the meal to finish too quickly since they're so damn good. Now you get what I mean?



And the last and the one that is guilty most of the time for stealing my sleeping time; animarathon (anime marathon). Although this usually occur in weekend nights, the time I spend for this activity alone is more than 1/3 of my night's uptime, enough to give it a majority vote. Usually this is the time for me to watch all anime episodes that I managed to get in weekdays so it can't be helped and I won't stop anytime soon.

My Thoughts on the Death Penalty

Death penalty has been around since the beginning of law codes in human history. It even described in The Code of Hammurabi, the oldest know law code in human history. The question now is whether death penalty is necessary or not. There are different views on death penalty. Some people want it to be abolished while some other defend it. Is it worth to support or to oppose it and what's there to defend either?

NHCADP Protest - World Day Against the Death Penalty

When people support or oppose the death penalty, sure there are reasons to it. For those who want it abolished, they see it's not right for people to end the life of other people even if it is lawful. Similarly, the other group of people defend it because crimes still need to be punished, and death penalty is just one type of punishments for crimes. Crime does not pay and people should pay for the crimes they committed.



Then do the criminals need to pay for their crime with their lives? I certainly think it depends on the crime. For me death penalty is MANDATORY for homicide crime. People who have faith in God might think "it's only God who gives life so it has to be Him to take it back". Sure but murder is a crime against humanity because it caused one lost life and we have to do it even if we're aware capital punishment won't bring back the dead to life.



We are definitely not supposed to let the criminals feel like there's no consequences for what they did. Some would say that "death penalty does not have real impact or influence on crime rate" but the same is also true for any other type of crimes and punishments. Just because punishments don't have any effect doesn't mean we can let those criminals go. The point is to make the criminals face the bad consequences on what they did.



Do we have an alternative or should I say a BETTER alternative? Lifetime imprisonment or just years of imprisonment? You mean death penalty is not OK but you're fine with torturing people by confining their life? That's why I think people who oppose death penalty are hypocrites. I mean why must they feel bad for those criminals? They have committed something bad so let them have the bad taste.



C'mon, just because you support death penalty doesn't mean you're putting the risk of facing it yourself because nobody can really predict the future, so the fear of having such punishment in our law codes is unreasonable. What we really need to do is to stop bitching about it and don't take other people's life. Yes, the solution for this is simple. If people don't want to see death penalty anymore, don't commit homicide.

Me, as a Teen

So you want to know how I PHYSICALLY look like as a teenager?

USE YOUR DAMN IMAGINATION!!!

Overheard at My Own Funeral

10 things I think people might say during my funeral when they don't even know I was not dead; I was just disguising myself as a fly.

J.G.Magee's Grave, Scopwick Cemetery, Lincolnshire

1. I don't think it's him. Halfey is still alive and hiding somewhere.

2. That's just an empty coffin. I know.

3. Don't you think this is just government's conspiracy? They must have kept Halfey with them and declared his death to fool us.

4. I know he's not dead yet and is doing his mission elsewhere.

5. Nah! He must be doing undercover and spying job right now. There's nobody in the grave.

6. Hey! D'you know that Halfey is actually among one of us here? He must have made himself look like a young woman. Try finding for him now!

7. Wait! He has ascended to the heaven. Believe me!

8. What the hell you're talking about?! Halfey is immortal! He's a vampire!

9. Rev, please cancel this funeral now! I know this is just a joke but this is too much!

10. Lets form a new religion to worship Halfey.

The Beginning of My Memoir

This is the first chapter of my memoir. Read on and don't complain if you feel offended by it. If you have anything to say about it, just keep them to yourself. Even if you put up your comments, chances are I'll delete them right away even before reading them, so don't waste your time and I wouldn't want to waste my time reading your comments either. You've been warned.

Nurse & patient "Sea Breeze Jr." (LOC)

I was born on Jan 19th, 1983. As an evil baby the first thing I noticed on that time was one young and cute trainee nurse. Too bad since she's a trainee she's not always in charge to take care of me before me and my mow was discharged. However there's one time when both of us together alone and I asked her name, and she revealed to me her nametag on her chest. It reads "Maria". Since it was on her chest my sight quickly turned to something else, her boobs. It's just natural because that's what all babies, do, to look for boobs, regardless they belong to their mother or not.



I didn't waste the chance and start to caress her breasts gently using my small hands. I can see she was trying so hard to keep her voice down when she was moaning. Oh I must be born talented to do stuff like this and I'm sure she must feel good when I kneaded and massaged her breasts. Then I see an opening! Yes, I unbuttoned her nurse uniform, unhook her bra and suck on her nipples straight away. She must have thought her nurse uniform has turned me on. However while we're 'busy' at it another nurse came in. At first she was shocked but soon after that she smiled and said "Sorry, I didn't know you two are busy. Sorry again." Then she closed the door and left. Dammit, I should have asked her to lock the door but Maria seemed don't want to let my mouth go off her breast.



