The Mouse To Return?

I missed an important call today.

I was working in one of the Bangkok hospitals, and I had my ringer down to silent mode. When we had finished and I was outside again, I went to return an SMS and that's when I saw the red sign on top line of the Samsung.

I checked the number and realised that it was from the Philippines. I only know one person there, apart from our dealers and this wasn't them. It had to be The Mouse, and it wasn't even my birthday!

Who is The Mouse? you ask. Long-term dedicated readers of this blog in its prior incarnations will know to whom I am referring. The Mouse: the tiny, silent one. My super domestic helper from when I was slaving for the Dutch in Hong Kong way back when, round 2000-2003. Then, after all sorts of bureaucratic crapola, she came for a few months to work for me in Singapore. Unfortunately for all of us, there was a tragic situation which drew her back to the Philippines to look after her daughter. With some money I gave her, she set up a small business (a rice stand) and was doing OK leasing it out. But she lives in a tiny village way up north and no doubt she is not getting as rich as she'd like to on her meagre income up there.

Also, I guess her daughter, Mousette (there's a photo of her somewhere in the archives, but I can't locate the post) then 7, has grown up enough now to be able to look after herself with the help of Grandad. Yep, the Mousette must be 12 now. Maybe now she is in a larger town to attend secondary school. The 4 hour daily trek to and from her old school might be a thing of the past. I hope it is - what a drag! I will ask the Mouse when I speak to her next time.

So, well, yes I did speak to her today, eventually. The phone rang again before I had a chance to return her call. Her voice was such a welcome sound and it brought back all sorts of memories; of her coming up behind me, mouse quiet, with a cup of coffee and some cookies and nearly giving me heart-attack; of her making enough lasagna to feed an army; of the day she came up and just stood beside me crying, of seeing her off on the KL bus, her face at the window as sad as anything you could imagine. Her English is excellent, her accent soft and pleasant (unlike her screech-prone sister-in-law), she is smart as a tack, has a degree in electrical engineering(!) and prefers Saul Bellow to Martin Amis. She can cook like a chef, clean like it was her own stuff, pack my bags AND iron my underpants. What more could a single man want?



She told me that she wants to start working again, maybe early next year. She asked if I would be prepared to take her back. Well, duh! And when I say working, hers would be the easiest domestic helper job in Singapore! I am only there about 40% of the time, even less so far this year. However, for me the reassurance of having someone COMPLETELY trustworthy there makes me worry a lot less about people coming and stealing my, err, books... And my new guitar. It is also fantastic to have someone always(ish) in the house to receive the tradies and registered mail, et such.

Good news for the reestablishment of some sanity and stability at E@L GHQ!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The archived posts on The Mouse and related topics I could find:

The Mouse tries to kill me! (Down the bottom, as it were, of the post)

Bureaucracy

Setting up insurance etc...

The Mouse Arrives!

Bad news

The day before she leaves.

How I felt when she left

Dinner and Mouse - mainly the relevant discussion is with Skippy-san in the comments.

Update 6 weeks after she left

Problems with Doris - the Repo-Mouse

Doris II - Danger Mouse!

Still missing The Mouse

~~~~~~~~~~

There may be more, but it is tough to search if the key word is not in the blog title, and I didn't use tags in those days. I still don't, really. Criminal.

~~~~~~~~~~

Current part-time maid, Super-Joyce was another great find, bright and chirpy, honest, all the right things, but she can't cook for me obviously, unless I ask specially, and then it has to be a Tuesday or Friday.

The Mouse will be full-time. I hope...

E@L

The Chronicles of Riddup Riddup

The delicate ecological balance of the earth tips this way, tips that way.

Slight changes in pH of rainwater or vodka, of the dust in our crop-DDTers, of the level of methane exiting cows' bums, of the algal blooms in watercourses, carbon-pencils in the hands of bipedal carbon-based lifeforms, the bleaching of white whales, shifting the El Kabong effect, rat urine on the top of Coke cans, etc, etc...

You know, the stuff the doom and gloom merchants toss at us every generation to make us fear, tremble and buy more useless flu vaccines and Donald Rumsfeld happy.

When I was young, we were not going to make it out of the 60's 70's because of the bomb and pollution and Gough Whitlam and long-haired men in floral bell-bottoms passing you a joint or several... Actually I am not sure we did. This all might be a drug-addled hallucination and I might still be at University, back (or presently!) in 1976!

But seriously... Pollution. Climate Damage. Disaster. No, laughing matters. (oops a comma slipped in there!)


When the balance tips too far one way, some of the inhabitants of Gaia are going to suffer. The creatures which act as the canaries in the coal-mines for imminent environmental armageddon, such as say, canaries in coal-mines, we just don't see hanging round the coffee machine any more. It is the Silent Spring we all feared.

Or the silent drainage ditches and fetid waterfalls and rain-soaked pathways at night in your typical Thailand beach-side Resort and Spa where typically E@L is forced to accommodate himself for the arduous demands of his, phew, tough employment contract.


Frogs. No silence here.

When frog numbers thin out, when they croak it as it were, the end is nigh, as it were. Frog scarcity is the black swan that should tip the point of our crowd wisdom into snap-out-of-it mode. They can only last so long in boiling water, right? And we are in it with them on this crumbling planet, in it up to our thick, chinless, green-skinned, warty (speak for yourself!) necks.

The problem in Hua Hin? World environment is looking like lasting until the Sun goes red dwarf, if the frog population here is anything to go by.

Bloody riddupy things are driving me cray-zeeee with their incessant brdl-brdl-brrdliing... Great choruses of bass profundo, tenor and alto croaks - c.f. Beckett's Watt for an actual(?) frog sonata - the toadular and frogular lepping beasts are bu-bu-bu-burping away all night just outside my door.

They certainly don't sound anything like the little wooden frog things carried and abused by those (allegedly) hill-tribes women, those terrors of capitalistic persistency in stupid jingly hats, garlanded in cheap beads and with trays of unspeakably horrible hill-tribe manufactured trinkets to sell at you in Thai markets. I can pick those fakes amphibian vibrations easily. When the women run a short stout stick across the corrugations on the back of the pseudo-frog to generate a brdl-brdl-brdl-brrrdling sound it is just so unrealistic. Seriously. Those tourist trap toys sound nothing like the REAL frogs outside my hotel door, ho ho, don't you worry about that!

But tonight, I was lying down for my rest at last, after a weary day - most importantly eating fistfuls of the most amazing almond and raisin cookies ever, at the Dusit Resort - during which day I was stabbing large needles in the general direction of olives that had been hidden inside chicken breasts (don't ask, it's a living), when not trying to chat up the girls from the other companies that is... tonight those amphibial sleep interrupters outside were just driving me up the peach-coloured walls...

Their racket was almost making the room quake. Frog noises high, frog noises low. Fast frog noises, slow frog noises. Moist frog noises, dry frog noises. GIANT frog noises, small frog noises. For Chrissake, how many frogs ARE there outside my door? All the bloody frogs in Thailand, and then some, it sounds like!

Picking up an empty plastic bottle (fruit-flavored yoghurt drink, what I tipple as a night-cap, religiously) I opened the door to threaten the wee beasties with a thumping, and a yelling at...

"You bloody frogs are keeping me awake! Roll on Climate Change if it will shut you buggers uuuuu........p????" I screamed as I opened the door, only to be confronted by...



"Hill-Tribes Women" in the Hua Hin Nightmarket - Photo? - Yi sip baht, yi sip baht, her, me, same-same.

E@L

God-Man and Human-Man Team Up!

Tom the Dancing Bug - via the hilarious collections @ Me against them.

Books Again

Books. I have been busy doing nothing. I have read four - is it five, six? - in the past three weeks.

Beware: spoilers ahead, maybe.




The newest, greatest Australian novel -Bereft by Chris Womersly is rather over-rated. First world-war soldier and hero comes home to where he is thought by his family and the small-town's inhabitants, particularly the policeman his uncle - cue the woooo music - to have murdered his sister 10 years earlier. He didn't do it, or did he? No, this other guy did it, the one is chasing an inexplicably fore-sighted girl who lives in the hills, where the soldier too - Rambo-like but nothing like Rambo - hides out. Surprisingly (or not, given the hysterical praise quoted in the blurbs and the reviews), the prose is not magical, not Cormac McCarthy-like at all. It is just words, words like mine - well not like mine exactly - sequential, impersonal (is this what is supposed to be McCarthy-like?), it seems adjective-less, adverb-less, though I am exaggerating a bit here. Nothing special, nothing different from anyone else in the novel-writing work-shop, from any over-edited writing excercise.

