Cursor.

cur⋅sor 

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 /ˈkɜrsər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kur-ser] Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

1.	Computers. a movable, sometimes blinking, symbol that indicates the position on a CRT or other type of display where the next character entered from the keyboard will appear, or where user action is needed, as in the correction of an erroneous character already displayed.

2.	a sliding object, as the lined glass on a slide rule, that can be set at any point on a scale.

 

Damn. And here I was, thinking that with all the profanities ready to come out of my mouth like Computer programmers out of India, that I would make a very good Cursor. Simpler times dictated that the term was never needed, since there were no Computers, no measuring instruments, and hence, no cursors.

 

But enough about that.

 

Life has been pretty good as of late, what with having no commitments whatsoever, and I’m quite determined to cherish it as this will probably the last time in the rest of my life where I have absolutely zero responsibility. The only worry at the moment is the rapidly decreasing numbers that call themselves my bank account.

 

I need money, but I don’t want to work. I’m such a Singaporean.

Eh.

A few days ago, out of frustration, I bought a pack of cigarettes. Marlboro Ice Mints. After 2 sticks, I threw the pack away, disgusted with both myself and the cigarettes. I proceeded to go home and puke half my supper into the toilet bowl.

 

Now, do I have a) an temptation problem because I bought the cigarettes, b) a money problem for throwing the bulk of it away, c) a health problem, for puking too easily, or d)an eating problem for even having supper?

 

I think I’m beginning to get overly critical these days. Yesterday, someone told me,”I’d hate to have a life like yours.” in response to a comment about a 21st birthday party feeling like a kid’s party. Obviously it seems like something happened to me during the previous 20 years of my life, that causes me to become emotionally distant, cold as a cucumber, or however you want to put it, depending on what your profession is.

 

Comes with being bored, huh.

Waft.

The air smells a bit sweeter today. On days like this, I get the feeling that nothing can go wrong. That nothing I do could possible get me into trouble, and I could just laugh it off. That I don’t need to answer to anyone but myself, and I don’t really care about it anyway. “Too much of a good thing” is nothing more than an oxymoron.

 

So this is what freedom feels like. It’ll take me a while to get used to it, but damn, I’ll only enjoy it more.

 

—

 

Movie review : Punisher : War Zone : Not very good : Any more and I’ll have colon cancer : period

 

For those who haven’t read the Punisher comics, they’re a lot better than this movie. Not that this movie is terrible : It just lets down a renowned franchise. I would put it in the same league as 300, Rambo and Shoot’em up ; i.e an awful lot of brainless violence. For a movie, it’s surprisingly violent. Though I’m sure people who don’t read the comics will have a hard time believing that you could use a gun to shoot a man’s face off. Also, there were too many parts that were unintentionally funny. Beyond that, the acting is sub-par, but the effects make up for it. Okay, it’s hard to write a good movie review because you have to take care not to spoil the movie.

 

—

 

DA-DADADA-DADA! DADADADA-DADA!*

 

*Most people have something they do to keep themselves awake at night. Some people take chocolate. Others take coffee, or sweets. Some even resort to listening to Michael Jackson, Mika or the Spice Girls. I sing the Ghostbusters theme to myself. Not the words, just the tune.

 

—

 

I think it’s just the pessimist in me thinking, but this is probably the last time in my life where I get an extended period of doing absolutely nothing. The loafer in me mourns and screams for reprieve. Very soon, I’ll have to go to school and cope with stupid things like deadlines, politics and lecturers with accents thicker than a fog in the bermuda triangle, then go out and work and cope with stupid things like deadlines, politics and bosses with accents thicker than a fog in the bermuda triangle. 

 

Though I must admit that Singapore’s political scene is a National Geographic documentary compared to what America is going through right now. When your president is a media darling, you know he’s something special. You can’t even find a political comic badmouthing him – Most of them has him torturing John McCain in some manner. Though I find dancing to Beyonce’s singing a little weird; Every time someone mentions Beyonce one of two phrases pop into my mind – one regarding her fantasizing about switching her gender and the other one calling for all the single ladies, the latter often accompanied by a very garish music video. In Singapore, all we have is old men being paid too much to sit there and blow hot air.

 

—

 

DA-DADADA-DADA! DADADADA-DADA!*

 

—

 

Obviously, I need to start finding some new hobbies. Throwing words at white screen of doom can’t be a healthy pastime.

Ailing.