Then another nurse came in but she didn't give a damn as if she can't see us or something. And before she left, came in yet another nurse. She didn't do anything and she waited until the other nurse go. Then there are only three of us. While I was still sucking Maria's breast, I can see that nurse locked the door and started stripping herself. "Maggie...?" said Maria. So I know that nurse's name was Maggie. And you know what? We ended up in a situation that you could almost say a "threesome" though nothing really happen since I was only changing turns sucking those nurses' breasts. In any ways, it was fun.



(15/22 people are too stupid to the point that they believe this so-called 'memoir' is true)

The World Would Be a Better Place If...

So the question is "what we could do to make this world a better place?" eh? Then it doesn't matter if it's 'we' or just 'me' but I'm sure it's about what everybody can do to make this world better. But I am pretty sure Hitler did thought about the same thing too, at least to make this place a better place to him if not for everybody, except that in the process he caused the death of millions of people. Who wouldn't want this world to be better, right?

no more hate

People always saying that in order to make this world a better place we should stop hating each other or stop bitching about things we hate or at least don't give a damn about things we hate. The problem is that's almost too impractical to do. I mean things we hate are everywhere. Even if we try to run away from them, chances are they will always chase you back to the point of no escape. So what can we do?



After giving it a not-so-deep thought, I think there is one thing we should consider doing. Instead of stop hating stuff, how about we get rid of all things that we hate for a change? Yeah, if you hate somebody, kill him. If you hate someone's car, smash it. If you hate certain anime title, go all the way to Japan and destroy the studio. Or if you hate the world itself, how about nuking every single part of it and make the Earth disintegrated? Or perhaps you could just kill yourself so you won't see anything you hate anymore? That's just a few example of what we can do to eliminate things that make our world bad to us. What do you think?



Oh did I mention Hitler earlier?

Friend Numero Uno

Who don't have a best friend? Even I who seemingly spending most of my free time on the net also have a few of them. Yeah a few, because the other friends are either just colleagues or convenient/opportunist friends (only become friends when it's getting convenient and profitable) or even backup friends (people you know from your old school, previous workplace, etc). However I have yet to find a BFF (best friend forever) though maybe I won't find any because I might have looking for a perfect somebody without realizing it.

Baby in bunny suit and friend, pattern english/italiano

The first one I regarded as a best friend is a same age guy from my hometown. He name is Hasran and he's actually my distant cousin. We've been together since kindergarten until we're in grade 3. In grade 4, the school management changed their stance in class distribution. I happen to be in the "better grades" class while that friend of mine ended up in the "average grades" class. Take not that in local schools there's no such thing as floating class unlike in the US or some other countries so we remain separated until the homeroom ends. However we still walking home together and play soccer almost every evening (I used to play soccer a lot back then). Things are not always nice when we're further segregated until we're graduated from elementary school, and before I knew it, we already hardly see each other anymore. I entered a boarding school after that and since then we have completely lost contact with each other. Now we only meet each other during festival holidays since he's also working in other cities far from home, just like me.



In the boarding school, I met another same age guy. He is Joseph, from the same district as I am (our hometowns are in the same district). He's a nice guy who came from quite a poor family but he have good grades in almost all subject, especially history, but too bad he has problems with English (a common problem with people from suburban areas here). However he's a hardworking type and by the time we're in our final year, after almost 5 years struggling he became the top-10 student in our school and I'm also proud of him. We always thought of keeping in touch with each other but unlike me, he don't have any phone number for me to dial to. I think that's what gives him strength and spirit to study and yeah he managed to go to one of the best colleges in the country and graduated with a degree. I tried to visit him 5 years ago but he was not at home. However his parents told me he's now working at the other state far away from home and they gave me his phone number. Now I'm able to contact him though we still haven't see each other since we graduated from high school.



In college I met another guy who came from other state. His name is Azmy. We quickly became close friends and one thing that I will never forget is when I was injured in a traffic accident and unable to walk for a few weeks, he volunteered himself to wash my clothes, even my underwear. I almost cried on that time. However I didn't make it to the end in my college and ended my studies prematurely. For a couple of years we still contact each other via texts and phone (he rarely use email so we never use that method). Then a disaster struck and I've lost his number and he only knows one way method to contact me; via phone but that is no longer an option. I remember though when he said should he ever go to the state where I am now, he will try to look for me, and he told me that's a promise. I'm not sure of what he's doing right now but I do miss him a lot.



Now that I'm a working person and I have 2 of my colleagues that I could consider as best friends. One of them is 1 year older than me, Soong (but he's my junior in work) and another one is 1 year younger than me, Phil (but he's my senior in work). Those 2 however, unlike my previous best friends, are quite problematic to me. Soong is an atheist and always think his "religious views" is better while for Phil, I don't prefer his sexual orientation though (I mean he's a bi, and he live in the same house with me right now >_<). However when it comes to what it takes to be friends, those 2 can handle it perfectly and won't mix their "religious views" and sexual orientation with friendship, and that makes them undeniably are good friends.



One day I'd like to bring back together all of those who I've regarded as my best friends and introducing them to each other and when that time comes I hope all of us will get along well.