The end is an anti-climax, not one twist nothing surprising or quirky or memorable; the murderer is just the person we expected it to be, as we knew in fact - we were fucking TOLD - from the first third of the book.

I really don't get what is about Australian book reviewers. I rarely agree with their opinions which are universally positive. Are they in the pockets of the publishers, or am I tasteless and stupid? Don't answer that.

Lesson? Beware the Next Best Thing - not a new piece of advice, that. Read the classics. At 53 and feeling like death is around the corner (my family history? you have no idea!) there is no time for contemporary, transient fashion, no mater how enthusiastically hyped. Except maybe some of Bolano, or David Mitchell, or. Only time can tell. Life is short, the struggle hard, success fleeting - there's plenty to read already without all the new stuff. Including blogs.

~~

"The Merry-Go_Round In The Sea" by Randolph Stow (the late Randolph Stow - maybe he didn't press the lift door close button in time) is a classic (early 60's), it is magical. Its prose ripples and hums, surrounds you subliminally like the roar of cicadas in the bush. It is suffused with nostalgia and love, with a flood of amazingly delicate sensory images. With description, with real people. A young boy (Stow's age - this is something of a semi-autobiographical bildungsroman) grows up in small town in Western Australia where there is a rusty old - wait for it - merry-go-round, and where there is a wrecked ship sunken in the harbour with a spar that sticks out of the water like a broken - wait for it - merry-go-round in the sea.

The boy's hero-worshiped cousin (absent father syndrome) goes jauntily off to the second-world war. At the end of the war, the PTSD soldier returns; changed, emotionally shrunken, lost, severely affected by his horrific four years as a prisoner of war in Japanese camps (partially at Changi in Singapore, partially in Thailand). The cousin and the now adolescent boy can no longer connect. But the ending here too is, I feel, something of an anti-climax. The expected suicide - at least I expected a suicide - does not happen. But this is good for the boy - Stow often just calls him 'the boy' - obviously in Stow's life although people died (grand-mothers, sickly aunts) no-one committed suicide.

Lesson? There are books you should have followed up from your reading lists at school. We did "To The Islands" in Year 11 or 12.

~~

Other books:

Roberto Bolano's "At Night In Chile" - a rich stream of consciousness reminiscence by a dying priest. Reminds me of parts of Beckett (without the humour) or, even more closely, Hermann Broch's dream-like "Death Of Virgil" (no humour there either). Mesmerising. Really must try again on "Savage Detectives."

Yoko Ogawa's "The Housekeeper and The Professor" - reminiscent of Ryu (not Haruki) Murikami, a short novel set in a small Japanese seaside town in the off-season about a teenage girl and the kindly(!) older gentleman she visits. A twisted perverse emotionally chill ending. (The sort of ending that could have lifted "Bereft" out the ordinary bulk of the soon-to-be-remaindered first editions.)

Yunichiro Tanazaki's "Quicksand" - tragic lesbian triangle set in 20's Japan. Widow confesses to a famous novelist (wouldn't be Tanazaki himself would it?) what went wrong. Somewhat dated, but the morally ambiguous ambiance of Tokyo at that time is interesting, if not fascinating.

Benjamin Black's (John Banville) "Elegy For April" - nowhere near as gripping as the first couple ("Christine Falls", "The Silver Swan") in this series about an alcoholic abused-by-Catholic-priests-as-a-child pathologist in 50's Dublin, but still pretty damn good. Interestingly for the protagonist in a pathologist-as-crime-solver sub-genre, Quirke (quirkey, geddit?) rarely uses his infrequent autopsies for solving the plot. For a start, in this one, we know the April is dead not missing from the beginning, or why do think it's called "Elegy"?

~~

I only read excellent books (as a rule, but not always obviously) so all except Bereft are highly recommended.

Bereft is OK, just not as good as they say. Moderately recommended.

E@L

Rain

It is raining; a long "shhh" that is both distant and near. There are memories dull and deep that this sound evokes*. It is hard to place where the "shhh" comes from, the present or the past. I turn my head this way, that way. The rain's loud hushing is coming from everywhere, everywhere outside that is; the trees and bushes and flowers, from the pool surface, from the paved paths, from the air itself. The rain's hush is so loud, so continuous, so all-enclosing that it takes an effort to hear it, to realize that there is a sound. Water for fish.

Golf is out of the question, I guess. Did I bring my full set for nothing?

Thunder grumbles loudly, ignoring the rain's request for silence. I want to write something, I want to sit outside while I write it. On the balcony, pebbles have been laid in white in a single large floral pattern, maybe a tree shape, against brown background pebbles. Half the balcony is exposed to the weather, half sheltered under a rendered-concrete, not quite terra-cotta, more peach-coloured roof. There are four narrow windows in the wall at the left side, spaces between columns of the concrete. The wooden chairs and their single green, square cushions are wet however, as is the wooden table. Even though the furniture is several feet from the rain, splashes from the large drops that fall from the edge of the balcony's roof onto the pebbles are leaping back at the table and the chairs, or they sneak through those narrow open spaces between the columns, hopping from the pebbles on the floor of the balcony next door. The roof-drops make a cracking sound as they explode against the pebbles, a sound like turned-back knuckles. There is no rhythm to these drops, they fall at random. After I wipe the water away with my bathroom towel and pull the table and one of the chairs even further away from the open half of the balcony (hardly a balcony really as the three steps at the end take you down to pool level, there must be another word for it - porch?), I move them toward the glass door to my room.

The splashes continue to leap at the table, at me where I sit, even at the laptop. There are splashes like tears on the screen as I type. You should see them. It is raining heavily now, then it becomes softer. The "shh" is almost a shout, almost a whisper.

Thunder rolls from the clouds like a god turning in his giant creaky bed and the rain picks up again, heavy and inevitable, like death, like metabolic syndrome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted to write today, if not on some novel or short story at least in the blog. Be funny, be grumpy, amuse, but nothing comes easily this morning so I describe things. When I am not writing, internally heard passages of fiction-like observations come into my head, but I have no chance to write them down as I am walking or shopping or drinking beer or eating or getting a blow-job in a massage parlor. I can never remember them later. Mostly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Is it off season in the back-lanes of Hua Hin around the Hilton? The many beer bars are sparsely populated, only a few customers in this bar, one in that bar. Many bars are empty. The girls who are still awake, who have not given up hope at 10pm, these girls call to me, bar after bar. (Are there more bars here than last time?) Hello, they call. Welcome. Hey mister, come in.

Some girls are pretty, most are not.

Taxi!"

~~

"The blustering wind scatters leaves like seed on barren ground, it bends the trees in supplication. I stop the cross-trainer, take a breather, look out the gym window to the road by my flat. I see a yellow bird, a small-to-medium sized bird. The strong yellow, makes it easy to find and see it skitter from a branch on this tree to a branch on that tree. A yellow bird. How beautiful.

Maybe it eats its own weight every day. Steven Wright wonders: how does it know how much it weighs?

I start the cross-trainer again. My heart rate is displayed. It is in the fat-burning zone."

~~

"The roar of cicadas, I notice this roar finally. It is amazing, it has built up so gradually that I didn't notice it, like a frog in heating water. It is deafening: If I was talking to someone, if I was with someone, I would have to shout.

The eye-burning vapour of eucalyptus leaves. I walk on soft sand that has been spread across the prepared walking path through Litchfield park. Hardly natural up here on the top of escarpment. Scrambling across rocks not strictly on the trail to get a better view I observe the thin waterfalls, the deep pools at the base of the cliffs. There are safe cascades sometimes, where girls in bikinis and men in surf-shorts bathe languidly. Dry season, low water, no crocodiles. It is safe for those sybarites in the pools. No-one will be eaten today.

I did not bring my bathers, my togs, my swimmers on the drive from Darwin (speed limit 130kms/hour! Outstanding in a rental!) The bathers are in my room. I berate myself as the dark water looks so cool, is so inviting."



