29/11/2005
No. 326 in a Series of "Malaysia – Truly Asia" Experiences

Alright, picture this. A parking cashier stall with three counters. Three seemingly normal (albeit ugly) cashiers behind each counter. So I go up to the middle counter to pay my parking fee and hand over my ticket and cash to the cashier. Cashier says nothing, keeps eyes down on his precious cash register. So I wait for about half a minute, hoping he'd wake from his state of catatonia and take my money. But nothing happens. Then I look up and see a 'Closed' sign on the plexiglass window. Fine. My bad. Evidently it's too hard to say a simple, "Sorry, can you use the next counter?" So I move to the counter beside it.

So, second counter. Once again I hand over my ticket and cash to the cashier, arms outstretched. Nothing. Cashier is too engrossed with operating his primitive cash register. Can't blame him, I mean, this sort of dedication to work is hard to come by in this day and age. So I give him his time. About thirty seconds go by. Still nothing.

It's about a minute now, and I begin to realise catatonia is possibly contagious. Finally, I see some action. Cashier No. 2 is showing signs of life! He's tapping at the counter top. I wonder for a moment if it's a silent cry for help. A hidden message possibly. Perhaps he's telling me who killed Kennedy. A second goes by, and I finally decipher his coded language. 'Tap tap tap' on the counter means 'leave the f**king money on the table, you d**k.'

At this point I've had enough, so I said in Malay, "Look, couldn't you just have said something?" Lo and behold, catatonic cashier starts impersonating a dumb person. Starts pointing at his mouth, mimicking speech impairment and mumbling 'ooh's and 'aah's. Can you frickin' believe this guy? This goes on for about a minute. I'll tell you this much, it's been a long time since my blood boiled like this. But I did my best to stay calm. Patience. Apparently it's a virtue or something.

So fine, catatonic cashier with speech impairment finally hands over my ticket. I was tempted to reach through the small circular opening in the plexiglass window and choke his skinny neck but still I remained calm. Calm enough to take my ticket and promptly flip the bird at him. And, wow, catatonic cashier's condition improves significantly at the sight of my friendly gesture. Now he's shouting, "Ah yah, f**k you! F**k you!" This gets louder as I start leaving the counter. At this point, families, wives and children start staring at the direction of the cashier and wonder what the hell's going on. Indeed, it was probably hell for poor catatonic cashier who's only improvement in his unfortunate condition involves flailing arms and the acquisition of two new words in his vocabulary – 'f**k' and 'you'. So I get on the escalator and the guy is still screaming at the top of his lungs. It wasn't until I reached the next floor that I was able to drown him out. Poor guy. He probably thinks shouting lets him talk through walls.

And that, was that.

I'm still annoyed thinking about this but in hindsight, it was kinda amusing. I mean, small brain, flailing arms and irritating noises behind a plexiglass window. Doesn't it remind of you an untamed animal in a zoo? Probably one that's poised for extinction too.

24/11/2005
I don't really see the need for me to explain myself like this, but hey, if there's the possibility of it doing just that little bit of good, I suppose it's worth a little bit of time.

A friend recently made a comment about my blog and how it could possibly backfire against me, particularly when I make it a known fact that I do have a blog and encourage people to read it. Add to that the fact that my posts of late have mostly been toilet humour and somewhat sexist/biased and I totally see his point.

Why then am I doing this? You see, for me it's somewhat therapeutic. I'm 26 this year and this is by far the most unsatisfactory period of my life. With work, with the world around me. I dunno. Maybe it's part of growing up. You know, having new priorities, being more informed and aware about the way things work around you, feeling let down by people and situations, being disillusioned.

So I blog. Write about it, you know. Make light of the situation. The best way to vent your frustration at the world is first to vent it at yourself. Hence all the self-depreciating humour and rejection stories. I am in no way trying to solicit sympathy from any of you, but I'll gladly accept whatever encouragements or criticisms you have for me.

I talk about girls and all that but I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. Would you expect any less from a painfully single guy who hasn't dated in (take a guess) years? I mean, who am I kidding – I like girls. A nice girl with a sweet smile makes my day, anyday. I don't need her to be sizzling hot (it'd be a bonus, yes). Just a great smile, a compassionate ear and the patience to really dig me out. And if your name's Jessica Alba please send me a mail NOW.

Yeah I tend to blow things out of proportion but if you don't see the comedy in it, then you just don't get it. Laugh with me, laugh at me, I don't care. Just laugh.

I suppose I could've just said, "This is my blog. I paid the webspace money for it. I can write anything I want!" I'd like to say that I don't care what people think of me. Truth is, I do. I'm much too naive and sensitive not to care, and that's just me.

So there. I'll leave you with a picture of sad doggie just to let you know how sensitive I am.

13/11/2005
I've been downloading a whole bunch of arcade ROMs lately. Basically these are old arcade machine games that have been converted so they can be played on regular PCs with a simple program called an emulator. These are games that I used to spend copious amounts of small change on after school. Now I can play them at home. On my PC. For free. And use cheats.

I'm a big fan of shoot-em-ups, cos they were real no-brainers as opposed to fighting games which needed special combo moves and crazy tactics which I simply did not have the brain capacity for (and still don't). Besides, I hated how strangers used to sit down beside me and just beat the crap out of me in Street Fighter when I'm just two levels away from reaching the final boss on my own. I don't know how it was for the rest of you, but back in my arcades there was an unspoken rule that decrees that if you suck at Street Fighter, you can either insert more coins and get pummelled again or you can leave the game and cry in the corner. As you can expect, lots of tears were shed back then.

So yes, shoot-em-ups were the best. Take Sonic Wings 2 for example. In the future, dolphins will protect the world from invading aliens!