Cain

Tonight I watched The Other Boleyn Girl. Well, lust definitely had changed the history.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. A wedding is awaiting. Got to rest earlier.

Good night folks.

Sunrise 28-11-2008

At last, I watched the long awaited Twilight in cinema.

I liked the movie. Glad it was not as bad as those reviews wrote. It was far from bad actually. The movie was romantic, furnished with bit of actions and have its very own kicks of humor. It reminded me of how I used to play eyes with my crush, damn a long time ago.

For me, it’s just like the whole book was squeezed into a two-hour summary. Two hours, yet I felt it scarcely sufficient to satisfy me. Twilight fans out there could have shared the same sentiment too. And thank you very much to those monkeys-you-know-who, because they helped to further shorten the movie by cutting a few scenes out from it. It had rudely altered the flow of the movie. That was a very sad thing for me. Damn you, monkeys. If you thought kissing scenes are bad for kids, let me tell you, nowadays they knew more and perform even better than you.

Anyway let’s leave the monkeys in Madagascar and move back to the movie. The Cullens were indeed as beautiful as how Stephenie Meyer described it. Extremely fair, handsome, gorgeous, beautiful, sparkling, and you name it. Edward looked better and better towards the end of the movie. Somehow I felt that he was not that good looking in the beginning. Bella was okay all the time.

Everything was as how I imagined when I read the book, except for Billy and Jacob. I imagined that Billy could be bigger in size and looked much older. Meanwhile Jacob, oh my, he’s rather dark. He can be a good candidate for any character in Pocahontas, if such movie is ever to be filmed in the near future.

I loved the baseball game scene the best. While reading the book, I kept imagining how fast the balls will fly, how thunderous it may sound when it was hit and how fast they run to catch a home run ball. The movie satisfied my curiosities. It was cool and full of actions here.

This is definitely a movie which new and young lovers should watch together, strongly recommended by me. You will discover that you felt exactly as how Edward and Bella did. Adrenaline rush, heart pumped ragingly, electric shocks, and at certain points, you were not sure if you want to lose your self control or pretend to. Bella was so willing to switch her status from mortal to immortal. Gimme a bite and we are together forever. Edward was so willing to sacrifice for Bella, except for his poison. To bite or not to bite, that is the question. Older lovers, sorry, you must have tried all these and there’s not much electricity left. Just save your adrenaline and heart pumping for your wedding night.

Bella and Edward were so deeply in love with each other, so willingly to sacrifice for each other. Shall I call this as unconditional love? I guess so. In real time, somehow this unconditional thing tends to metamorphose to conditional thing as people grow advanced in age. That’s why I recommend only young lovers to watch it, since older couples will sigh at the sight of such unconditional love. Most of them do not longer believe in it. Did you notice the word most? So no hard feeling please, if you are in the older lover’s category and still give out your unconditional love. *Winks*

Well, that’s something which I observed along the years. Age advanced peoples tend to have more things to consider in their mind compared to the younger people because younger people have to start everything from nothing. Age advanced people always have something which they need to weight for, so that they can assure themselves that they are not making a loss during the love transaction. Marry her and I ends up 50% poorer. Marry him and I can have a full wardrobe full of dress. This makes unconditional love started to sound like a taboo thing. No wonder in movies, it’s only the children who can always see the elves, Santa Clause and fairy godmother.

Hey folks, how on earth I come to all these condition and unconditional thing? Oh, probably I’m just upset because I did not manage to watch it with a girl. Not my fault though. I was prepared to ring up some ladies after I decided to watch the movie tonight when a friend called and asked if I am going out. Reluctant to change my plan to watch the movie, I hinted him that the movie is going to be boring and he may fell asleep. Yet he refused to listen and wanted to join me. So now you see why.

Today was a hot day. It could be cooler if a friend of mine did not ask for my help to fetch him to make his passport.

We reached the immigration office by 10.30am in the morning. “We need your original and duplicated copy of your birth certificate,” the officer at the reception told him, when he noticed that my friend did not bring his birth certificate.

So back we went, to his house. When we reached the immigration office for the second time, it was around 11.15am. “This passport size photo is not acceptable. Your head must look bigger and you must wear a black blazer because your T-shirt is white in colour,” the officer told him, at the same time show us the samples of correct passport sized photos.

So off we went, to have his correct version of passport sized photo taken. When we reached the immigration office for the third time, it was almost lunch hour. We were glad that everything were okay and in order by this time.

