I decided to go to church
I've been writing so many short pieces, I've decided that it's about time I write another writing practice. But right now, my head's a bit funked up. I decided to go to church today, after ages of never stepping foot inside a church, and I received a barrage of impressions and thoughts. It's going to take a little while for me to arrange them into a coherent rant/essay/narrative.

And my brain goes fiizzzzzz....

  posted by Karcy R. @ 8:04 PM

 
The HR tag miracle!
Isn't this layout nice? I fiddled a bit with the bar on the left. I added some HR tags, just for the sake of separating some of the stuff I put there, and voila, the result is this: some quaint pretty boxes that could pass off as tables. Of course, I am using Internet Explorer to view it, but since most people are using Internet Explorer (Netscape, my old love, it was a huge mistake of you to come up with Netscape 6.0), this would mean that most people would see a pretty layout with HR tags that could pass off as tables.

Ah, accidental beauties.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 3:31 AM

 
Layout update
The comments form does not seem to work. Funny, since I followed the instructions word-for-word. Screw it. If you want to make comments, e-mail me. I welcome them.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 2:18 AM

 
Layout update
I fiddled with the things at the side. Successful.

I've included something that'll allow people to comment on the stuff I wrote. Should be handy for my experiments in style and writing.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 2:10 AM

 
It is confirmed. I am a philosophical golem
I can't believe it.

Which Discworld Watch character do you most resemble?

I took it.

No points for guesses for which character they claimed I resembled the most.

But I mean, seriously, I just can't see any resemblance between me and that boring block of mud. I mean, I'm an intelligent, philosophical girl, I make my own moral choices based on my own rational, albeit limited, perspective; I fluctuate between extreme religious beliefs to extreme atheistical beliefs; I speak my mind, and I have free time which I happen to use to enjoy myself, yes I do, like blogging about my introspective moments.

There is no resemblance to Dorfl. Absolutely none.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 11:06 PM

 
Kenji! Kenji!
Well, as most people (well, most people I know) would already know, there's a new Rurouni Kenshin OVA out that retells the story of Enishi's Revenge. Now based on what I've heard about the OVA, I derive the conclusion that I'm not too happy with it. It seems like they made some serious alterations to Kenshin's character, so much so that he's plain off. I mean, I heard that he doesn't even smile. That really sucks.

But I haven't seen it, and probably won't for quite some time, so I shouldn't make any comments - but hey, there's Kenji in it! The good news: Kenji looks handsome. The bad news: Of course he'll look handsome, since he looks exactly like his dad.

And guess what? Kenji hates his dad! All the lights are green, ladies and gentlemen, set the stage for the Oedipal struggle of father and son who look exactly alike! (You too, would hate your dad if you ended up inheriting almost every dominant gene from him).

Mini Oro: The only shrine for Himura Kenji. Take a look for yourself. Check out the Anime section. The other sections are worth a visit - heck, many visits. Loved the Name Analysis.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 10:49 PM

 
I am stuffed
This has got to be the world's most common thing to appear in blogs: reports about food. But if journals write nothing about food, it is missing one of the important and primary elements of life. In fact, it might be missing the most important and primary element in life, because you cannot live without food. A journal that does not touch on food has not touched on life.

Now that I've justified me writing about food, allow me to announce that I ate too much for breakfast. I intended to do the laundry which I delayed because I was hungry, and now after eating I can't do the laundry because I am bloated.

Stupidity at its highest pinnacle.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 7:18 PM

 
What a Performance Tonight...
How your mood changes / You're a devil / Now an angel / You only tell me you love me when you're drunk / What's the meaning when you speak with so much feeling?

Nine a.m. in Pending. Computer is whirring slowly, processing data, bit by bit. There's something missing from my old routine, as I wait for the impending ten a.m. It's the small things like this that stimulates melancholia.

I remember mornings on Saturdays in Pending. I remember me, peeking out of the bedroom window, watching the world. I'd watch the vehicles pass by. Big cars, little cars, cars mainly in white, mostly sedan and then you have motorcycles.

