To remember, to remember.

The problem with people is that we forget. We forget the good times if they were superseded by the bad. We forget contentment of our achievements when we see new heights to scale. We forget the simplicity of cherished tender moments as they drown in loud words. We forget the beauty of living with gratitude and repays benevolence with anger.

I’m not taking the moral highroad here. This is a critique of me as much as it is a general observation of people.

If one gift could be offered to mankind, I ask that it be of remembrance. Memories fade and what's gray will too often befuddle. When the bad is remembered alongside the good, surely better judgment would come out of it. I'm endlessly frustrated by the grievances and injustice that happen around me. So perhaps it would do me some good to remember the good times more vividly.

I can only hope to never forget I said this tonight.

Holy Hotness!

I'm panting in my head, if such a thing is possible, because all I've been doing for the past hour after coming home from Hellboy 2 is perving Prince Nuada!

Sheesh, this character embodies everything that I love: He is an elf, has killer bone structure, peerless skills in martial arts and the voice that makes me go all weak in the knees! Prince Nuada, you're such a hot villain! He first appeared in the movie half-nekkid *swoons*; deftly leapt on and off walls in gravity-defying spear fighting moves - his daily workout routine *howls!*; and all this happened in the dank, wet and rancid sewers. Yet he still oozed gorgeoness and sex appeal. My heart was all aflutter and my soul was his - in an instant.

Why, all my heros are villains! They tend to be so bad and so darn drop-dead gorgeous. If pale-like-death and long white locks aren't exactly marks of beauty for you, well then, they absolutely are for me! They are my weakness, my achilles heel. They completely disarm me, make me cry and moan in pleasure!

Check these out:

He is exactly the kind of guy makes me sit up and pay attention! Time and time again, the only characters that send the same chills down my spine (in an absolutely delicious way) looks just like this. Let's see:

There was Sephiroth...

He passes all the pre-requisites: Long white hair? Check. Sinister, dramatic makeup? Check. Elf-like (some say effaminate - you're just jealous!) features? Check. Bad, bad man? Abso-fucking-lutely!

And not forgetting Raistlin, Master of past and present, true master of the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas:

Check on all counts, except he amps up the heat by wearing his skin gold, and traded your run-of-the-mill colored contacts for hour-glassed ones. Try to beat that AND still be a sex-symbol!

All of them are villains, but are they really rotten? I beg to differ. They are my misunderstood anti-heroes. They refused to be posterboy to the masses and carved out their niche by doing things their own way and the world faults them. But if they weren't despised and spurned, they probably wouldn't have turned out to be some of the best damn villain the fantasy world has to offer.

I say 1 to evil and Nil to good on this one. *sighs wistfully*

It is done. I am at peace.

At peace with myself and with the world (who really owes me nothing to earn my rage against it). With my thyroid ripped from my body, I can literally feel the angst drain away. A chapter closes and another opens. What will tomorrow bring? I crane my neck, albeit hurting my wound - still raw from the incision - to peer into the blinding sky. Looking for omens, for signs and whatever else that could guide me forward.

But there will be none. I need to stop looking outwards and start seeking my answers within. Life propels me forward relentlessly and I've wasted time enough dawdling and wading in ankle-deep muck.

Ever onward. Never stop.

Coaxing and Cajoling my thyroid

It is infuriating. I’m in a murderous mood right now when I am supposed to be a master of zen. I’ve got Graves’ Disease and I am willing my condition to stabilize just so the surgeon could cut me up and remove the offending organ from my body. But not everything is going as planned.

My Graves’ Disease has induced hyperthyroidism. And the driving engine behind all this mayhem are my antibodies. You see, Graves’ Disease is a kind of auto-immune disease, meaning my antibodies are attacking my body and in this case the unfortunate victim is my thyroid. If you’ve heard of Lupus, it is not dissimilar only in Lupus’s case the antibodies are less discriminating about their victims. Anything from hair follicles to your lungs can be attacked and you simply won’t know when.

So there. I am sick, somewhat. But I refuse to brand myself such. I had to sit at home for 2 weeks in the name of getting better for the impending surgery which has been twice-postponed due to the instability of my condition. It’s unacceptable. Seriously. I’m scratching my own eyes out and pulling my hair for sport because I am stuck at home and forbidden to do anything that would excite or upset me. I sleep most of the time because the medication knocks me out and the doctor preached that sleeping is the best thing for me right now.

It’s ironic how I’ve planned my schedule to perfection and have to bear witness to everything crumble and fall. I’ve been on the same medication throughout my most stressed months of Feb and March, yet my condition then was the most stable throughout my history. I’ve planned for a surgery in April because work schedule simply didin't permit me to disappear for weeks on end before but alas, now that downtime has come my body is in rebellion and seemingly smug about it. Just slit my throat already!

Hungry Go Where?

That's a question that's never far from a Singaporean's mind. I ask that question while having breakfast, mentally fast-forwarding to lunch time and bemoaning the lack of food choices at my work place. So I thank god for the peeps behind http://www.hungrygowhere.com/

Finally, a place where foodies can unite and share in all our gastronomical rant and raves. So instead of condemning an establishment inwardly while warning all your friends to steer clear, now you have a platform to reach more people who care enough about food than treat it as mere sustenance. Conversely, wax lyrical about great service, insanely good food and just stop being plain selfish by keeping your favourite restaurant an insider's secret.

share the love! I've just started with reviews on Marutama (drooools) and Kuriya (swoons). More to come from me. My belly's never full. :D

My Marutama rave made me today's star reviewer. Sweet!

