At first I thought Lina Joy had died. I wasn't far from wrong.

State of mind:
Current soundtrack: Dance Dance Mweeblution - Digimon Tamers - Bark at The Lies (Hirata Hiroaki)

I feel a little sickened, both by the decision and this *wildly gleeful* reaction. It's not like Lina Joy went around or will go around killing teh Muslimz. She doesn't kick puppies (unless you're suggesting she should, seeing dog drool is uncleeeean). She's not traversing the world blaring the goodness of Jesus through a bullhorn. She just believes that she has found a different Higher Power, and would like to marry someone she loves without forcing him into another religion too (but that last bit is my personal interpretation).

This warrants the quotation that made George Bernard Shaw my hero:

Religion is a great force: the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don’t understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours.

Maybe Allah just isn't Lina's (G)od and Islam isn't her religion any more, and she does have the freedom of religion under the Constitution. I can live with that. But the woman is not a murderer; she is not a rapist; she is not guilty of making jokes about dangling pipes or pepper-spraying celebrities. Cheering and yelling Allahuakbar? Come on now, isn't that a wee bit overmuch?

While I am but a polytheistic little heathen who knows NOTHING of Islam and should mind my own beeswax (if you follow the logic of places such as menj.org), I maintain that somewhere up beyond the clouds, Yahweh, Allah, the Hindu Trinity, the Jade Emperor and a handful of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are all either laughing their blessed heads off or just shaking them sadly.

(Also, I'd never seen a 'dun like dun read! DDD:' special snowflake outside of fandoms...until today. Non-denomination deity on a flatbread, this is Spartarific madness!)

ETA: 'Let the hate games begin'? This guy for real? Manjusri, grant me strength.

Black Jack and Pinoko, sitting in the tree *scalpelled!*

State of mind: ...pink.
Current soundtrack: Dance Dance Mweeblution - EVERYBODY NEEDS MUSIC (HOME MADE Kazoku)

Blast you Black Jack, for you are two-dimensional , scarred, dark smex appeal on legs. *huffs* Particularly after 'Pinoko's Birth' which aired over Animax yesterday. I find it quite appealing that he only seems to become marginally more squishy around her. Ii na~

Classes were good today. I think I'll leave it at that.

---

The tree in front of my house is dying.

I've lived at my current address pretty much since I was born, and the wild cinnamon tree planted outside my house (illegally *cough*) has been there too, its canopy visible through the upstairs window. Its leaves shifted from pink to red to green to brown before the still, sharply veined forms dropped into the garden over the hedge, the dark green glossy hedge with the small tough leaves that bred the big white butterflies I never could catch. Our garbage can was attached to its trunk.

It was a good tree. Butterflies pupated in it. Birds nested in it and perched in it, and I learnt their names from a birdwatching friend in school. The words were like a new kind of poetry: mynah, magpie robin, koel, yellow-vented bulbul. Those were the days I turned over bricks in the garden to find slugs and millipedes, and caught the little purple butterflies off the little purple flowers that turned to miniature dandelions and would continue to do so even when plucked, rootless, and arranged in vases of tapwater.

It was even better when it stormed. The wind would moan ominously through the branches, and when the tempest started, the branches would wave in the howling wind, the canopy tossed here and there. It was strangely exciting to watch, wondering if something would happen but somehow safe in the universal truth that The Tree Would Not Fall.

Last year, my father trimmed the tree for some reason. Denuded it would be a better word. All that's left is a Y-shaped dark hunk of trunk and a sparse scraggly wisp of dead leaves on top. The only green is the langsuir fern in the low fork of the branches. Nothing perches or nests or pupates in it any more, and the tightly-woven hedge was uprooted and replaced with a bunch of standalone bushes, the light green of their leaves almost juvenile.

Now I'm sure my tree is dying, just as I had felt I was some moons ago. The rains make me fear for my tree, and the days where I turned bricks over in the garden are long gone.



(ETA 17/12/07 - Rest in peace, tree. We had to have it cut down because red ants were infesting it. :( )

In which there is reminiscence.

State of mind: drowsy
Current soundtrack: Ultra Kaijuu Ondo (Ishikawa Susumu)

My prayers, they have been answered! For the moment, I am in charge of the character design for the P.S. The Children internship program. What is is, well, I won't say just yet - but I think you'll find out soon. :) Also, I AM doing something visual with Helvetica for MMP - motion graphics or a short film, most likely, but it does afford me the opportunity to personify the fonts and all. Just imagine Miriam d'Cruz! Helvetica Foong! Arial Wong! Muhammad Zapfino! (While all of these are people I know at college, I doubt that they'd be too chuffed sticking their heads in boxes to act for a short film. Kekekeke.)

