better make a move fast. the end is near. ~ carl anheuser (2012)

someone said it is friday. friday night, let’s go party! party? oh. mi. dios. party? after a week like this? i have been on my feet the entire five days straight. wait. make that since last weekend with the house moving – which is, by the way, tak habis lagi nih – so it is more than five days – and you want me to party?!

argh.

the best portion of a good man’s life; his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. ~ william wordsworth

J and i went to see 2012 yesterday. no, this is not a review of the movie. but i have been seeing a lot of attention given this issue of apocalypse these past few weeks. about the end of time, the destruction of the earth and finales de la vida. loads of books. analysis in newspapers. great scientists and philosophers pouring their hearts out on the discovery channel, the history channel, animal planet (yea, now you know that i am an education package geek, good for you).

and people start to think about what to do so that they would be able to survive such things when they happen. do we build a ship? a giant ark? habitations on the moon? on mars? or jupiter?

and i have no intention here trying to demotivate the great minds of our generation, but seriously, if one day, the world will be destroyed, then it will be destroyed, and there is nothing we can do about it.

and no, this is not my point. my point is simply to say that instead of pouring resources into a possible response to doomsday, we should focus about the present day. look around in the here and in the now and look at what we can do for each other.

all the war. all the famine. all the environmental destruction. all the people fighting over the most trivial of things. the proliferation of greed and cruelty and disrespect. people call me a conservative. but i think culture is important. and i think that if people took a step back, just one step back towards their roots, back to the values that our forefathers brought us up with, we will see that there is no point fighting over things like borders.

if there really is less than three years left to life on earth as we know it, i would like the great minds of this generation to look into making peace with the world, and by this, i mean each other. look at all the wealth massed and look at all the poor and hungry and sick. i think that if we live with the knowledge of unavoidable death, we would all be more generous and share. and in sharing, we make life a little easier for another human being.

if there really is less that three years left, the last thing i would want is to spend time suffering because of all the drama that is happening in the world. buat apa nak gaduh lagi – kejap lagi semua pun mampus. which part of all this don’t you understand – there will be no winner. we can either choose to end the fights now and try to be happy for the next coupla years with our loved ones, or continue fighting, continue suffering, continue neglecting the very thing that is most important in life – our families – just because we had to be selfish and defend our pride. if we know that the world will end soon, and we had to choose between family and pride, shouldn’t the decision be obvious?

***

one of my suppliers just sent us a box of sugar pastries with red bean stuffing. the carbohydrates are kicking in and as i recline quietly at my workstation, i dream of a world where we would just let each other be happy.

verry funny, scotty. now beam down my clothes!

in a talk i attended last week, someone told me that where long distances are concerned, there is absolutely no other means of transportation more eco friendly than flying. PS agrees. he had to be in boston one day, san fran the next, and straight to kuala lumpur to meet me. and of course, anyone can argue about all that jet fuel burn and contrails. but katakan you took the train or the bus or kalau nak drive – now that, is burning, baby.

and then some hero suggests the idea of tele conferences. and i actually considered this, and how it would eliminate the need to travel long distances altogether, and how documentation can be emailed or faxed of file shared via the internet, and everyone in the meeting can install speakers and webcams. and i thought about it again. and i promptly booted the idea out the god damn window.

it is one thing to already have more of a life in cyberspace than in the real world. and though i will always be talking about how people can do so much more to save the environment, what would be so much more tragic is to compromise is good ol’ human interaction. the handshake. the hug. the sarcastic whisper when the speaker is talking up front. to laugh. to taste local food. to dance.

and then JB tells me that the ultimate solution to all this is something that will burn no fuel, cause no contrails, will enable us to travel over massive distances, saves time and be there for all these important events in person. but of course, the transporter! of all the things we have ciplak-ed from star trek technology, can someone please figure out the whole molecular transportation thing, already?

i can think of a million uses for the transporter already. aku boleh bangun lambat for work. kalau ada bangunan terbakar, it will much easier to rescue people. people can get pissed drunk at parties and they won’t have to drive home and the rest of us will not have our cars puked into. airport security lines will be a lot shorter – and i am sure the rocket scientists would configure the transporter to not beam guns etc – they can do that you know, i’ve seen it in one of the captain kirk episodes.

and you know all those times we all whine about having to be at two or three places at the same time? problem solved!

i am pretty sure that you – yes you, reading this blog – knows a friend who knows a friend who knows a friend who knows a friend who is a rocket scientist. the whole six degrees of separation thing. the discovery channel said so. i highly suggest that you start making some important calls now.

hunka hunka burning lurve

i pull up at the security checkpoint. while waiting for my card to be scanned by the machine, the officer standing by smiles at me.

elvis, he says. i nod. as i drive away after the scan, i see him happily humming the tune to himself, his senior officer giving him funny looks.

next time, i will turn the CD player down up just a little bit more before i wind my window down :)

mi oficina nuevo huele divertido. esta mi segunda día.

and so i am back to terribly early mornings. which in actuality, i would not mind so much if not for the stubbornly late nights i am so comfortably accustomed to. and in all honestly, it is not the waking up part that gets to me. it is those after lunch graveyard hours when the zees come out to play. god, yesterday afternoon felt like forever.

and the long drives are not too bad. but kalau terlupa bawak anything – like today, i forgot to bring something important to the office – then it is a seriously long way to have to patah balik.

i am sure that when i get my biological clock adjusted in a few days, i will be more migrated to the idea of working in the middle of nowhere. it is now the social clock i need to figure out how to tune, and i’m not sure how easy that is going to be.

wonderfully though, i have been taking all of this with an educated sense of humour. or so i keep justifying this plastic smirk in front of my head.

sustainability is the capacity to endure

according to murray bookchin, the idea that humans must dominate nature is common in hierarchical societies. bookchin contends that capitalism and market relationships, if unchecked, have the capacity to reduce the planet to a mere resource to be exploited. nature is thus treated as a commodity: “the plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.”

(wikipedia)

friends in need

even in multi billion dollar business industries, times of crisis is when you learn who your real friends are.

the simpsons weekend marathon

feels like vangvieng all over again :)

¿qué es perspectiva?

¿qué observamos aqui? en esta primera figura, bebe no carbeza y pie. muy interesante.

you hear the door slam and realize there’s nowhere left to run

you feel the cold hand and wonder if you’ll ever see the sun
you close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination

(michael jackson)