of her facebook obsessions and confessions

"social utility that connects you with the people around you”

***

prologue:

well, as much as i hate to admit it, i am quite amused with facebook. it's already been integrated into my routine. every time i surf the internet, i'll surely, inevitably type in facebook.com (i dun save facebook in my bookmark, just in case i could still be cured off the facebook syndrome) in the first tab and other matters come next. but, this post is actually triggered by a particular topic started in the famous facebook, which in turn, revoked my love-hate relationship with FFB (you are free to percieve the abbreviation) or any social networks of the like. so, you read and tell me if i hate or love facebook. thank you.

where should i begin? ah, right.

#1: friends in friendster-friends or not?

remember the chatting channels, ICQ and MIRC? remember ICQ's signature "uh-oh"? they hold such a nostalgic value in my memory. a memory of my teen years. like all other teenagers of my time, i grew up using icq and then mirc. but, after a year, i ran out of topics and decided that i would not be using icq and mirc again. then, comes along the frienster. soon, friends were talking about adding friends and sending testimonials to each other. i was curious. how could you not tell what you feel and what you want to say to your friends face to face, but choose to write all that in friendster, which requires more work and effort.

out of curiosity and undeniably, the popularity, i signed up an account and i have since became a victim of friendster. before long, i found myself checking out everybody's profiles and pictures while condemning those who lock their profiles as private. *damn, this guy is handsome. i wanna see his pics/ kedekut betul!* i even checked to see if people actually writes in my testimonial box. that's also the starting of the narcissism in me.

one of the most interesting fact in friendster is the number of friends you have. the friendly count is a measure to your own popularity. basically, the more, the better. if the count is 10, it means you are a newbie, judging from the date you registered. if you are in for a long time, but your count of friends is still between 20-30, it means you are not so popular. translation: you are not the pretty/handsome type that people feel you should be worthy of knowing. on the good side, you can invade people's privacy more then yours being invaded. if you have up to 400 friends, your popularity is rate #2. translation: you are the beautiful type/macho type. constitution of friends probably your old school mates, your collegues, your bf/gf's friends, and someone who thinks both of you have the same interest. if your count exceeds 400 to uncountable that some needs to open a few more friendster accounts, bravo. your popularity is un-questionable. probably, you are one hot/dashing/handsome/sexiest person alive. and your friends probably consist of your old school mates, your collegues, your bf/gf's friends, your bf/gf's friends' friends, and yadda yadda yadda. i doubt that this particular popular person even stay in touch with 80% of the friends in his libraries.

as you might have guessed, my count of friends falls between the range of 20-40. but, BUT, i do not have anything against these beautiful people out there. this is just a mere opinion, not biased or prejudiced. in fact i have a confession to make. i was one of those people who envy about the high count and who gets excited when someone sends in a friend request. even though i do not add people randomly but i admit that i did accept the friend requests-me and my twisted principle.

an embarrassing piece to leak: i even edited my friendster profile two or three times to make it look "friendly" and "cool", all for the sake that it would catch some attention. now, looking back at the profile, i felt like puking. blerggghh! elaborating further will only have me dying of "geli-ness".

#2: facebook-starts with the letter F too!

so, it's the era of facebook, said a friend. whatever happens to friendster? is it joining the icq-mirc league? but, never mind that. facebook is much much more cooler and nicer then friendster. it's the in thing now. it's like a drug. you can get pms if you were denied access into facebook.

the term facebooking is a netlingo now but who knows, in the long run, it's a legal word and you can search it in dictionaries. perhaps something like this:

facebooking verb
/ˈfeɪs.bʊk.ɪŋ/
the act/process of logging into facebook, [copy-paste tagline] and indulging in its various activities such as restaurant city, pet society, happy farm town, updating and commenting on status, uploading pictures and videos; and etc.
E.g: She was facebooking in the lab when the lecturer wasn't looking.

truthfully, i enjoy facebooking very much. i think restaurant city is pretty childish but i am childish enough to play it. without fail, i water my plants next to my restaurant, feed my workers, answer the quizzes, visit my next-door-restaurateur and the next next next to see if i missed out my chance to collect free ingredients and redecorate my restaurant when my restaurant is profitting. wtfish!

reading friends' status and comments has been a favourite pastime too. nothing entertains more than reading these. commenting is even more entertaining. you can choose to agree, or to disagree or sometimes to black-humour someone. *evil evil grin*

the thing with facebook is that it is quite the same as friendster. the problem arises here. so-called friends aren't even sincere about befriending you. there is a reason why they added you. agree? well of course there are always some exceptions. but if you add this person, maybe you can get free ingredients if you are visiting his restaurant for the first time or what? (i only play restaurant city) no harm right? that's the whole point of facebook.

and oh boy! i do love the quizzes. 'naff said.

although facebook isn't really personal or claimed to be getting less personal, it has been a source of entertainment to me.

epilogue:

my writing here is not to prove that facebook is a piece of useless junk. no, of course! and i think i need to take facebooketamol pills to ease my fever.

time has it's own way of softening the rough edges. i can almost imagine myself chuckling at all those silly comments made and the bombs threw at each other in a very long long long time to come. i think this is what that defines part of our early 20s. oh, gosh. i am laughing now!