There weren't many cars back then. You did have a lot of passers-by, and I would watch them, with a sort of secretive wonder and vague, momentary curiosity. I'd watch the people walk up, walk down. I've forgotten how they looked like or what they did, but I remember that they walked a lot, and that they had colourful clothes. Many colourful clothes. Often they came in pants and shirts; often their pants were of a darker colour than their shirt. Many had umbrellas.

Did you know that pants used to be considered a bad word?

I'd watch the plants grow. I'd watch the winds blow through the leaves, the young and green leaves, and they were young then, like me. I used to watch the world from my window when I was nine or ten or younger, and I would say to myself: the world is a big, wide place, and life is an adventure waiting to unfold before my very eyes.

Today I woke up and looked outside the window. I saw the vehicles, the people, and the plants.

But that was all there is to it.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 5:14 PM

 
Days in the Water
Two days ago, I said to myself: I'm so surprised that I feel so happy. Feel so happy, feel so happy, feel like a bird out of a cage. Today I got a bit of a funked up dream, and you know, I'm in this mood when sometimes the bird misses the cage.

First there were furries, now there's furniture. The world is a fetish fodder.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 8:04 AM

 
fake chicken
Survivor 4 boasts that they won't give any food or matches to the contestants. Somehow, I can't convince myself that the chickens weren't put on the island earlier beforehand.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 7:45 AM

 
The Philosophy of a Forgettable Item
Allow me to describe a small object on the right hand side of me.

It sits on a cabinet. A white coloured cabinet, with little straight streaks of pale pink and grey over it. This thing that sits on the cabinet is made of glass. Glass is a miracle. Smooth. Shiny. Immaculate. Made not from man's feeble attempts to step up on the pedestal of God. Made from the burning furnace that is the Earth itself.

Man has imitated glass, in more ways than one. Glass has never been duplicated.

This thing that sits on the cabinet, this thing made of glass, is round. Primarilly, its shape is round, although in truth it is the rough estimate of a cylinder. A glass cylinder. A glass cylinder with a base and shoulders. A glass cylinder with a mouth.

A mouth shut. Shut once shut tight. Opened once, unclosed forever. The mouth is still shut now, but like hymen in a vagina the shut mouth isn't quite so shut anymore.

In the glass: seeds wrapped in the dark flesh of dried fruit sprinkled with a yellow powder. Across the mouth: a green and gold label that says Raguletto Safety Cap.

Open mouth. Take seeds. Pop them in my mouth. Yum yum.

the above piece of junk was an experimentation of style

  posted by Karcy R. @ 11:23 PM

 
On Death
I'm in one of my introspective moods now.

How do you imagine your death?

Most of us would prefer to be prepared for the time we die. We'd like our time to come when we've done all that we've wanted to do in our life. We'd like a slow, but painless passing, one that allows us to tie up any loose ends that we have.

More often than not Death doesn't quite care for what we'd wish to have. More often than not, people die quite suddenly. A split second stroke of lightning. A misdirection of a vehicle. Something falls. There's no time for solving last problems, tying loose ends, because it all happens in the blink of an eye. There's not even time for prayers, so discard any ideas about pleading for last minute forgiveness for sins.

We push thoughts of Death away. And when the idea of Death does flash across our minds for a while, we start to have a form of determination on how life should be lived. Some of us take a hedonist view of life, epicurean, and believe that we should spend as much of our lives enjoying since we're all gonna die. Some of us decide that the short, brief time that we have on Earth should be spent with as much love with others. Still others, like me, respond to death with the fierce determination to exert their egos and influence as much as they can in the world - the ultimate goal is to leave the world as a legend.

To each her own.

Ironically all these conclusions that people have about Death are all based on uncertainty. The irony lies in the fact that human beings trade the certainty of Death with the uncertainty of goals and aims that they know - in their minds - to be piffle. You may be determined to enjoy life, but hardship and regret are unavoidable, and a hedonist lifestyle will only guarantee more misery. You may be determined to love and be loved, but relationships don't always work well in life, and you will come across relationships that fail no matter how much care you've put into it. And - and here's the one I can relate to - you may work hard and spend every sweat for your goals to rock the world, but so do many others, and you may never achieve the greatness you desire.