I love character design, having a few of my own personal favourites. Pen, for instance, that plucky little turtle which appeared in my first Flash animation project—one I'll be redoing for Graduation Campaign. Ninja Teabags appear quite often nowadays too, in times of randomness. One Arion has a special place in my heart, because he was one of the first really 'different' Ultras I tried my hands at, all green eyes and long limbs. Dark Eye (formerly called Scudwan, do not ask) is one of those I love to hate, along with the stubbly Huang Long general, Ran Seiryuu. There is always Hakugin and Shinku, the bondkeepers watching their charges from a distance. I hope a part of them resides in me somewhere, really. And then there's the more out of the way stuff like Black Colossus, with his evil prosthetics; Tobiron, who now has three origin stories to pick and choose from, depending on who you really wish him to be; Baiyouji, prince of the Western Ocean; Hoshi the Soulmistress/Tamasenshi/Kishu Megami, who was really an extension of what I wanted to become when I was much younger.*

The one that sneaks into my drawings most often, however, is Kamiza Maki, the androgynous white wolf shapeshifter from Kumamoto Higo. She started off as 18, which was hoary maturity to me then; she's 21 now, which I don't think is hoary maturity, just blind youth's final years. There's a scar on her neck I drew once and somehow stayed. Her hairstyle changed about five times and will probably change again. She likes Japanese dumplings and pears. She strikes out blindly. She's not tall, but graceful anyway, and deadly with a swastika sai in her hands. She's got a short fuse. She has a fatalistic inferiority complex thing going on. Her fangs and claws are sharp, when bared. There's probably a lot more of me in Maki than I'd care to admit.

...My point? What point? I love character design, drawing them out, giving them personalities and backgrounds, planting a scar here and a dead eye there, making them speak, giving them pronoun-patterns** and motivations and hearts and minds. I love telling their stories and intertwining bits of my own with them.

So thanks for passing down the job, chief! I'll do my best! * ^_^ *

In other news, I bought some makeup the other day, because Body Shop was having a sale. I'm quite pleased, and actually just waiting for an occasion to try some of it out...although I've already started wearing the Spirit of the Moonflower perfume oil, and it's not lasting as long as I thought it would. It DOES smell nice, though. Also, I took more pictures of the greenery outside Sunway Pyramid. While the flowers I last captured are all beginning to wilt, I caught some butterflies makling their rounds. I haven't seen these for a while, the ones with wings speckled and orange-dotted outside and iridescent blue inside.




*A self-insert Mary Sue, to use the technical term. XD Only one thing remains sure: Hoshi gives up her life in one final battle, far, far in the future when her host has lost the will to live. Her other exploits shall go unrecorded.

** Best explained with Rurouni Kenshin - normally uses sessha to refer to himself, resulting in the author's love for ALL sesshas in her fandoms, but as Battousai, refers to himself as ore.

Tandoo-glee.

State of mind:
Current soundtrack: Playlist name - series - song title (artist)

I am seemingly gleeful, enthusiastic and bursting with ideas, and on a random note, this state is called 'high tension' in Japanese. How stress is related to squeefulness, I have no idea, but yes. Ima wa, tenshon ga takai...rashii na joutai desu. ^_^;

Fine dining fought current events to get the first blog entry, and it looks like fine dining won. Gather around, my friends, for I am about to share with you my foodiest food secret. Secretly I am hoping few of you like Indian food, because I would really like to go there fairly early and still be able to sit down.

This is the best tandoori shack in Ampang, if not in Kuala Lumpur. (and no, I don't live in Ampang - my family makes occasional pilgrimages down here just for the food. P:)

---

While I am truly unable to give directions to this place (because my road sense is a little short of awful), the tandoori shack IS in Ampang, around the embassy area, and is visible from waaay across the road at Ampang Point shopping centre. Drive past it, and the Ampang Point furniture shop, and head to Jalan 5, which is a smallish street past the Korean restaurants and barbeque joints, and there you will find a bunch of nameless, slightly ratty-looking stalls. Well, no rattier than your usual Malaysian hawker stall anyway. If you have come a bit late, you might find no place to sit, but the smell of tandoori should alert you to the stall I'm introducing.

