the weird looks from 2010

i'm 26 now and dear god most of the time i find myself wishing i could just start over because of all the mistakes i've ever done. unfortunately, i have better reasons to keep on living but regrets are part of life and you've got to move on... even if it doesn't always work out.

i suspect that even among oddballs, i'd still be the most odd. not enough to be put in an institution but bad enough i guess.

so, reflecting back on certain things i'm sort of happy they happened though i wish they hadn't. why can't i just shit post in peace or be a hikikomori? i dunno.. i'm probably a bigger idiot for remaining out here where i'm now aware of things and leave things well enough alone. i bring this up because of certain factors i noticed in my college years. critical thinking and figuring out critical thinking.

the 2 are very different and not quite the same. if you want to make it in this world you need critical thinking. you need to be able to question things and not just be in an environment that encourages it. in an environment that encourages critical thinking, it becomes easy to be enamoured in a certain set of rules and philosophy. moreso because of your own private views and the expectation that you can voice them out without sounding like an idiot. that happened to me in college. i'm not the only there that has strident views but i'm the only one stupid enough to make them heard. i feel that this has cost me quite a few friendships and in a way i'm glad i decided to distance myself from a lot of my cohort and classmates; our views will never match and i would only be there to serve as a source of anxiety and frustration to others. "why won't he shut his whore mouth up?" would be the frequent thought in my classmates heads.

living in south east asia, we're usually indoctrinated not to speak out or against people, especially teachers or figures of authority. quite unsurprising then, that i become a rebel in any sort of environment with that sort of atmosphere. why? because i don't like conformity most of the time. but mostly i come to realize, its a sort of a rather weird desire to find out why we do things the way we do and that i think we can do them better. anyway, back to the awkward stares of death i get in the classroom. i think my favorite subject were the thesis classes but i was never really that good at them. the only reason i was any good at it was because i could string a coherent paragraph together. that doesn't necessarily mean that the whole thesis meant anything important. i think that my classmates won't and never will appreciate thesis classes simply because they're better artists than they are writers. which is fair and an easier path in life. who gives a toss about the patriarchy and the male gaze when all you want to do is render great looking pictures and will likely get paid more handsomely for said pictures. for me however, it was great. i never had any idea what academia would be like. it was in a way wonderful. finally, i discovered the real meaning of school.... so i would have thought back then.

i think without realizing it, i was being an SJW or social justice warrior without thinking or realizing it. Time does strange things to you, in my case, fully realizing what retard i'd become. i questioned guests sometimes without realizing why. i didn't understand why things had to be simple. a great and massively talented japanese animator had come in and i asked him, was there any reason his antagonistic aliens hated humans and he replied no. obviously, i got stink eyes from everyone in the room just for asking that question. who asks that? me. at the time, i got so wrapped up in the idea of making complex baddies and simple heroes. everything needed to have a motivation everything needed a cause. the thought bubble popped years later when i saw the minions movie and enjoyed it immensely because it was a movie about the minions being minions and nothing else. sheer simplicity. you don't need to be a pompous curator to enjoy that.

of course after that movie, my fragile, poorly structured world fell apart and came to the conclusion that in every waking second in college i was an asshole. correct. but now years later, i can spot things and begin to question them. this is the part of life that i figured out critical thinking. this was and still is the part of life where i am somewhat more aware of what i'm doing and of other people's sensitivities which in most cases, i don't give a toss about either anyway; but i'm at least now aware, you will be offended and why. i can't stress this enough. in a secure college environment that teaches critical thinking, you need something else to be paired with it: objectivity. this one i am very glad my dad thought this to me and hammered home the point like a broken tape recorder. being a lawyer, he needs to view the case from both ends of the stick to see what he can and cannot do. in fully understanding the case, he also understands his opponent and that allows him to create highly persuasive arguments.

for me, being objective allows me to look at issues and wonder: why are the parties involved doing it in such a way? this is the reason if i was american, i would have voted trump (i would have very much liked to have voted sanders). a lot of my friends and former friends view issues in a certain way. all lean to the left and they happen to just stop there. they don't appreciate it but i think they view things in a very black and white sort of manner, which is perfectly fine. it doesn't complicate life any more than necessary. but it does make it more difficult to drill down into the reasons such things happen. especially when you don't want to view things from the other party's point of view.

the take from this is this: college students, you can make as much noise as you want but bear in mind making so much noise will alienate you from your friends regardless of what you or they have been taught. nobody likes a snot nosed brat (apart from me... i wouldn't mind friendly banter over a beer or coffee). college spaces do tend to be echo chambers. if you consider yourself a maverick i have a great piece of advice that might allow you to survive college with friends.

i call this the odd number rule.

take any odd number : 1, 3, 5 or 7. if you add another odd number, it usually becomes an equal number, eg. 3 + 3 = 6. add another odd number again and the new answer is 9, an odd number. however, if you have an equal number like 2 or 4 and just continue adding equal numbers, you will never get an odd number. so, with that in mind, my point of this stupid analogy is that you as the odd number are adaptable. you can force yourself to fit into crowds you usually would not bother with. be a social chameleon, blend in. you don't necessarily have to force yourself to like everything they do. what you do is, you go to college, you learn. you learn to socialize and be civil with people you would not bother with. you learn how to shut up and just see what the teachers are telling you. you should of course try and find out why they say what they say in the manner they say, there'll be a good reason for it trust me. but do not, and i repeat do not do that during a class. that is their time and that is your classmates time. you can always find the lecturer or guest lecturer after and ask. do not ever, let yourself be guilt tripped into asking questions during a class even if the lecturer asks you a question or comments that the class is very silent.