Human beings fight the darkness and certainty of death with the uncertain value of fierce life. That's the automatic reaction. But it's almost always the same in the end - death comes too suddenly, at the moment when you're just not prepared for it.

There's something in the Bible that talks about how foolish humans are for not preparing for death. I don't always quote the Bible. I take what it says with a certain grain of salt. But right now, it'd be darn fine if I could quote that verse here, because it's exactly what I'm thinking.

The preparation of death should not be the fiercer determination for life because life guarantees nothing, whereas death guarantees everything by the certainty of its prescence. The preparation for death itself should be something done that should be able to work even if you have never achieved what you wanted in life.

It's one of those resolutions and conclusions that serve to create more questions at the end of the thought process.

I'll think about it later, I need to eat.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 9:33 PM

 
It's all right, I'm okay, I think God can explain...
Had a pretty scary situation. Bapak swallowed his saliva wrong, and it entered his lungs. He said it felt so darn painful he felt he could faint.

I hope moisture in lungs do not cause any serious physical injuries.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 8:53 PM

 
Let us get together, let us jump with joy
Just got some news from Usenet. Nope, not rumours, news. At least, it seems pretty much a confirmed case.

The cover for the next Discworld book will be based on Rembrandt's Night Watch. Pretty, pretty.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 6:22 PM

 
Vetinari's right
I've just gotten an article in my Inbox from Nik Nazmi, editor of Suara Anum, a webzine centred on the Malaysian reform-minded opposition. What was the article about? Ides Mac. Or Ides March, I'm not sure how it's supposed to sound in English, because the article was written in Malay. To sum the whole thing up, the article was written about how Caesar had been pretty undemocratic and was merely using populist methods to support his autocratic regime. His assassins killed him because they feared his dictatorship, his rule of absolute power. The article also mentioned how dictators like the fascist Mussolini (sp?) and famous ol' Hitler came to power thanks to their populist methods.

Having been written by a Reform-minded opposer of the government, I was just waiting for the reference to Malaysia. Sure enough, it came at the bottom of the whole article. Ol' BN and Dr. M have been manipulating democracy, using populist methods, and have made a monopoly of the government and politics. For the sake of democracy - the article implies - such monopoly must be stopped, because such monopoly shall bring forth the death of democracy.

The thing is, for many people living in this country, heck, in this whole world, democracy is not a cause, regardless of how many campaigns and selfless acts are done in the name of democracy. Political beliefs never are. Democracy is merely a handle, something for the people to hold on to that'll guarantee them a good grip on normal living. As a general rule, people don't care about justice, about goodness, about better social standards. All they care about is that tomorrow would be pretty much the same as today.

If it comes to the point that an undemocratic oligarchy will guarantee more stability, peace, and overall happiness for society, I'm pretty sure that society would gladly trade democracy for something else. Pterry's right. And in Malaysia, for many people, stability just means the party and leaders that's always been there, monopoly or no.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 4:09 PM

 
the ultimate mosquito party
Itchy. Itchy all over. Mosquitoes having a party at my expense.

I've just sent over my Gripe and Pipe to the Phases list. Used Hotmail as usual. A case that warrants a gripe of its own.

I hate the fact that Hotmail doesn't allow easy HTML editing of mails (it's either that case or I haven't fiddled with my Hotmail preferences correctly). Every time I send a text message from Hotmail, the tendency is that its format will come out funky with paragraphs placed all wrong. And yes, I wrapped the text. The alternative is to send pieces as MSWord attachments, and that's all fine with pieces, but not a good idea for assignments.

It's these things that makes me miss my Pop3.



  posted by Karcy R. @ 8:43 AM

 
back again
I've decided to go back to this one. The font of this layout is good, and while it can be a bit too bright if you're reading it for a long time, it's still a lot better than other websites that I've seen.

Ah, the long way around the world.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 7:08 AM

 
messed up
messed up the blog layout. selected a new one. this time i'm going for a white background, which is second best to a black background. too bright for the eyes? highlight.

i hope the font comes out good.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 7:03 AM

 
AAAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!
The horrors of pop up windows. While I was happily surfing my way (blog on, of course), I opened a Tripod pop up window. Bad mistake. Bad bad mistake. Lo and behold, the faces of N'Sync jumped in front of my screen. The horror.

