Procrastination

Why do we fail?

We fail not because we intend to fail, but because we fail to do what we intended to do.

I need to start practising what I preach.

I'll stop procrastinating tomorrow.

To no one in particular...

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

Essential Life Skillz: Self-Discipline

Polishing off a tub of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough as I write this.

Discipline. Not just dished-out discipline, but self-discipline. Self-imposed. If you're thinking hey this has got nothing to do with me, you couldn't be more wrong. Though it is more commonly associated with the military, it is nevertheless prevalent in normal everyday society. Things like washing your face and brushing your teeth in the morning, doing up your homework, getting to the office on time, finishing up the ice-cream before getting a new tub, and many more instances. It's becoming more apparent that discipline is an integral part of daily life, isn't it?

So what exactly is discipline?

Discipline isn't doing things that you like, but things/tasks that you do not. It is very subjective - determining if a task requires discipline, I mean. Take for instance, walking the dog. Sure, it doesn't seem much to ask to take the dog out for an hour every evening, does it? Especially if you enjoy doing so. If you got your pet before promising to set aside time to take care of it - you are a bad owner - please give your pet to somebody else. But occasionally there's this project to complete, or a deadline to meet. Is poor poochie pooch to be left at home to chew on an old slipper? Don't assume your dog wants a spare tyre just because you sport one. (could this be why pet dogs often look like their owners?) I don't know what's the right thing to do in this case. I'd probably go out for an hour to relax and clear my mind. This way I can work more efficiently later.

There has to be a better scenario.

Okay. Got it. The competitors, in Contender: Asia have been training hard for the past year. It requires a hell lot of discipline to continue with a regime day after day, probably for the rest of their fighting career. Eating well, sleeping well, giving the best in their training. One of the competitors made a point not to drink any alcohol. In order to give this contest his best shot, for the last 4 months, in addition to his training, he did not consume a drop of alcohol. It so happened that they were taken out for a night, to relax and party at Velvet Underground. This competitor steeled himself and politely refused when offered any alcoholic drink. Why let 4 months of hard work go down the drain in the span of one night? Besides, he had a fight the next day. Even though he eventually lost the fight (in a fight, anything can happen), I really respect him for that show of self-discipline. People at the club would surely have thought: How can he party and not drink? What a wuss. How many of us can really say that we would not have succumbed to peer pressure, or the fear of people perceiving us as a 'wuss'. You know, we always say that we don't give a hoot what other people think of us, but how true is that, really? In his position, would we have the discipline to stay away from alcohol? Just look at it this way: He would have been more of a fool to stay off alcohol for 4 months, and blow it in one night. That's much more idiotic than not drinking at a party.

So you see, there's much more to discipline than following rules and obeying higher authority. Self-discipline stems from a personal decision/conviction, and the strength of your mind to follow through. Which is truly in control? The mind, or the body?

To live without discipline is to die without honour.

You'll never get anything done without discipline, and you'll never go far without self-discipline. Be it building up a relationship (you have to put in effort when the going gets tough, its never a smooth journey), building up your health (eating and sleeping well, exercising regularly), building up a business (you have to put in both time and effort), or even quitting smoking (alot of effort for this one, or so I'm told).

Do or do not. There is no try.

What does it say about you, when you give in after 2 days of abstinence, during which you proudly proclaimed that you've quit? Talk is cheap.

After saying this much, I want to remind myself that this is definitely one skill I need to work on. I know - I won't press the 'snooze' button on my alarm clock (handphone) more than 6 times starting tomorrow. No, that's too difficult... Set realistic goals, kevin.

Aight. Got it.

I'll start on a tub of Haagen Dazs tomorrow. Promise.

They tax me and they bill me,
send me to wars and try to kill me...
And my ideology can never save me,
as their bullets drill right through me...

Casefiles: Commonus Pencilli Erasus

The common pencil-end eraser.

Just as no self-respecting English speaking person should use the term "rubber" in reference to an eraser (Singlish-poreans, you have been warned), and condoms are condoms, not "rubbers", neither.

Yes, was just coming back to that... NO self-respecting artist would deign to using that poor excuse for an eraser on the wrong end of a pencil. If you've noticed, using it only results in dirty streaks, torn papers and an occasional speared eye. After all, you ARE grasping the pencil as you would a dagger, plus, you're moving it furiously back and forth mere inches from your face.

Accidents happen, dearie.

The most fundamental, utterly indispensable and absolutely irreplaceable tool for design, is, a long eraser, with a pencil on the other end.

What we do together, just might last forever

Eyes that stare at us and plead,

give me something that I need;

Won't take much to put a smile upon that face.

Soul that's brighter than the sun,

with nothing to hide from anyone.

