The Better Covert Ops

I am rambo. Without the rippling muscles or extraordinary luck. I charge into a situation headfirst without considering the consequences. This has led to numerous failures before. I want to know a girl? I ask her. She says yes. Sometimes.

They, are subtler than the blackset covert ops. They will manipulate and coerce to whatever end they desire. The most frightening part is that they serve no one but themselves. Case in point, I leave my msn open on a table, unattended. One goes up to it while I'm not looking and invites herself using my account. Later on she tells me of the news, that I invited her. Now this is especially elegant because it defeats two problems. One, she doesn't have to ask me face-to-face, action movie style with big dangerous firey explosions. Two, because I know that she's invited me, I am flattered and don't follow through with my initial reaction of getting pissed for someone nosing through my stuff. Pure genius.

I sure do sound like the kid who finds air bubbles in his microscope specimen in biology class for the first time. I've made a groundbreaking discovery that only everyone else knows. Bah.

'Everyone has a skill. What's yours?'

I respect the man who dedicates his time to one, and only one skill. He is so committed to excellence in that one area, enduring hardship for that one tiny moment of glory when he can shine. The impersonation of others, a little trill on the keyboard, or even the ability to make small talk with complete strangers sans a stutter. This sort of heroic (that's the word I was looking for) focus is seemingly beyond me.

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little inside

~Gore Vidal

who have i been fooling?

We were never meant to be together. At times I tried so hard, but this end was inevitable. The story goes,

When I was younger and greener, I was so enthusiastic about this relationship. I had a place I belonged. Part of something meaningful. It was fresh, mainly because I had never been part of anything before.

Then trouble started. Me, with my attention span so short, began to drift away. It wasn't long before we never saw. I went on a year-long hiatus. It was happy times, without needing to be concerned with anything. Due to unforseen circumstances, we were back together again. However, this reunion was a grudging one. I garnered some other merit out of it though, but beyond that no pleasure was gained. As soon as possible, I severed all connection with it again.

Recently, it came back to me, on it's knees. I turned it away.

Goodbye, and good riddance. Hockey is just not for me.
Here I am back again, not part of anything.
How coincidental, the nature of the game I so abhor, that makes me so.

It wasn't going well for him that day. Bad news was still whirling in his mind. He had lost countless rounds of poker, and how had a splitting headache. He goes to the counter and orders a drink. He downs several more before leaving the filthy place.

He shambles off to the train station, and squeezes to the seat vacated by an old indian man. He folds his arms like every one else around him and promptly falls asleep.

Worst mistake of his life.

As he dozes, several people enter and exit the carriage. Several people who potentially could have caused a marked change to his entire life.

A long lost friend enters. This friend is down on his luck too, probably even worse than our protagonist here. Friend sulks in one corner and shuffles out after two stops. Had our hero been awake, they would have noticed each others presence. They would have hugged and would have become business partners. Success would await them.

A charming and attractive lady walks in but takes no notice of him. Had he been awake their eyes would have met across the car, they would have gone out and spent many happy hours together, they would have realised that they were perfect with each other, and lived blissfully ever after together.

He then goes home, collapses on the couch with a beer in hand, and watches some Arsenal vs Liverpool before passing out. His half-finished beer spills over his couch which will leave a sticky mark until he throws it out several years later.

Every moment, a thousand thousand opportunities arise. Most of them flit by because one is at the wrong place at the wrong time. The rest are lost due to circumstances beyond one's control. The pitiful few left are not seen or taken advantage of and go on to become vestiges in the deepest reaches of one's mind where they will cause squirmingly-painful hindsight for years.

Old play-doh

I am not the same person I was a year ago, and I wasn't the person I had been, the year before that, and so on.

Every year, I'd mold myself to becoming a different person. Different in deportment and work ethic. Now it'd be somewhat due to propinquity. Being the impressionable and somewhat insecure young child I am. These transformations were sometimes for the better; but more often than not for the worse. This year, I have been fortunate.

It is a vicious cycle though. I'd never hold on to a character for long enough to be good at it, and I'd never achieve the acceptence I craved so. By the time I settled down, I'd be in a different environment, and have to evolve, or devolve, again.

But do what? How to alleviate this problem? Should I even try? This absurd fickleness obviously stems from an even more absurd need to be assimilated. In the years ahead will I turn into something else? what will I turn into? I am quite satisfied with my current state after all.

One hears the phrase 'be yourself' so often. Easier said than done.

running to stand still

Though we are only ordinary men,
And cocks and pigs and dogs,
We have some royalty in us;
We are crimson queens as well.