On the way back, we still managed to laugh at ourselves. The sun was shining brightly for the whole morning and I was almost a roast pig when I reached home. The sun must have roasted my brain because until now I still not sure of how I should feel about this. By the way, I still can feel the heat on my head and face. Sigh.

Ps: Twilight is coming to Sibu’s cinema tomorrow. Hopes that it is not as disappointing as what the reviews claimed.

I went for a haircut today.

‘What style do you want’, the hairdresser asked. ‘I want it short and spiky’, I replied.

Short and spiky. These two words never came across my mind when I went for haircuts in the last twenty five years of my life. I used to comb it neat and shiny, as how Chow Yun Fatt did. I stuck to that hairstyle not because I adored him, but because my hair is thick, bushy and fast growing. The combing process was easy and fast then, and faster if I was generous with the hair gel. It also allowed me to keep my hair longer before I need to visit my barber.

Early this year, a few of my colleagues started to suggest me to change my hairstyle. They believed that I may look younger. No doubt that I looked more matured compared to anyone who’s in my age. Peer pressure is an amazing thing, and it changed people real fast. Despite my 25 years of Chow Yun Fatt hair style, I changed to durian hairstyle just weeks after their pressure.

Talking about the hairstyle and age always remind me of one particular interesting incidents during my stay in Sarawak General Hospital.

It was a hot Sunday evening. The hospital used to have a number of visitors on Sunday, especially evangelist from various churches. Two young guys in their early twenties from a Methodist church approached me that evening. As usual, I responded well to them, regardless the church they came from.

They started the conversation by asking how was my health, recovery and where I came from. After introducing themselves, only one of the guys continued to talk to me. I presumed that they must have agreed to take turn to ‘preach’. As he spoke, I could notice that his hands were trembling. He was rather anxious and was trying hard to hide it.

When he was about to finish his ‘preaching’, he was warmed up and started to chat with more confident. Before he ended the conversation, and trying to be friendly perhaps, he asked a few more questions, including how old am I.

I had never expected him to ask such a question and somehow at that moment I started to understand why peoples, especially the ladies, are not friendly with such question. Reluctant to give him a direct answer but trying to be as courteous as possible, I twisted my reply, ‘What do you guess?’ For a moment I felt that I was the smartest man on the earth.

I was proven wrong in the next few seconds. Before I continue with the story, I have to clarify that my hairstyle then was the Chow Yun Fatt’s, since that was the most appropriate hairstyle for a patient. By the standard of my ward, that was already considered as overdone. Inside the ward, people only cared if they could survive the treatment with all body parts still intact and finally heading back to home instead of mortuary upon discharge.

Opps, let’s get back to the story.

He guessed my age. ‘Erm, I think you are around thirty to thirty five?’ he replied. I was not sure if I wanted to laugh or to cry. The two feelings were so antagonistic to each other. Hoping that he will end the conversation soonest possible, I simply replied ‘Yup, just around that age.’ Ok, thank you, goodbye and sayonara.

Again, I was proven wrong. He kept the conversation alive. After we chatted about other topics, he started to feel comfortable with his increasing confident and he went back to the same old question again, ‘How old are you, actually?’. Oh man, are you running out of topic? The voices in my mind started to argue with each other. Tell him the truth. No, just tell him you’re thirty, don’t hurt his feeling and confident. NO! I can’t tell lies, not to a kid who just shared the good news with me, Jesus is not going to like it.

‘Twenty six, actually’, I replied, finally. ‘Just almost near to what you had guessed’, I added, hoping it will soften the going-to-be-awkward moments.

His friend dropped his jaw and his eyes bulged out in disbelieve, not because of the truth in my age but because talking his friend had just make a silly assumption on someone’s age. It’s kind of the-foot-in-the-mouth moments.

‘Oh…’, he replied in between shocked and dumbfound. For the next few seconds he was having a hard time to figure out what to say next.

‘It’s okay. My friends used to say that I always look older compared to my age’, I said, to broke the silent.

‘Oh, I am really sorry….’, he replied, still thinking hard what to say.

‘Haha, never mind. How about you? How old are you?’ I asked, trying to shift the attention to him.

‘I’m twenty two’, he replied with a big grin. ‘We’re just about the same age. Nice to meet you. We got make a move’, he added and ended the conversation. Glad he did.