i mention this because i happened to realize in college, i had very few close friends and am somewhat miserable because of it. was i a pariah? yeah, definitely. it was lonely and it was more awkward than not. am i projecting? possibly, but i'm going to come from a good place and say this because i don't think i'll be the only one here who thinks as i do. if you've got a stable bunch of friends, enjoy schools and colleges (i don't) then you needn't read this. am i a wuss for writing this? perhaps. but a lot of us go through different stresses at different times. will i still judge others based on what i'm seeing? yes. for the simple reason that until more evidence to disprove what i see appears.

i'll give you an example of this. i used to religiously watch The Young Turks and gobbled up a lot of what they said as truth. reasons were simple. they were an alternative news source that wasn't fox news, they were on the internet and had an easy to access youtube channel. they presented the news in a way contra to what mainstream news presented. consequently, i've stopped listening and following them because most of the time they just seem to spout vitriol for the sake of it. i forgot which video was the one that ultimately made me quit them but i think it was more of a build up. they always bashed fox news which was fine. but more often they would bash the american police moreso than needed and when evidence to counter certain stories appeared, they never addressed it and continually insisted they were right. i think it was more of the unnecessary levels of hate they have for certain issues. you can't really trust a news source that is no longer impartial but i definitely didn't need to hear this level of profanity dumping on a daily basis.

actually, i have to thank my lecturers, all of them for seeding these life lessons in my head. i may not be the best student, best artist, 3d modeller or whatever, but i am grateful for them teaching me the things i know now. that's all....

electric cars... the other choice... with no difference

i feel like weighing in on the debate of the fossil fuel car versus the so-called superior electric car. you can't otherwise convince me that driving an electric car is better than driving a similar golf buggy. to me, the notion of driving an electric car feels alien, wrong and completely strange. call me old fashioned but our over reliance on computers and more importantly electricity, means that if there is a black out in the city for days or weeks on end, your car won't start but my old style fossil fuel one will.

however on paper so far, electric cars are beating the typical, aging, normal fuel cars black and blue, just have a look at the wikipedia page. its a terrible tragedy but is it really? there are very few redeeming qualities for the old style fuel cars. but before we get on with that, i've put together a table of characteristics of both cars, good and bad, so we're on the same page.

So, depending on how you read it, the normal car will have at least 10 good points and 7 bad ones and the electric car will have 11 good points and 6 bad ones. There are a couple of moot points which in any case mean they're equally bad.

Consider the points in the list and think really hard because far as i can tell the only 2 major plus points for an electric car are slightly better care for the environment (which we aren't doing a great job of at any rate) and its supposed savings. Wikipedia tells us that at the moment you still won't save or get back your money's worth on fuel charges and on the other hand, your home electricity bills will definitely increase. So, not too much of a saving grace there either.

Far as the ball is rolling? Electric cars are still more of a novelty than an actual solution to the global warming problem and every other problem linked to it. Whatever bits of environment you are saving by not releasing carbon into the atmosphere is offset by the toxic pollution created by the mining of rare earth metals for the batteries. Never mind that wars will play out for the rights to mine out rare earth from hostile countries, because they're already happening over oil anyway, so this is just one more resource to fight over. No, the thing to be looking out for then is what do you want out of the car? Reliability? Fuel savings? Performance?

Fact of the matter is this, automakers are still making normal fuel supercars. Very few are committed to making electric supercars though that number is increasing. The only company dedicated to making electric supercars is Elon Musk's own Tesla but that's it. Everyone else is still cranking out fossil fuel supercars. I wonder why that is? Could it be because that it is easier to find fuel than a charge point?

The reason i look upon electric cars with disdain is that it seems to be a rather elitist thing. Here in SEA, we do not have as many charge stations for electric vehicles. It would in fact take a great deal of infrastructure overhaul and additions to make it friendly for electric cars and even then the utility would be dubious at best. old style kampung roads that lead into the wilderness bedot the lands beyond the city, where there is no wifi and electricity. Which is why i considered the range of the cars. you would be very hard pressed to try and charge your car in a kampung at any rate. the distance from any sort of proper urban or rather utopian needs for the car is just simply too far.

The elitism is further being pushed by Germany. Germany is demanding of its citizens and the EU through lobbying, that everyone use an electric car by 2035. By all means, that at any rate sounds like a very, very optimistic target. To go off topic for awhile, can you imagine an electric powered tank trundling forwards to go and fight Putin's tanks in the Balkans? They'd run out of electricity even before they get to the frontlines. In all honesty, Germany has a great many better things to do than enforce what can only be described as facetious idea in the face of an overwhelming refugee crisis that is only getting worse, ISIS knocking at its front doors, a rather edgy Russia and its own growing economic woes no thanks to the EU. There is nothing to be gained from this Germanic Leap Forwards.

Back to having electric cars at home. Currently, its mere snobbery and holier-than-thou-ness that is getting people to buy into green cars. Unfortunately, the only truly green car that i can appreciate are the hydrogen fuel cell cars and the solar powered ones. Solar cars are much greener than the so-called eco-friendly electric cars and they look much cooler and sleeker. Just don't drive when it rains or at night. Hydrogen fuel cell cars; these are the real future. All the reliability of a normal fossil fuel car and it produces water that you can drink after your long drive. There's still an emission but its making H20 or for the unscientific, water.