~~

"Under my big toe, on the ventral surface of my right hallux, something feels uncomfortable, a slightly piercing pressure, a princess's pea. When I lift my foot and prod under the breach at the font of my sandal there only a small leaf caught underneath, a soft and innocent leaf. Soft? The neural sensitivity is returning, perhaps; a leaf like this shouldn't bring such pain. Maybe the drugs are losing their potency in my system. This makes me a little bit sad, makes me a little bit angry. The drugs stabilise my mood as well as try to kill the pain. Every emotion is a little bit."

~~

"The siren sounds and everybody - 100,016 everybodies - take a large breath in. How can so many people be suddenly so silent? It is like a film, unreal and false, believable despite its cruel unbelievable essence. Some players fall to ground and lie on their backs to stare at the sky. Clouds are gathering, I wonder if they notice. The players who are still standing place their hands on their heads and walk around in a stupor. Some are crying, some blank-faced. Even the players lying down have their hands on their heads. Why? Is this the response to frustration, to disbelief, to resignation, to the realisation that 140 minutes of grueling, body-breaking effort, of continual effort, of hard non-stop running up the extensive playing field (amazing fitness), of leaping and crushing and fast twisting, turning, slipping away from the ball-hunger of the opposition team keen to bash you down and steal the Sherrin - all this has been in vain. OMG, has all that hard physical and psychological preparation of the entire year been wasted? A draw in the Grand Final? It cannot have happened, yet it has.

Rain falls within a whipping wind as we walk home from the ground. Appropriate."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am still getting splashed by the rain. It's heavier again. The roar of the hush continues everywhere around me, like cicadas in the bush, like the birds (are they yellow) in the trees on Orchard Rd.

I wonder what to write about.

E@L

* plagiarised from Ogawa's "The Diving Pool" which I am currently reading while not typing this.

Faster Lifts : Faster Stupidity

What is it with people and lifts? What is the rush?

When the light on the call-button is lit - obviously someone has pressed it already and one of the lifts will eventually be on its way - why do they have to press it again? The lift is not going to come any earlier because of your redundant poking. Why does the next person come up and, even though they have seen the last person press it, even though the light is still on, why do they press it yet again? The lift is fucking coming, all right? Shit-for-brains.

Leave. The. Call. Button. Alone.

~~

What do these impatient and hateful people, those who force their way into the elevator against those coming out, what do they hope to gain? Why is this millisecond of aggression so important? They're only going to amble off casually once they get to their floor anyway, chat absent-mindedly on their phones, take emails on their phones, read texts on their phones. What is with the fucking rush to get into the elevator? It's not going to get you to your floor any sooner.

Why? Because I am still at the back of those waiting to go in. The lift is not going to leave until the last person squeezes in, and that's me. Maybe I'll even poke my ample tummy - the tummy you stare at with such contempt, you are so disgustingly rude - into the infra-red beam that senses people coming in. Your pushing and shoving will be wasted. I am taking my fucking time, just to fuck you up, wankers.

~~

And you, hunched at the side of the lift's interior, why do you hover over the controls floor-buttons in the inside of the elevator as if they were a secret set of controls? Why do you block me? I want to press the button for my floor. Maybe in your mind these are controls to make contact for a 1.21 gigawatt burst of stored static electricity to surge through giant glass discharge balls, to send artificial lightning into a dead body, to bring a hybrid monster to life?

Or do you think your are lift operator? Maybe you have lift operator genes in you? Do you dream of an oversized, two-pronged lever to close the lift, like in the good old days? Are you a throwback to the grandfather on your mother's side, the grandfather who was a lift operator? Maybe your grandfather was Dr Frankenstein, working-part in a department store?

Get out of the fucking way, let me press the button for my fucking floor, crazy pricks!

Step. Away. From. The. Buttons.

~~

Why do people feel they have to press the door-OPEN button while the other people are coming in? Do they think they are in-charge, or that are being nice. This is an automatic lift with sensors, with retractable inner doors that trigger the reopening of the door if someone or something obstructs them. Anyway, the door is already open, stupid. It is not going to close yet as the infra-red beam has not been broken and the mechanism of closing cannot start. I can open a 99% closed door by running my hand in, either breaking the infra-red beam or holding back the inner pressure-sensitive doors which forces them to make contact with the door opening trigger. I don't need you help to get in. I am adult. I have a University Degree (equivalent). I can get into a lift by myself.

This is not your ancient HDB lift, one that stops at every second floor (Grandma in her wheelchair has to carried downstairs, welcome to Singapore) and tries to crush Grandma and any slow moving grand-children when it guillotines closed unexpectedly. This is a modern building, it's not going to happen, this is the modern world. Wake up to the 21st century. The ironic thing is that you are rude and aggressive everywhere else in your mean and petty life; I know your type, arseholes.

~~

Why do those patently rude people press the door-fucking-CLOSE button - jab, jab, jab, jab - when people are still coming in or even while people a few steps away are approaching the lift and who obviously want to go up or down, whichever way this lift is headed (or footed I guess, going footwards, down). You are the nice person in his true colours. Bastards, I hate you.

~~

Why do they all press that door-close button repeatedly - jab-jab-jab-jab-jab - even if the door has started closing already? Once a second or two elapses since the last person broke the infra-red beam, then, according to the design chosen by the lift-making company, the time-circuitry that controls this door is initiated, and the door has commenced to close. The urge for them to press this button seems irrepressible. What mechanism? Maybe there is a small spring-controlled wheel with a dropout area which allows the magneto to contact (the old way), maybe these days there an electronic program on a chip to to do it, but whatever - nothing these people can do will change this timing once it reached its closing sequence. (Industrial lifts have a longer time before they close.)

OK, the lift might close a bit sooner if the close button is pressed immediately after the last person has just entered, in the short insignificant time before the timing mechanism kicks in by itself. Then the spring will be released and the timing wheel will spin a bit faster and allow the contacts to be made a fraction earlier, either that or the hypothetical program will be over-ridden, but what is the fucking rush? The door will close automatically anyway, in fact it's already fucking closing, dickheads.

Stop. Pressing. The. Close. Button.

~~

Stop. Driving. Mr Grumpy. Crazy.

~~

Hell is other people in the lift. I hate all vertical commuters.

E@L

c.f: James Gleick, Faster

Do Dolphins Have a Language?

If you were William S Burroughs and had just one question to ask Jimmy Page, would this be it?



~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK he doesn't have just one question to ask, but hey... it seemed like a good line to grab the train-window flash of your attentions.

via Tom (who doesn't have a blog)

E@L

Bad Week - At A Loss

Friday Evening 6.15pm : Bus Stop, Ome. Bus to Okasu Station

By the time we left the building, Tokyo's noon heat had faded and a pleasant breeze was teasing the tops of trees, cool on our faces. Twilight was sucking up the last brightness of daytime. Soon it would be night and dinner time, and we would have little time to change and freshen up before we met M***.

M*** who now worked for Taicheebye. Usually worth a giggle, that name, but I could hardly raise a smile.

We had stayed back, we were the last to leave the dark corridors of the office. We had to incorporate some extra slides into our presentation. Slides we hadn't seen in the past months after being told we were to prepare the training, even though it was to start next week. The possibility that they were setting us up to fail tried to squeeze into the paranoia part of my brain, but kindly, perhaps naively, I dismissed the thought and decided that their failings were merely incompetence and inexperience. Although, as I was aware, they had squeezed out M***, our dinner host tonight, the previous trainer, the best one, the only one who could speak English fluently and who knew the product inside and out.

- This really gives the shits. They always have something we don't know about.

- Absolutely. How are we to do proper training if they keep this stuff from us?

- We wouldn't have known about those features if I hadn't seen that PPT from over Z***'s shoulder. Fucking idiots.

The bus was bouncing up the street towards us on its pneumatic suspension. We could see it clearly enough, but its lights were on. I felt in my shirt pocket for my Suica card. I felt in my front trouser pockets, left and right. I felt in my back pocket. The bus was hissing to a stop in front of us, and the rear door opened. I quickly unzipped the front compartment of my bag, felt for the Suica card, found instead my bag of coins. I mounted the bus and sighed.

- Fuck, I've lost my card already.

I had used it this morning. For the train and then for the bus. Where had I left it? In the office somewhere. It must have slipped out of my pocket. Maybe in the toilet.

- Your Suica? Oh no, you lose everything. It's OK you pay when we get to the station.

- Do you still have your phone?