Screaming... take me away from this place.

Heard this beautiful song today. Don't know what the title is, though. Didn't bother me. Let me tell you why.

Naturally, I listened closer to try and make out the lyrics. After puzzling over them for a while, I realised that the lines had no link between each other at all... which explained the hard time I had trying to figure them out. (duh)

Sure, each line is beautiful on its own, but put together, its just a bunch of gibberish. Mumbo-jumbo. In Singaporean-friendly jargon: Rojak.

To understand the feeling of the disappointment I had after that realisation, let me just give you a simple analogy. Everyone should be able to relate to this (unless you are a social recluse, 2 hours' old, or a pygmy hippo).

Imagine the last time you had the experience of seeing an attractive person (of the opposite sex, PLEASE), and after 2 minutes of chat, you realise that the person has nothing of substance, importance to say. Its not a chemistry issue - you should be able to hold a decent conversation with almost anybody you interact with; with chemistry present, the topic/substance/direction of the conversation is irrelevant, believe me. There - recall that sudden feeling of disinterest and slight disappointment that accompanies the discovery of an 'empty vessel'? Sure, you can argue that you weren't expecting anything out of it anyway, and since you weren't expecting anything, why would you feel any disappointment? But you don't really expect anything out of a random nice song you happen to hear on the street anyways.

But my point is, you should actually listen to the lyrics of your music before nominating it as your favourite head-banging tune of ALL time, install it in your iTunes, or God forbid, recommend it to an unsuspecting friend (such as yours truly).

No, I'm not dissing R&B music. Okay... now I am. I mean, it has great beats, but over-listening is proven to destroy brain cells at an alarming rate. You have been warned.

If you didn't understand that analogy, I'll spell it out for you. The 'attractive person' is a metaphor for 'your first impression of a nice song/music'. The 'conversation/chat' is a metaphor for the 'lyrics/content' of the song.

If you still don't get it, I'll give you some career advice.

Go be a song-writer.

DHL - We deliver

... whenever we want to

This is for those of you who've had DHL packages arrive late; you'll know what I mean.

(No prizes for guessing Chase's part-time job.)

"Will you please sign for this umbrella, ma'am."

I don't got no comb

Experience is a comb life gives you after you lose all your hair. -Judith Stern

The Whether Man

"Oh no," said the little man. "I'm the Whether Man, not the Weather Man, for after all it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be."

Some semblence of (in)sanity

Great party, Nigel. Happy 24th, man. Boy, are you getting old. *Sniggers*

Am sorry that I missed your dancing segment though. Cheryl is sorry too, for waking up so late, and for drinking all the Johnnie Walker. Thanks for making us eat fish-flavoured dog food too, would never have the opportunity, privilege or inclination to sample this delicacy otherwise.

Which brand is it, btw?

Selamat Hurry (&) Run, ya?

Thanks for checking in.

Gonna be too busy to blog in the next couple of weeks. Projects to do, criminals to locate, new serials to watch.


Season 4 : TOILET BREAK
starring M.S. aka Mas Selamat (not Michael Schofield)

SYNOPSIS
After intentionally getting himself incarcerated in Whitley Road Detention Centre to free his detained JI brethren, Mas Selamat (the Jemaah Islamiyah leader who has fled Singapore) is now on the loose. A cunningly planned and executed prison break, or should I say, toilet break (no pun intended). The escapee is (un)armed and dangero-ugly, all 1.58m of him. How did he escape? Black magic? An insider? A prison blueprint recently tattooed onto his gimp foot? More importantly, is he still wearing the same clothes he escaped in? And if he is, why hasn't anyone detected his almighty stench?

1 Litre of Tears

By all appearances, I seem to be a very contented person. Cheerful, non-commital, optimistic, not bogged down by trivial worries.

Maybe its because I'm born a normal, healthy human being. Not autistic, blind, handicapped in any way, nor was I born into a broken family, with abusive parents, nor did I mix with the wrong company, get addicted to crack, nor am I sick with cancer or anything like that. (No wood-touching preceded or followed the writing of this paragraph)

If you're ever thinking of doing drugs, don't. It's not cool. It'll ruin you physically, mentally, socially, financially, emotionally, can't come up with any other relevant '-lly' words... Zzz. Anyway, to quote a friend, If ignorance is bliss, stupidity is ecstasy. If you don't get it, forget it.