And here we are, the tandoori shack so good it has been referred to in fanfiction! (Well, it would...if I ever start/finish writing that piece where the UlNins show up here...I want to feed a certain chibi-chan real curry) You can have your tandoori with plain old naan, or butter, garlic or Kashmiri versions. (Kashmiri naan is nice. Just not with tandoori. Much.)



Besides the tandoori chicken (pictured here in its messy, blazing red glory), you can also have such delicacies as ground spinach, sardines and mutton curry. The chicken itself is...wow. Just juicy and tender, with the spices all getting under your fingernails. I love the spinach, because 1) it's not some deathly awful colour and 2) it doesn't separate so apparently into a heap of fibres floating in a pool of spinach juice. To wrap a chunk of tandoori in naan, drizzle it with spinach and pop it with abandon into one's mouth...THAT, readers, is bliss.

Aside from the tandoori stall, there's a fairly decent Malay stall that does fairly decent drinks, laici kang (...I wish I was making that up) , pecal (spicy rojak-ish do) and fried noodles. There used to be an old man there that made very good satay, but he wasn't there when the family dropped by last week and nobody knows quite where he's gone.

Tandoori was still good, though. *burp*

Internship!

State of mind: satiated
Current soundtrack: Ueki no Housoku - No Regret (Koda Kumi)

So we're all finally in our internship program—and I'm working for PSTheChildren.org along with three other guys. Again, I am the sole female in a group (not overly hard when your class has all of four). It is also slightly disheartening when the other members are told they are here for their Flash skills and well-roundedness, but the main reason you're with this group is to make sure no one screws up the English content. I guess everyone has their roles, although I'd like to do some of the graphic work at least...

Had a tiring if somewhat fulfilling day today. Went out for Japanese and currently feel like a stuffed eggplant - which makes me wonder how the 4 salarymen at the table next to us could pack it away like there was no tomorrow. Had my first taste of yukimi daifuku, which apparently involves ice-cream coated in a thin layer-o-mochi. I like Japanese food as much as the next person, but why the heck are those things so hard to eat? @_@ Also, there was strawberry ice-cream in mine. I dunno, that sounds more like a sort of hanami daifuku to me.

Now I REALLY must decide what to do for MMP Studio.

Three months in twenty minutes

State of mind: amused?
Current soundtrack: DNAngel - Byakuya ~True Light (Miyamoto Shunichi)

It was either the internalised stress from the test or the Flaming Sambal pizza I ate for dinner (I prefer Domino's Spicy Sambal*, but it was worth a try), but I had a dream about strange large twin dogs, where one got tumours and mange yet the other suffered and died; a super sekrit mamak joint run by RTD officers, all of them in headscarves; and everyone in this strange dream world with hovering nametags and dropdown action menus MMORPG style, before my cramping insides sent me fleeing to the loo.

I don't think I'm going to get that image of the headscarved examiner yelling "Ya Allah, what are you doing!?" for a long while yet. Aish, tudung trauma...OTL

* has this site not heard of image slicing?

A short one

State of mind: drained

Well, the good news is I finally, finally, finally passed the circuit portion of the driving test. The bad news is barely 2 hours later, I almost rammed into a bus while attempting to get out onto the road.

...See you in July, SDC. *plonk*

On the plus side (also), I did manage to see an old friend of mine, Suzi, way back from primary school. We used to colour the illustrations in one of my Enid Blyton storybooks together. Fun times, those were. Also later at Pyramid I caught sight of my slightly-less-old friend Ju. She looked stylish as usual. *_*

I also took pictures of pretty flowers outside Sunway Pyramid



And messed around with one of them.



There's even an avatar version (muaha!)



And now I truly must be off before my New Media group leader decks me although three months ago I would have liked to deck him...

Beep, beep!

State of mind: jumpy
Current soundtrack: UlColo - Koi Suru Boy (i-chips)

So tomorrow I take my driving test...For the third time. I am nervous, to say the least. The last two times I went, I failed both sections, with varying degrees of comedic value.