*this post is something i had in mind sometimes ago, but with many thoughts dissipating away in the end. as much as i enjoy writing this, i hope you enjoy reading it too (if there's someone :))*

maria

speaking of my problem to concentrate in the previous post, i am suddenly reminded of one song, "maria" from the sound of music.

instead of singing "how do you solve a problem like maria", i am now hearing the nuns singing "how do you solve a problem like i-chi-gou's".

part of the lyrics can be related to myself and the lonely demon puishan. hey, puishan, i dedicate this song to you. hahahaha. you are quite a maria yourself. this is your character song.

*explanations will be inserted under the said lyrics [highlighted]*

maria

She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee
Her dress has got a tear
She waltzes on her way to Mass
And whistles on the stair
And underneath her wimple
She has curlers in her hair
I even heard her singing in the abbey
//suits you, puishan. you are very playful. haha

She's always late for chapel
But her penitence is real
She's always late for everything
Except for every meal
//i am always late to classes but not my meals.
//where there's food, there's puishan
I hate to have to say it
But I very firmly feel
Maria's not an asset to the abbey

I'd like to say a word in her behalf
Maria makes me laugh

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
//referring to myself. how do you solve a problem like ichigou's?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
//how to catch my focus and concentrate.
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand
//me more likely. sigh

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

When I'm with her I'm confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She's as flighty as a feather
She's a darling! She's a demon! She's a lamb!
//demon as in "lonely demon" :)

She'd outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She's a riddle! She's a child!
She's a headache! She's an angel!
She's a girl!

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

academic slides vs blog posts

academic slides: read me! read me! exam coming soon. this monday!
blog post: eh, i just arrived in the blog. check me out. i am very interesting.

academic slides: oh, read me first. i am of higher priority. needs to go into processing first.
blog post:oh, i won't take a lot of time. don't worry.

academic slides:don't fall for that! First-in-first-out concept! i came in first. i've been in the queue 2 minutes ago.
blog post:shortest job first! remember. i have minimum turnaround and service time.

ah. ok. the blog post wins. "reading blog post" thus went into execution. *imagine abba's "the winner takes it all" playing in the background.*

***

after reading the post, the eye found another interesting post and thus fired up a new message to the brain.

again the battle between the slides and the post begins:

academic slides:it's my turn now! yay!
blog post2: you know i can be done in a jiffy, don't you? besides, a few more minutes won't hurt. that academic slides is boring!

sigh. fall prey to blog post again. ok. just one more. last. *"the winner takes it all" playing in the background again*

***

well, the loop goes on and on without terminating. the academic slides are now suffering from starvation. its existence in the queue is shrinking, forgotten and insignificant.

insignificant? that's a sad word.

i should implement the round robin that distributes processing time equally among requesting processes. eh, but wait! round robin might not be that efficient all the time.

so after all, priority-based scheduling is the best option now. sigh. i always ignore priority. that's always my problem. intensive focusing class in need.

if only the slides are in comic form. i'll be able to read once and remember for a long time. :)

quotable quotes

"The greatest tragedy in life is people who have sight, but no vision."

Helen Keller

All that jazz and electrifies

Simply Jazztronicked!















i am in the impulse of rushing to rock corner in Gardens, for cd shopping again after listening to FreeTEMPO. hard not to, especially when 4shared.com is blocked [again] and i fail to bypass the proxy.

anyway, i think i might have a thing towards music produced by dj's, but not the overly hyped type, of course! to name one, clazziquai, a fantastic project by a korean dj whose genres are a mixed of groovy, classical, jazz, electronic, house and some bossa nova. on the other hand, FreeTEMPO which is initiated by japanese dj takeshi hanzawa fuses jazz and electronic and most of its music blends in some element of sway, lightness and some kind of "wanna-break-free". schweet. i love the album covers' concept alot. imaginative and vintage looking, like one of those laser discs i used to see in music stores.

to be fair, i think some of the pieces sound familiar to each other-mostly played around one main theme and style or start with a similar rhythm but given a different twist while developing. redundant they may sound but one can still make out the difference between two pieces. the only thing ordinary about FreeTEMPO albums which matches the other albums out there would be this fact: "in every album, there will be only one most distinguished track". haha, i can't deny that favouritism is hard to avoid.

simply put, FreeTEMPO delights me. the first track i listened to should be immaterial white. this makes great listening because it feels fresh, something different from the usual tracks played in my player. speaking of the media player, my music library is expanding exponentially, consisting of musicians whom i've never heard of until i downloaded their albums and savour their music.

