the funny story

I said,
Tell me a funny story, please.

So he said,
There once was a boy who found a pencil.
Unfortunately, the pencil wasn't sharpened.
So he went and sharpened it.
Then with the pencil and a piece of paper, he started drawing.
His drawings were horrible at first, but as he drew more and more, they got better.
But as he got better, he also started to look for better stationery to draw with.
So he threw the old pencil away.

Then I asked,
Is there a moral to this story?

And he said,
Then the pencil came back and poked his eye out.
The end.


I loved it.

the dim saw

this is the fantastical tale of two boys and one chain, their flowery shirts, and a bloody saw.
penned by the brilliantly stupid minds of two of the greatest writers of tomorrow: Toad and Butterfly.
so let us hope tomorrow never comes.

the story begins...

he woke up in a strange place, knowing nothing except... except... that his name was... dim.
he looked around, there was a person lying next to him.
his name was cheng loon.
how dim knew cheng loon's name, he had no idea since "he woke up in a strange place, knowing nothing except.. except... that his name was... dim"
it came to dim then; he knew cheng loon because
of the name tage that said "cheng loon" attached to the flowery tropical shirt cheng loon had on.
dim then realized that he too was wearing a flowery, tropical shirt and that his own nametage said "butterfly"; dim liked that.
dim then felt cold, unyielding steel on his knee and looked down.
his heart began to race as he felt panic choking him at the sight of
a long, steel chain attaching his knee to cheng loon's adjacent knee.
what was this? some kind of sick joke? he didn't know, but at that moment, cheng loon began to stir.
in a moment of panic, dim punched cheng loon out cold again.
cheng loon fell back to the ground with a thud, and dim realized there was blood on his knuckles.
dim starts to panic (as if he wasn't already) and looks for an exit from the vile recesses of this strange place.
he tries to get up, but is restricted by the chain binding him to cheng loon. he probably shouldn't have knocked cheng loon out again.
he realizes that the only way to free himself is either to revive cheng loon or to sever the chain and run.
being the idiot that he is, he tries to sever the chain first, breaking all his nails and losing three teeth in the process, failing miserably.
he then sees a saw on the ground beside him.
he wonders whether he should saw through the chain, or through cheng loon's leg.
he tries to saw the chain at first, but it proves too tough, so he has to make an important decision: to saw through cheng loon's knee, or to revive him.
he undergoes a great internal struggle; reviving cheng loon was a drag, but so was sawing through his leg. and then... brainwave!! he'll start sawing at the leg, which will revive cheng loon... eventually.
so he decides to just saw through cheng loon's leg... he closes his eyes and begins sawing.
it isn't until he feels the pain that he realizes it was probably a bad idea to close his eyes.
it's too late... before he realizes it, he has sawed through his own leg. the wrong one.
and when cheng loon woke up, all he saw was an unconscious guy with a half severed leg, chained to his knee.
so, being the sadistic person he was, he just hacked through dim's leg and freed himself.


here ends the epic tale of a boy who lost a leg and a half. the conclusion is: dim is a loser, and cheng loon is a bastard.

**this is a fictional story. any resemblance between names, characters and events are purely coincidental.
ish.

short? tall? brown, yellow, or black?

my boss told me something today that i found terribly amusing.

you see, he was a tour guide back in the day, and he's traveled many different places many times over, and knows a lot of things that normal tourists just wouldn't know. to share stories of past happenings is a favourite past time of his when there are no customers around.

today, he told me about a little experience in china many years ago. he had brought his tour group to a karaoke lounge in one of their town stops, and man... karaoke lounges there are "so technologically advanced".

you walk in and there's a big room with two live bands - one on each end of the room - and people can dance in the middle. you sit down on one of the comfy lounge chairs, and someone will come and wait on you hand and feet.

so that night, boss and a friend visited the place.

the first thing they ask you once you're comfortable is "would you like a girl to accompany you? to sing?". [when my boss told me this, i snorted]. well, my boss's friend said yes. and you know what happened?

out of nowhere this TV screen flips on, and the friend is handed a remote control. on screen, there are pictures of girls... lots and lots of girls [use your imagination].... change the channel and there's more girls. all for him to choose from -____-. all he has to do is press the remote control, and just like that, a girl appears. apparently there were about five hundred there for his taking. all with a price tag, of course. [HAH!]

but what is that? it's like shopping on e-bay. Great Selection & Fantastic Prices On All Items. Power at Your Fingertips. Delivery on click.

i've honestly never heard of this before, [have you?] but i just find it so bizzare, and consequently, so amusing.

i mean, can you imagine sitting there choosing a person like you're choosing wall colours? or like choosing live chickens in malaysia?

"how much for the brown one over there? no, that one too skinny. i want the fat one."

i could launch into a whole tirade against the objectification of women here, but i'm sure we've all heard that one before. and if you haven't, someone you know will be able to tell you. preferably not a male.

and besides, there's supposed to be nothing sleazy about it - it's purely professional. it''s like contracting an accompanist so that you don't have to sing your own harmonies; so that you don't have to be both aladdin AND jasmine when you sing a whole new world. that kinda thing. so i don't really feel a need to defend female rights.

i do however, get angry when i think about what Sheikh Al-Hilali [he of the comparison between women and meat] said in an al-Jazeera interview the other day. what he ALWAYS says whenever he's given an opportunity to slander the respectability of women everywhere. pisses me off. but that's another story. maybe tomorrow.

and for the record, my boss is the good guy. it was his companion who was the pervert.

ka's and nya's

story recounted by tofu

every malaysian gets drilled into their minds at a tender age the timeless tale of how Parameswara founded Melaka [or malacca, as those people who can't spell malaysian call it].

i remember that i learnt it for the first time in primary 3, i think. second time in kajian tempatan in primary 5. third time in kajian tempatan, primary 6. 4th time again in kajian tempatan, primary 6. 5th time in sejarah, form 1.
yes, malaysia has a proud history, and very uninspired sejarah courses.

for those of you who don't know, the long and short of it is that Malacca was founded by a fugitive named Parameswara who sailed his way to the land of milk and honey [not] and decided to take a rest. there, he witnessed a scene where his two hunting dogs [or such similar creatures] chased a kancil [some sort of deer-like thing] into the water. Parameswara was suitably impressed with the valour and sheer desire for self-preservation demonstrated by the kancil, and he decided to make a settlement there. he called it Malacca for no particular reason.

ok, so we all know Parameswara founded Melaka. big deal. but did you all know he named California as well? really, our very own P-man named that american state that is so famous for... being california.

you didn't know?

well, after that whole kancil incident, Parameswara followed this american guy around the world. they reached a rich and beautiful land [currently known as california], whereby Parameswara, in all his Malaysian-ness, exclaims:
"wah, colourful-nya"

and the rest is history.