I said something about big changes in 2011, back in 2010. It was as if I had the ability to foretell something bad like some animals before a catastrophic event because, indeed, a lot of crazy shit have happened in 2011, which totally changed my life.

The shittiest of them all, was the passing of my mom. My mom died a tragic death. She had depression (for reasons unknown to us), and it culminated when she had a serious misunderstanding with her own siblings, and decided to end her own life. The day she died, I was questioned by relatives at home and policemen at the forensic department – what the fuck had I done? It was like, I had committed a crime against my own mother, despite being in shock and sad like shit. (they eventually found out the truth, and the matter was put to rest, along with my mother’s remains).

My mom’s actions nevertheless, seemed to have created a big impact in everyone’s life. She used to be the center of attention in her family, and now what she was gone, it will never the same without her. The same goes for my daughter, Regine. Who used to have a grandma feeding her dinner and night talk before sleep, she could never understand why her grandmother had to suddenly leave like that. I tried to water down the bitter episode of the family by going for a vacation, hence the trip to Korea, to speed up the moving on. We’re coping up fine now.

All the personal issues aside, I had also been extremely busy with the job at Company Y – which came to be an all rounder, lack of budget, full of rustic people kind of job. I learned a lot through the process, but it also made me glad that I survived the day without being castigated for not doing something I wasn’t supposed to do. I have to start early (because of the traffic), and end late (because of the load). No backup, and no solid plan for a career growth. It’s like pulling weeds in the field. Weeds never stop growing and assholes never stop barking for not pulling enough weeds. I don’t think I could last long in this kind of environment.

I hope 2012 will be a better year.

My daughter had been pestering me to buy her a music box for days. Because her birthday is drawing near, I decided to give in to her request and brought her to the nearest mall to find one during the weekend. That was why I ended up looking around in one of the gaudy gift shops – and spotted this hideous piece of shit here :

Sorry for the poor image quality, as I was in a frantic mode and was doing it quick because I wouldn’t want to be caught dead snapping the picture of this thing here. But you know what it is. It’s a fucking kerosene lamp cheapened by the color red. This fucking thing actually brought back memories when I was a teenager. Shocking as hell, I received one during Valentine’s Day, and I don’t remember from whom it was. I can only recall being so irked by it, that I immediately tossed it into a dustbin and let off a spasmodic shiver.

I mean, what the fuck do I do with it? To actually light that thing up with kerosene?? And then what?? Smoke a pipe of opium with it?? It doesn’t make any sense! I could probably use a thousand and one thing out there in this world, but this?? It’s fucking insulting. So, to you teenage stupid fucks out there, don’t buy something like this as a gift to someone. It’s stupid. Get something practical instead. Like a USB flash drive, or perhaps a set of Meguiar car care products…

I have to admit, I haven’t been particularly fond of 2010. You see, I’m a guy who pines for mediocrity, who likes to play things safe. I’m the kind of person who avoids interaction, calculate my steps ahead, plan for my outings right to the idea of where to park the goddamn car, et al. If you look at it in an angle, you can say that I am suffering some mild variant of OCD crossed with a partial mental condition of being antisocial (with a little hint of Tourettes). Yeah I am like that.

So, naturally, when I left Company X with that large sum of VSS payout, I immediately tumbled into a vortex of darkness. Being somewhat of a ‘going alone’ kind of guy, going around for interviews wasn’t particularly my idea of having fun. So, it didn’t take very long for depression to set in. I had insomnia, and I even dreamnt about some of the douchebags I met in the interviews ruining my shit. I started to develop this feeling of weariness, of the need to suck ass, just so that the douchebag on the other side would hire me.

Anyway, I bummed for a total of 1 perilous month that felt like forever before I found a job at this place which I named as Company Y – a fast paced MNC that squeezes its employees over and over like an overused giant sugar cane machine. But in between the tremendous pressure and inadequacy, I have done more useful stuff in 3 months than I ever did at Company X in a year. So, in some aspect, I am grateful that I am learning and progressing – but on the other, I’m kinda sad that the quality of my life actually tanked (which I don’t want to talk about).

So much about my career. My daughter Regine turned 4 this year. She started to dine and talk to us like a regular person. She’s able to speak fluent English and Mandarin now, and a little bit of a couple of dialects. She’s also kind of self sufficient – which is somewhat a relief for both Emily and I – being able to flip switches around the house on her own, go to the toilet without needing any assistance, switch her own channels on the TV, doing her own shit at her own time and in some extend, even uses my computer to entertain herself. I reckon that it won’t be long before I’d need to buy her a computer. I’d say my little girl’s growing up a bit too fast. I’m finding it hard to catch up.

I guess that’s about it. 2010 was all about big changes for me. Didn’t enjoy it. Don’t feel like talking much about either.

There will be no resolution for the new year. I might do something about that feeling of weariness that keeps growing every day though, and if I do, it’s going to be an even bigger change than that hellish period of ultra fucked up uncoolness. If that happens, I’d definitely write about it. But until then, I’d continue to wallow around until I find light, and hopefully, get my life back.

Happy fucking new year. Don’t drink and drive.

The world according to 80′s Hong Kong swordsmen TVB drama

1) Everyone has the same great straight hair, uniformly bundled/tied the same standard way with killer sideburns. There’s no balding issue, split ends or dandruff problems.