Driving Test #1 - The first time I took the road test, my steering was shot and I got failed with 5 points out of a possible 20. By any standard, that was Bad with capitals. At least the officer let me finish the course and drive back in, even if he did say that my car 'staggered'. I'm not kidding. Terhuyung-hayang is usually a term associated with drunken men. =o=;

Shaken, I went on to take my circuit exam, ending up with a different model of Kancil than what I usually drive. (This matters, trust me.) I went to the hill test, which is the first 30%. I stopped on the hill with my front tyres planted firmly on the desired lines, put on my brakes and put my hand up 'till the officer told me to move on. I eased off the clutch, slowly depressed the accelerator, released the handbrake...and slid comically backwards.

I'd forgotten to take the car out of neutral, distracted by the old Kancil's skinny little gearstick.

Driving Test #2 - I'm still kicking myself over this one. Two points away from passing my road test! The road was clear! The officer was helpfully silent! Even the weather was nice and breezy! I was on the verge of passing, I'm sure of it.

Unfortunately, when I was turning back IN to the test centre, I slipped into the opposite lane and the officer gleefully failed me. OTL

Never mind. Circuit test still there. Passed the hill part. Went on to parking. Got in, prepared to go out, and...rammed into a pole. I WAS SO CLOSE.

I had no choice but to laugh with maniacal sheepishness all the way back to the driving school office to apply for ANOTHER retake.

Wish me luck for tomorrow, because if I botch this one I don't dare do a retake until July, during Exploration Week. I don't dare apply for leave too often this term. @_@

Still haven't really thought of what I want to do for the MMP Studio final project. Heroes, Helvetica or Ninja Teabags? Hmm. Dilemmas, dilemmas...

I could be wrong about this, but...

State of mind: unamused
Current soundtrack: Kiken na Curve (doa)

...I don't consider this much of an apology.

For those who haven't been catching the local/Malaysian news, the source can be summed up quite succintly with this quote off TheStar.com.my:

On May 9, during a heated exchange in the Dewan Rakyat with Opposition MPs over the roof leak at Parliament House, Bung Mokhtar had said: “Mana ada bocor? Batu Gajah pun bocor tiap-tiap bulan juga. (Where is the leak? The Batu Gajah MP also leaks every month.)”

And there you have it. Ten days, one demonstration one cabinet meeting later and several angry letters later, it has been decided that they needed to make these two troglodytes jokers fine outstanding gentlemen apologise. *stops gritting teeth* Their statements were nicely recorded here. I was quite satisfied with the fact that they'd FINALLY apologised...until I read stuff like this.

First up, Jasin's MP, Dato' Mohd. Said bin Yusof, famous for his close-one-eye philosophy some time back.

I regret very much that the May 9 incident in Parliament had been manipulated by certain quarters...

...Yuh-huh. No shit. We're all out there to challenge our MPs and chuck them into the longkang/drain ALL THE TIME. (Whatever for? Some of them do it pretty well without any help. ¬_¬)

When the Opposition always raised matters that I regard as disrespectful and with the intention to insult and provoke me and other Barisan MPs, what is our choice?

If you think they're trying to get a rise out of you, should you be obliging them?

...if it offended the feelings of any parties and women, I put my hands together and offer my apology...

'I apologise if you feel offended' ≠ 'I apologise for my remarks'

...this issue has nothing to do with discrimination of women or MPs being insensitive to gender issues but is merely a ploy by the Opposition to belittle the Government's agenda.

Nothing at all? Nothing to do with jokes about menstruation? Nothing to do with the fact you actually decided that might be appropriate to joke about in Parliament? Nothing...ah, man, I'll come back to this later.

And now Dato' Bung Mokhtar, Kinabatangan MP. It appears he has been guilty of asshattery before, but this is the first time I've seen him stick his foot in his mouth. He rather seemed to be enjoying the taste of it.

...the May 9 incident should not have become a big issue but the DAP had taken it up, through the mass media, and they wished to drag all women's groups in the country into it.

I think they came in all on their own, having smelt the pungent odor of whattheheckamate from miles around.

...we humbly, I humbly and with full responsibility wish to apologise to
all the women in the country if they felt slighted by the words that we uttered.

See reaction to Mohd. Said's apology. *resists urge to use quotation marks*

So, I hope with this open apology DAP will no longer play up this issue. Stop
selling old newspapers. It is no longer laku (saleable).

Oh. Oh, WOW. I'm so choked up by the sincerity of your apology, Dato'! *One. Lone. TEAR.*

In the end, the duo don't seem to have realised that the controversy they stirred up was well, one they stirred up! 'Blame it on the opposition' seems to be a convenient excuse for anything. You're in trouble because you make a snide remark about menstruation? Blame the opposition! You're late for work? Blame the opposition! Radioactive cauliflower monsters are attacking the KL Twin Towers? BLAME THE OPPOSITION, DAMMIT!

