30 July 2005

No comment

I am shy. I wish I wasn’t, but I am. This doesn’t often show in social situations, yet it remains a ball and chain wrapped around the ankles of my life.

I like blogs. The comments are especially fun to read. Interactivity adds further spice to the medium, and from there to life in general.

Maybe shy people weren’t meant to enjoy blogs. Reading blogs is comfortable. Blogs are almost like books that are being added to every day.

Commenting is not comfortable. To comment is to step up to a soapbox on a very public corner. Anonymity then becomes a luxury, putting those of us with thin skins at a natural disadvantage.

When I had wanted to comment while stalking other blogs, a quick look through existing comments brought up shining examples of pithy eloquence. All punchy points, all in words of one syllable or less. Not many of those on this blog….

Writing comments is like writing a blog or anything else, for that matter. I love big words. Polysyllabophillia (is that a word?) is my biggest problem. I like long, multi-topic sentences. Logorrhoea and tautology are two of my more pronounced (and unpronounceable) handicaps. I go back on things every so often, repeating them needlessly and endlessly, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

Suffering all the above, knowing all of the above, knowing that I’m suffering from all of the above, how can I comment? How dare I comment?

Sorry, the house is a mess....

Not being net-aware, I have just dug another hole for myself. I have become a referrer. Those linked from my blog are some of the biggest names in the blogosphere, so I am now open to all sorts of scrutiny.

I should have paid more attention, of course. Tapi nasi sudah menjadi bubur. So, I’ll just have to grin and bear it.

I do want to be visited someday by big names and hordes of readers/stalkers, but not today. The site is… well, a building site. There’s the blog equivalent of cables and nails lying about the place. The required builder with visible butt cleavage over low jeans is me. Metaphorical bathrooms remain unusable, leading to short, hurried visits to the b(l)og.

I am houseproud. As it stands, the blog is a disgrace, a pigsty. It badly needs cleaning up and I’m struggling with the code. I note the irony in being houseproud, yet not being good enough with the code that I can clean up.

At this rate, it’ll be months before I’m ready.

The fear now is of an accidental visit by a big name (or anyone, for that matter), who has wondered, ‘hmm… invenctive.blogspot.com…. sounds interesting.’
I’d better keep my eyes and ears open for news of death by boredom….

28 July 2005

Life in Hyperspace, or is it just the nostalgia biting?

Having my brain viciously assaulted in this fashion from both sides has left me in a temporary time-warp. I’ve rediscovered music from the 80s and am currently bopping to Rick Astley: ‘She wants to Daa..ance (with Me)!’

Now, where’s my Wham! and Kylie?

My brain! My brain! or Go Ask a Glass of Water.

I can hear again. Weeks of agony over earwax (yuk!) trouble ended this morning, courtesy of a good ear-syringing. This involved a skilled, willing operator and an unskilled, even more willing subject.

After spending the last couple of weeks half-deaf, I was looking forward to having my ears clear once more.

The experience is like that of a hyperspace jump as explained to Arthur Dent in the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2): unpleasantly like being drunk. My ears were last syringed millennia ago, in another time and place, when ‘technology’ meant the rubbing of two sticks together to get smoke and maybe fire. So it was with a pleasant sense of time-numbed amnesia that I approached my ordeal.

My first thought: ARRG! Brain-suck! Out-my-ear! OMGWTFBBQROTFInAgony! Get away from me, you alien brain-harvester!

However disgusting it felt, the product issuing forth must have been awful. The look on the operator’s face said it all: please can I go home now?

It felt like someone was knocking on the door to my head: Little Brain, Little Brain let me in!

Not by the XYZ hair of my P, Q and R chinny chin chin. NiaMaCxxBxxLatJiewYau!

And after all that, I can still hear normally. Praise be!

Not From a Jedi....

Dark clouds marched across the sky. In the seething mass of weather and implied violence, curiously familiar shapes took form.

A flash of lightning illuminated the sky and my understanding together. Star Destroyers sailed overhead to the accompaniment of the Imperial March from Empire Strikes Back.

Note to self: stop watching and thinking so much about Star Wars.

26 July 2005

Use your Blain/(B)rain!

Why we so blur?