Personally, i think it will be the sound of a proper engine that i'm going to miss if i am forced to buy an electric car. you simply don't get that with an electric car unless you've got a very clever audio program and sound system installed in it. Yes, an electric car is cheaper.... only in many years time when the price of the batteries have fallen. Yes, an electric car is eco-friendly only because it is the car itself that is not giving off the emissions. You do need to have a fully renewable energy electric grid if you plan to boldly make that claim... and a way to mine out and create the batteries without all the toxicity involved. Regardless, the real only redeeming feature is that the electric car does not produce any form of carbon. Though, granted electric cars will have a slight positive impact on a global scale in terms of carbon dioxide production.

So, what does this mean? It means that you really need to think hard when you make a decision to buy an electric car. Are you buying for some form of personal satisfaction? What sort? Is it the current Tesla aesthetics that's getting you going? Is it perhaps the need for a little one-up-manship? You'd get better mileage from a Myvi in all honesty. If we have to compare an electric car to say your own electronics, namely the laptop and the smart phone, then fine, buy as many electric cars as you want since you're already using rare earth metals in them. Curiously though, if we are indeed going by the batteries in your laptop, then be reminded that each Tesla uses 64 of those. So, multiply that by about 100,000 and you are looking at a lot of rare earth used and ecological devastation, but hey, all for clean air isn't it?

While we're on the subject of batteries do consider my other point mentioned in the table: Samsung batteries. The very same lithium ion batteries that power the decidedly volatile Samsung Galaxy Note 7 could end up in your car, especially if China decides it wants to produce electric car batteries. There aren't all that many fossil fuel cars that explode on their own and those that do are either driven by terrorists or are supercar owners and there aren't all that many supercar owners as there are normal car owners. By the same logic then, your new 'everyday joe' electric car with batteries from China could be a very convenient mobile funeral pyre.

A lot of the hype of electric cars come from its potential in....wait for it... the future. That's a very optimistic way of saying, it will get better but not soon. The logic is certainly there too. If we follow Moore's Law with regards to the batteries it is entirely possible that an electric car will cost as much as a laptop computer. no, i'm exaggerating. But yes, it would become cheaper than a conventional fossil fuel car used by joe everybody, eventually. However, this point lies in the future and is not yet happening. Electric cars are still monstrously expensive and are as with most expensive things nowadays, merely a trophy or status symbol. The current and most utilitarian of the electric cars suffer from the inability to drive and stay in areas beyond their charging infrastructure for long. And as Wikipedia would be updated mostly in western regions, electric cars would only be really effective in highly urbanized societies that have decided they shall be electric car friendly. To be more on point, I don't see most parts of the USA becoming easily accessible to electric cars, especially the rural town areas.

So, the good news is that everyone telling you that electric cars will be the death of fossil fuel cars will have to wait at least another 10 years before they can truly make that claim. Hopefully by then though, the fossil fuel cars will have evolved into the hydrogen fuel cars. And this is with the hopes that hydrogen, being literally all around us, will be very much cheaper than electric cars and more importantly much more eco-friendly than they are. this just leaves the myriad people who are driving around hybrids then. if we look back at all the information here, then it is the people who drive hybrids then that are the real problem. hybrids are as the name implies, capable of using both fossil fuels and generating their own battery charge. They would be great, were it not for the lithium ion batteries in them. So, they use both oil and rare earth which then creates both a toxic wasteland out of the area the rare earth is mined from and also pollute the air. And the hybrid drivers have to gall to rub their rare earth powered cars in our faces.

P.S.

i'd like to end this thought by firmly stating my stance on the matter. i'm still going to be for fossil fuel cars. i'll be using them at least till either bio fuels become more feasible and somehow less environmentally damaging or hydrogen cars become a common reality. fossil fuels were a great thing, till we decided we would like to have more of it. the more of everything mentality, which frankly, is the reason we as human beings are always in a messy state in the first place.

shrug shoulders and plod on

So, here's yet another very different view point.

Lately, i keep finding myself shutting out more and more world news. Frankly, its the same thing day after day and depending on your news source, it'll be depressing either way. corporate media is paid to speak the exact same lines over and over, independant media; while good for getting mostly authentic sources, becomes a bit of a drag when you realize nothing ever improves. Others are merely tabloid media.

When i think about alternative media, i think about the SJWs, feminists and all the reactionary parties involved in world that's just getting even murkier, stupider and more self conflictingly confusing. A bit early for my age to be telling anyone but really, once you've gone past a certain age, your world view should hopefully have been broad and open enough previously that you can feel and tease out what is naturally right and well with the world enough that you don't need to care what comes next. the so-called moral compass. actually, no. actually, i rather think a set of principles based on progress, critical thinking and a goodly amount of skepticism should help anyone last through the world in terms of mental sanity and health.

to touch on the matter of the modern day gender war as an example of the amount of inherent stupidity involved from all parties should give you guys an idea why it is important more than ever to think for yourselves and not just that, but be able to think, long hard and critically of the information given to you.

the famous wage gap myth or controversy can and must be looked at from all sides of the argument. i don't just mean from a man and woman's point of view. you're dealing with a company and its employees as well. so, depending on how biased your view is as well, i could well be spouting nonsense or gospel truth. but i'll put the matter to bed. the 77% percent does NOT work aboveboard for every nation and therefore every woman. it only works in america and even then, consider that the number might be skewed and that it is an amalgamation of the complete number of women doing work and the amount of work and also taking into consideration the types of work. how dare you take this number and blanket the whole spectrum of women in the workforce? that not only skews the numbers but makes light of the actual work that some women are doing.

