Goodbye You Wonderful People

This is my last posting for this year. Many things had happened since my birthday, some pleasant and some not. Recent events demanded that I do some soul-searching and I need to sort out some important matters regarding my life. So this is goodbye to everyone who had visited this blog, left comments and/or greetings. Thank you for your support and see you all again next year, I don't know when.

Finding Mahsuri :: Final Part

That's it. The quest for Mahsuri has ended. Yep, the mission has been officially terminated. Sorry, Hazel and the rest of you who had been rooting for the (happy?) ending of the story. Maybe at 50, I'm getting a bit too old for this mushy lovey-dovey stuff.

Right after the first visit to Langkawi, I had been trying to arrange another fishing trip without success. It would have been much easier if I were to go on my own but for some reason I didn't. I have always been a lone operator in matters like this but this quest is the exception. Maybe I needed that extra excuse to haul my butt up there.

When I finally managed to round up all the guys, the trip was postponed from one week to another several times. The latest one was planned to be on last Saturday; even that was nearly postponed again when four of the guys backed out. The rest of us had a meeting and decided to share the cost and go anyway.

Then the impossible happened -- I had to withdraw at the eleventh hour. On Friday night I received an urgent call to attend a meeting down south. I hopped on the first available express bus on Saturday. I only informed one of the guys by SMS when I was safely out of Sungai Petani to avoid any serious repercussions from them.

On the bus I managed to really look at the situation and decided that it has been too much trouble to take just because of one girl who lives on an island. What if she doesn't even care what I had to go through just to chat her up? Maybe there is no Mahsuri for me there on Langkawi. Maybe she lives somewhere else. Maybe she doesn't even exist.

Sorry that it has to end this way. But here I am -- living happily ever after.

This Day, This Month

How time flies. I've been chalking up years so fast I couldn't believe that I am 50 today. That's a pretty big number but somehow it doesn't make me feel all that ancient. If Chairil Anwar had wanted to live a thousand more years, I'd be happy with just another fifty.

I don't know how am I going to celebrate yet because there's no one home; the kids won't be back until next week. No hugs and kisses until then, I guess I'll just have to settle with only SMS and missed calls from them.

I don't usually announce my birthdays but this is something I can't do alone this time. So I'll just share this happy moment online with you wonderful people.

But the greatest gift that I received for this birthday is a piece of happy news from a friend. To me that news is worth a million bucks, it is music to my ears and it made this birthday very special from the previous forty-nine. If you're reading this, my dearest friend: Thanks for sharing it with me.

Inul and Void

Someone called me to ask: What's all this fuss about Inul Daratista? I really can't find the words to describe her except that: She rocks! But then again, she doesn't do rock, she does dangdut.

But yesterday I found an old file on my computer; one of my early attempts at HTML when I was learning Web Design last year and it was part of my assignment. It brought the whole lecture hall down during my presentation but my lecturer, a demure young lady, blushed and didn't think it was that funny though. Luckily the other accompanying pages saved my hide. Phew!

I have uploaded the page here. Enter at your own risk to see what Inul does best. The background music loads rather slowly but it is best viewed with the music clip on. You have been warned but enjoy it all the same!

Gifts of Barakah

This is inspired by a blog entry titled P*lgrims Progress and I hope the author doesn't mind my picking his mind a little:

You know how people at home expect (whether they admit it or not) a little souvenir from Mecca when they come and visit after you come back from your Hajj? And because of this, many p*lgrims set aside some money to bring home dried fruits, water from the Zamzam fountain, toys, tasbih, skull caps, etc. as gifts for visitors, well-wishers and relatives.

A friend of mine found a way not to burden his father with this souvenir hunting and even saved a few Saudi Riyals in fines for excess baggage. He went to a pasar malam and bought a few boxes of skull caps from one of those Thai traders who were selling them from their pick-ups. The next time his father called from Mecca, he just told the old Haji not to bother buying those caps as souvenirs.

I got one from him, too. I accepted it with a knowing smile, for barakah.
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p.s. I had to edit a few words out because of the influence they had on the content of the green panel on the right ;)
13.12.04 : edited again... hope it works this time, sigh!

You Can't Touch This, Mother!

Growing up in the 70s when Generation Gap was the in thing, I used to find all sorts of unreasonable excuses to get into a fight with my Mom. Being anti-establishment was in too then. Every motherly concern (read as nag) was then an intrusion into my privacy and an an attempt to stiffle my self-expression. Or so I thought.

Poor woman. She must've been completely confused and disappointed at what was happening to her eldest son at the time. I sported long hair, had patches on my jeans and I wore an earring. The long running confrontation came to its ugliest point when I decided to fail my MCE exams in retaliation. I ignored the books totally while my mates were hitting them like crazy. (OK, I lied. I did speed-read a few pages just before the sitting; I didn't want to hand in a blank piece of paper.)

Funny thing is, I couldn't even do that right. The patches were there to cover real tears on my jeans, from falling off my bike. The earring was actually soldering wire bent into a ring and I didn't have my left earlobe pierced. I couldn't bear the thought of my earlobe being ripped off in a brawl. No, I didn't get into brawls, which were in too at the time, but just in case.

Worse still, I couldn't even fail my exams -- sheesh! I didn't score except in one favourite subject which didn't require much studying, but nor did I fail! The results disappointed me more than they did my Mom. I was one troubled kid, wasn't I?

I still get into fights with my Mom every now and then. The tables are turned, now she has the knack of finding all the ridiculous excuses to get on my nerves. She opens my mail everytime she has the chance and I hate that. She cannot read but gets someone else to read them out to her so she and her accomplice (usually my youngest daughter) know how much money I owe the bank, the Income Tax people, etc.

But now I use the intensity of the fight to judge her state of health. If she isn't picking up fights with me, I know that she's a little bit under the weather. Or maybe she runs out of her pills and medication. We'll just run off to the clinic to stock up and we'll be at each other's throats again in no time.

Now that I'm a father of four adorable kids, I'm so thankful that the Generation Gap is no longer a 'cool thing' with younger sat. Maybe I'm such a spineless doting father but I simply couldn't find enough reason to confront the kids on anything. They confided in me almost on everything they do. So far, so good. Touch wood.

But I really would like to use my parental privilege of prying into our children's lives and find out what my son had been up to with his pretty co-singer. Hmm...

What a Way to Go Down

I have always been a big fan of Sharifah Aini. I like her evergreen songs, I like the way she pronounce the words in her songs. I like the way she talk especially when she speaks in Malay. She sounds so sophisticated. But she was dragged to court on Wednesday over those alleged nasty emails sent to another singer, Siti Nurhaliza.

If the late Saloma were still alive today, she'd probably be thrilled to bits at the news that made the front pages yesterday. I remember that Sharifah once said she'd never end up poor like Saloma (or something to that effect), hurting the latter's feelings in the process.

We'll just wait for the verdict and see if old Karpal (or Shafee, whichever she may engage to represent her) would be of any help. Meanwhile, I'll just continue to adore Inul Daratista. No bitching, no controversy (of this sort, at least); just plain good music and amazing dance moves. Long live Dangdut Koplo!