They laughed. I showed them the Samsung smart-phone and pulled a fuck-you face.

- Maybe the card is left on the desk. Or someone picked up it.

- But we were still in the room, they would have asked, surely.

- You should write a note to yourself every time you put something down, or pick it up.

- Tattoo it somewhere.

The staff had rearranged some of the tables in our work room while we were still working on those late slides They had been shuffling tables and chairs around us, trying not to disturb our cables. This was preparation for next week's training. Surely someone would have found the card in all that lifting and rearranging, that exposure of different sections of the floor. They had left before we did.

- Maybe it's with your wallet...

They laughed.

I was embarrassed, resigned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Thursday 6.15pm: Tachikawa Train Station

- You guys should be getting a Suica card. If we are here for over one week, it'll save you fishing into your coin bags all the time. It's 2000Y, I think. I have this one still from last time.

The train was 210Y, the bus 190Y to the office and the same again back to Tachikawa. The trips to the office and back for seven working days of preparation and training would be 2800Y. 2400Y, not counting what I'd already feed the ticket machines today.

- You can top it up the machine; it's just like the eZlink card in Singapore. It lasts I think for five years.

- OK, I'll get one. Where? If I use it correctly, at least the bus-driver won't shout at me, like he did to you.

- I didn't know you had to tap it as you went in.

- Of course you do, freaking idiot. Man, the driver was getting angry. How loud was he getting?

- He's like anyone. The louder you shout the more a foreigner will understand.

- Words get translated automatically at higher volume, everyone knows that.

- He seemed to think so.

- OK, where do I get the card?

- I'll get one too.

- They're at the JR ticket office.

- Can you lend me the money?

- OK I'll pay for you.

When the three of us entered there was one counter already free and no queue so we skipped the winding path of poles and retractable nylon strips and approached the older man directly. He was probably not older than us, but older enough to be called older. He had a little English, not much, but enough so that we didn't need volume to explain what we needed. His ear for English was good enough for him to almost handle our mixed accents (German, Indian, Australian). At first he thought we wanted merely to top up existing Siuca cards. We convinced him that only one of us had a card. We wanted two new ones. He smiled and set two of them up, first one then the other for me.

- One thousand, hundered five. For train. Hundered five. Card. 2000Y, dozo.

We indicated that we wanted receipts. For expenses.

- Domo arrigato.

- Arrigato gozaimahss.

- Do-itashimashite

I placed the Suica card in my shirt pocket.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Thursday Afternoon 5.45pm: Train to Tachikawa Station.

I felt in my right front pocket. I felt in my back pocket. These are the place where I normally might have it. I opened my the front compartment of my bag. Maybe I had slipped it in. When? At lunch? In the bag I found only the bag of coins I had collected over the years and brought with to use for lunch, for the coffee machine, for the bus and train fares. This was not what I wanted. I felt my heart sink. I opened to middle compartment. Nothing except the paper with its unfinished Sudoku puzzle. I closed these compartments and pulled at the zipper of the larger laptop copmpartment. I dug into the rear of the bag behind the laptop. Camera, unused. Two glasses cases. The bag of cables, cords and USB sticks. Didn't I slip it into the rear compartment somewhere, sometime?

I have this vision, this sensation of leather against leather, sliding, but it is all unclear, like the half-remembered flash of a prior deja-vu.

- I can't find my wallet.

My abdomen and thorax hollowed out and my voice choked on the spirit leaving my heart. I was vacant inside, a deserted house.

- What? Is it in the bag? With your cables. Is it in there?

- No. I've fucking looked.

- When did you last have it? Do you remember when you last took some money out? When did you buy something?

- I got coffee from the coffee machine.

Terrible coffee.

- But I was with you then, you had your plastic bag of coins. You paid with the coins.

- Maybe I looked in my wallet first?

- I didn't see that, you used coins from the bag, I am certain.

Massive sigh. Silence. Only the train's rhythmical pounding and something like a distant three-dimensional scream whipping around the inside of my skull.

- Have you used it since you came to Tokyo?

- Of course, I had to pay for the Airport bus. And you know what? I fucking forgot my passport at a shop in the airport. But they still had it. Fuck.

- You're in a bad way. Your mind.

He twirled his finger by his temple. The sign for idiot. He whistled as well and I could hear the sibilance only faintly against the rattle and roar of our carriage, and the buzz of panic in my ears. Every sound seemed to bounce around an echo chamber.

- It must be either still in the office, in one of the rooms we used today. Someone will hand it in. The Japanese never steal anything, it wouldn't be polite...

- Or it's in your hotel. Did you use it after the hotel this morning?.

- I don't know. I can't remember. I'm almost certain I brought it with me. I think I put it into my bag, pretty sure.

The vision of the wallet going into my bag returned. When was that? Last night? This morning. Almost certainly this morning. Or yesterday, before going out for dinner. It's not in my room. I knew already it in my soul. My empty soul. Sigh again, a deep deep sigh, to push away the bad feeling of self-esteem falling through the floor onto the train tracks. One more time I went through my bag. Thorough, like a Japanese bank clerk, everything check, reread, read backwards, three times.

- It must be in your hotel room.

I felt my lacrimal ducts dilate, but swallowed the tears away. I know it's not in my hotel room. I know it's somewhere else. Gone.

- What was in it?

- Amex. Mastercard. Visa. Fuck - my driver's license; I won't be able to rent a car in Australia when I go for the Grand Final. What an arse. 35,000Y. 200 Sing dollars. My golf handicap card.

- Shit, that's a lot of money.

Captain Obvious.

- You'll find it. It'll be somewhere.

No it won't, I thought. It's nowhere, nowhere I can reach it. I couldn't help myself, but the corners of my mouth went down.

I shrugged with a deep sense of embarrassment and resignation.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Wednesday 9.15am: Singapore Airport, Terminal 3

- How much this iPod mini-speaker?

- This JBL one $169. This one is better, bigger. $296.

- Is the quality OK on the smaller one. I don't want to carry such a big one. It's for travel.

- Would you like to try it?

- Sure.

He took my iPod and the speaker to a spare power point. I set some ambient stuff from Shpongle and let it play for a minute or two. The music's deep throaty beat and the wandering tonal expressions created a pleasant 'cone of relax' - it swept over me like an oil massage. I smiled, impressed.

- That's good enough. I'll take it.

We moved through the display shelves to the checkout counter. A lady was dealing with another customer, but the POS computer obviously could handle two transactions at once.

- Flight number?

- SQ12.

I showed him my ticket, nestled inside the cover of my leather passport wallet.

- Pay by NETS, OK?

- Can.

I took out my wallet from the side pocket of my cargo shorts. He swiped the card and passed me the small customer console. I typed my pass-code. We waited a second until the Approval beep came through and a baby-printer spat out a stream of paper, as did a second baby-printer. We are swamped by irritatingly unnecessary receipts in this age of distrust and its need for verification. He placed the speaker, within an nearly indestructible plastic mold, into a bag and passed it across. He returned my card and the receipts. I threw little the bits of paper into the bag, just in case the thing failed, and returned my NETS card to my wallet.

- Oh, I'll need another converter plug. For Japan. Yes that's the type. How much?

- Five dollars.

Robbery.

- I pulled a $5 note from the wallet, still in my hand, threw the converter into the bag and walked off without waiting for the receipt, a few micro-grams less burdened.

Through caverns measureless to man, I walked slowly down the enormous halls of T3 past the vast duty-free shopping area between Gates A and Gates B. I often wonder what species of giant creature this terminal was meant to house.

The 20 minute limit was approaching for boarding my plane. As I approached my gate (B3), I quickly took my briefcase and the duty-free bag from the small trolley, placed my phone in the briefcase. The guy at the front of the queue was taking forever.

Why do people never get ready for the security queue? They wait until they are the front. THEN they take off their jacket. THEN then take the keys from their pocket. They always neglect to take their laptop out of the bag until the security person asks them if the have a laptop in their bag. Oh, did they forget that? They go to walk away and the security officer asks if they have mobile phone. They come back take their phones out and place them in a tray. They decide to take their shoes off. The decide to take off their belt, their jewelry. And then try to walk through with their pack-pack still over their shoulders, or with their purse. They still beep as they go through. They have water bottles in their carry-on.

Sigh.

As I finally moved towards the front I felt my side pocket for my passport. Empty. I went to my front pocket, my back pocket. Shit. My guts dropped. At the shop.