Picture the scene: SS2 makan place just opposite the Balai. A whole gaggle of people are there eating/drinking/bragging and generally making a harmless nuisance of themselves. We're sat at our table doing much the same. Our conversation is briefly interrupted by the vague skin-pricking sensation of water on the skin, but we quickly carry on.

Seconds later, Misai and crew are dashing about. Huge umbrellas are quickly put up, to the accompaniment of shouted instructions, gesticulations and apologies to patrons. And not a moment too soon.

A crashing deluge of sky juice rains down, soaking the unwary. And we just carry on.

We're a clueless, self-centred bunch, aren't we?

We don't really care that the drops of water have to come from somewhere. We don't want to know if it's rain. When I've watched my fellow humans, nobody so much as looked skywards to see if the moon and the stars are still out. I swear....

We have the largest brain capacity for weight/size/attractiveness in all of creation. All for What?

22 July 2005

Aargh! Chili in my eye! Chili in my eye!

Don't you just hate it when it happens?
You're minding your own business, with a friendly plate of fry kwayteow in front of you. You're about to tuck into this wonderfully bad piece of makan because you've been good this week. Extra calories? No sweat. So, chopsticks in hand and temptingly slick noodles on their way from plate to mouth, you lean over to help the kwayteow: shorten their journey mah....

Then, with a contemptuously malicious little flick, a chili-soaked piece of noodle makes a break for freedom. There's oil flying everywhere. Chili-flavoured oil.

You know the sensation. It's a stinging fire that flares up every time you try to open your eye. So, half-blind, awash with tears and reeling from the shock, you try to find some dignified way out of this.

For about two seconds.

Two seconds is how long it takes for survival instinct to kick in. Then you'll go for your sleeve, your wrist, anything that might be a good place to wipe away the remains of your eye, which feels like it's melting down the side of your face.

And you'll swear, never again: 'no more chili for me.' That's what happened to me two weeks ago, but such is the attraction of chili that I went back the next day.

A brief thought to finish: Is it just me or do right-handed people get chilli-ed in their right eyes and southpaws/sinistrals end up with fire in their left eyes? That thought briefly crossed my mind while I was bawling my eyes out and speaking in tongues. Thank goodness there weren't any religious people around.

Not my cup of tea? It is now.

Up to eight weeks ago, I hated the taste of Earl Grey tea. Thought it tasted like washing-up liquid, Fairy in particular.

Six weeks ago, I ran out of tea and started drinking Earl Grey. Hated it, but got used to the taste.

Two weeks ago, I finished the Earl Grey and bought another blend. Hated it and wanted my Earl Grey back.

Last week, Earl Grey resumed pride of place in my cupboard. Hated liking it.

There's just no pleasing some people....

20 July 2005

Women Handle Men Better Than Men Handle Themselves

Ok... so that didn't come out exactly as planned. I can't say it out loud with a straight face. Does that mean I'm filthy between my ears? Yes. Am I being puerile/childish? Yes. Do I need to think more on it/ laugh some more/ drink more tea? Yes to all of the above.

Does that change anything? Not really.

Host vs. hostess. At any party, the hostess is invariably smoother than the host. She will be more comfortable moving around, gently stirring the cauldron of human interaction. The hostess is more adept at catalysing... [excuse me, let's try again]. A hostess is better at getting people to talk together, at getting shy people from out of their shells.

Are our gender roles part of the advantage/blame? It's going to be fun finding out.

19 July 2005

Better? Not quite.

Ever get the feeling that you're getting better at something, but don't know why? I've got it right now. Having started to exercise in earnest, I find that I actually enjoy exercising. Not only that, I'm not nearly as unfit as I've feared.

Now, given that I've spent the last few years dissipating and becoming seriously overweight andandand.... you get the idea. Given the above, why and how could I actually get better and stronger doesn't really bear thinking about.

So I won't.

13 July 2005

Stirring stuff... and tea also?

Enough reading, time to start writing. Not quite 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' or 'One small step...' but hopefully, stirring words all the same. Stirring enough at any rate, that I'll get on with doing this and not second-guess myself too often.

I think I'll go get a cup of tea first, before inflicting any more of this on the unsuspecting public....