Lust, Caution moves me to the bones

Some of the most erotic moments of this movie didn’t belong to its much talked-about and controversial sex scenes. It was Tony Leung’s gaze at Tang Wei’s character, upon her invitation to have a cuppa at her residence; Tang Wei deliberate, languid strides, accentuating her curves wrapped under luxurious silk. This movie is all in the details! It was slow for some, but just about the right pace for me so I can drink in every moment, every nuance and still have time to watch it as a movie. I appreciate that Ang Lee kept CGI at a glorious minimum, avoiding the ship-sinking mistake that one too many luminary Asian director has committed of late, Chen Kaige, not least.

Tang Wei’s performance is star-making. She made me sit up and watch her sob heartily in the movies (an emotion entirely too familiar to me when doing said activity). My heart broke when she sat slumped in her armchair and removed her stockings – the cotton commodity that fashionable women of war torn times still found hard to part with, and also at once the epitome of female sensuality and modernity – lit her first cigarette and proffered one to her friend. Juxtapose this with the girl from the theatre troupe, sticking her head out of the nostalgic double-decker Hong Kong tram into the rain, and it takes some iron resolve not to weep. Contrast this again with the girl who looked on coyly at Kuang, firebrand leader of the theatre troupe and later wannabe resistance cell and if deep melancholy does not overcome you by now, then this show is not for you.

And we are only at the tip of the iceberg at this point. The film is a mere 15-minutes into its run and I’m getting all set-up for more heartaches. But there is more to this film than being hell bent on plunging us all into depression (melancholy is simply my penchant). The themes of this movie, on a personal level, is about transformation, illusion and abandonment. Every step of the way, the characters that matter to the audience’s hearts are the ones who transmute even though they might overtly feel the same. Peeling back the guarded layers a man of Mr.Yee status (Leung’s character) must surely have and you get abandonment. The catalyst – Tang Wei’s Mrs Mak, or rather, Wang Jia Zi. The result that ensues is such acrobatic, almost fierce love-making ever seen in Asian cinema that it binds me irrevocably to believe every shudder, every sigh, every claw and bite the 2 doomed lovers (in an illusion or otherwise) inflicted on each other. I loved the surprise I felt at the almost rape during the first time rendezvous and even this subsequently transformed into sex the manner as I’ve described before, more binding and passionate, though no lacking in a transient power struggle between two persons on ruffled bedsheets. Mr Yee’s stoic and taciturn exterior unravels to a predatory lover and thereafter to a human being capable of love upon Ang’s investigative storytelling.

And who can ignore the double allegory? Oh gawd! Tang Wei plays the actress who played the seductress – from stage to entrapment to entanglement. And Mr Yee was the opportunistic traitor to the collaborationist government and interrogator extraordinaire to slave master in bed.

For me, it all culminated to the scene where Tang’s character sang for Mr Yee, breaking all his defenses and amour and realizing that her own were breaking too. Finding love in an unlikely person and a villain, while hopelessly expecting it from one, who lamely stood aside yet had willfully orchestrated her fate, was sobering.

I often find myself pondering over the film, which is a rare occurrence lately with the largely forgettable fare we’ve been served at the theatres. It is a film I will definitely revisit soon just to rediscover how I was completely overcome by its masterful subtleties, and to see for myself, again, just how impossibly complex characters can be played by some of the brightest actors Asia has to offer.

It isn't fast food if it takes 2 hours

Calling for food on a blasted rainy day like this is probably the single most exasperating experience ever. First, it takes 2 hours to get fast food. I’m not being cruel. I do not expect that the delivery men and women brave a torrential nightmare like the one raging in full force right now. My question really is, why do things come to a standstill during such a common meteorological occurrence? How about finding ways AROUND it so that when people most need their food delivered, they still get it in a timely manner? Why don’t we get, say, these cute little sheltered scooters that I have seen in Japan and Taiwan to protect man and goods? How about bringing in the occasional Van for a jam-packed evening like this one? If you are going to be late because of the rain, how about trying to hit the road in a larger, more unwieldy vehicle and try say, driving slowly? Maybe I am being ignorant here, but if someone knows why this is NOT a viable option for major fast food restaurants, please enlighten me!

And then there’s the most laughable mistake made by almost every restaurant and delivery call centre of placing someone so in-apt in his or her English, that it is almost stroke-inducing for me to *try* to convey my food order. I asked “Do you deliver to Changi Business Park?” and I was asked to hold. When he finally got back on the line, he asked me for my order. After another excruciating 5 minutes just trying to explain that I need to first find out if they deliver to said address or not, he asked me to hold again. I don’t know what the fuck for. He came back on the line, and asked me for my phone number. That was the last straw. WHAT THE FUCK did he need my number for? Turned out he really either did not understand my question or he couldn’t hear me. Whichever way it was he could have just bloody asked me to A) Speak up and B) repeat myself. I would have gladly done that if it would expedite a process that should really have taken all of 5 mins, not 15mins. So I’m guessing he doesn’t just lack a basic understanding of the English language, he was also most likely just plain incompetent. So why put him on the phone? On the very front line where first impression makes all the difference for your brand? To piss a customer off royally so they’ll never return? Heck, they sure did that for me.