Seriously, I don't mind bubblegum pop. But it is really, really weird to see thirty year old men dancing to the dreams of bubblegum eleven year old girls. As in the case of N'Sync.

And Justin Timberlake sounds nasal.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 6:32 AM

 
fickle fiddlin funk
This colour is okay, and the background is dark enough. Made a few adjustments to the links area. The bad thing is that once a second paragraph pops up - at least on my browser - the nice font is removed and and what we have is the default ugly Times New Roman. This is going to be a bit of a problem, since I have the habit of typing pretty long stuff.

Ah, but for the moment, I am pretty satisfied.

And no, I will not use Ken Yen's previous Blog template.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 6:22 AM

 
fickle part 2
template switch again. the template i chose had funky text.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 5:55 AM

 
fickle fickle
i've made a switch of templates after i found out that the colours i chose was too bright at first. so here's the new template. test, test.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 5:49 AM

 
i love my toes
i sincerely do. they're unpretty and they've got allergies. they require special care. i love my toes, yes i do. i don't know what i'd do without them. i love my toes, it's not their fault they have allergies.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 5:04 AM

 
i wish i could invent
watchin something on tv about inventions. I wish i could invent stuff. i'd invent some ecologically friendly items. Make use of kitchen waste. Of course many inventions of the like have been done, but you know, just something to put in your home.

I should start with recycling paper.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 4:56 AM

 
Experimentation Garden
Type type type. Type to see if I write more than ten posts a day, whether this thing will be archived when I put up a weekly archive...type type type. What shall I type?

Marilyn Manson is a pretentious comedian. Heard his rendition of Sweet Dreams? Some of them want to abuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse you.... Really, can't he be a bit more subtle? It's just so overdone, it's ridiculous. The original song with its Eighties beat was dark enough. But he just has to go about and emphasise every single dark part.

I can't believe people seriously consider him Satanic. From what I've heard he sounds way too ridiculous to be Satanic. Take a clue from Mick Jagger, Marilyn.



  posted by Karcy R. @ 3:05 AM

 
Argh
I just spent I don't know how long writing an entire essay on the nature of fandom to be put up on Blog, and it automatically logged me out of this.

I am not going to write in any long essays until I get the hang of this thing.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 2:55 AM

 
Blood
What's on now? Let's see, right now, playing on Winamp, is Manic Street Preacher's If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (whooh, long title). One of my favourites really.

The next bit's gross for some, natural for others. It depends on what your point of view is. I thank feminism for my freedom.

I hate periods. Seriously. Their unpredictable cycle bugs me. You think you're clean, empty, all tissue and blood gone and for a few days you go without any pads. Then one day you find out that you've pretty much spilled all over. That sucks. That really sucks. And it sucks worse when it gets stuck to your outer clothes. That's not the worst part.

I'll be heading to U sometime this year and I'm trying to cut short my washing time. Been on a challenge. Wash three articles of clothing in ten minutes. Problem is, on average, I use five minutes for one article of clothing. Scrubbing's easy. drenching out the detergent takes a little longer. And then you have blood. Blood takes forever to wash off. Blood requires soap. And you have to scrub the soap several times. It doesn't take too long when you're at home, but if I head to U I'll probably have ten minutes max. to do my bathing and washing.

I require more training. Hopefully by the time I step my foot into the campus I'll be able to achieve the ten minute goal.



  posted by Karcy R. @ 8:36 PM

 
Woohoo. All right. Now to shock the world with my presence. Not.

Right. So here am I. I got a blog. I could waste my time typing Testing Testing 123 123 all the way, because really, that's what I feel like doing. But things like that get kind of boring.

Yeah, so right now I'm using Blogspot. No FTP required. I have to use someone else's template, though, which is a bit of a pity. I'm still figuring out if I can twiddle the template a bit so I can put Linkies and stuff I like on the left hand side.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 7:19 PM

 
All right. Looks like it's working.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 7:12 PM

 
Hey. This is a test. Aloha dudes.

  posted by Karcy R. @ 7:11 PM