Retail Therapy

The first half of the year has been different, to say the least. I lost my grandmother whom I loved very much, my cat who we've had for 18 years, various things happened, etc. It may seem crude to some for me to list the loss of my cat with the loss of my grandmother. I can't really compare them, to be honest. The loss of my gma was pretty paradigm-altering, but also the loss of my cat was the loss of someone who sat with me when I was happy or sad, was (usually) always there for me, and just generally made me feel better.

Anyway, the past couple of months has been an exercise in clearing her things slowly, and there've been a couple of days of goods distribution so far. There will definitely be more. Sorting through the things that I've been bequeathed brings back so much of her to me. None of them are expensive - far from it. So far all I've got are some textiles and assorted kitchen items, but they so remind me of her that it becomes overwhelming sometimes.

Finding a cendol maker is like finding gold, and suddenly having her kitschy cat-decorated kitchen towel holder makes me feel like she's in the kitchen telling me exactly what to do and scolding me when I make too much noise. I suppose this is what makes me suddenly want to pay more attention to my surviving grandmother.

Oops!

Excerpt from The Star: Constable seeks help from teen, gets beaten up by villagers instead:

KUALA TERENGGANU: A misunderstanding caused a police constable to sustain facial injuries after villagers at Kampung Alor Mak Bah in Dungun, about 98km from here, assaulted him for allegedly trying to solicit a bribe.

The 21-year-old policeman, who was part of a raiding team, was trailing 10 suspects who ran helter-skelter after police ambushed them while an illegal rooster fight was going on at the village.

When the constable lost sight of the suspects, he stopped to ask a 15-year-old villager whether he had seen any of the them.

However, the teenager thought the constable was asking him for money as he was riding a motorcycle without a helmet.

The teenager then told villagers about the attempted bribe, resulting in a group of them confronting the constable and beating him up.

I can see how "Have you seen a bunch of people running away?" can easily have been heard as "Hey, you're not wearing a helmet. If you give me some money, I'll look the other way."

No, totally. They sound so similar it's unbelievable that the mistake doesn't happen more often.

How Much Water Are We Actually Using?

National Geographic has this awesome feature  where it lets you see how much water it takes to produce 1lb of whatever food is on your table. It's terribly enlightening.

For example, did you know (and you clearly didn't) that it takes 1,799 gallons of water to make 0.5kg of beef? That's excluding the extras for feed and drinking water, by the way.

Think that's bad? That's nothing compared to how much water it takes to make chocolate.

Seriously. It's mind-blowing. Here's some single-glance tables of what National Geographic's done up nicely in graphics:

I know what you're thinking. 1 t-shirt? Really? And 1 sheet of paper translates to 10 litres of water. Not to mention the water:milk production ratio is 880:1. And it's 1,008:1 for water:wine. I wonder how Jesus did it.

Food for thought.

Power to the People

Warning: This is a general blog post with no real point and so rambles on for a while. Don't complain if you decide to read it and go, "what the fuck was that?" at the end. 

Has anyone noticed how smoking on TV has become persona non grata? Seriously, try to find a contemporary TV show with someone smoking and it's either a classic bad guy character or it's a main character with a guilty vice trying to hide it from his friends.

It just goes to show how powerful the media can be. They decided that smoking is bad for people. They decided to champion the cause. And look at what's happened. It's like the whole, what I like to call, 'Plastic Bag Incident'. Someone somewhere one day decided to go to war against plastic bags, and now everyone has to pay 10 cents for a bag.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for these movements that help the world (I hope) and try to uphold values for impressionable young children. It's just scary how powerful the media can be when they're harping on an issue. They should support more causes like that.

Which brings me to my next issue - what the hell is up with these 'Community Service Ads' on the radio these days? It's ridiculous. They're out there saying things like, "Don't put your handbags in plain sight - it will get stolen" or "Don't put cushions in your car - thieves will target women's cars". Am I the only one who thinks this is retarded?

Why are women being blamed for having their handbags stolen? Why don't the ads say, "Don't steal. Stealing is wrong. Get a job."? What is wrong with these people? Yes, that's right, 104.9 Red FM. I'm talking about you. Get your head on straight.

All Woman

I've decided to follow up on the I Am Woman blog post. After about 3 weeks of taking the prescribed treatment for my condition (which, by the way, is neither serious nor permanent - rather, it's dependent on conditions like stress, environment, etc), there's actually a difference.

I no longer feel (quite as) aggro when I'm driving (though I still call most people retards on the road). My skin feels and looks better, and though I don't feel the need to dress in pink, I definitely feel more settled. It's amazing the effect that hormones can have on people. 

Actually, it's quite scary. I mean - you go through your whole life thinking, "This is me. This is who I am." Then you find out that you change a little bit after a bit of pills that aren't even prescription and there's a mindfuck right there. That's how much we are dictated by our physiology. Whoa.