Nothing to do about politics.
Thursday, March 27, 2003 at 10:37 p.m.
I just got this at the servers that Jean's blog is hosted in:
BUSH IS GAY!!! BUSH IS EVIL
STOP WAR AGAINST, STAY LOVE AND PEACE!!!
By dum.my and tum.my
Special greet to: mum.my
From Malaysia With LOVE!
Sigh. Look. I'm just as much against the war as the next person is — it's misguided, moronic, and doesn't help the current situation in the Middle East.
But it still doesn't excuse people from behaving like cunts. I divide people into two porous, fuzzy groups — humans and cunts.
It doesn't matter if you're pro or anti-war. It doesn't matter if you're liberal, conservative or socialist. It doesn't matter if you're an anarchist, libertarian, religious or atheistic. You are human or cunt first, and your political affiliations take second place.
Stop it already.
Addendum: Yeah, I know they won't. I'm just a Journeyman blogger. I'm not even on my own server. Yeah, well it doesn't make you any less of a cunt, bucko.
Entry link: #for-cunts
“Performance Review”
Wednesday, March 26, 2003 at 09:51 p.m.
Never give in. Never surrender.
Never show emotion. Never show weakness.
For them, everything is all right. For you, truth is something to be feared.
Hold a knife to your heart and endure. Hold it, and endure.
It's a shit attitude to take with your parents.
Entry link: #perf-rev
Virtual everything.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003 at 06:30 p.m.
(This is for not blogging for a few days. Apologies to those who actually missed me)
One of the links that lead out from my website is RetroMUD — essentially a virtual universe, accessed by telnet. For those who know old games like Collosal Caves and Zork, well, imagine the same, but with up to 200 people connected to it at the same time.
Why, yes: Everquest and Zork, combined. That's a good example.
Generally, online games like these attract two kinds of players — those who are looking for something different, and the idiots who are looking for a free game. Luckily, RetroMUD dissuades the second kind enough so that the only idiots on are the ones who are damn good at what they do — and luckily, they're not too bad once you let them do their thing.
But then again, consider. How can something like RetroMUD — with its text-based interface and rather primitive mechanics — appeal to the modern gamer?
I don't think it does. The modern gamer is twitchy, shallow, visually oriented and rather unpleasant to be with, when he's outside his game. Yes, I know it's a stereotype, but that's the way it goes. I know a few nice gamers, but there's a reason why a lot of Counter-Strike players are now teenaged speed-freaks with no brains and little social niceties.
But enough ranting. Who plays this 1970s-style game in the early 2000s? Well, surprisingly, a lot of people.
I've seen plenty of people who play this game — mothers, married people, teenagers and college students. Playing something like RetroMUD can be addictive — a lot of people either fall for levelling up, meeting people or exploring the next new place. Like books, they seem to hold on to a niche only text can fulfill — the realms of imagination.
Plus, it's free.
Entry link: #MUD-talk
Well. That is interesting.
Thursday, March 20, 2003 at 10:23 p.m.
Billy Corgan, smiling. (Just saw what amounts to his latest music video, Zwan's “Honestly”).
I remember Billy Corgan. Former lead man of the über-goth rock group, the Smashing Pumpkins. Didn't smile a lot. Wore a lot of black. Skinny. Thought he was blond.
Hmm. Billy Corgan, smiling. Singing peppy song. Him, smiling.
I like him better this way.
Had a minor interest in him when I was 13. Had one of his albums. Listened to him and his group, singing some weird ballad. Very transcendent. Goth. Gloomy.
Ended up getting his Zero single. Was very mastubatory. Look, I like wanking like the next man (that is, a lot, but usually not as good as the real thing), but watching someone else pump wood… not my kind of thing.
Literally and metaphorically.
So… my goth period, if you could call it that, lasted about… six months. Except I was too lazy to get the dress-sense or makeup. So maybe not a goth period.
Never liked goths that much anyway. Why state the obvious — that the world's not much good? Anyone not stupid can see that.
Anyway, listened to Zwan's song. Listen to Billy Corgan loving something — couldn't make out whether it was a woman or life, or whatever. Watched him smile. Freak out a bit. Finally had it dawn to me that he wasn't blond (Corgan's bald. I thought he, like Professor Xavier, was blond). Freak out some more. Realized I liked the freaking out.
Oh, and some guy rammed the back of my car. Seeing what I was driving was Mitsubishi Storm and his was a Proton Saga, I wasn't surprised to see my car wasn't damaged while his was fucked (couple of busted headlingts… not too fucked). It was a jam, anyway, and Malaysians drive like cunts. Not Calcutta or Mumbai cunt, or even Italian or French cunt (that's more piquant, and less spicy) but a special cunt all by their own. Like Johor-style sambal. You know. Am too tired to elaborate. Will probably let me dad deal with it. It is, after all, his car.
Jet-lagged. Tired. You know how it is.
Billy Corgan, smiling. Looking happy. Only one sneer visible (about a second, or so, flashing across his face). Brought back old memories, but not too much.