Constants

Selfishness, stupidity, horniness.

The reasons we exist as we are today.

First is all-pervasive. It is obvious. It needs no explanation.
The third is irrelevant to me at this point of time.

But stupidity, it's very nature implies that it does not know of it's own existence. Most saddening is the fact that because of it's obliviousness to itself one continues to commit the same follies again and again.

For hope springs eternal.

It's the concept behind things like the lottery. Or dating. Or dare I say religion.

But the lottery, dating, or religion, they are by no means the point of this post. They are mere arbitrary examples.

Stupidity is way too powerful to be focused on those three. It's everywhere. In others. In ourselves.

keepin' the clean sheet

I am a coward.

What could have been though, if not for the juvenile reengineering?

I'll be fine, As long as there's a bed beneath the stars tonight

Walked out this morning
Don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion other bottles
Washed up on the shore

I'll be fine if you give me a minute
A man's got a limit
I can't get a life if my heart's not in it

bowed, on his knees, almost down and out

Like diving and holding your breath, but when you break water, there's no air up there.

Also like doing so much work and realising that the thing that you kept thinking of to keep yourself going throughout the day is missing.

Worser Flight

Little fly,
Thy summer's play.
My thoughtless hand,
Has brushed away.

Am not I,
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou,
A man like me?

For I dance,
And drink, and sing.
Till some blind hand,
Has brushed my wing.

Bzzt - zing!

is the sound of your brain making a connection. Neurons fire and grow at the speed of light, connecting in a full, closed circuit. The sensation is palpable and it comes with the euphoric shot of dopamine. It can be scary sometimes.

Letter From Will

Fear no more the frown of the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat,
To thee the reed is as the oak.

Nights of Formication

The air was cool next to the sea. It carried well the nervous laughter of people who had met for the first time. Long periods of uncomfortable silence. Their eyes flitted about the darkening coast, resting not on each other's face for fear of awkwardness. Their minds raced though, in want of saying something sharp-witted to break the uncomfortable silence. Well, it wasn't really a true silence, it was scattered with the sounds of a little boy slapping at his legs, muttering 'damn bugs'.

Of course, as the night wore on, they grew more accustomed to each other, and words flowed more freely. There still was the sense of mindfulness about what they said, but that only goes away between good friends. There was more talk and laughter, but beneath all that there still continued the slap and smack and 'damn bugs'.

Fortunately I have reinforcements

Again, mentor chytah comes to save the day with his innumerable wiseness.

Imagine I want some dough. I have people under me who pay me money for god-knows-what reasons, but it isn't enough. So I get these people, who are giving me their money, to work and toil and labour.

Let's say that I put them in a sweatshop, making origami paper cranes. They aren't paid, in fact they pay me, so my little workers are more than a little disgruntled. QC is non-existent, the average paper crane looks more like something out of a pretentious little art student's trashcan-of-failed-dreams-that-so-could-have-made-it-big.

Anyway, what I do is I sell the paper cranes back to the people who made them. They have no choice but to buy and give me more money. It's of course, for a noble cause, the weenie worker welfare watch.

The money just rolls in and I have more big cool stuff built in my name.

Queen quote #41123

I got no feel, I got no rhythm.
I just keep losing my beat.

But I'm okay, I'm alright.
Ain't gonna face no defeat.

Just gotta get out of this prison cell.
Someday, I'm gonna be free.

I'd gone running at an ungodly hour in search of the girl in the dream.

Didn't see her, din't expect to at all (hope springs eternal notwithstanding).

But fate throws you the strangest cards sometimes. Instead I met the girl from forever (really forever) long ago.


She even pronounces my name correct after the decade.

on maturity

I initially wrote 'on growing up' as the title, but it brought to mind some channel 5 drama from years past. Never watched the show, but every commercial, without fail, had some crying woman pulling at the shirt of a man wearing a pink polo-t and striding determinedly out of a redecorated phua chu kang house. I remember that as being very tacky, so I changed the title.

Growing up means learning things that one would rather never learn. Like the fact that movies and comics are fictional, so ugly guys don't end up with pretty girls, and you can't really dodge bullets or become super-strong if you irradiate yourself.

One also discovers that there is a mystical link between the buying of food and the consumption of food. It's called cooking and it requires years of training. The money plant that you have believed in all your youth also happens to be a myth. Tough.

I read in some book in Borders that you can tell the age of people by their position in a double-deckered bus.