a scientist is more often than not, going to be paid more than a primary school teacher. a chemist will definitely get less money than a CEO. what was not taken into any consideration were the number of women at the workplace. perhaps 50 years ago, there were definitely less women in the workforce but compare that to now and i more often than not find myself in situations where there are more women and who will make more money than me. figures point back to jobs that women naturally gravitate towards like teaching and nursing. there are less women doing science because there are more women interested in either becoming business people or god forbid, do gender studies. fact of the matter i believe is that in the animation industry there will be times when there are more women than men. there is an entire studio in japan staffed only by women. how progressive is that when you consider how positively backwards the japanese are in terms of the feminist ideal of "gender-equality".

alright, with that in mind, let us look at a general office work environ. you have a male and female office slave. both are 20 years old, both have a starting salary of RM 2k, both have cars, both must work 8 hours a day. so, assuming they work like robots for the next 5 years, they will both make RM 120,000 at the end of their 5 years. Assuming the boss is unbiased, both will be promoted. Now, here is the interesting bit. As a woman, if female wage slave becomes pregnant, she will be entitled to maternity leave, which  means that she will still get paid despite not being at work. as for the man on the other hand, paternity leave is considered "a new thing" and therefore, will have to take normal or even unpaid leave. additionally, the female wage slave already works less if she gets maternity leave, which can be up to 8 weeks long or 2 months of no productivity. we can go further in fact. If the female wage slave then decides to leave the company, she is therefore then exiting the workforce. So, all this will contribute to your 77% of a man's pay. this then, is what the feminists generally are not telling you.

they will then use this misinformation to twist the arms of people, governments and surprisingly even companies. the best bit will still be their claim to be for the equal treatment of men and women. how do you intend to treat men and women the same, when a man's female working partner can get paid while she's pregnant and if the man goes to see his newborn son in the same token, he must take unpaid leave? On top of that, not only do the feminists then want their maternity leave, but they are demanding for more salary for even less productivity. yes, then in this sense, having a penis and testicles is definitely the disadvantage and scourge that the feminists claim.

neatly however, this brings me back on point. its galling to see the world's mentality as it is now; no better than when it was a hundred years ago. the primary difference is that the victims' do get to abuse their position and in turn bully not just their oppressors but everyone else as well.

this being said though, if i ever have to give a lecture at a college and some kid who thinks he or she is being bright, asks me of my opinion on the war in so and so or should a man be able to give birth to a baby, so as to get maternity leave, i will very frankly state: "i don't give a damn, i'm here to show you art techniques and how to enjoy yourselves while doing art and animation. i could care less if the next president of singapore is a genuine komodo dragon. the real world is a distraction from the things you enjoy, so buckle down and do your own thing rather than worry about things you have little to no control over."

keep an open mind on things but remember to question and think for yourself first. step into the world boldy but always remember to be home for dinner. your mental sanity will thank you for it.

add on to previous post (weird times pt 2)

in view of the now rather volatile western comic and movie industry with regards to infiltration of supposedly "politically correct" and "social justice" views. i think it is time to step back and just appreciate once more the beauty that is anime, manga and doujins.

japan is truly something else. despite their economic situation, their creative industry is still going strong.... though workers' benefits and situation could obviously be better, especially for the game devs and animators but regardless. they're going very strong. for every one creator that is sunk by the corporate machine, 10 others are still going at it with a vigour that often belies their age.

the proliferation and spread of anime and manga has not stopped and the way its going, will never stop. you really must stop and appreciate the ingenuity that is put into the writings. this is not saying its just the japanese are good at it. the pool includes south koreans and whoever else is doing manga and animes of their own. however, i would like to point out that it seems to be a relatively quiet sort of thing that was created and introduced by the japanese. this unfiltered creativity that doesn't use anybody's lens but the creator's own mind. it is a refreshingly pure thing to behold truly.

some mangas and anime are just for fun and that's fine. others have serious stories and themes. the most important part? they are usually able to tell their stories without having anything like an agenda hidden in it. for manga world, it isn't so much the need to show the world what sort of suffering a girl or person of colour goes through. for them, it is the story that is important, the dramatization and not the attempt to rub any sort of message into someone's face. i appreciate mangas and anime because of the free way they express themselves. this appears to be something precious that the western comic industry has lost, this ... creative expression for the sake of creative expression. if its any wonder why manga and anime is still going strong.

i think, if it is one thing that the western comic world needs from the eastern side is this: real freedom. back in the 60's western comics had all sorts of different and wacky superheroes. there were cool ones and then there were those that made absolutely no sense and of course tanked. but the important part was that the creative juices were flowing. this period was full of ingenuity and is the main reason you have an ungodly huge library of heroes. if the japanese can so effortlessly foster an atmosphere of pure creativity, could the west not do the same?

i believe that the salvation for western comics then lies in europe. america has strangely become a land full of strictures and restrictions. the only acceptable place for fresh ideas in america is on the internet. so then, scratch that. the salvation of the western comic book creativity doesn't lie just in europe, it lies in the free content creators who reside on the internet.

the net is vast and infinite, it should be a great many decades to come for online comics. just stay away from the traditional media and i think we'll all be happier for it.

weird times

not interesting.... but weird.

ghostbusters has undergone a gender bender, iron man is now replaced by 15 year old black girl, thor is now a woman and the list just seems to go on.

why is it that established brands seem to pander to the SJW crowd? is it the money or fear of reprisals? the strange thing is that i don't think it would be reprisals for if that were the case, they would have changed the characters a long time ago.

the ghostbusters one for most of the part seems to be just for the fun of it. the new lady ghostbusters seem less of an experiment than it is a movie that's there just to have fun. the trailers don't look pretty but i'd be looking more at the writing and casting if i was looking for faults. so, its intentionally silly.