Okay, back to the hairdresser I met this afternoon. He was quiet and looked as if his mind was bothered by something. A bothered hairdresser is a dangerous person, let me tell you. He cut my hair as if my hair owed him a million dollar. Rough and unfriendly. Thank God anyway, since his mood did not impede his professionalism. I went back with the style I wanted. And my head intact.

Six days and fifteen hours.

In another six days and fifteen hours I will be heading to Kuching again. I can foresee that this coming three-days-two-nights’ trip is going to be a less interesting one compared to the previous’. The reason is simple; I am going alone.

Thinking of it makes me wonder what I am going to do to pass my extra time there. The only time I am going to be occupied is the morning of the second day, some ‘official business’ in SGH. Perhaps window shopping is a good idea. Enjoy a good steak at San Francisco’s Grill is also within the wish list. One thing for sure, I am going to hang around in MPH bookstore. I used to spend half day there during my last visit. Given the variety and quality of books it offers, there is no way all bookshops in Sibu, if combined, can ever beat it.

My return from Kuching will mark the end of my long holiday and it’s time to resume office. It sounds uninteresting, especially the phrase ‘end of holiday’ and ‘resume office’. The thought of complicated office politics and irrational selfish human being make me feel that it’s a worse place to dwell compared to hospital. I am glad though, because such pessimistic contained only in a few. There is still a big bunch of lovely and good people inside. Oh folks, I just love you all!

The last six months had been a real big turn in my life. Trials and adversaries, tumor and operations, and I ended with 20 packets of blood from 20 strangers inside me. Somehow I managed to survive and hoped that I will continue to. There is nothing to sorry or sympathy for at here though. Each of us has our specific challenge and hardship, and mine just happen to be this one. That’s why they called it life is a box of chocolate, I guess. By the way, the humor side was one friend of mine had always told me that operation and blood transfusion will alter people’s personality and I never believe so until sad movies started to make me cry. Oh my… those 20 strangers must have liked to cry so much.

In the blink of an eye, life’s direction drifted, priorities altered and ambitions changed. Directions had drifted from ‘work full time and enjoy when there is spare time’ to ‘life is to enjoy, work is to pass the extra time’. Priority had altered from establishing carrier pathway or climbing-up-the-organization-ladder craps to establishing a quality life and time with beloved ones.

The changes in ambitions were the most interesting among all. I came around with more goals which are lovely and achievable. My ambition right now is to finish reading three books within the next six days; How to Use Power Phrases to Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say, and Get What You Want by Meryl Runion; A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses- Dealing with Bullies, Idiots, Back-stabbers, and Other Managers From Hell by Gini Graham Scott, and; New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. My next ambition will be to fill my small garden with a monotone of sunflower. The next next ambition will be to setup a new blog space – friendster’s blog is just too incompatible with so many things.

Now I wonder how things are going to be after I resume office. I am going to have a new boss, you see. The former one had retired months ago. Hope the books I read helps.

Background

Many humans were strayed and poisoned. Many humans were fast to forget, too. Their attentions were short liven, as always. Things were soon forgotten by many, left in the corner of their memory as fairy tales to be told as bedtime story. They started to live in a way and thinking as if God never exist.

Pope Pius XI sensed this danger. For every case of poisoning, an antidote is required. Therefore, in year 1925, he established the Feast of Christ the King, as the antidote for this ‘plague’. Originally, before the reform of the Roman Calendar in 1969, the feast was celebrated on the last Sunday of October.

Purpose

The feast was to set as a reminder or alarm clock the wake up the many, to proclaim to them seriously the Christ’s sovereignty over individuals, families, society, governments and nations.

Also, on this feast day, the church celebrates the final celebration in the liturgical year, after completed a circle of celebration; Jesus Christ’s life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension into glory. After this Sunday, the church will begin anew again in the First Sunday of Advent.

Values

The feast establishes two major values:

A. The Titles for Christ’s royalty over men:

Christ is God, the Creator of the universe and hence wields a supreme power over all things; “All things were created by Him”;

Christ is our Redeemer, He purchased us by His precious Blood, and made us His property and possession;

Christ is Head of the Church, “holding in all things the primacy”;

God bestowed upon Christ the nations of the world as His special possession and dominion.

B. The Quality of Christ’s Kingdom

This kingdom is supreme, extending not only to all people but also to their princes and kings;

This kingdom is universal, extending to all nations and to all places;

This kingdom is eternal, for “The Lord shall sit a King forever”;

This kingdom is spiritual, Christ’s “kingdom is not of this world”.

