Back, You See

Hey folks.

It's been a couple days. In between the craziness that was this weekend and trying to salvage what's left of the looming 10 year anniversary-of-the-faculty-gig, I managed to almost finish Bruce Campbell's amazing autobiography, watch The Butterfly Effect (and ending up liking it rather more than I expected to), play several rounds of the console world's version of Battlefield 1942 set in the Star Wars universe (in what may just be the best Star Wars game ever, and it's called Star Wars: Battlefront by the way, God I never thought I'd whoop so much being able to sit in an AT-AT and blow up rebels on Hoth), get trapped in the celebrity cordon at Berjaya Times Square during some ERAfm radio promo, start downloading the sweet jazz/metal/folk/blues OST to Cowboy Bebop (oh man does Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts ever give me a reason to buy an Ipod, music like this is too good to leave at home) and get slightly depressed all at almost the same freakin' time.

Now if that doesn't sound like a little over full-life, I dunno what it is (and don't you even dare say that nasty delusion-word). I think it started with digesting Ashton Kutcher in 'Effect. Watching someone try repeatedly to make the world right and in the process only causing more harm than anything else gets a guy thinking (and also drafting a review):

What would I like to change, if I ever got the chance to? Would I have said something differently to someone, acted differently, what? I guess when we're thinking in this particular vein, one has no choice but to look at the now. So here I am, in what is sometimes (hey who am I kidding, sometimes?) a lonely spot, well within my efforts to break out but for some reason, desperately unwilling to.

As I see people around me throw caution to the winds and well, get adventurous, I am bloody tempted to do just that; only in the end this little voice comes in and asks "at what cost, dude?". It doesn't take much self-diagnosing to come up with an:

"I'm fucked up, that's all it is."

Pardon the French (since I don't think they did anything actually wrong) but when everything's a cost vs. benefit to you it's kinda difficult to commit to anything with shades of grey in it. As I've probably said oodles of times before, I've come to like being able to be emotionally distant. What I don't like is the aftertaste that reeks of that little condition called being a prick, or if we want to be all continental, wanker.

Can't have one without the other, I suppose. I've done some pretty interesting (not to mention potentially unsafe) things in this life, and while they've not really netted me any measure of happiness (I can't form proper relationships with people, for God's sake) I guess what it all comes down to is bloody this:

I wouldn't have changed a single damn thing.

Now excuse me, while I bugger off a moment.

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One thing I've noticed (and this may not necessarily be a bad thing) is that pr0n DVDs are back, in a big way. Only a couple days ago I was at the Mines in Serdang and here these vendors were selling them waay out in the open, next to Mystic River and Mooseport (dodgy as that particular movie may be). I mean, they're kinda hard to miss with titles like I Fuck You Shoot and whatever else the Photoshop maestros over in Causeway Bay or Tsim Sha Shui come up with. While I don't mind pr0n, I'm more in favour of what I term the Standard approach:

You come up to the guy selling, and mutter under your breath (or wait for him to say something along the lines of):

"Panas punya mau/ada?" (usage of mau/ada depends on who's doing the asking)

Sure, it's superficial at best, but at least it's hidden away somewhere and doesn't make the other customers uncomfortable. Of course, this is just me speaking, and maybe we've evolved enough as a society to be able to have pr0n in our shops and not bat an eye. Oh well, listen to me, extolling an SOP for pr0n vendors. Whatever would I think of next?

Excuse me again, while I really bugger off.

Track of the day:
Want it All Back - Cowboy Bebop OST 2, No Disc