whereas with the comics industry things are getting rather weird. i'm apathetic to the whole notion that thor must be a woman or that iron man must be a black teenage girl. all i'm looking for is the real reason behind the sudden change. you don't simply take a character who has been established as such for more than 10 years and suddenly make a huge change. i mean there is a reason that when you have superman, after that you have super girl and super boy. i agree with the camp that says you should make a new stand alone character to represent different parts of society, be they queer, different ethnicity, social status and blablabla.

black heroes. you have so many to choose from. static shock is among one of the chief black heroes i have heard of. cyborg as well. if you must have a female black super hero, storm from the X-men. i'll put it this way. comics have been expanding and expanding their hero and villain roster for so long that you can have a library full of hero bios and history and it'll still need more room to expand. the point of the matter though is you could have created a new character or brought in another character. this is a reverse form of white washing it seems. no matter how many times it is done and no matter which character it is done to, people will never be happy about it. perhaps the SJWs will be happy about it. but then again, if we're talking about taste, they probably don't have any.

but back to the question though. why do it? iron man is still in the picture. and the title is still iron man. how do you reconcile the fact that the titular character is pushed aside for a new character who is of a completely different gender? it doesn't feel like progress. it doesn't feel socially acceptable either. why do writers go out of their way to purposefully change something that had worked previously to something that will antagonize your supporters?

i understand experimentation, but is it? have they really exhausted tony stark's story to the point they have to replace him? i sincerely doubt that. i highly doubt its for the money either.

all i can say is this though. i've ploughed through wikias on marvel and DC characters before. i have also heard horror stories about character reboots so bad that the writers who came after had to reboot the whole thing proper. maybe this is the case we're seeing now? maybe we're seeing writers who take to the helm and using their own.... initiative they've decided to come up with something bad but have not realized it yet? i mean this must be the case because Rob Liefield is still working as a comic book artist isn't it? i strongly feel that all we are seeing now is the creation of a bad part of comic book history, an infamous time where the writers against all logic chose to do what was supposedly right in their mind and in a grand, futile gesture, helped to bury a beloved comic book character.

i'd like to think we're all at a fortune teller's den and we just keep drawing the death tarot. sure, it is pretty  much what it means. Death means dying but the meaning behind the card if i'm not wrong is not an end to something. well... depending on your outlook it is something's life dying but it is a transformative process to say the least. only in death can something else be born. i just hope to still be around when that something nice and new is born though.

Not going anywhere fast or at all for that matter

Like most other days, i often make the mistake of using social media (ie facebook / linkedin) and i see how far my former uni mates are doing. obviously, they're doing a lot better than i am. much better in fact. i feel disgusted at where i am. i'm not even a fucking wage slave, i'm tied to a chair doing work i don't like for a pay that's.... it's not bad, but it's not great either and for what? a boss who's attempting to micromanage everything in malaysia from shanghai. i can sort of see why the previous batch of managers and executives left.

so, i'm going to rant because that's what blogs are for and if the powers that be decide to allow my friends, family or even people at work to find this then so fucking be it.

my dad wanted me to become a lawyer. not sure why he thinks its a great idea frankly. he probably wants someone to inherit his law firm though i am fairly certain and adamant that it'll not be me. i don't like reading legalese anymore than i like reading contracts. last time, i got fucked over by some singaporean bitch who thinks herself a great ad director because i did not have a solid hard copy contract that explicitly delineates what each party is supposed to do. i understand the importance of knowing how to read a contract. i understand that it is also important to learn the laws of a country. but that does not mean i need to become a lawyer to do so. i can't stand sitting in a room day after day, poring over books to find a chink in my opponent's case and argument in a way that he interprets the law. i mean don't get me wrong, i'm sure it makes for great tv otherwise we won't have lawyer flicks or even Phoenix Wright for that matter. but reality? i see my dad doing case after case and so far, only a few of his clients are really grateful for all he does. not that my dream industry has a lot of singing angels to be fair. but the point is that, really... i don't have that sort of mental fortitude needed to deal with both shitty clients, look at my opponents every argument for chinks and also have to study the laws. i'm not great at persuading people, i think i'm fairly certain in that too. i think the part that makes me even more upset is that it's a sterile office environment. for me? that's where my dreams go to die. i would rather self-immolate than sit inside an office.... the irony is not lost on me.

so, here i am. i sit in an office only to use facebook..... and twitter and instagram and emails and wordpress. social media, is the way to conquer the minds of the feeble. i myself, am occasionally feeble minded enough to partake in social media groups but not twitter though because for me sitting there reading about someone's thoughts every 2 minutes seems a bit of a drag. its a gigantic irony i find to do digital marketing. or marketing in general but i'll get to that in a bit. ok, previously i had fun in my office. i could go and do some design work. wasn't very good at it, just ask my former boss in the other department, but i did improve and then i decided i'd go help in the digital marketing side... seemed like a good idea at the time. the only upshot is that i'm reasonably comfortable on my chair and i'm not working directly with possibly the worst marketing manager this side of selangor. i mean... how bad does it have to be that one of the company's supplier's marketing manager sighs heavily and annoyedly at the mere mention of your name? how?

