BLOGGER



Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Tuesday, May 29, 2007
THE REGRETTABLE MISADVENTURES OF REGRETFUL BUNNY: BUFF BUNNYFRIEND

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Genusfrog [ 2:39 pm ] | 4 comments

Monday, May 28, 2007
LEASEHOLD

Leasehold property make me feel sad. they remind me that at some point, everything that you try to hold on to so tightly gets taken away from you. sometimes by some strange and mysterious force. sure, you set up home, decorate it, put in some plants, maybe even live a life there. the cracks in the paint, the drippy tap and the windows that don't open properly after a few years, all trick you into believing that you've settled down. but it doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. it's your family but it's not really your wall.

i don't like to lose things. i just don't know how to hold on to the things i have. if i had it my way, i would probably never change anything in my life but i know now that when the weird hand of removing starts waving, there's nothing more you can do if you're not the one it's clutching. after a while, it just becomes a routine of moving what ought to be meaningful things along some factorial conveyor belt, to be passed on to the next loser. who i might add is only one because he too has also just lost.

i wish i had more freehold friendships. the kind that nobody can take away.

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Genusfrog [ 11:32 am ] | 1 comments

Saturday, May 26, 2007
THE REGRETTABLE MISADVENTURES OF REGRETFUL BUNNY: PRETTY BUNNY


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Genusfrog [ 4:05 pm ] | 1 comments

Friday, May 25, 2007
THIS IS ERNEST

Fergus: Dude, are you the kind who will have issues turning 30?
Ernest: Yes dude. major issues
Fergus: But that's so ironic. Cos you're so young at heart. But then the numbers still matter.

This is ernest. he's my big brother. he's always been that bit smarter than me, and i've been saved many times for it. when i was growing up, i always wanted to be his twin. and when we were in india, people thought we were twins by calling us "two in one". i liked that. because after that i grew really fat and we were never mistaken for twins again.

yesterday, i took leave and we went cinema hopping. we saw about half an hour of four different movies while evading the dangerous gsc staff and cleaning ladies. it was probably the most fun i've ever had at the movies.

ernest is a hard guy to pin down because he's very mainstream in some ways but he's also anything but ordinary. i don't know of anyone else who actively votes for multiple akademi fantasia contestants and also knows so much about copernicus and medieval cathedral architecture. i always think that only a very self-assured person can straddle both extreme ends of culture and do it so comfortably. to me, ernest is that kind of person.

he's also one of the most headstrong people i know. when he was 14, he stood his ground against an unreasonable teacher and she couldn't move him. last month, his bosses didn't pay a lot of the staff and he told them that until they paid, he won't show up at the office. he didn't show up until he got paid. i'm so proud of him for these things. i always wish i was brave like that.

but to say that is weird because ernest doesn't like big and heavy serious things. he's young at heart. he has this theory that he is regressing in physical age, and i've been the older brother for a few years now. people still mistake him for being younger sometimes. i think secretly, he likes it.

ernest doesn't like taking photos. so it's hard to find photos of him to put up. yesterday at dinner, he banned posed photography cos he thinks they're fake and spoil the mood. so i think it's apt that i dug out a picture of him that's candid.

yesterday was his birthday. and i had more fun with him than i normally do on my own birthdays.

happy birthday dude.

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Genusfrog [ 11:00 am ] | 1 comments

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
TEST DRIVE

Adrian: eh when are you gonna remove the plastic covers off your seatbelt buckles?
Shu yee: dunno lah. i like them.
Adrian: makes you feel like you're still test-driving your car.
Fergus: haahaha. ya. maybe you can test drive your car forever.

You can't test-drive anything forever. after a while, either the bubblewrap needs to come off, and you take it home with you, or you put it back on a shelf.

i wish i could live in a bubblewrapped life, where all the hard-knocks are cushioned and nobody gets hurt. nobody needs to get hurt because nobody's really being owned and used. everyone's just on display, a shop window item that points towards other more real and tangible copies. people would pick us up, hold us against themselves, try us, look at us in the mirror and then bring a store-room copy home to do all the dirty work: the wearing, the using, the washing, the dropping and breaking.

it's a bit dehumanising but that's how i want to be today. i wanna be test-driven. and after mr toad's wild ride grinds to its proverbial halt, i would be restored to my original position without chip or bruise. like that button which restores the factory settings. i wish today that they could restore my factory settings. put me back into bubblewrap and seal the box with new tape.

you can't test-drive forever. after a while, you have to head back to the showroom and go home.