how irony can that be? these musicians are internationally renown and yet we have no idea! and to add to that matter, it is almost impossible to find their albums in regular music stores here. perhaps, their fame is only defined among the jazz musician community and people who have been avid fan of the genre. one thing, malaysians are generally good jazz musicians. some of the malaysian band i heard in youtube is really amazing.

some of my favourites:
mercedes benz mixed tape-compiles works of new and promising musicians. genres-jazz, nu-jazz, tri-hop, soul, folk song, indie, house, lounge

hotel costes-i've only manage to download the 2nd and the 10th album. thumbs up for lounge and chill-out.

kenny-g -ahh...classic. who would've not know him? jazz, of course!

michael buble-nice voice, and good looking too. haha

ryuichi sakamoto-ahh, this man is genius. can't describe him. during my internship i listened to his forbidden colours everyday, every minute and second, for 2 continuous week. it's like caffeine. can't do without it. yeah, i was that crazy then.

clazziquai-korean music. thumbs up.

norah jones-i don't really have her songs in my list but i listened to her few songs and quite like it. she's really a jazz pianist.

yundi li-ok! this one is not jazz pianist. he's a classical pianist. virtuoso pianist.

i sense the list is growing and growing. it's always like that. once you browsed for one particular musician, you will inevitably stumbled across another musician. and it makes me itchy all over.

*scratch scratch*

random thoughts

"mei, i've got a bad news to tell you"

it was 12.45 pm, when i was boarding the intercity train. my heart pounded at a faster rate hearing such words escaping from my mum's mouth and expressed in such a gravely tone. oh, God! i hope it has nothing to do with the family.

***

"uncle C just passed away this morning."
mouth gaped open, unable to register.
"who, u said?"
"uncle C. we are on our way to malacca now."
i was shocked. i couldn't imagine aunt C, cousin j and y's feelings.

***

on his last day, uncle C was excited about making a trip back to perak for a gathering and a celebration. he bought lots of malacca products-biscuits and noodles.

in his last 30 minutes, he chatted over the phone, happily, discussing about where we are going for dinner.

on his last minute, he was lying on his bed. perhaps, he never knew that his wife was frantically calling his name and shaking his arms, or how he was sent to the hospital.

in the wee hours of saturday, he was free from all the heavy medications and his pains.

***

suddenly, i felt that life is extremely short and unpredictable. not that i am not aware of the fact, but just that, i've never really feel it this deeply before. the termination in the human world could be that sudden. death is part of the life cycle, inevitable but it still feels as if it's a taboo word in my vocabulary.

suddenly, i feel like hugging my parents. i felt thankful that my family are still here. i can still hear their voices- sis's frantic voice, my parents' nagging, read those rude (at times, haha) smses from my brother and feeling their warmth. i think i should gather with my family more often. one never know when things'll start changing.

what if one day, i met with an accident or i died in my sleep, will i be regretful, that i've not live my life to the fullest, done anything meaningful and had not a single accomplishment? gosh! i gotta start now!

sometimes, i wonder how would a person feel when he discover that he is semi-transparent (let's assume souls are transparent like the movie makers do), floats instead of walking, and when he's starring at his own body like those near-death-experiencers claimed to have experienced. hmm, perhaps to the deceased, death is a new beginning for them.

being able to wake up every morning, to the chirps of the birds, the cock-a-doodles, to the buzzzzzz of the alarm clock and knowing that the person dearest to you are still with you is really wonderful.

i shall wake up everyday feeling grateful.

sentimentalist's silent night

it's so quiet that you can even hear the alarm clock's arm moving and ticking, the sound of the swishing fan, the sound of a pin drop and you will notice even the tiniest rustle of the bin bag at the corridor as the cat digs in for food. the silence of the night is occasionally broken by fire-crackers exploding in the dark and starless sky.

it's a still and breezy night.

here i am,randomly typing (and also continuously backspacing) while looking out into the darkness of the night, lighten up by pin-pricks of lights. everything seems slow today, as if time has frozen. as if, the whole residential college is owned by me, only me. a few days before, laughter and the sound of slippers slapping on the floor could be heard from every dimension. today, i miss the music that blasted off yee ling's speakers.

it's indeed a quiet night.

i walked down the corridor of level 3 earlier, hoping to hear and detect signs of civilisation, well, accept for the cat. to my un-surprise, my room is the only one that displays excessive usage of electricity (powering my laptop, charging cellphone, boiling water for milo and charging my mp3 simultaneously).

it's weird. on such a quiet environment, i am still energetic. unable to sleep. i was totally indulging in the music enchoing through my new sonic gear earphones. i once complained that it's not superb enough to deliver the kind of sound quality i wish to hear. but today, in the complete quietness, it works amazingly, the bass lines are clear and the sound does not sound as if it is spreading randomly. my recommendations: the best genres to listen to with good speakers and earphones on such a breezy night-jazz, chillout and bossa novas, over a cup of hot and steaming coffee or probably a bottle of wine, nibbling on cheese crackers.

such night is to be indulged.

not entirely bored. partially delightful.

quiet is gold.

happy holiday, folks!