anyway... i do occasionally need to work with her. just... treat her with the same respect you'd give to your computer. no wait... i give my computers more respect... anyway just treat her like that colleague whom you need something from but secretly despise. you would think that working on social media is very entertaining and very relaxing. it isn't. i've had to deal with so many brain dead customers its a wonder that the nation's general IQ hasn't fallen. eg. i put up a poster on facebook telling people that my company has a new contest coming and here's how to join it. few seconds later, i get questions in the comments going: "how do i join?" let me be clear. i posted a poster that was of high resolution, reposted the instructions in the description box and had gone through the instructions with other managers several times to make sure that they were simple enough to understand. so, how mentally retardedly unobservant do you have to be not to know how to join? wait, it gets worse.

i hate doing customer service. unfortunately, this is one of the things that comes with doing social media, you will eventually need to open channels of communication with customers. if you even so much as blink wrongly, you'll get a tonne of backlash for it online. and for a company of company's size, it's something we simply cannot afford... also because it'll get me fired. its maddeningly difficult, especially if you're dealing with self-entitled fucking chinese 'aunties'...'specially the ones from puchong because they mostly think that we owe them free classes. i recently got some fucking cancer survivor who had unfortunately gotten a pack of flour with maggots inside them.... that isn't nice or is it very good. being professional, i sought to try and fix the situation. obviously everyone else in the company just followed policy.... the "cancer survivor" demanded compensation otherwise she would put out a public complaint.... see the problem is that she no longer has the receipt for the flour bag. my company needs the receipt so that we can check when she bought it and so that we can replace it. company policy states that if you've no receipt, you cannot swap the product. also the swap has to take place within 1 day for food stuffs and 3 days for non-foods. but i was prepared to override the rules because: a) the flour costs RM 2 and b) so that the "cancer survivor" bitch would shut up. boy, i got a big fucking slap on my face. "THANK YOU BUT NO THANK YOU, YOU THINK I WANT MORE OF YOUR MAGGOT FLOUR ISIT?!~ GOOD DAY!" love the fucking cancer survivor.... maybe don't go and make your photos public right? also, if you're so upset about the flour, stop baking, it isn't good for your lymph nodes sweety.

these are just some of the customer service stories from my end. retail customers can be some of the worst creatures on the planet. clearly, this is how you make a housefly look more benign.

let me get back to the marketing bit as promised earlier. so, ok. marketing at its bare basic is noise making, trumpeting and in a way, saber rattling. its noise making because you need to attract people to your product. what are your product's good points. you need to trumpet creatively to get people's attention.... and also so that you can get sufficient sales to cover the cost of the trumpet. it's saber rattling because you need to make more noise than your opponents.... that was just a random word that i found that might link to the general idea.... but maybe, just maybe, your marketing campaign is so effective it'll force your opponent to rethink his grand strategy... i have not been able to do that online yet, and with my current resources, i doubt i'll even make them cry... laugh maybe but not much else.

i do despise the necessary evil that is marketing. too little marketing and your good product will never get sold. too much marketing and to me that sort of becomes grasping at straws to figure what is exactly nice to say about your product. its very difficult to find something nice to say about your company's own chocolate when there are so many other similar quality chocolates out there already. then, you do have the nastier bits of marketing. massaging the truth so that your products are actually better sounding than they are. you can make it seem that your product has little to no down sides. that feels disingenious enough that i don't even want to be near marketing. fortunately, i have not yet had to do this, but the way things are going, i think it'll be a matter of time.

frankly? my company is not doing well and will not be doing well in the coming years. i have never understood the reason for the big boss maintaining the company. he's clearly done very well for himself in shanghai and will continue to do well. the other share holders and directors just appear to be tagging along for the ride.... as weird as it may seem. the big boss only comes to town once or twice a year, if we're unfortunate enough. he doesn't want to deal with his company's issues. there's a lot of compounded issues here that'll continue to fester in the company. just recently, another batch of managers left too, this time, seasoned retail outlet managers. this is similar to an army having all its platoon sergeants either being killed off or deserting the army; its not just bad for morale, it is indicative that there is something deeply wrong with the army if the rank and file are also choosing to leave. your issues at hq should not have such far reaching effects! obviously, this ties in with the marketing manager and the way things are handled. the new inventory management system is also linked to the financial management system and based on it, it appears to be causing more problems than it is solving. the system provider... who is incidentally the company's consultant too keeps pinning on human error.... which in turn has caused another senior finance executive to leave. this is not forgetting that on the purchasing side, they're either undermanned, mismanaged, misguided or all three. if the system is to be trusted then they're undermanned and mismanaged. however, if the system is indeed at fault, then they've been misguided. it gets fucking stupidly murky at this stage.

a lot of the issues here do not affect me directly, other than having to liase with purchasing to figure out which items i can put on sale... haven't tried liasing with them for that yet but i'm terribly worried about how it'll end.



i think if you want to look at the whole matter from a different perspective, you can look at me. so far, i've been raised reasonably strictly, but all this has done is prove that i have to score well in everything. this is also with regards to me not doing so well in college. i've made mistakes and have considered just ending the whole piece of shit i call my life over and over. i have since learned it would cause more problems for my family and have decided against it but this is fucking close to being torture.

i think there's a certain small masochistic pleasure i get when i see my former uni mates go about achieving their dreams and here i am in a fucking dump. actually, i like to make myself feel even lower in rank than garbage because i also recall i have little to no skill in anything i have ever done. i think i find it reassuring that even if i put in all my effort, gave my everything, sacrificed health, sanity and soul i still would not have gotten a distinction in anything. i would be that random, small oddball in the corner of the room... sort of like that shit stain that won't disapper but doesn't stink enough that you'd notice its there.