I walked quickly all the way back, a journey that reinforced my annoyance at the architects of this building. The lady saw me coming back into the duty-free electronics store and smiled as she held my passport wallet and boarding in front of her.

She thought I was an idiot.

I shrugged my shoulders and pulled a face of resignation and embarrassment.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Sunday 3.40pm: Phuket International Terminal

D**** was sweating, his face red. It was another hot day in Phuket, but we were leaving after quick weekend holiday. We were in fact at the check-in counter with only 35 minutes before our flight to Singapore was due to ascend into the crystal pure azure sky and home for a few days, before my trip to Tokyo.

ED*** and I had pushed the time limit with a final massage in Beach Rd. D**** had gone to Starbucks, had a coffee, tried to get WiFi on the phone. He had lookedup and seen the time. He knocked back the last of his coffee, picjed up his backpack and walked quickly to the Soi where we were to meet. It took a few minutes to find a taxi ready to take us to the airport for a reasonable fee, and even then he put on a surcharge because we were all big guys. Time was getting tight for our ride to the airport. But we got there, the taxi driver hitting 120km/hr whenever he wasn't stuck at a 120sec red traffic light.. ED*** and I had our bags x-rayed and went to counter first. D**** was still outside at the taxi for some reason. Then he was behind us, puffing...

- Don't laugh.

----------

D****'s Blackberry was almost brand new. He had it only two weeks. He'd lost the other one. We all had our phones on the table-top next to our beers. We were in Molly Malone's for lunch. I couldn't find the Samsung to find the same hotspot that the others had had no trouble getting. I took my phone up and down the pub but couldn't find the one called 'Office'. I sighed. D**** and ED*** compared their Blackberry'a to see which had the most recent operating system. ED*** took out his iPad and played Angery Birds, and a few rounds of Words With Friends.

- I've lost eight phones in the last two years.

- Fuck. That's what? One every three months. What does work say.

- They pay up for a new one.

He shrugged, chuckled.

----------

- Don't laugh.

D**** wiped at the sweat on his forehead. When I looked at him, I saw a hint of embarrassment and resignation in his expression . ED*** faced him and raised his right eyebrow. We both knew what he about to say. ED*** cocked his head, which together with that raised eyebrow threw him into parental mode. He had no kids to discipline, but he had all the moves.

- What have you done?

Pause.

- I've lost my phone.

A laugh burst forth, nothing I could do. I couldn't believe it, after all our conversations about lost phones, after I told him about mine traveling in a taxi around Kata Beach for the last three years. What a prize goose, I thought.

Imagine losing things so often. I couldn't credit it, what a drama. I slapped him on the shoulder.

- You're an idiot. No doubt about it...


E@L

Stand By The World - Viral Video

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

(Let it load, keep watching...!)

E@L

Guitar

This is how fast I plan to play when I get my new guitar. What new guitar you ask? This one. It's red and a leftie and it's the only one in Australia. Until I bring it back so Singapore, that is!!




I'll be picking the wee beastie* up in Australia when I am there at the end of the month for a) Australian Rules Grand Final on Saturday in Melbourne, b) Powderfinger concert on Sunday in Darwin... (!)

Hectic weekend!

E@L

*The tagline of "Hollowbody warmth with Solidbody bite" does not relate to the previous post.

Here Now!

The future of masturbation!



E@L's perineal, sorry, he means personal fave, the discreetly named Flip-Hole.


Quote "If it could cook and do housework it would be the ideal woman replacement. Hats off to the inventor of this little marvel.” /Quote

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah, the AEIJ (Assisted Ejaculation Industry of Japan), it never ceases to amaze and amuse, horrify and terrify, make shake your head, tuck those soiled school-girl knickers back into your pocket and mumble....


WHAT

THE

FUCK?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK true confession time.

E@L admits that he DOES have a masturbation aide. Her name is Ms W***. She's cute, a real person, Malaysian, skillful like you have no idea, weighs about 47kg and she makes a lot of money at the H**** R**** massage parlor.

Maybe one day Bruce (who put E@L on to the place) will detail those skills.

E@L

George Carlin & a VERY young Jon Stewart

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In response to an email from a friend of mine who recently made it to 60*, in which he spoke about HIS health problems, I listed all the tablets I currently take for all my minor (compared to his) health problems. (Never ask me how I am!) He came back with:

I remember as a tacker sitting in the back seat of my grandparent's car listening to the exchange of pill popping anecdotes, and asking that timeless question "Are we there yet" ...