Mmm. Might buy his album. Original, of course. Never had that much albums anyway. Not a big, as you say, comics fan. More visual than aural. You know how it is.
Entry link: #corgan-chirpy
Urr...
Wednesday, March 19, 2003 at 08:00 a.m.
I'm in Changi Airport, Singapore. In front of a free Internet connection.
In a couple of hours, I'll be home.
How do I feel? Nervous. Very. I have no idea what'll happen when I return.
I can't wait. My gut's clenching right now.
Entry link: #in-changi
Bah!
Thursday, March 13, 2003 at 05:02 a.m.
I reinstalled everything. I formatted my C: Drive, and reinstalled everything.
As a result, I lost some documents … most importantly, my love-letters to Hani
Don't come near me. I will bite your frickin' head off.
And the PC still occasionally crashes.
It's a hardware problem. I hate hardware problems.
Entry link: #lost-letters
Whoah!
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 11:22 a.m.
From this newsgroup posting…
I will never go where there is Do. Oh ho no…no more Do. Woe to the world that makes me use Do! If you do, you are my foe. Only men named Tso should Do, but I will not be in tow. I bet you wish you could watch me glow, using you precious Do. Even so, put your ego in stow, while I fix the pizza dough with Joe. But the day I play an Akashic, I'm sure I will wander to and fro, trying to not use Do, but shortly thereafter, see myself eating crow, as I will simply throw myself into the eb and flow. The horror I feel could only be recounted by the words of Edgar Allen Poe, or the painting styles of Vincent Van Gogh, or in the eyes of a dying doe. All this pain I owe to your mention of "Do" and "go".
So…is that all you wanted to know? I'm gonna go read some Sandra Tsing Loh and hope in the morning, all is status quo.
Try rapping to it. It's very the cool.
Entry link: #matrix-do-rapping
Hee hee hee…
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 10:45 a.m.
Courtesy of Rick Mercer from This Hour Has 22 Minutes:
On behalf of Canadians everywhere, I'd like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry.
I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron.
He is a moron but, it wasn't nice of us to point it out. If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America. After all it's not like you actually elected him.
I'm sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper and better than your own.
I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defence I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours.
I'm sorry we burnt down your white house during the war of 1812. I notice you've rebuilt it! It's Very Nice.
I'm sorry about your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer but, we Feel your Pain.
I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you're going up against a crazed dictator, you wanna have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different. Everyone knew he had weapons.
And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this. We've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.
You know the funny thing? I swear, that's exactly what I'd do.
Entry link: #Canadian-apology
Whoa, don't you dare get Christian on me, lad.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 03:12 p.m
There's this really creepy strain of Puritanicism creeping into Islam.
No, forget about that puritanicism in fundamentalism — that exists in other religions, and that's normal (in a sense that it's a rejection of modernity normal, not normal because it's ideal). I'm talking about that other strain, the one where people mistake sex for being evil.
Is it me, or am I being paranoid? I mean, that's an almost Christian idea (Eeeigh! Sex! Evil! Urgh! Cold Showers! Self-flagellation!). Or a Buddhist idea, but Buddhists seem to be slightly more practical about it.
Sex isn't bad. Not in our religion. The idea of couples enjoying what God gave to them — the rite of sex — isn't supposed to be repulsive. It's natural. The way things are. The moral rules for marriage and post-marital sex is more often than not utilitarian and pragmatic, because muslim society is built on the foundation of marriage.
Our religion is surprisingly lenient on birth-control. That is, when they bother talking about it. We're pragmatists, and proud of it. I mean, consider — a muslim's religious leader who doesn't tell his people to use protection will end up getting — and deserving — a diseased flock.
What we seem to be missing is the importance of sexual education. We're not being pragmatic on that. Our kids need to know. And don't you start talking about an American Neo-Conservative style ‘abstinence works’ program. That's bullshit. Teach teenagers contraception so that they don't have to go through it during marriage classes. Teach them the dangers of sex — pregnancy, diseases, the whole emotional rigamarole — and tell them your problems are not over once you marry. This sort of thing should be taught in high school because of the nature of teenagers and sex. I'm surprised they never think these sort of things out.
I suppose. I'm being very ill-informed about it.
Sex not bad. That I know. Sex good in Islam. Celibacy enforced, is not good. It bad. Marriage held back is bad.
Mind, I came from a professional background. We're the kind that insist you have fun first when you're young, and marry a little later. So we're Bad Muslims, with Capital Letters.
And yes, marriage scares the monkeys out of me. Why? Well, mainly because I'd have to face my parents and deal with them during and after the event…
…yes, they'll have kittens. Sigh.
Entry link: #Muslims-screwin
An argument for and against violence.
Monday, March 10, 2003 at 06:48 a.m.
You know, I've known plenty of people who bristle at the very idea of Islam being a religion of violent bastards and barbarism.
As a matter of fact, I'm one of them, too. But there's something that bothers me a little about people's insistence that we are violent barbarians.