i feel rather resigned to my fate that i'm not destined for anything. i've tried fighting and i've just ended up in a dump. offices are where dreams go to die. i'm sincerely hoping all that its done is put my dreams in a coma. i don't quite feel it anymore. i'm 26, i can't pull all nighters as frequently or as regularly as i could. i certainly can't be hired by an animation or games studio anymore either. i have not had any fucking time to put together reel. i have no time to even practice animation. fucking hell, even my doodling has been affected. and for what? to go and do a series of fucking events nobody except the boss cares about? he's not even there! what does he fucking care if anyone turns up? i'm willing to bet we lose more money doing shitty events than we gain from them. maybe if the big boss can admit that he needs to be back in malaysia to sort things out, he might be able to fix things, but i doubt it. in his own words: "why the fuck do i hire you people? i should just replace you all with clerks!"

fucking do it you piece of shit! come on, do it. if you are as great as you claim to be, give me my 6 months of pay, i'll gladly fuck off so you can hire a 2 bit clerk to go and settle everything for you. you don't appreciate the effort we put in. all we get is a lousy thanks that feels more rote than students singing negaraku.

i need to get out of here. i have never been driven to blog before but i have now. my parents will hate me for this but fuck it. i am not made to live inside an office.

Waking up in Singapore

For a long time, I called Singapore home; that's about 5 years and give or take a few months. It wasn’t a difficult move from Malaysia. The plan was simple, I would leave Malaysia, hopefully for good, to go to study in Singapore and secure a permanent job there for a time. Singapore would be my stepping stone. It sort of was and wasn’t. But the thing is here, I could appreciate things others might have taken for granted a lot better.

To give context to what I mean, I have to give more of my background information. I was raised in a relatively strict family. My mum would be the whip or cane while my father was more lenient but not by that much in comparison. My mum frequently blew her top and my dad less so, though it was never any less scary. Almost everything in my life up to this point was directed and advised by my mum. Course, if I couldn’t take or understand certain things to my satisfaction, I would not do them or do them well. An example that my mum regularly brings up is my piano classes. I did not understand at the time why music was so important and never gave any time to practice and even if I did it was always begrudgingly and so as to not get scolded further. I never moved past beginner level, which was fine because piano classes were expensive and I didn’t appreciate the instrument when I was younger. My mum assumed because that as a child I would automatically go and learn a new subject and take to it. Music and learning piano was good for the brain, that was her understanding. Course, to me at the time, I didn’t want anything to do with it because it was time being taken away that I could waste on other things I preferred. It was only in college that I realized music would’ve been important to me more literally if I could actually use it in a project rather literally, rather than follow some expert’s theory that it would grow the brain in a more balanced manner. I still do not regret that decision not to pursue music at the time because I didn’t understand the importance.

Anyway, my household has always been very strict. As such, I grew up rather polite and friendly because if I was rude in any way, I would be scolded and punished for even the slightest thing. Sounds harsh but I appreciate the efforts my parents put in so that I would not grow into a little shit like most other children these days. For me, responsibility was more about doing something so I wouldn’t get scolded. I grew not to know how to appreciate positive feedback  because I very rarely ever received nice comments. As my ex so succintly put it, I was an emotional dwarf. I never knew how to react in a public situation because my mum would always take the lead and I would just follow. There were so many things in life I grew up expecting there to be certain rules and ways to do things simply because my mum would scold me if I didn’t do it “properly”. Of course, because of this I would get stuck in certain modes as I wouldn’t get scolded this way. Ridiculously enough, my mum would still scold me for being inflexible. Rather fortunately, I was very open to new ideas, which is why I frequently rebelled against everything and anything being forced onto me. This is the part of me that my mum hates but I feel she never understood or bothered to learn why.

In a way, my biggest act of rebellion was to badger my parents to send me to Singapore. Well, not so much badger, suggest. The act of badgering was to ask them to get me into an art college. I had to prove that doing animation was both profitable and good. I managed to sell my case to my mum though my dad had difficulty understanding it and always insisted I go to learn law which was a laugh because every time I stepped into his study room it was so choked full of law literature that I was always daunted by it. At any rate, my initial frolicking about in an art college was at The One Academy. That was an…. Interesting and necessary experience. From there I learned what to expect from an art school and what might make a good art school. After dropping out, I set about moping and looking for a new college. Eventually, I took up my mum’s suggestion and we took a trip down to Singapore to check out the offerings. I tried for Digipen but the requirements were a bit….high. I did however get a lead from there to try out at LASALLE. To this day, LASALLE has been my most important milestone, next to joining a certain baking retail company.

This started my actual learning phase. Learning about life, not just art and animation. The most important ingredient to this was the freedom from my parents. In Singapore, I could actually and finally be myself because I had breathing room. Don’t get me wrong, I will always be grateful for my parents near harsh upbringing and they did do it well. I didn’t turn out a piece of shit. However, it was in Singapore that I was able to finally learn how to socialize properly. I had to learn how to make decisions on my own and above all, actually live life the way I wanted to. My life will never be the life that my parents want it to be, which is fine because I’m happy even if my line would never be stable.

Singapore gave me my first girlfriend, subsequently ex. Being here also taught me how to appreciate my family more. My living was in stark constrast to some of the more, debilitatingly spoilt students and some of the most hard working students who were ferociously and proudly independent. I knew I had to strive to become even more independent. That materialized for only a short while. After graduating from LASALLE, there was the problem of work. One good thing about Singapore was how much of a slap in the face it gives you when it comes to grant repayment: you can have a degree but still wind up working as a road sweeper, just to pay off your grant and the Singaporean Ministry of Education won’t give a fuck about it.