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Genusfrog [ 10:01 am ] | 1 comments

Friday, May 18, 2007
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

I was asking chris yesterday if he gauges his favourite music based on his favourite artistes or albums. he said albums. that makes him objective. me - i've always been a fanboy. i love my artistes in spite of all their misadventures, and i'm almost inclined to cast aside all intelligence when someone whom i love does something that i want to love.

like my blueberry nights. lennie emailed me a story on this today and i've spent my entire morning googling production stills of kar wai's new movie - the very american film about a girl who travels across the country to understand love. or something like that.

i'm swooning. i just told eevon that i'm so in love already, i think i'm going to cry. i know... i know... i'm very over like that. adrian once said "eh why your family all so over wan ah?" he said that because audrey said she wanted to cry when he told her tori amos released her new album. it can't be the stock - i've never seen my parents fall in love with beauty like this before.

i'm glad there are people like chris in this world - people who can keep the artists honest and call a duck a duck. it's people like him who free up the rest of folks like me to be giddy lovers, diving headlong into passionate sensorial affairs. "i don't care what they say", i declare like a headstrong flame.

i'm in love.

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Genusfrog [ 10:23 am ] | 0 comments

Thursday, May 17, 2007
HITCHCOCK'S TICKING BOMB

To illustrate the simplicity of the art of suspense, the great Hitchcock set the scene of two people sitting at a table talking. they talk and talk and talk and then without forewarning, the table explodes and both men are blown to bits. this, Hitchcock taught us, was the first error in creating suspense - the audience only knows as much as the protagonists.

but assuming the two men were talking at a table. and the audience has a glimpse of a bomb beneath the table. they talk. the bomb ticks. they talk. the bomb ticks. and the more they talk, the more the bomb ticks down till that very last transition, the audience is left gasping. the bomb goes off. the two men are blown to bits. and everyone is taken for the ride.

Hitchcock was right. a bit of omniscience can go a long way in making one's climactic moment a lot more savoury. and it's fair to say that pretty much every one will appreciate the fact that the master of suspense knows better to show his audience cutaways of a ticking bomb.

of course, there are exceptions. the jerk at the table, for instance... what does he care if you see the bomb or not? granted your cinematic viewing is enhanced, the guy still gets incinerated without the slightest inkling of his impending comeuppance. that sucks man.

some days, i feel like that jerk.

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Genusfrog [ 10:32 am ] | 3 comments

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
I HAVE NOTHING TO BLOG TODAY 01

I'm starting a series called I have nothing to blog today. it's about how I have nothing to blog today.

in the place of a thoughtful fully-formed 300-word spiel on morose living, I have nothing to blog today posts will consist of nonsensical impulsively-inspired drivel.

take for instance, today's entry. which is a series of disconnected pictures placed side-by-side to create a strange association that in actuality serves no other purpose than to make me look weird and therefore arty and eccentric.


Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket


thank you for reading.

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Genusfrog [ 5:16 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, May 14, 2007
ACHOO!

Flu. phlegm. cough. spit. between sneezing like a cannonball and bleeding out of my right ear, i've not exactly been in the pink of health. you know, health is the very thing that a guy of my profile takes forgranted. with a doctor for a dad and barely out of my mid-20s, i'm running on that v-power fuel called youthful invincibility. ain't nothing short of an 18-wheel truck or the Almighty himself's gonna touch me. or so i think. not so true, apparently.

cos today, i feel like passing out in the office. and as i drift in and out of the here, nevermind the now, i wonder what crazy demon of youthful invincibility it was that posessed me this morning, inspiring the unrealistic optimism that i could survive 8.5 hours without so much as a pillow for dreamic comfort. i should have stayed home. i should have gotten another three or four hours of sleep. at the state i'm in, i'm a shoe-in for an mc. why then did i think i could hack it?

achoo!

my throat hurts when i sneeze. my face is tired and the skin under my nose is parched. i've been fighting a fever since last night and i've used up about half a tissue roll since i got in here this morning. lunch could have been bouncier and work could have cleared. now, i don't have the rest and i don't have the productivity either. all i have is a self-conscious blogpost, waxing meta about my own failure to manage ill-health.

a...... aaaa...............................................achoo!

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Genusfrog [ 4:24 pm ] | 2 comments

Monday, May 07, 2007
MY BLOOD

I bled from my ears today. i dabbed a whole piece of tissue with the blood and it looks so beautiful, i could cry. i mean, heck with movies and writing man, i always knew i was an artist. and so, without any ol ado, i present to you...