Hmm. Yes, I could concede that Islam was born in what would have been considered a damn violent time. Plenty of historians can agree that while Islam's leading tenets are peaceful, the political situation and the society it was born into wasn't.
No, I don't think we were barbarians — perhaps people who were learning to leave barbarism, but certainly not barbarians. The Arabs were probably far different than the surrounding Byzantines and Persians, and this was reflected by Muhammad's struggle with trying to get his people to see beyond the systems of morality that served them well as nomads, but were failing them as merchants and members of the middle class.
Why do you think the last one hundred or two hundred years of the Jahiliyyah are seen so unfavourably by Muslim historians? It's probably not just revulsion of an unfavourable past, though it does play a part.
It was the realization that, thanks to money and political power, Arab morality and cultural mores and attitudes were failing them. Like the Israelites before them, the Arabs were moving from nomadic life to city life. Unlike the Israelites, they were doing it late, and in an accelerated fashion.
And, as much as I'd hate to admit it, the Arabs have been playing catch-up ever since.
Notice I didn't say Muslim, because hey, I can tell the damn difference between ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’. Yes, they're different people.
I could argue that the only people who really understand Modernity are Europeans themselves, but I'd be selling smart people short.
Islam, when it goes through different cultures, picks up elements of the assimilating cultures. That's probably a good thing — Western Europeans, Chinese, Malay-Indonesians, Indians, Arabs, Philipinos and anyone else can have a common bond — religion. Islam has, from the beginning, had to deal with different cultures in conflict, and our independence from orthodoxy because of it has so far been a great strength. There are reasons why men and women weep when we perform the hajj. People tend to do that when they realize they're no longer alone in the scheme of things.
A lack of orthodoxy's probably also our greatest weakness. I don't have any reference material right now, but I would say that the time when Muslim scholars called “the Golden Age of Islam” was probably a time of political anarchy. If I'm not mistaken, the better forms of Islamic Sufism came in a time when political Emirs were trying their damn best to kill or replace their contemporaries, and the only glue for that society were the Islamic ulema themselves.
Someone else can back me up in this, but in some way, but we've never been truer to our religion when we're in perpetual political conflict with each other.
Damn. Sounds nasty, doesn't it? Muslims definitely can't, and probably never should agree with one another. Conflict is our passion — we excel in dealing with conflict, whether from infighting or from outside threats. Yeah, Islam's borders are probably bloody ones — but blood's blood. Shit happens. People (including me) will die.
Remember, I said conflict. There's no reason why an Islamic community cannot be seen as troublemakers, at least in the political and spiritual realm. Trouble-making's good, at any rate — heaven forbid if all conflict on the Earth came to an end, and all men loved each other liked their own selves.
Where would change come from, then?
Entry link: #Islam-violent
Getting into Deep S*** and Needing Focus.
Monday, March 10, 2003 at 05:21 a.m.
I think everyone who has a blog eventually over-steps their bounds.
I know Hani has done it — that particular episode was probably the first major flamewar between Hani and a couple of her friends, and it did leave more than a few ruffled feathers.
And of course, if you've been with us since the beginning, you'd know that I put my foot in my mouth on the first and fourth entries of my blog.
I'm not sure I'd find a lot of people agreeing with me right now. Hani probably doesn't see ‘An Essay on Sex’, ‘Public Dirty Linen Hides’ and ‘Blogging Frenzy’ as over-stepping any form of boundaries — it's a blog, and she has every right to express herself in it.
I suppose the kind of boundaries we're talking about is personal. I'm pretty sure there comes a time when you realize, “shit, I think I might have gone too far on (insert whatever entry here).” It's pretty hard to feel good when things spiral out of control.
Hmm. Maybe that's a good indicator of how you'd over-step your own boundaries. It's when you lose control of something. For Hani, it was that sex essay (I'm pretty sure that involved a lot self-doubt and ruffled sensibilities).
For me it was those bitter, angry (and no doubt moralistic) entries.
Mabs' over-stepping wasn't even caused by a direct action, but it's definitely made her close off her blog to the public world.
We'll all screw up, and we'll all feel bad about it. I'm pretty sure of that. Some of us will probably do things to mitigate, hide or chastise ourselves — that's natural.
Hani now will archive many of what she considers to be ‘sensitive’ entries — mainly so that she can control what viewers of her archives see. Mabs has password-protected her blog.
I've— to be honest, I'm not sure what I want to do with what I've done, and even if it is wrong in the first place. Is it wrong to feel bad about expressing the way you feel?
To be honest, I'm not even sure what this blog's direction is. I smile condescendingly (yes, condescendingly, Hani — sorry) at Hani's obsession with what other people see in her blog, and I'm so used to Mabs' staged hostility — I've had it in spades since 1994 — it's so old news, now. But those things give them focus.
I'm not sure I can spend so much of my energy giving a damn on who views my blog and where they come from, and what I can do to make it even more popular, and I can't spend so much of my energy being angry and hostile to anything and everything.
Blogging without a purpose has always struck me as something dangerous — perhaps not to other people, but more importantly to myself.
Entry link: #need-focus