This aspect of living in Singapore always rankled. The ideal situation would be that you apply what you learned in Singapore and actually contribute to your industry in Singapore, not work as a shop assistant at the arse end of the industry; selling accessories and merchandise that related to animation. Life is like that though. I eventually stopped work and had to leave Singapore as my passes expired and no one would hire a Malaysian when they had quotas of Singaporeans to fulfill. I have seen so many companies get their desired talents turned away because they needed more Singaporean talents…. In certain cases, Singaporean talents that realize that working actually involves work and run away after a single day, bringing everyone back to square one.

And so, here I am, on my way back to visit my brother in Singapore. He’ll have a much better chance than me because he’s in the business field and Singapore could always use more of those. I think the most important thing about Singapore was that it was safe enough that I could have enough freedom to learn more about myself and to figure out how to live life. A lot of my life growing up was very metered, very measured. I could never go and take an extensive risk without getting a chiding from my parents. I suppose my failure to get a first degree from LASALLE has continued to contribute to this issue. Growing up, I think I have never been allowed room to fail. Failure is important. It is living through and past failure that life shows you how not to do certain things. It is important because it is part of experimentation, to see what works. My parents never tolerate failure I feel. This is most likely the reason why I myself and afraid of failure. But now, pushing close to 26, I realize, I do need to fail or attempt to fail in the hopes that I do not. Because sitting here in a stupid office chair waiting for the right moment feels fucking dumb. I find it ironic that they themselves keep reminding me to try different things but all I see is them insisting their methods are correct. I know that they are, but they will never bring me the results I need: actual work in a creative field. They are thinking of stability. Stabilty means money, less stress and absolute boredom. A life of febrile servitude to a corporate being that cares not a whim for the individual employee. Now, that is not life, that is stagnation. That is the way to developing a mid-life crisis and I will not have any part of it.

Writing this now, I do believe it is time to just up and quit. Start afresh. Have actual goals that I know I can and must accomplish. My goals will be more of a loose series of guidelines and targets. But it matters not, long as I do not die in an office chair, I’m happy. So, thank you Singapore for the unexpected freedoms you’ve allowed me from my parents. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my parents for doing the things they’ve done and in fact, love them for it, but I do value freedom just a bit more than the stiff rules they have set up for me in the past.

i still want to go home

at some point in time. i think it will be best to assume that i will need to commit suicide.

i want to stop living, go straight to hell and live there.

i'm somehow fucking rubbish at everything except english. why?

i would love to travel back in time and kill myself as when i was forming as an embryo. cause myself to become a fucking miscarriage.

i think we need to stop feeding our children garbage and telling them they can be whatever the fuck they want to be. because money is always fucking more important than having lived satisfied.

why can't suicide be a legitimate reset button?

i've made so many mistakes. and i will continue making mistakes as i live. i don't want to fucking making mistakes anymore. end the fucking story already.

live and work till 60. retire with a fat bank account. are you not happy? i'm not.

i need to kill myself so many times that i will not be reborn for the next 3000 cycles.

show me a picture of someone truly living the good life. and i'll tell you, that fucking bastard's a one in a million. then ask the fucker, why isn't that you then?

i'm done being pessimistic. don't tell me to be optimistic. you should instead encourage me to be a very good casual conman.

if people like me committed suicide more often, i can guarantee that we'll have stopped world hunger, ended the debt crises and fixed the overpopulation problem.

never compare me or others in my position to someone in a destitute country. we're not brought up the same. and were our positions swapped i can't guarantee that person would not give a fuck about me either. we do not live the same lives. i certainly don't take things for granted. but i certainly will have different priorities than the destitute person. let's put it this way. let me give an example: your child and another person's child are both at opposite ends of the same room, you are in the middle of your room; at the ends of the room are horrific traps designed to kill both kids in a heartbeat. which child would you save first? in most cases, it would be your own. my point? you have your own priorities. you will almost always place you and yours ahead of others. your opportunities have afforded you to be worried about other things. you would have enough issues on your plate that you wouldn't even think of worrying about another person, at least not till they appear in the news. and even so, you'd worry about them for only a short while. focus on the things that matter most to yourself. the only reason you should care about others is when you are secure in your own position. get your own house in order before fixing someone else's.

i fucking hate life. you've equipped me with certain skills that i can use or sell as a service. but you always remove the things i want to improve upon. and even then good luck, because someone else would have rolled the dice and scored perfectly. somehow we're always expected to top that. i want to kill myself.

i have failed at life. i have failed to give it anything meaningful. i have failed myself. i cannot do anything i wanted to do and the things i am good at are rubbish. i fucked up my education. i fucked myself. now, i can't even commit suicide because of my parents and family. if i continue i know for sure i'll have a mid life crisis or just off myself. if only it were that easy though. i'm never going to be successful. i'll never taste even a drop of it. i'm a drone in an office in the middle of a desert. i will never equate success in that office as a personal success. i'm depressed that nothing i do will ever come to fruition and whatever so-called good opportunities i have take me further away from what i want. i'm far enough now that i've lost sight of what i've always wanted and can't go back. i can't pull all nighters anymore. i'm out of shape. i past the stage of being fucking suicidal. i'm tired. i want to end this. i just want to disappear and never exist. i hate the charlatans that preach to us that we can be whatever we set our minds to. we can't and we won't ever make it. i always take good things with a pinch of salt. there's always a fucking catch somewhere. i hate the fact i'm reduced to working in an office. that's not where i want to be. and if you want to work in a fucking office, you can fucking have it. leave me out of it. i want to go home.

i'm in my own house, in my own room and i still tell myself that i want to go home.