MY BLOOD by FERGUS ONG


detail


there are many bloggers out there who will pour their hearts out and show you how broken they are. big deal. you wanna be an emo blogger? bleed, man. bleed.

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Genusfrog [ 4:47 pm ] | 6 comments

Friday, May 04, 2007
GRAMMAR

Little does unnamed friend know that as he/she was asking me grammar questions, i was simultaneously scouring the net to provide the answers which, below, make me look real smart. see, i've learned that if you don't know something, half of the time, it's worth faking it until you know it.

unnamed friend: what are verbs? nouns, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions and propositions? hehehe... i know we went through this the last time but we only managed to get to nouns and verbs, i think. even so i forgot already. all i remember is something described actions and the other describes erm...names?

Fergus: verbs are action words: run, clap, drink, screw, hammer. adverbs add to verbs: drink slowly. hammer loudly. nouns, of course, are named objects: joseph, apples, constantinople, freedom. adjectives add to nouns: a lame joseph, a rotten apple, constantinople is a cultured city, my freedom is precious. prepositions are positional words: joseph hammers loudly on a lame apple. my precious freedom is above a hammer.

unnamed friend: and preposition?

Fergus: you mean and conjunction?

unnamed friend: oh yeah. that.

Fergus: a conjunction links two phrases...

unnamed friend: like "and" and "between"?? wow see i knew that! hehe...

Fergus: joseph hammers loudly on an apple while constantinople burns bright by the sea

unnamed friend: ok thanks. i think i should be alrite. you don't suppose at form three the kids were learning about dangling modifiers and comma splices etc right?

Fergus: you might not have to know those, no. that last sentence, pick out everything for me

unnamed friend: erm. joseph noun. hammers verb. loudly adverb. on preposition. an apple pronoun (does an have its own category?) while conjunction. constantinapole noun. burns verb. bright adverb. by preposition. the sea noun!

Fergus: apple is a noun. there's no pronoun there...

unnamed friend: damnit. okay. what about "an" "the"

Fergus: i'm not sure. i dunno what to call "an"s and "the"s. i give you another exercise. "I believe that the world is cruel, and there is no way I can survive without Jesus Christ and some good lager."

unnamed friend: this can potentially be quite fun.

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Genusfrog [ 11:15 am ] | 1 comments

Thursday, May 03, 2007
QUE SERA SERA

As you grow up, you learn to make calls. you learn to say i want this, i want that, and this is how it should be. and so you keep growing and growing, and you keep making more calls and more calls. and then somewhere at the start of the middle of your life, you forget how to make calls. all the i want thises and i want thats become i don’t know what i wants. all the this is how it should bes become is this how it should bes. when you grow up, you forget how to make simple calls.

i didn’t say i wanted to have sadness follow me. maybe i wasn’t listening closely. maybe they said something meaningful between the ad breaks when i was chasing commercials somewhere else. i missed the part where they teach you how to make the hard calls.

the jesus and mary chain said in psychocandy that “there’s something dead inside my hole”. i feel like that every day, that in this empty shell, i’ve put to sword the last few shreds of my youthful optimism. maybe it’s the beginning of the end for my brash twentysomething gunghoism. when they told me at new life that the old has gone and the new has come, maybe they didn’t know that the old that went was a cock-eyed optimist with a heart on each sleeve, slain in the name of love and a future. maybe they didn’t know that the new that came was a tired, wounded shadow of his former self, more content conversing with fatalism than jesus christ himself.

he’s come full circle. he’ll go circle again. wait and see.

wait and see the future. the what’s in store for me. pop philosophy has never been shy dealing with the wait and see. i was in a karaoke room two days ago, lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling as the cock-eyed optimist got crucified once more, ripped from the middle and left to die staring into a useless pale sky of dim karaoke lights. and while i stared at this ugly ceiling, pop philosophy churned out one of its finest theses yet.

que sera sera. whatever will be will be.

lodged somewhere between the right-most end of predestinative calvinism and the left-most end of meaningless nihilism was this little pop gem: que sera sera.

maybe that’s one way of saying we won’t have rainbows day after day. maybe it’s a rose-tinted way of preaching the gospel according to psychocandy. that when they say whatever will be will be, they’re actually saying that something will die inside my hole.

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Genusfrog [ 10:00 pm ] | 0 comments