Or maybe its because I'm tall, dark and handsome (riiight...). This is one cliche that needs a dose of the 20th Century. Tall, handsome and intelligent is more like it. Okay, so I'm not tall, dark and handsome. For the benefit of those who have not seen me in person: I'm sun-deprived (think Gollum from LOTR), an average height for a man (think Danny Devito), blessed with a mix of good-looks plus rough-on-the-edge charm (think Brat Pidd, George Looney & David Beg-for-ham (without the money)), a smooth-talker (think Piglet & Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh), and to top it all off - reasonably smart (think Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. Well, not the part where he goes insane).

Sigh. All this shameless self-promotion. I guess what I want to get across is - I don't have a problem with the way I look. You probably have heard this before, but its so true: There are no ugly people, only lazy ones. I cut my own hair to save money and pass it off as the unkempt grunge look. Frankly, and I know it, it looks TERRIBLE. In actual fact, this is my little experiment, and it has really opened my eyes. Sieving out the real friends who give constructive criticism and those who try to suck up to me. They come right out and say, "It's awful. Here's 10 bucks, go to the barber, idiot!" The others say, "It looks FANTASTIC, you look SO GOOD, I can't believe you actually cut your own hair!" And when I offer to cut their hair, they laugh nervously and decline. Just kidding. Btw, if you try and prove yourself to be a real friend by commenting on how bad my haircut is the nextime we meet, it won't work. I've foreseen that too ;P

Why I brought up the topic of looks is because you can't be genuinely happy and carefree if you spend your whole life being miserable about who you are or what you look like. Its becoming more apparent nowadays. People are becoming, for better or for worse, more self-conscious. At this point, I'd break off and talk about ("Good Heavens, kevin, you're doing it again! Shut up already") something like plastic surgery, but that's another topic for another day. No one's going to notice that your left eye is larger than your right one, or that mole on your backside, or the 1 millimetre of fat you 'accumulated' around your waist from giving in to that sinful cookie-dough triple-scoop ice cream cone from Ben & Jerry's (speaking of which, I just recalled a certain someone who owes me a treat at Ben & Jerry's).

Oh wow, here I go blabbering on again.

"Kevin, you mofo, what has the title '1 Litre of Tears' got anything to do with all this jibberish? And crying? Are you going all sissy on us?!"

Don't worry, I'm not becoming an Em0 Nem0 (think a certain Singapore Idol contestant). No eyeshadow, oily long hair hiding my face from the world, no slit-wrists and scarred forearms.

If you haven't heard already, and its quite well-known, hmm... 1 Litre of Tears is a japanese drama inspired by the real-life (not reel-life) story of a teenage japanese girl inflicted with the dreadful spinocerebellar degeneration disease. This is a real disease, not a fictional one, mind you. 14 episodes long (short, I mean), this heart-wrenching series chronicles the tenacity of a 15 year-old japanese teen as she overcomes increasingly trying situations and encounters life's cruelty as the unforgiving disease slowly but surely incapicitates her. The struggle her family goes through, the predicament she's in, her sadness and inner fortitude, will move you, to tears, even, so long as you're not a block of ice.

If you are interested to know more, you can read more on my brother and his classmates' project blog:
http://www.spinocerebellardegeneration.blogspot.com/

Okay, that's all for my brief, amateurish review. Now watch it. It'll change your perspective.

No, I'm not becoming a perpetual optimist, crazy looney happy-go-lucky wacky person (just yet).

Haha. I's already the way I am before ever hearing about or watching that drama. It just served to reinforce my perspective and bring the important things in life to my attention.

I mean, there's so much to be appreciative about. Each morning you wake up to is a gift from God. The warm sunlight (even though I complain about the heat all the time), the refreshing rain (I only dislike it because of the hole in my right sneaker), the fresh(ly polluted) air. See! There's innumerable things to be thankful for - we're just too busy to pay attention. A new day with new experiences, albeit a mundane, boring job (haha). Even if it were so, you can still meet people from all walks of life, interact and learn many new things everyday. It's in how you interact with people.

On a side note, and I'm sure you'd like to hear this, even dispute it; It is my theory that sporting floppy hair makes me friendlier, as opposed to a slick hairdo, or cool guy-ish short-cropped hair. This applies to the non-narcissists only (narcissists will be affected with any kind of hairdo, with or without hair) - unconsciously you are putting effort into or concentrating on looking and acting cool. It's a psychological thing, I'm sure. More approachable, more comfortable with interacting and being myself, really. Logical?

And that's that. Until I become 101% comfortable in my own skin, a cool hair-do won't do for me, no pun intended. I'm already conscious of being conscious about the hairstyle, which is bad enough, thank you.