If you sit on the top deck, in the front, you haven't grown up yet.
Top deck, at the back, you've grown a little, you're a teenager.
Top deck, in the middle, you're a young adult.

Bottom deck, at the back, you've grown up, you're an old fogey.
Bottom deck, in the front, you're ancient and when you go to the museum people think you're an escaped exhibit.

Bottom deck, in the front right, you've probably grown up to become a bus driver.

More adventures in the concrete jungle

They did have one thing in common:

They had to prove themselves to themselves.

One, that he has it,
The other, that he still has it.

One returns triumphant and content,
The other is a little confused, in not a much better state than the one in which he came in.

The good part was that the scent still lingered despite the physical distance. It instiled an energy and vivace much like a shot of adrenaline. As well as some dopamine, when the good memories associated with the smell were recalled.

Club Med is awesome.

On responsibility

Now this is being written long after the initial flames which were my inspiration died out. Now I'm merely trying to stoke the dying embers. With each second that passes, the will to pen something down fades, just like with so many other entries that failed to publish.

Maybe the object of my life is to shrug off as much responsibility as I can. I'd love to go running in the middle of the night, to see what the city looks like then. I'd love to stay out late without fear of danger or intemperance or immorality.

I could continue writing, but I hardly feel like anymore.

All dressed up... and?

Heart of summer, I still smell the grass. I still hear the lines of the dream in the night.

It distracts too much.

sad fat and bald

I sit here in the eye of the storm, surrounded by all these overachieving people. To my left is my best friend, just returned from some international competition which he won hands-down. He's in the school rugby team. He scores inhumanly high grades for every subject he takes, and most embarassingly, for some that he doesn't take anymore. Most embarassingly because I take them myself, spend hours every week poring over them, yet still don't do as well. Women pine for him. He plays 3 different musical instruments. I just sit in the huge dark shadow.

To my right is a similar person. Scholar. Artist. Overachiever. Everywhere I look, it's success story after success story. How do I compare? I shan't even try to mention.

I realise that sitting here complaining ain't helping. Even if you're on the right track, you'll still get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers.

But is it wrong to be envious when you're the scrawny black sheep among all the golden-fleeced?

(Meekly, weakly)I'm already giving so much. What do you want from me?

'Your soul, no less.'

just salt in my eye

Funny how the most insightful thoughts occur at the least opportune times, only to be forgotten later at the keyboard.

While playing street soccer the other day/week/month (it was some time ago can't remember exactly when), it hit me.

We know that most of the crap they teach us would probably never become of use when we are all grown up and stuff, and they instead should be teaching more useful knowledge like common sense.

But they do it anyway, and pile on so much work so that we're kept on our toes and don't question their shadowy evil motives. So instead we should-

I forgot what I was just about to say. To be continued.

What is it about the undeserving people? They must possess some aura, some mysterious weapon that endears the beautiful blind toward them. Yet the gentle ones who would do anything for others lack it. It's not that these gentle people are oblivious to stark reality, but that they hold on too tightly to some faint glimmer of hope. Hope that this one time there will be an exception to the bleak futility of the truth.

You could be driving a car, or at least riding in one. It's going at over a hundered, and as you look out, the vibrant bougainvilleas and frangipanis and the dull battleship greys and feces browns of the (school) buildings (101 Dover, more specifically) all blend into a wild cacophany of colours. Suddenly a dog crosses the road. Cars skid and horns blare. As you crane your neck you see the dumb animal, oblivious to it's impending doom. It's at that split second where you take in every single detail of the morbid picture painted in your eyes. You see the drool hanging from it's mouth, you see the panicked expression on the drivers' faces, you see pedastrians standing stock-still as they too prepare themselves for the grisly scene to come. You even have time to let out a mental sigh. Then time returns to normal and it happens. Wince.

Or you could be playing hockey for your school. Your'e on your own and you can't rely on anyone but yourself. All of a sudden your'e aware of everything. You see the bad guy goalkeeper shifting around his posts, you more feel than see the opponent racing up behind you. Without thinking, acting purely on instinct, you let loose a shot you wouldn't have been able to do normally and you even manage to catch a glimpse of the keeper's eyes widen in horror. You even have time to break into a mental smile. Then time returns to normal and it happens. Joy.