I guess we are there now ...

~~~~~~~

Not sure if it's his line or not, but it reminded me of George Carlin...

E@L

* definitely a George Carlin line.

D&D with Iz

People were saying how hot the multiple Izzies looks in the video I put up the other day.

Just want to point out that when she was my flatmate it was rarely so exciting. Music was either the Bach Brandeburg concertos or Oscar Peterson's Night Train. Or Powderfinger (Odyssey Number 5 got her depressed) or Snow Patrol.

A few times, MercerMachine, who writes fantasy novels and stories, and Indy who is a total role-playing geek, convinced us to play Dungeons & Dragons! I swear to god, adults playing this game in MY dining room! Blogger Jessica from Canyon In the Crack Between The Braincells would join as well... I must admit I had fun for a while there, but we haven't played recently.

I just wanted to show that Izzy wasn't always dressed to seduce and outrage. At least not so much when I was home form my many travels. Here's a photo of her (bottom right, du'h) from one of our games, surrounded by geeks with nothing better to do...



She's getting a bit more excitement in Holland I guess!

E@L

More Overblown Techno Venting

I have lots of computer and phone problems, right? Lots of tech issues, and I'm not much of a geek... I bug you with them all the time. They're too numerous to catalogue here, so... I won't this time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Except that one of the perennials has raised its blooming head (must be springtime) yet again: Phone calendar syncing. Let's try to do this chronologically, which is to say, calendrically, if not logically.

(Those looking for salacious or, for that matter, even vaguely interesting stuff need read no further.)


LAST YEAR:

I initially had a conundrum about syncing the iPhone and the home iMac, as I had linked the phone to the work laptop PC. Can't link an iPhone to two computers, right? No big deal, right? Except when I was, ahem, working from home and needed to access or change my work schedule on the iMac.

To overcame this, I reset-up an old freebie Plaxo account and paid for it(!) so that program would grab my calender and contacts from Outlook at the office, and then forward them to iCal at home. The iPhone I could sync through iTunes on the laptop, either in the office or on the road. This was working fine.

At home, I'd get some work emails (only through my company's Webmail), check for new requests and do the scheduling on iCal, and from there it would upload through Plaxo to the work laptop next time I turned it on. Brilliant. Home, work, phone, all synced.

THIS YEAR:

But the iPhone started dying after it hit its warranty limit. I swear, fourteen months. It started playing up when the Home Key kept missing the curfew, if you get my meaning. I'd press it, press it again, hold it down, nothing! Unless I was trying to show this to someone, in which case it worked perfectly. Sigh.

With all the hassles that went down with the iP4, I thought I'd either wait a bit for the iP5 or maybe pull out a bit from the tethered world of Apple and try something else. Maybe I could stretch it until my phone contract came due, in March next year. But that Home Key was bugging me. It was often usable, but a pain when it wasn't. How long could I put up with it?

So in frustration and in HK airport I grabbed a Sony-Elricsson Experia X10 (Android operating system). At least I thought I was frustrated by smart-phones at that time. I learned a new definition of the word after a few days with the Exaspera.

Battery life was problem one.

Syncing was problem two. (Problems 3 - 12, another time.) The phone wanted talk directly to its own Sony-Elricsson program, not directly to Outlook. This meant I had to turn the Plaxo program off if I wanted that to work. (I am still under the impression that, and according to the help file in MSO, that I can't run two syncing programs with Outlook.) No Plaxo meant that I would loose my link to the iCal at home.

It turns out that the Exaspera was happy to link to Google Calendar through the S-E program as well. Now, I hadn't needed Google Calendar for the iPhone, but what the heck.

So I downloaded the Google Calendar Sync program and linked that to Outlook. It took a bit of fiddling and I ended up doubling up calendar names and the like, so I renamed some, deleted some.

So now my appointments were going from Outlook to Google and from there to the S-E program and from there to the Exaspera.

For the iCal at at home it was going through Pla... oh, no it wasn't. I had stopped using Plaxo on the laptop. Simple, I thought, I'll just sync Plaxo with Google and it will go to the iMac!

Simple solutions are always... they always fuck up.

Plaxo isn't linking to the Google calendar - it keeps trying but it fails... (It still fails today.) Shit. Maybe when I renamed the calendars or deleted them or something, I took away some default setting that Plaxo needs to find the correct Google Calendar.

So I stopped using Plaxo. Actually, it stopped for me. (Now iCal goes to Google for its sync. Don't ask me how I set that up, it's a mystery, but it does. And as I have to use Web-mail at home to check work emails, I can still just adjust any appointments in iCal. Or I could just use Google Calendars all the time at home. Why does it have to be this difficult?)

As I said, the battery life on this exasperating Elricsson is just terrible. I'd charge it overnight but by lunchtime it would have died and I'd have missed calls and texts. So, taking a great hit, I sold it on to someone who wanted to play Paper Toss. She also bought another battery for a quick change once a day.


TWO MONTHS AGO:

OK, I went back ON the dodgy iPhone,...


THREE WEEKS AGO:

Then it REALLY cracked up. Swipe wasn't swiping, buttons weren't reacting... Complete lock-up. I could reset it I guess, see if that solves the acute issue, but it won't fix the dodgy Home Key. I think I might still reboot and use it as a iTouch, or try it again on a new carrier just for playing Word With Friends and Angry Birds... Did I ever tell you that I don't play phone-games as I think they're wanky? I didn't play any until someone go me hooked on Angry Birds. The whole concept of wasting what precious time we have left on earth in order to manipulate transient pixels on a glowing screen is still pretty wanky, but there you go. I was hooked. Such is the fragility of our personalities that we could so easily all become wankers, just as we could all have been Nazis, given the right social and peer pressure - and perverse and pathological love of people with funny moustaches.

(No, just rebooted it, the Home Key still drives me absolutely crazy.)

So there I was, back OFF the iPhone and onto the Nokia E71 again (which I had bought very early last year before I realized that my provider contract was up and could get an iPhone3G for free if I renewed for two years).

Now, problems are there with the Nokia too; text on the screen is too small for my failing eyesight; the touch keypad is too small for my chubby fingers; plus, GGGggrrrrr, like Sony-Elricsson, it needs Nokia specific software, viz Nokia Suite (OVI doesn't work on the E71) to sync to the laptop... Downloaded a new version of that E@L did... (One day I'll tell you the trouble I had trying to remove the previous version! No, please don't, you cry in horror.)


LAST WEEK

A colleague from India came to the office with his Samsung GalaxyS (Android). He said he loved it. My other colleague, from Chiang Mai, who had been using a bulky old E61i (three years old, four?) was convinced and negotiated a good price in Vivocity (NOT most definitely at the Samsung outlet). He was able to sync both Gmail and our work email easily together. They were both very pleased. Battery not a problem, pretty reasonable, similar to the iPhone, my Indian colleague said. Happy to hear that considering my previous experience with the Android system...



Look familiar?
Doesn't have Angry Birds, but...

And so I fell apart, psychologically: I became a wanky phone Nazi! Next day, I went to the same shop in Vivocity, told the guy I wanted the GalaxyS for the same price as my colleague (had to be cash) and I came back to the office proudly bearing my purchase (equivalent amount donated to Pakistan flood relief). All three of us now had the same phone! (We had all bought E61s all those years ago as well.)

We were all smug in the office last week with those new phones, but we allegedly were there to prepare for the training in Japan in two weeks time. Then the boss surprised us! He came in - he doesn't get us all in the same room that often - not to tell us to get back to the task at hand, but to inform us that from now on, we all had to share our work schedules (two on Outlook, one on Windows Live) using Google Calendar!

Oh no!

This didn't take anywhere near as long to setup, amazingly, as we thought it would.

And almost straight away those guys were complaining about seeing the hundreds of personal appointments that dot my Outlook schedule.

Hey, it's MY calendar. Or it was. They said they didn't need to know about my flight schedule to Phuket, nor the hotel details ("so much Baht, you must be rich!"), nor the schedules with my gastroscope-ologist, my oculist, my snore-ologist, my endocrinologist, my neurologist, my orthopaedic Torquemada, my dental ditto, my gypsy fortune-teller, my "massage" "therapist", my etc, my etc...

Shit. Nosey buggers.

So I tried setting up a second calendar on Outlook for my personal stuff but DIDN'T link this to Google, because... hey, you CANT.

Only ONE calendar can be synced between Outlook and Google. Sigh. That now meant that my personal schedule didn't get to the SamsungS. For e.g. when I checked the time of my Gastroenterologist appointment today, it wasn't on my phone! Do'h.

So now (like right now!), instead, I have set-up a Personal Calendar on GOOGLE, and as multiple Google calendars work seamlessly with the GalaxyS - finally something going my way! It's pretty fine so far tonight - the Doc's appointment is there, retrospectively.

However, as I said, that Personal Calendar doesn't get back to Outlook for off-line scheduling, but it doesn't clog up my colleagues Google Calendar pages either.

I can get it to iCal, along with the Work Calendar. However I had to make it public and searchable in order to set this up - you can now find all my massage appointments with Google Search if you want...

Why don't I just go to Google Calendar completely you ask? I would, but, strange as it may seem...

~~~~~~~ I AM NOT ALWAYS ONLINE! ~~~~~~~

In the plane, at many places in Singapore (I have forgotten my password for island-wide(ish) free wi-fi), at expensive hotels where the internet is also expensive (but not cheap hotels where the internet is free), at my mum's place in Australia - funnily enough not all 85 year-old ladies have, or even need, broad-band internet - at these times, in these places, I am not online.