Yes, yes, I know I haven't been writing many side-splitting articles for a while, but that's because life is short and we should be spending every minute out there in the real world, talking to real, live, people. Not blogging for some imaginary audience to read, laugh and share your joys. Or the few friends who do bother to catch up on your sad, penned life. If they really care about you, they should be asking to meet up, have dinner once in a while, finding out and showing you care, in-the-flesh! (Apologies. Wrong context. It should be "in person")

Sure, I'll lose viewership, but I must be true to myself. Most audiences prefer drama and kpo-ing about other's lives to humour. But, because the thing I love most is hearing people laugh, I'll get back to that sometime.

I promise.

Cross my fingers, hope to die.

Leap day with Wong Li Lin

Disclaimer: The title is just a gimmick to attract your attention. The actual post will bore the living daylights out of ya.

Okay. How I spent Leap (year)day, Friday, the 29th of February, 2008.

Delivered some work to the printer at Bras Basah. Had a bit of a problem. Unfortunately- and it's unbelievable -but their version of AI is as outdated as bell-bottom jeans! And technology doesn't have cycles like fashion. Flabbergasted... Anyway, they aren't to blame at all, because, I know I've been told, but I forgot to save the file in eps format. (not to bore you with the technicalities, but recording my stupidity down will actually help me to remember in future!)

Planned to end work early & at Bras Basah, and afterwhich, nip down to Marina Square, meet up with a couple of good friends and catch "The Leap Years", which btw, I felt, is a great movie (maybe I'll review it, but by the time i get down to it, it'll have stopped screening), at 6:50pm. The late movies were fully booked and this one was going fast, at, let's see, 10 am in the morning when I did a telephone booking. Golly. Cathay & Golden Village were 95% fully booked and 5% going fast; it was a mad rush. Couples must have pre-booked it last week, or 4 years ago...

Anyhow, the self-generated inconvenience (nagging will ingraine the error deeper in my mind - an effective method, employed by mothers since the dawn of humanity) cost me alot of time. Finished my unfinished business at Bras Basah by 6pm, which left me only 20mins to get from Bras Basah to Marina Square cinema.

Now, for those who've been taught the art of telling the time, you must have spotted the discrepancy. The movie starts at 6:50pm, kevin. That's 50 whole minutes to get your ugly butt to Marina Square. Butt, but, and maybe you can learn something here - for those who know the art of movie ticket telephone bookings, you understand that the tickets must be collected 1/2 an hour before the movie screening time, if not it will be released to an overjoyed cinema patron - those 'last-minute-queue-to-buy-tix' kind, who will happily snap up your pre-booked but uncollected movie tickets.

Thankfully I've been blessed with long legs by God and my parents (who fed me well. Gosh, my mom... she must have been doing it right all along... I hate cod liver oil) and have long mastered the art of jaywalking, an essential life-skill for both the wanderlustful Globe-trotter and common Singaporean species alike. All the traffic lights worked in my favour, hehe, but the strangest thing I noticed was that the roads were clear of traffic everytime I needed to cross a busy main road. Just so the awesomeness dawns on you - for roads to be miraculously clear (vehicles mysteriously caught at traffic lights working in my favour) at peak hour on a friday evening in the heart of the city, this is a miracle. Thank you God. Also, I put my underdeveloped parkour (awesome sport, imo) skills to good use, by leaping over small obstacles like roadblocks, fallen tree trunks, overhead bridges and idling excavators. Just kidding - I meant pebbles, road dividers and sparse exhaust-plagued roadside greenery (sickly green).

So you see, when someone really wants something, the whole universe conspires to help him get it.  

A friend once commented that I'm the fastest walker she knows. And that she's the fastest walker (is this even a word?) among her friends, and they complain about her, so that's saying something. Which reminds me, did you catch that cool movie, Walker? Anything. Anywhere. (Almost)Instantly. Starring Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) facing off Mace Windoo w/o purply lightsaber (Samuel L. Jackson). Not a bad sci-fi no-brainer action flick. 'Least it was better than Rambo 4, which was a no-brainer lame action flick for senior citizens and past-their-prime weight lifters who wished to get a vision of how their future body will look like in their golden years. It's cool, but not a great movie. Imagine a glorified playboy Nightcrawler (from X-men) without the bad skin pigmentation & tail. Backpackers will be appalled at this blatant disrespect and disregard of proper back-packing traditions, which involve actual literal travelling, a little bit of getting lost, asking directions, revelling in the whole experience of it. 

Gawd, I'm long-winded. Just 50 minutes of my life and the story is 15 pages long already. I'm so born to be a scriptwriter. I haven't even got to the part where I'm queueing up for the tix yet.

Or maybe I did that on purpose. Huh, huh, huh! Think about it. After all, the dramas that keep us coming back for more always end each episode hanging. Man. I'm so born to be a director. Muahaha. Stay tuned! (not "stay-tune" like every talk show host says. That's bad grammar!)

Cheerio!