Or you could be playing some game on the computer. Say Counterstrike. It's you, one puny Arab terrorist against a squad of the most highly-trained soldiers in the world. You know you don't stand a chance. You skulk around the shadows, half-expecting to be killed the moment you step into the open, which unfortunately is exactly where you have to go. As you tread into the blinding light, you notice a movement in the corner of the screen. Instantly your finger jerks, and the poor sod who you saw is dead. It's a small consolation, there are still 3 to go, and 1 of you. Suddenly the dreaded 3 burst in at the same time. Without thinking, reacting purely with reflexes, you click 3 times so fast and so accurately you would not think it was you if you watched a replay. The last one is dead before the first hits the ground.

Best yet, you could be at a party with friends. Your'e the centre of attention, but not because your'e the most drunk or the loudest. In fact, your'e not even saying much. Rather your'e coming up with witticisms by the truckload, injecting one-liners of pure genius into the conversation every few moments. Inwardly you realise that 99% of the time, you wouldn't have thought of them. But now your'e conscious of it, you lose it.

It always lasts a moment. It's always fleeting. You yearn for it but have no idea how to achieve it. Sometimes you even dream about it. Hahaha I can't even put the way it feels into words but rather I just refer to it as it. Maybe it should have a name.

'Still looking-glass pool under light of autumn moon, after pebble has fallen into it'

Weather Forecast for the Next 100 Years

If not for that last minute, bless it, I predict nothing would be done in my lifetime.

You're taking steps, that make you feel dizzy; Then you like the way it feels.

I couldn't eat today. No appetite.

Haven't said that phrase and meant it in years, probably.

I'd just sit there and stare at the food. After a while they'd I'd talk to them. In the emotionless fluorescent light I realise how grossly yellow the macaroni is, how shiny and glistening, plasticky, the cheese is, how flesh-coloured the chicken is, how its texture is like that of soggy sand.

Mr. Macaroni, your'e probably so fucking GMmed that if I left you on that plate for another hour, it'd get cancer.
Mr. Cheese, you ain't made of milk that's for sure. I'm placing my bets on formaldehyde and spit.
Mr. Chicken, ah, the bringer of protein, big strong muscles and whatnot. If you didn't come from some creature that moved more than 3 metres in it's whole life maybe. But now your'e nothing but sawdust, ash and fat. Not the gleaming marbly fat, but the pale and putrid stuff you get when you mix old old milk with old old lemon juice.

'But it isn't our fault, Mr. Amil, we didn't choose to be cloned and false and born in a lab. Why are you being so mean to us today? Most days you just chug us down like we're truffles and kobe.'

'Sorry guys, I'm just a little stressed. Not much though, they say I'm stronger than that, they say they can pile more on me and I'll just cope perfectly. You see? I only have this truckload of books to carry and work to do. I've even started using my school bag as a weight to work out, but it's a bit heavy for me. I'm sure my back can handle the weight, I've only had 2 slipdisks and a strained lumbar in the past week. See these bags under my eyes? They're not pitch black yet, so that means I'm not working at 100%.'

'So I guess I'll just stop whining and eat you. Maybe I'll get cancer from all the extra crap in you. You know my grandmother has cancer? That means I'm predisposed. I might die a little earlier, but what's the diff as long as I do my work for those who want me to work for them. As long as I give them a good name as long as I'm useful, no loss eh? Look! I'm not even getting paid. Rather I'm paying them! Life's good!'

Reverse L'esprit L'escalier

Oftimes I feel that I have so much to say.

When the opportunity to speak out arises, the words fly freely from my mouth like pigs in thick mud.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AUSTRALIA_BLACKOUT_ASOL-?SITE=ASIAONE&SECTION=SOUTHEAST&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-03-31-06-21-41

Amazing.

I salute those fantastic people who took part in Earth Hour.

Don't stop me now

Over oily smudged spectacles I peer
The legions of hell their leader's face a leer
Strife and hunger and pain and torture
Bring it on
What does not kill me will only make me stronger.

The State of Affairs

You've been living underground, eating from a can.

The lady whom you notice may be beautiful, but the lady who notices you is enchanting.

-Adlai Stevenson

Staircase Wit

L'esprit de l'escalier

A situation where one thinks of or recalls something crucial, but moments too late for it to be carried out. Think witty smartass comeback, or suave pickup line, but only after you've left the place.

It's why I like MSN. It gives me time to think.

Alone,
Lonely time,
And time goes by,
So slowly,
While you sit and grow old,
Time can do so much.