In another context, 20 years down the road, Ailing would be my 20-year-old wife from China, whom I paid a four-figure sum to come to Singapore to marry me, with several failed attempts at getting a proud, obnoxious Singaporean female to engage in wedlock with yours truly.

 

Right now, however, I refer to the English meaning of ailing, which is to say I’m sick. My cough’s doing great. I’m not so hot, but the cough is asserting itself better that Sean Connery at a bachelorette’s party. Not that it doesn’t have its perks – people give you your own radius of free space in trains when you start coughing like a madman, and if you’re an even better actor than I am at being sick, or a really hot girl, people start offering to do things for you.

 

(Also note that this entry is somewhat outdated. I no longer have the apetite to churn out essays, obviously. This does not bode well for my studying life.)

 

Illness doesn’t seem to be confined to just the self, however ; Frequently reading the news(things you do when you’re bored) will tell you that all people have to report are tales of violence and depression, and somewhere in there, you know that the world is ailing, and the breaking point isn’t far from now. Soon enough, the world will run out of space for landfills faster that scientists can invent alternate ways of disposing waste, the world won’t have enough trees to sustain oxygen output for the human race and there’ll be so much barren land from scorched-earth policies and bombing that there won’t be enough crops for the people of the world not to have constipation become a norm.

 

And this will all happen because we’re too busy worrying about each other. We’re too busy worrying that people will take our money excessively – be it by legal or illegal means. Everyone is worried that Israel will go berserk and declare war on the rest of the world, or that their jobs are being outsourced to countries with too many people willing to work for too little pay. In short, everyone only sees the problems ahead of them, and not the problems ahead of everyone.

 

If we keep this up, we won’t even have a world to argue on – Those that haven’t died of dehydration will have frozen t death, or are living on hawaii.

Lies.

I finally found it. A feasible argument for religion, presenting a good reason to lie to people about a higher entity that would back them, no matter how badly they screwed up.

 

Back then, when life was all about getting rice/potatoes/hummel/other staple food into your stomach so you could carry on for another day, it wasn’t that bad.

 

Today, it’s already a granted that food will be in front of you. Now, people have to maintain social circles, keep a blog, update facebook frequently, earn money, earn more money, earn even more money, invest in stocks, watch the fuel consumption of their cars, take care of children, jump through a blazing wheel, set a guinness world record, get seven figures on their bankbooks and upkeep a facade of at least decency – all without going crazy.

 

And sometimes, we are just not strong enough, and we need something to keep us going. That’s what religion is – It’s like mental morphine.

Refresh.

To take a look back at 2008, it wasn’t a very fun year. It was my most productive in terms of money earned, but if I based everything on money values I wouldn’t have enough material to have a blog, though to be fair, I’m getting closer to it.

 

Well, suffice to say I’m really glad 2008 is over, though the prospect of turning 21 hardly thrills me, and if it does, it does so in the way the woman in the “thriller” was, er, thrilled. Obviously, my writing ability is on a decline. I’m actually quite surprised I managed to survive the entire year without any (major) mishap. Safety is something we should all be thankful for, as I’ve come to realise. Dear god, I’m turning old.

 

On the resolution front, I don’t think I’ve accomplished any of my resolutions, mostly because I don’t even remember what I resolved to do other than “not die”. I think there was “rap”, “chinese” and “rap in chinese” somewhere in there too, which probably means that while I told myself I was getting closer to my goals, I was doing a Michael Jackson moonwalk and regressing like a fool without knowing it.

 

I am, however,very good at accomplishing other people’s resolutions. Save money? Done, and I don’t know what to do with it. Become more independant? Yeah. Have a better idea of what I want to be doing? Kind of. Have an adventure? Done. It is as Master Yugui of kungfu panda fame said :” One often finds his destiny on the path to avoiding it.”

 

And so, a new year is upon us. And I believe it’ll be much better than this one. I really do. Because it doesn’t take much for any year to be better than 2008.

Clarity.

Just to clarify what happened in the last post, I was referring to A) My card-playing exploits, where I tanked a tournament I should really have done better at, and b)My failings at the stock market, where I followed all the numbers and signposts and proceeded to dent my bank account.

 

—

 

I also feel that there is an overbearing need for clarity in the world today. Everyone needs to know where everyone else is located, what’s happening everywhere else, what everyone else is thinking, doing, masticating. Maybe it’s just because I’m in the army, but it’s awfully annoying to know that you’re under the scrutiny of way too many people you know are waiting for you to screw up and do something stupid. It’s kind of like the Truman show, except I’m not a handsome American actor.