But while I am traveling with my laptop, off-line, I still can adjust my schedule with Outlook! It syncs when I get back online. Can't do squat with Google offline, what?

~~~~~~~~~~

Maybe my current situation is tenable: Let's see how long it lasts...

Work stuff is typically done on the laptop, though it can be one on Google or on the GalaxyS. Private stuff is done on Google when I am online, on the phone when I am not, or on the fly.


1: Outlook Calendar <<->> Google Work Calendar <<->> my colleagues' Google calendars, i.e no Personal Calendar in Outlook :( or on my colleagues' Google :)

2: Google Work Calendar & Google Personal Calendar <<->> GalaxyS

3: Google Work Calendar & Google Personal Calendar <<->> iCal*.

4: Plaxo Pro ($49.95) <<->> nowhere.

Sigh**

Let's see how long the new phone lasts!


E@L


* I am thinking, why do I need to sync to iCal at all? I'm always online at home. Then I could then change back the privacy settings for the personal stuff! I think I'll do that now - at least I proved to myself that I could link them if I wanted to!


** I could have gone to the gym instead of typing this: it would have finished two hours ago and I am not sure which would have been the more exhausting.

What Izzy's Been Doing Lately

The original (in a blogging sense) Sarong Party Girl has no longer been my platonic flat-mate for shit, what is it, 6 months? She's in Europe, living on, kicking on, rocking on: Izzy - Rock'n'Roll Muse...



Brilliant video, she fallen in with a bloody talented crowd! Great song too!

[Meh, is prolly best go one to Youtube, or whole screen la.]

...

A bit more amusing than sitting in my apartment over a bottle of wine or two musing quietly about politics, religion, the meaning of life and other trivialities.

E@L

Diet Secrets Of Viktor Bout

Celebrity war-lords are stroking their AK-47s in envy wondering how their old buddy, Russian big-shot Viktor Bout was able to achieve such terrific diet results after only a few short years in solitary confinement.

Here's Vik as he prepares to enter the allegedly Hilton-owned Bangkok Health Spa Resort and Prison, back in 2008. A shade over our ideal weight aren't we, Viktor?




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But here's Vik on his way to arranging a Stateside trip to further discuss the implications of that Colombian business deal, the one that ended so abruptly when the police stormed his room, and he's looking GREAT!

The redoubtable Mr Bout seems to gone a few bouts with the Bangkok Hilton diet-meister! He's trim, he's fit, OK he's maybe a tad gaunt (with that old double-chin turned into something of a turkey gobbler), but he still sports his winning surly frown and his charming greasy caterpillar on that wide upper lip. And are those lines on his face? They weren't there before - bloated with fat no doubt. Good one Viktor!

It's been an inspirational effort and a wonderful triumph of will-power for him to drop those kilos, even as he holds up his chains! Who wouldn't want to be him?






People are saying that there's now an even greater resemblance to the actor(?) Nic Cage, who played a Bout-like character in "The Lord Of War" just a few summers ago on 2005. (Where DO the years go? I'm sure Viktor would be wondering that as well.)





We asked Mr Bout what has worked for him. How did he go from such a bloated evil pig, making millions as he dealt in death and destruction through Africa's many civil wars (as Nic said in his cheery movie, "Someone's gotta do it!") to the desperate man who no longer has a BMI that throws him as deeply into the realm of obesity as he threw innocent thousands into their graves?

Was it easy or tough to shed his unhealthy avoirdupois? Did it involve of change of life-style, a new way of looking at the world*? A stress-free life; up to one's chained ankles in rat-piss, sleeping with one eye open amongst his fellow spa-patrons, the deadly, the dying and the dangerous (that's Bangkok for you!) No cable TV! No drugs except the odd kilo of home-made Ya-ba (I hef runny nose, more sudafed pliss), and a bit of tainted heroin smuggled in up the arse of a (very) close friend. No alcohol except what the boys distill themselves behind the backs of their Personal Trainers and Executioners, no gorgeous hookers (at least female ones) basking in his charismatic millions, and no more of that cholesterol-rich Beluga caviar.

So it all comes to the essential question, Viktor - was it diet or exercise?

"Bose," he grumbled in his richly evocative Russian accent. "Eat fucking bowl of overspice rice-soup tvice a day, and defend ass every night... Any-vun can lose shitload of vait!"

Incontestable words of wisdom there from the NEW Viktor Bout, super-healthy and ready for anything**! And yes we agree with you dear reader, we think that his new red outfit brings out brilliantly those charismatic, pitiless, ice-blue eyes.

E@L

* through prison bars
** that involves gun-running

Atlas De-Shrugged In The Playgroup

Since the day Johanna was born, we've worked to indoctrinate her into the truth of Objectivism. Every night we read to her from the illustrated, unabridged edition of Atlas Shrugged—glossing over all the hardcore sex parts, mind you, but dwelling pretty thoroughly on the stuff about being proud of what you've earned and not letting James Taggart-types bring you down. For a long time we were convinced that our efforts to free her mind were for naught, but recently, as we've started socializing her a little bit, we've been delighted to find that she is completely antipathetic to the concept of sharing. As parents, we couldn't have asked for a better daughter.

That's why, when Johanna then began berating your son, accusing him of trying to coerce from her a moral sanction of his theft of the fruit of her labor, in as many words, I kind of egged her on. Even when Aiden started crying.

I was not sure if it was morally correct to copy and excerpt this hilarious parody from Eric Hague (complete article at McSweeney's) but after reading "A Greek Mythological Person Did NOT Raise His Shoulders in a Questioning Way After All", I say fuck him, this is MY blog and I'll take the fruit of another's labor any time I feckin' want - it's my right (as I see it) as a born-again Subjectivist.

E@L

Coffee, Breakfast, Thailand - more of the same

E@L was in a "coffee" shop in a place slightly to the left of the middle of nowhere, the town of Phrae, in the province of Phrae. E@L has been up in this area before: Phitsanulok, Nan. Driving here is mountain, valley and river, mountains, valley and river, etc... Not that impressed with the valleys. The mountain are fantastic except that E@L has slept through most of the drives.

E@L has essentially given up on Thai coffee, on coffee in general in fact, and he is drinking a 'jasmine' green tea as he drafts this post with the morning sun over his shoulder (left, or was it right?). The slim, fawning waitress had initially poured condensed milk into the mix of tea and hot water she offered, and he sent it back perfunctorily. He was in a perfunctorial mood again. She deferentially delivered (she was now in a typically Thai deferential mood) the fresh cup which on first taste seemed to contain no jasmine. It was mostly green tea. Not completely. About 40% of the cup was sugar syrup, streaky clear stuff that spiraled through the tea, slowly diffusing. This sucrose vortex would be enough to upset his endocrinologist no end, who was on a quest to stave off E@L from metabolic syndrome - i.e diabetes, if E@L ever told him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coffee, tea, can they ever be right? Toast, breakfast in general, ditto.

Breakfast - the coffee was fine, breakfast coffee usually is because it's not espresso - was missing just a few things last week in the Sheraton Krabi Resort (closer to Ao Nang actually). E@L noticed the absence of a prepared fruit salad. He had to chop his fruit up on his plate at the table, clinkety clink, must annoy the people nearby. E@L is nothing if not considerate. And there were cinnamon bagels but no Philly cream cheese. WTF? Not that E@L should be eating bagels - see above re: metabolic syndrome. Wholemeal or whole grain toast with their low glycaemic indices are fair game, and they were both present, so OK.

Fecking idiots who put their bread onto the circling treads of the toaster's tray and then stand in front of the toaster, blocking other people from inserting their carbohydrates, those feckwets were ALSO milling, like litigious movie lawyers outside movie hospitals.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But, Krabi? That was LAST week, this is THIS week. Having jumped (via taxi) from Suvarbumi to Don Muaeng (the old international airport in Bangkok) E@L Nokked up to the Central/Northern provinces of Thailand. Two demos, two deals, but who is one to puff oneself up?

Uttaradit, Phrae (see above), and now Phitsanulok. E@L mused that you know you've been in some shitholes* of late when you consider Phitsanulok a respite, a haven of sophistication, a safe port in the northern storms which have flooded heavily and stirred up Dengue fever epidemics in the previous few weeks (Google it). No-one's ever heard of any of these places, have they? No-one of any importance E@L means, of course.

Breakfast in Phitsanulok is a different story to the Sheraton's minor glitches (and aren't all unhappy breakfast stories unique?) Even before E@L arrived from his room, a plate had been placed for him at his assumed chair, opposite his more punctual colleague. On the plate was the plaster imitation of a circular fried egg, two precisely aligned steamed sausages of uncertain - perhaps porcine - provenance, two slices of white bread glued together with butter substitute, and two triangles of long-simmered (now cold) "ham". E@L was fortunate and foresightful enough to bring with him two bananas, two tubs of yoghurt and an apple. E@L eschewed the chilled still life and passed his coupon to another colleague, one who had slept elsewhere. (500Bht was excessive, he felt.)

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Five THOUSAND Bht a night at the Sheraton, with cable internet an extra 530Bht for 24hrs. Last night in Phitsanulok, a reasonable room (OK, the toilet door kept locking whenever it closed, but so does Izzy's old one at E@LGHQ - you learn to live with it, or she did anyway) was 500Bht, and yet the WiFi was free.

The internet seems to get cheaper the lower you go in hotel stars. Weird.

E@L will be writing a note of severe castigation to the Sheraton HQ, where heads will asymmetrically roll (as heads are wont to do - anyone remember Polanski's McB... Scottish Play?).

It is totally indefensible to charge the amount they do. There is no excuse he will accept, nothing they can say that will convince him that such a charge in necessary. He will never accept this insulting financial infringement again!

Exception: tonight. E@L is paying 600Bht to present you with this electronic missive in a 3,300Bht room at The Landmark - awesome breakfast BTW!