Methodically, I put on my clothes to the entrancing tunes of U2. Mechanically, I breathe according the the pranayama taught to me by my mother. Ritualistically, I recite in my mind the crescendos and forczendos that would be essential in this field of education, while gathering my spellbooks that are scattered around the floor, bringing to mind an old craggy recluse wizard in his tower, never bothering to put them in order.

The spellbooks of the bard.

Tugging the last lace of a well-worn shoe, I trudge off into the sun, to prove the worth of the last year's toil.

Too bad it's not with My Own Species

I have an affinity with dogs. It can be disturbing sometimes.

Hapas ftw!

Random person I'm meeting for the first time: Um... What are you?

Kanoyt: I am a confused soul searching for his body on a crowded shore. The ocean is polluted a sickening grey and in the distant horizon, there are battleships and oil derricks puking putrid gases into the air. It's gotten so bad that you can barely see ten metres in front of you. I'd find it someday , but right now I am just pleased to meet you.

Why Kanoyt Doesn't Take A-Maths

(Click on image to expand)

Midnight Snack

I shamble to the fridge because my stomach overpowered the urge to sleep. Entering the kitchen, there is a pair of glowing disembodied eyes staring straight at me.

'Hey look, there's a pair of glowing disembodied eyes staring straight at me,' my good-as-drugged brain goes.

Then I realise there shouldn't be glowing eyes in my house, let alone without a visible torso, or at least a thorax/abdomen. The pulse skyrockets. I scramble to the light switch. Of course, the flouroscent bulb has to take 10 seconds to turn on, after flickering for a few no less. All the while I'm locked in a staring competition.

It's a cat. Black as the midnight sky. Eyes jade-green and luminous.

It bolts and squeezes through the gap in the window. I try follow but the magnificent creature's already melted into the twilight.

Of course it's a cat, what other organism seems to stare straight into your soul and burn the back of your skull when you make eye contact with it.

The light flickers again. It sorta stirs my mind, and I realise there's another answer to the rhetorical question.

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire...

It's Time to Grow up a Little

Little brother, there's only one thing I'd weep my heart over if I lost it,

And it is the future.

Mantra of the Everlasting Runner

I run not where my legs take me,
Instead I run where my heart takes me.

I come home not because of aches and pains in tired limbs.
Instead I come home because my bladder is full.

Why Kanoyt Has Not Been Posting

He tripped as he got out of bed. He fell on his head. Hard.

He got amnesia.

Wandering the dark streets, he is greeted by an old bearded man. The old bearded man tells him he can regain his memory by training in the arts of ninjitsu and bushido. He follows the old rattly man to the sewers of Manhattan, where he is trained by a talking rat.

Forgetting what he was doing, he wanders out of the sewer, and encounters another old bearded man who likes to wave his hand at people to make them do his bidding. This old bearded man takes him to the Dagobah system where he is trained in the arts of letting stuff flow through him by a green gnome with pointy ears and poor grammar.

He wakes up one morning, not in his tree-house, but in a normal bed. He goes to work and receives a phone call to meet a man. He goes to an old mansion and meets a bald black man who likes to wear sunglasses indoors. The man makes him swallow a funny red pill and he wakes up in a gooey pod. The man trains him in the arts of not trying to hit a person and instead hitting a person.

He jumps off a building and falls headfirst into the sidewalk. He makes a big crater. He gets his memory back and goes home to write about a talking rat, green gnome and squishy sidewalks.

Times when innocence I've trad'd for company

I seem to be what I'm not, you see.

-The Platters

What he had always meant

He was by no means soft-spoken. He was sociable and popular in a crowd but sometimes, he felt a little insecure, and nervous, but he always found himself, and maybe even lost himself in the excitement of the situation.

Under the surface however, he felt that his preference was for the companionship of close friends.

Not so Cool After all

It seems that the popular guys at school ain't so friendly out of it. They need their groupies. They break into cold sweat when people stop fawning over them. When being in the rugby first team or having the balls to talk back to a teacher no longer get them attention, but friendliness and a measure of conversation skills are called for, they shrink back and huddle with each other. Afraid to go out of their comfort zone.

Kiwi!

If this bird is a Buddhist, he has most certainly achieved Nirvana.

Sing this summer serenade,
The past is done, we've been betrayed.
Some might say the truth will out,
But I believe without a doubt,
In you.

We sat and watched the sun go down,
Then picked a star before we lost,
The moon.
Youth is wasted on the young,
Before you know it's come and gone,
Too soon.

You were there for summer dreaming,
And you are a friend indeed.
And I hope you find your freedom,
For eternity.

-Robbie Williams