 

Is there something really very bad about NOT knowing something that everyone else might know? I mean, unless it’s something elementary like “RED MAN = DON’T CROSS”, common sense should probably get you out of most awkward situations. And if you don’t have any common sense then you’re an idiot anyway. I’d rather be an uninformed genius than an updated idiot, what say you?

 

And obviously, ignorance really is bliss sometimes. And sometimes, you know things about people that you didn’t really want to find out. You find out who has horrible anal fantasies, who made a girl pregnant, who is a world-class bridge player, who works at McDonald’s part time, who has  a metal jaw due to a motorbiking accident, who intends to grow cabbages for a living, who has a monster hiding under his bed, who wears the same pair of underwear for an entire week, and so on. Who needs postsecret.blogspot.com when you have a thousand flapping lips surrounding you everyday?

Under.

Have you ever felt that sometimes, you just look at your present situation and wonder to yourself, “Why am I not doing better than this?” Not in the way that makes people laugh Britney Spears goes “I’m a smart person! What was I doing back then?”, but actual, concrete stuff.

 

Today, I just got such a feeling. The worst part is, when I go back and examine it, most of it was not my fault. I made a decision knowing that a certain set of not-too-likely conditions had to be fulfilled for me to get screwed over…..and it did. It’s kind of like….Well, I can’t really think of anything it’s like. The closest thing I can think of is question spotting during exams, and having the two topics you didn’t study both come out as 25-mark essay questions, thinking to yourself what a brilliant champion you are while you wonder to yourself how in the world you failed that paper.

 

It’s obviously very frustrating when you make a decision based on the numbers in your face, knowing that barring some strange shenanigans on the part of Dr. Fate you should have a happy ending.

 

Fuck this life nonsense.

Oblivious.

So I went to a wedding dinner today. And I thought the hate had died down, but now I have new reasons to feel enraged at those silly christians. (Note : By saying this I am acknowledging that there is a sector of non-silly christians.) For some reason, they saw it fit to make the entire wedding about the groom(who was christian, while the bride was not.) and almost completely disregard the bride, as though she was nothing but a pretty ornament sent by God for him to play with. It went to the point where almost the entire organising committee of the wedding comprised of the groom’s family and friends, save for the direct family of the bride, who were later referred to as “The parents and sister” in the groom’s thank-you speech.

 

Obviously, these christians feel the need to proclaim to the entire world that they love god blah blah blah and how united they are, which obviously contributed to the situation. Obviously, they missed the glaring fact that by being christian, you should be loving the lord anyway. No need to shout it out loud, Jesus might wake up from his grave. Besides, if you’re one of those fake christians I’m sure God can see through your stupid-ass charade anyway. Since you know, he’s god. Not your boss who decides how hardworking you are based on the small sliver of time he spends walking past your cubicle.

 

Besides, I’m sure most churches practice supermarket christianity, that is, taking the parts you like and leaving everything else on the shelf. So, even if what the bible says is true(debatable, since the bible is in fact written by humans), you’re not exactly following it well, banking on asking for forgiveness for all your sins. I was told recently that this apologizing for sins is an acknowledgment that humans are weak and that there is a need for God in their lives. So, that would mean that to sin is human nature. So why would you apologize for doing what is in your nature? Obviously something is wrong here. I’m sure the white tiger had no remorse in mauing the zookeeper - It was merely responding to provocation, and we only see it as an offence because one of our own species got killed ; Never mind that the human was the one in the wrong!

 

People can be such bigots sometimes. I get increasingly frustrated.

Money.

Saying no can actually be harder than saying yes.

 

A lot of people have been coming to me for money lately. Two people approached me for four-figure sums. The first I wanted to help, but couldn’t. The second, I didn’t want to because I knew I wouldn’t get the money back. In a third, I got accosted to buy some chinese medicinal products / join the team that is selling them. Which, you know, kind of pisses me off. Is money really that much a driving factor in this world that people will only talk to you if they have an agenda that involves taking money from your wallet?

 

Maybe its my general attitude towards money in general, but I don’t believe in the power of money. Having a bunch of it in case of a rainy day is nice, but beyond that pegging your life to the number of dollars in your bank account doesn’t really begin to do it for me. The way I see it, money is only a problem when you don’t have it. You might see this as a comment laced more with bigotry that bacon is with fat, but for the most part it’s true. If a problem can be solved simply by throwing enough money at it, is it still a  problem?

 

And the world continues to bastardize me.