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





Sunday, March 16, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAN

She's always been ahead of me.

in kindergarten, she taught me how to count 11 to 99 in malay. when i reached 99, i didn't know how to go on. and then she taught me satu ratus.

when we grew up, she learned many years before me that there was a lot of appeal in society's rebels. today, i really dig people who go against the grain of normalcy. but she was digging that - at least in boys - from a long time ago.

and then she ended up in europe before me too. she even got to rotterdam before me. she missed me. she was at least one year too early. or maybe i'm one year too late.

yesterday, she underlined her constant aheadness of me by turning 28 a good three months before me. she's always been about three months ahead of me, plus minus here and there. and so, to the truest muarian nostalgist i know, here's to a splendid year of homecoming.

happy birthday.

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Genusfrog [ 3:03 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, January 11, 2008
TO A FRIEND WHO JUST LEFT

I don't even really know him.

i just know that he was a very knowledgeable guy with a bookshelf full of titles that read like the who's who of a worldview seeker. the first time i met him was with a group at his house. everyone played on his playstation, but i didn't. he sat with me and we started talking about hinduism. i quickly found that he knew his mahabharata and his vedas. i later saw them on his bookshelf.

he told me that he'd been looking into the stuff that the rishis put into ancient sacrificial fires, and had come to the conclusion that they were burning up hallucinogens. i thought that was quite funny, but he was serious when he said that the vedas were all about sex, drugs and rock n roll.

he showed me his poetry. we talked about films and surrealism. he passed me a copy of luis bunuel's un chien andalou. it's somewhere - i have to dig it up.

we talked into the night, him about extraterrestrials and me about the harmony between the gospels (because he asked). when the night ended, he said that he hadn't met a christian who could talk about "these things" before. i felt happy. i felt happy that he had found himself a christian who was almost as interested in his convoluted journey of belief as he himself was. and when i reached home that night, i told myself that perhaps i was called to reach guys like him.

a few days later, he dropped me an sms telling me that he had two copies of hitler's mein kampf, and that i could have one if i wanted. i accepted it. so yes, i've got a gift from him and i'll forever treasure it.

the next time i met him, it was over lunch. he cooked a mean pork dish, among others. the playstation came out again. this time, i played. maybe if i didn't play, he'd have sat with me again. and we'd have talked again. maybe that conversation could have led to more exchange between us. maybe i could have given him a shred of christian hope. he didn't look like he was looking for any that day. and i thought some playstation would be fun.

that was the last time i met him. two nights ago, he hanged himself in his room.

i don't even know what to say about this. i just know that his passing is a notable loss to me, because somewhere in the back of my messy head, i always told myself that he was a friend that i was very interested to get to know better.

apparently, not interested enough. now, all i can do is pray for you.

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Genusfrog [ 1:42 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

Thursday, April 05, 2007
IF I WERE FERGUSON

I've always wanted to be a football journalist. and one of the kicks of being a footie journo is that you get to interview all the top men of the game. especially the managers. but i'm not a football journalist. far from it. but that's not gonna stop me. and if alex ferguson isn't about to sit down with me and a scottish translator over a few beers, i'll take the next best thing: an alex ferguson fan whom i can understand perfectly clear. in a strange twist of fate, GCB - a liverpool fan - talks to manchester united's diehard son, my friend, Roger Ti.

Fergus: Roger, what do you say to claims that united are a spent force by this time of the season?
Roger: I don't think so. just a bad run of injuries that unsettled them. but not fatigue.
Fergus: What if i said that the injuries are a culmination of a thin squad?
Roger: Looking at how the injuries occurred, it looked just like plain bad luck
Fergus: Do you think your squad has the depth to survive this last month and a half?
Roger: I have high expectations i guess. we should do more than survive. but yea, i have faith in them to pull through. looking at how they've played this season, they have the spirit of champions... hmmm... awesome attacking football at times
Fergus: You might have done enough to stave off chelsea in the premiership, but how do you rate your chances in the european cup, considering that you have another game with roma, followed by two more against either milan or bayern before a final?
Roger: Our chances in the euro cup are slim lar, i admit, but i do believe that the chance is there to be taken and it will be approached that way. I sense a real hunger in the team to win europe as well. giggs, scholes and rooney we just need neville back to drive that passion. if we had a roy keane at this point of time...
Fergus: Is that the missing ingredient? keane's leadership?
Roger: Nah. In keane's last season he was gettting too old and crickety. but we do need a younger leader like him to step up soon. but neville has done admirably leading by example rather than force of personality this season
Fergus: Do you see that kind of youthful prosect in leadership among your ranks? or will that have to be brought in?
Roger: Hmmm, i don't see it currently.
Fergus: How do you see yourselves setting up, strategically, against roma next week?
Roger: We'll play our strongest fit team lar... set up to attack. if we have saha healthy, two strikers. giggs, ronaldo, carrick, fletcher are the only fit midfielders. think giggs is more effect attacking middle than on the wing. he's lost his pace for the wing and his passes down the middle are very astute
Fergus: Where would you spend your transfer money?
Roger: To be honest, i kinda prefer spending less on a player that could fit into man u's system well... than 20 million on a carrick. I'd spend the transfer money on a really good central midfielder and a really good striker. if we could get fabregas, that'd be really interesting. haha. i'd make a bid if i were ferguson.

Yes, "if i were ferguson"... every man united fan's wish. well, maybe i can keep interviewing roger and we can do press conferences and stuff. he gets to be a world class manager and i get to be the journo who gets all the big stories. then we can sell all our interviews to rtm 1 and they can change all the names. after all, who da heck's gonna tell the difference?

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Genusfrog [ 3:15 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, September 19, 2006


This is Wu Tien. his Tien is spelled with an e, and he is one of few genuine grammarians i know. (for a subeditor, i know too few.) i met this guy while i was yet to fully appreciate his friendship, though that has been corrected in more recent years. you can count on wu tien. he is also quite a klutz with spatial matters, and parking his car, as this picture shows. his car was eventually extracted from the aforedisplayed awkward position via what i heard correctly as reversing and lifting the car at the same time.

Wu Tien is a true blue academically minded geek of the highest branding, and he can be easedropped describing books on the phone as "erudite". he owns a copy of fouccault's pendulum that is missing its last page: an equally eccentric friend of his ripped it out, but it doesn't faze wu tien because he's already memorised the last page of fouccault's pendulum.

Earlier today, he (again) began work in singapore and i suddenly feel like paying tribute to him. he hosted me and a ton of actors when i went to singapore to do casting for my film, and he brought me three times to eat the most incredible porridge, not just in singapore (because that might not be saying much) but just about anywhere that sells porridge. he is quite like that porridge. an old fashioned kickass guy who's got sting where there ought to be sting and comes in large servings. by servings, of course, i am referring to both his verbosity and unending number of wicked stories which he tells with said verbosity.

he's damn funny. and he's a damn great guy.

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Genusfrog [ 2:49 am ] | 0 comments

Thursday, September 07, 2006





Nobody likes to lose a champ. But we've all lost one.

I've just seen a few other blogs do this so in an act of global solidarity, let's pay homage to a first class tv entertainer and all-round great guy.

Take care while you're away, Steve. See ya in heaven.

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Genusfrog [ 2:36 pm ] | 0 comments