Life can be weird and E@L is not always consistent.

E@L

* not that E@L cannot tell these small(ish) Thai towns apart anymore; they all look desperate, distant, hungry and the same.

(Does this post make ANY sense?)

Cool Movie

EXODUS Noisia & Mayhem ft. KRS one from alexanderlehmann on Vimeo.

I think that the main's character's motivation may stem from an unhappy childhood and unresolved issues with his father. Obviously a narcissistic personality. Destructive, yet somehow (in)vulnerable.

via

E@L

Metamorphosis

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed into E@L's dinner...




These were just (just!!) some fried locusts but cockroaches, the supposed insect/vermin/bug of K's story, were also available. Yep, had a few of the above beauties. Yummy to the Max! Crunchy and salty, like a small peanut with legs and wings.

Uttaradit. Never heard of it either.

Travel: it broadens your horizons. And leaves parasites in your intestines.

E@L

Coffee Crisis

Bloody Suvarnabumhi (Suvaboomi to the locals) Airport is, I repeat, a shocker. It was 700m from the gate to the baggage carousel, the first 400m of that with no travellator. I'll correct that: no travellator going in my direction. There is one going out, but none coming back. (Something like Muldoon Manor in Tom Stoppard's hilarious "The Real Inspector Hound," where, due to a quirk in the local geographic strata, there are roads leading TO the Manor, but no roads leading FROM the Manor - misty moors, fog rolling in from Pirate's Cove, mysterious strangers, mixed identities, love unrequited, dead body under the couch, no-one shall leave the room sort of thing).

As I was saying before I was distracted, bloody Suvaboomi... The scale is just wrong. It's huge (lengthy) in the places it should be more compact, tight as a fish's arse in the places that it should be more expansive, like the reception area. AND half the time for domestic flight the planes are way out in a tarmac parking area and you have to bus out - this is a brand new(ish) modern airport and you still you have to bus out to the plane - amazingly backward. I was fortunate today as my Krabi flight came to the terminal, but still, it's the principle.

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I am supposed to be headed to extremely flooded Uttraradit now, but the plane leaves from the old Don Muaeng airport on the other side of town. Even though it is three hours to my flight, I'd better head off soon. Taxi!!

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Regard the above hinted at coffee issues: just quickly, I have decided to eschew the espresso paradigm and seek my caffeine solace outside its restricted, esoteric and pompous purview. I ordered a Viennese coffee here at the airport and received a cup of whipped cream. I was told that there was a smidgen of caffeine bearing liquid at the bottom, but by the time I removed 95% of the pseudo-dairy product and stirred the remaining 5% into those few drops of brownish fluid, it was cold and horrible and gone in a large sip. What happened to the days when a Viennese coffee was a cup of coffee (a CUP!) with some fresh cream floating on top? (Some say this was the precursor of the cappuccino? The coffee part of a cappuccino should be dark brown btw, the colour of the monks' robes.)

Why can I not find a coffee establishment that serves the type of coffee they give you for breakfast at a hotel? I have been knocking off the majority of a mug of brewed java every morning. Fantastic. You get a large plunger at the Excelesior in Hong Kong. Fantastic. There was drip filter machine in my hotel room in Krabi with free sachets and filter papers. Fantastic.

You can get a CUP of coffee from these devices.

That was the way it used to be. Thanks to the bloody Italians and there hegemony over the coffee zeitgeist, every coffee for sale in every coffee shop in the world is a variation on the espresso. OK espresso is nice; strong, sip sip, gone, but what about if you want a FULL CUP of strong coffee? An Americano (espresso topped with hot water) is disgusting BTW.

I want to drink plunger coffee, percolated coffee (what I brew up for our post-Christmas dinner chats - and tea-towel throwing championships -around the table), freshly brewed coffee, instant coffee, even fucking Cafe-Bar coffee! Anything that fills a freaking cup!

One day (I'm just a young kid with a crazy dream) I'm going to open an international coffee house (they are licensed to print money these places, all profit, it's unbelievable!) that serves the entire range of way to prepare coffees, delivered at your table according to your preference... Let's break this espresso paradigm!



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There is a restaurant in Singapore that serves its coffee (espresso based) in cups that have an oblique finger-hold (what do you all those things? The handle? But it's not for hands, it's for fingers - the fingle?) This work fine so long as you hold the cup in your right hand; lovely, comfortable, stable. In case no-one suspected this, I am left-handed. If I try to pick up this type of cup in my left hand - WHOA!! - it tilts at an angle frighteningly close to pants-scalding.

"Please, may I have a left-handed coffee cup?

I've always wanted to ask that.

E@L

Bungle In The Non-Jungle

I'm in Krabi. Where people who want to get away from other people go to get away from the *other* people who want to get away from other people.

Actually that's not true. It's just low season and it is very quiet. Just me and the lizards basically.



They used Krabi as a body-double for the Koh Sahn Rd area of Bangkok in the movie The Beach. There is no magical Isolated Beach Free of Uncool People of course, and if there was would you really want to be there? Sit down you at the back there, the correct answer is NO.

After Krabi, I will be going to a place genuinely in the jungle, a REALLY out of the way place! In fact, Google Earth says there are no roads leading to or from (because of a quirk in the local geographical strata*) Uttaradit.

WHERE??? It's not much more than an elephant trek from Phitsanaluk, where I have been before (remember the "flying vegetables?"), and while it will be another somewhere new, I am sure it will just be another cookie-cutter SWIFT**.

- btw Swine flu alert in Buriram, Isaan. Nowhere near Utradit, but still worrying... cough, cough...

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*THE* worst game of golf on record today. You think Tiger is in a slump? I shot (stumbled to) 25 over my handicap! Hire clubs of course. Should have cancelled when it looked like the rain was going to settle in... It went away, got sunny and I got burned (metaphorically). Damn.

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Will try to write something serious (i.e. funny) soon but I'm working on a plethora of things at the moment: presentations at a meeting here, pen-pal stuff, secret stuff, you know how it is, blah blah... Also Internet time is limited as I too stingy to pay...

So for the moment it's sawadhee krub

E@L

* from The Real Inspector Hound - Tom Stoppard

** Smiling WhIte Face Tour - E@L

No Woman No Cry

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New information from the Bob Marley archive reveals that in the early drafts of what became "No Woman No Cry", Marley's working title was "Chill Out Slut".




Or not.

E@L

image from Me Against Them.

Take A Deep Breath

Firstly: It's not that I lack respect, a sense of duty or unbounded love for my readers, it's just that I have been busy having a life of late. Even though this does NOT entail a change in my relationship status (check FB for confirmation), I have been getting out a lot, day/night in day/night out. Work has been busy, trips all around the place - Oz, Japan, Vietnam, all with entailing heavy social commitments - AND I have been put in charge of the next International training (not that I've done anything yet). OK and a holiday or too, but then again, not much done from there either.

Yes - shudder you may, reel in shock you might and be amazed you should. I've been busy(ish).

Not sure why this is, but it's true. I have just not had any spare (and/or sober) time to sit down and write anything. I suspect that the relatively heavy dose of Lamictal I have been prescribed for my IPN* has softened the bumps of my moods, mainly the grumpiness part. I still get get happy happy whenever circumstances dictate (they always "dictate", don't they? What are they, grade school teachers? "Get out your books, children, time for dictation of circumstances!"), but as lamitrogine is more commonly prescribed for epilepsy and bi-polar disorder, there certainly has been some moderation in the incidence of E@L's Irritable Ang-mo Syndrome...

And when I have nothing to complain about, I rarely blog - I become very veewwwwwwy quiet.



Should I apologize for this? Or should I rejoice?

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So, moving right along to the topic of this post - an update on the snoring device.

E@L is addicted to CPAP**!

He might look stupid with it on, but at least he is getting MUCH fewer apnoeic episodes according to the results his ENT Doc has shown him. The CPAP mask (must get a leopard skin one) was difficult to acclimatize to at first, and initially he hated it. But he persisted. Now - can't get a restful sleep without the Respironics (a Philips company) chugging away. It's very quiet actually, and with the bedside radio on sleep (ironically) for 30mins, it doesn't bother him and he drops off quickly. The whistle of the air going in and sneaking out through the ventilation holes is a little loud but is zen-like in its regularity.

The air-pump machine records the return pressure up the tube and makes wild suppositions about what's happening in his naso-pharynx, which correlates (one hopes) with depth and quality of sleep. He certainly wakes up feeling a lot more clear-headed, even after a night on the grog (see above re: social life.) Without it, he feels like shit.

At the sleep test, his results were quite frightening. 50 odd apnoeic/hyponoeic episodes per hour. The longest episode of poor breathing was 56.8 seconds. That's not good. Let us explain here - and apnoeic episode is 10 second or longer and hyponoeic of a reduction of airflow by 50%.

Breathing stops or is reduced due to blockage of the naso-pharynx by either a floppy soft-palate (the bit the uvula sits on) or by the tongue falling back.

That's at least 16-17% of the time E@L was not breathing properly. Oxygen sats were dropping to as low as 83%. (That's measured by the red-light thing they clip on your finger.)

With CPAP apnoeic/hypoeic episodes have recovered to about 4 per hour. That's normal range.

Excellent results. E@L will live a bit longer! (Or at least not die of this.)

E@L

* idiopathic peripheral neuropathy

** continuous positive air-wave pressure or something.