2) If a person happens to sport an unconventional hairstyle or is half bald, he is one of the bad guys.

3) If you ever get critically injured in a swords fight, you can always get help from the forgotten old hermit fuck who lives near a cliff out-of-town, and ask him to heal your injuries with his Chi palms placed strategically on your back until some smoke comes out from your head.

4) If you see a guy with long overly white gleaming hair (like Saruman in The Lord Of The Rings) and luscious eyebrows, chances are high that the guy has mad skills in kung-fu. Do not mess with him at all cost.

5) Every hot chick the hero likes has a jealous cousin or a loser admirer who always have the inclination to cooperate with the guy with white hair (see #3 above) to ruin the hero’s shit.

6) Every general or high ranking officer in the emperor’s army has a hot daughter or an impetuously stupid son.

7) The best kung-fu is learnt from an ancient forgotten book waiting to be found (and there are many of them), not from a kung-fu master. But if you have comprehension problem that makes you misinterpret the ancient book (never mind physically fit to learn kung-fu), you could get seriously deviated and become a deranged mad evil fucker (dubbed as ‘run fire + possessed by evil’)

8) If you are seriously stressed or mentally drained after getting dumped by your childhood girlfriend, you can get a life changing moment by meditating for 10 years in an isolated cave without food/water, and getting +500 points for your kung-fu skills and wisdom.

9) A guy’s traits and character can be proportionally reflected by his facial hair. Long beard, wise. Dense and thick beard, badass. Thin mustache, chicken ass pervert. No beard, immature. Unshaved bristles, hardcore laborer or been-through-hell.

10) The robed guy with a big straw hat and black veil is a stealthy assassin with mad kung-fu skills and speaks in a hushed tone. Everyone in public will get suspicious of him, except the loser he intends to kill.

I happened to lay my eyes on an old Hong Kong swordsman drama on Astro the other day, and some nostalgic memories came wafting in – the time when I was just a kid watching VHS tapes with my mom. I wonder how many of you guys have been through that… or is it just me.

You know, people often say certain songs remind you of your certain past. Very true for me, eg. :
- whenever I hear Enigma’s ‘Beyond The Invisible’, I will think of the night I first hold my wife’s (girlfriend then) hand on a beach…
- whenever I hear The New Radicals’ ‘You Get What You Give’, I will think of the day I got my first car…
- whenever I hear The Beatles’ ‘The Sun King’ in their Abbey Road’s medley, I will think of the day I became jobless…

But the other day, a song called ‘Lambada’ came on air on the radio, and it immediately reminded me of my neighbor’s son (about my age) back in my ghetto-ish neighborhood when I was a kid. I didn’t know him very well, but I remember us hanging out a few times with some other kids before. I don’t even know his name till this day, just called him ‘the midget’s son’. Why ‘the midget’s son’? Well, his parents were midgets and the family ran a convenient store nearby (and my mom knew his midget mom very well so…), and the name just stuck – the midget’s son.

Then my family moved away from the slum neighborhood around 1989, so I totally lost my contact with all my childhood ‘friends’. It wasn’t until 1994 when I stumbled into the midget’s son riding a Honda cub 70cc motorcycle, near where I was living. His bike was an eyesore. It was cosmetically heavily modified – you know, chromed balancers, sawed off chain box, souped up absorbers, chromed everything, horsepower increasing stickers, noisy exhaust pipe, just a lot of noise without substance. But the most fucked up thing of all was when he braked that piece of junk, the whole bike would light up like it was trying to communicate with some extra terrestrial civilization from the outer fucking space, and at the very same time, the ‘Lambada’ song would blare out from its giant electronic buzzer – and that was how the song kinda latched on to my memory, partly linking him with it.

Then he was unseen again until about a couple years later, when I saw him speeding in a red Yamaha Sports 100cc – which was a more powerful bike, also the same bike I had – and I thought to myself, he finally got some sense and taste into him. But about a few days later, my mom broke a rather shocking news to me, “Hey, you remember that midget’s son? He got into an accident and he’s in a coma now.” And then I went “Wtf I just saw him a couple days ago!” (like it wouldn’t have happened if I have seen him, duh). And what’s even more bizarre, he actually hit an old lady who lived behind our house (at the new residence). So the situation was like, my ex neighbor hit my new neighbor, and both of them went into coma. Then came the shocker – the old lady died, and midget’s son followed a week later, without ever regaining consciousness. According to my mom, the midget’s son had a row with his midget parents just a couple months earlier, for not buying him this ‘more powerful bike’. He wanted the bike so bad that he threw his tantrum by kicking things around the house (like a spoilt brat). Not wanting to see their son being so stucked up in the ass, the midget couple eventually relented and bought him the bike. Big mistake. He’s dead now.

During his wake, I quietly rode my Yamaha Sports 100cc to the funeral parlor at night to pay him the last respect, and I saw his brother folding some joss paper for him, probably for bribing some hell officers to let him ride a ghost bike in the underworld. Then I said to myself, “Man I can’t fucking believe the midget’s son is dead…”. It’s always like that when someone my age dies.

His blood still taints the yellow box paint at the accident site intersection till this day. Kinda seeped into it. So, whenever ‘Lambada’ plays, instead of thinking of sweaty seductive Latino chicks grinding my drunken cock in a dance bar somewhere, I’ll think of the midget’s son, his stupid bike, his tragic accident, and this creepy ass blood stain.