I only have a few questions to put forward about this issue:

1. If the remark had been about hanging, exposed pipes, and directed to a man, would the reaction have been the same?
2. If the remark had been directed at a Malay MP, would the reaction have been the same?
3. If the remark had come from the opposition, would the reaction have been the same?
4. Why did it take ten days for these two to finally decide to apologise, and in a rather roundabout manner at that? (Note that any variation of the words 'I am sorry for my remarks' do not feature in the statements)

If Dato' Seri Sharizat has decided to accept this apology, well, I can't say anything. But I still feel distinctly disturbed by the fact that these MPs exist. That these PEOPLE exist, in fact. We aren't Taiwan - we're Malaysia, and really, it's a shame that I have to admit we voted these individuals into their current position. 'Tis people like this that will keep eating at the BN majority at every (by-)election.

Watch out for falling widgets!

State of mind: dry-eyed

Tinkering with the blog layout again. Things may look funny for the afternoon.

(ETA: *groans quietly, having failed to centralise the title image within a shrunken wrapper, and concentrates on the colour scheme instead* Good grief, I PHAIL.)

(Son of ETA: Well, I think this is good for a start. And at least this template lets me center the image! :3)

Virgin Meme!

State of mind: slightly muzzy
Current soundtrack: EVERYBODY NEEDS MUSIC (HOME MADE Kazoku)

You can tell I'm bushed when I type Mebius as Moebius. No, I swear to you it is NOT a typo. I wish it was, though; they pimp the 'infinity' theme enough as it is, and it would make for some SWELL jokes...

I haven't done a meme on this blog yet, so I ganked this from Jeff Morris's LJ.

Pick a character from the following fandoms, and I'll tell you at least three things about him/her that are in my personal fanon:

• Ultra Ninja Manual


• Ultraman: Super Fighter Legend


• Ultraman Tiga, Dyna, Nexus or Mebius (Actually, you can ask about the other Ultra Heroes as well. It's just that except for these series, I didn't really give two hoots about anything beyond the giant silver aliens beating up evil. ^w^;)


• Saiyuki (Reload)


• Samurai 7

...You can tell I have an incredibly one-track mind. Comment away and I'll put it up in the next post I see fit. :3 It'll probably include news about my first week back here as well.

NOW this is the place for pure unbridled emo.

State of mind: jumbled
Current soundtrack: J Pop Rocks- No Regret (Koda Kumi)

As you can tell, I shut up. For a long time, even by my standards. And the foundations mentioned in the previous post? Yeeeeah, they're still standing, but whisper the name of that one particular lecturer and they flinch.

Let me try and start over.

*clears throat* When we last left CMYk, she was chugging along perfecting another MM Prod. interactive CD (blood donation—I LIKE this one) , a motion graphic (depression; needs a little more poking, but didn't do too badly) and that now infamous-among-MM511 online media project. The former two went almost as well as can be expected. The latter screamed, writhed, cursed, barfed pea soup, had its head turn 360° and sput-put-tuttered to a rather graceless landing.

Without putting too fine an edge on it, our clients was confused, we were unpleased, I was unacceptably emo and the lecturers received the largest surprise of all: if we had all handed up our work and done, in their words, 'pretty well', why were the majority of us reporting brimstone, anguish and threats of dismemberment in our post-project reports? As far as I can see, the problem may have stemmed from trying to please just about everyone. The brief said one thing. One lecturer said another. Lecturer #2 said something else entirely, and a sense of confusion reigned. One classmate with her flair for the dramatic apparently proclaimed that we had been 'abused'—while I sporfle over it now, on the day of the marks announcement, I might have agreed in a rather watery fashion. I told you I was emo.

...Which is my excuse for the long absence/hermitage/reclusiveness/hissyfit. It took three weeks of peace and quiet to get some of my old mojo back, and I'm praying hard there will be no repeat of last term. I graduate in about half a year. I can't change my results slip (which was...pretty dangerous). Things are progressing as they should for now. Gantt charts have to be drawn up. Project topics have to be decided. I'm talking to the fresh meat new students again. So, let's try and start over.

Once more into the breach, Ultraman![/insidejoke]