Things to do:

Traditionally there would be a procession for Christ the King on this feastday. The Blessed Sacrament would be carried and the procession would end with a prayer of consecration to Christ the King and Benediction.

A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful, who piously recite the Act of Dedication of the Human Race to Jesus Christ King. A plenary indulgence is granted, if it is recite publicly on the feast of our Lord Jesus Christ King:

Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before you. We are yours, and yours we wish to be; but to be more surely united with you, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to your Most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known you; many, too, despising your precepts, have rejected you. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to your Sacred Heart. Be King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken you, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned you; grant that they may quickly return to their Father’s house, lest they die of wretchedness and hunger. Be King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and the unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd. Grant, O Lord, to your Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give tranquility of order to all nations; make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise to the divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to it be glory and honor for ever. Amen.

First Reading: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17

For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal (but the sleek and the strong I will destroy), shepherding them rightly. As for you, my sheep, says the Lord GOD, I will judge between one sheep and another, between rams and goats.

Second Reading: First Corinthians 15:20-26, 28

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came also through a human being. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the first fruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ; then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will (also) be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.

Gospel: Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Tonight was one of those rare nights.

All the voices inside my heads suddenly went quiet. Everything just seems to be wrong. Wrong place, wrong time and wrong thing. Nothing longer caught my interest; even canceled my plan to catch a movie in cinema after dressed up. The feeling just completely numb. Probably that’s how a zombie feel, if they did ever exist.

After congratulating myself for creating a theory on how a zombie’s feeling should work, I turned to prepare the antidote for this numbness. Nothing complicated, just a careful selection of high quality music, preferable 320kbs, and with a reasonable quantity of treble and bass inside. Usually I’ll prefer one of those from Akon or Kanye West or Kings of Leon. Tonight I selected 17 by Kings of Leon.

Finally the voices came back into my head and I’m normal again. Great! Probably you can consider to apply this theory too, if one day zombies did ever really broke loose, just like those scenes in I Am Legend and Resident Evil.

Disclaimer: The author will not be responsible for any zombie attack if the theory failed to work. Probably you should try and error with Britney Spears or Celine Dion’s. Or Siti’s.

Warning: This theory does not apply to most political zombies in Boleh-Land. They are either simply too deaf or just bite with ISA.

Another Disclaimer: The events depicted in this page are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.

You are not going to believe this, but it happened.

My new computer just allergic to Apacer DDR2 Ram! Damn Taiwan made Apacer. It almost make me phobia towards blue colour, though it used to be my favourite colour. Yes, it was none but the infamous blue-screen-of-death. It just come whenever it pleased.

The sales representative (whom also happened to be the Executive Director of the shop, funny ain’t it? That’s what on his name card, though the whole shop only has 3 persons altogether. Another two should be chief accountant and sales manager, I guess) had since brought my computer back twice for diagnosis and repair but they never solved the problem (they should had employed a chief engineer!!).

Probably the computer was smart enough not to give problem in their presence, I guess. Or those morons just have no idea how to solve it. Nonetheless they told me they had reinstalled the OS and changed new Apacer Ram for me in the first repair. In the second repair, they told me they didn’t change the Apacer Ram last time, and this time they did REALLY changed the Ram. Now, I’m the moron here, or at least I sounds like.

Not wanting to grow phobia towards my favourite colour, and almost gone mad as well, I bought a Mushkin DDR2 Ram from somewhere else. That saved my day, but I ended up with extra, useless and unreliable Apacer DDR2 Ram.

Calling for exchange, over the phone, the Executive Director of the computer shop was kind enough agreed to change the useless Apacer Ram for Corsair Ram. When I was there last night, ready for the exchange, they pretended they had Alzheimer’s disease. I was required to pay a full price for the Corsair Ram (damn, it’s also Taiwan made. All their ram were cheap Taiwan products and anyhow that’s the most reliable brand among their stock) and they volunteered to sell out my Apacer Ram on my behalf, to fetch a better second hand value, they claimed.

So guess what happened?

I went berserk and gave each of them a black eye? Too bad, none of what you may have expected. I just too lazy to argue and without gave it a damn I trade in the useless Apacer for half price and pay for my new Taiwan Corsair. Anyway my computer seems to be okay with the Corsair. Maybe it thought it was Beluga Caviar originated from Caspian Sea instead of Corsiar from Taiwan. Haha!