Get smart, or stay dumb!

Here's a man who makes fun of Hollywood and has a ball of a time doing it. Been watching the first season of Get Smart and it's just sheer genius! And I watched The Nude Bomb again, and then Men in Tights again, and they're all just absolutely hillarious! And he doesn't even try. It's just there!

Here's raising a toast to one of Hollywood's greatest, Mr Mel Brooks!

Life isn't for everyone....!

If I were to write a book it will most likely be called "Diary of an Insomniac". But it could also be called "The Workings of a Closet Cliche-Lover" or "Sarcasm on a Stick".

I realize that lately my insomnia has gone from bad to worse. Why can't sleeping pills be as easily obtainable as Panadol?? It's detrimental to my health that they start selling it without prescription!

Plus, so what if I adore cliches? I can be sarcastic and romantic at the same time. I do realize though that the men in my life do not really appreciate my sarcasm. My ex-boyfriend had a problem with it. And my current one seems to hate it too. Don't they realize that denying me of my wit and sarcasm is very much like denying a licensed MD to dispense a diagnosis when a symptom is involved! It is as much a part of me as the sun is a part of daytime!

So how can you deny me that? Whenever I have a sarcastic comment to make and I have to suppress it, I feel like someone is denying me the right to pee! It's that annoying! Let's just put it this way, when you need to pee, you run to the nearest bathroom right? How long can you hold it in? You can't! Not for long, anyway! It's bad for your bladder. Well guess what, same thing goes for my sarcasm and me! So it's take it or leave it, peeps!

If you date Siti Nurhaliza, are you gonna tell her "Don't sing!"???? That is like all she can do! So cut me some slack, and let me be! You can't take my sarcasm to heart. I don't really mean everything I say. It's just that I'm good at being sarcastic. It's almost a talent. So when I can't voice it out, I feel trapped. Sucked into a vortex of irritation, air filling up my lungs but I can't breathe.

You won't deny me of breathing, will you? It's the same thing!!!!

Me = Sarcastic Comments. In the words of Joey Tribbiani, "Joey comes with the bag!"

It's 3o'clock in the morning, and I am venting. Well, one thing I have come to embrace, Facebook and Blogs are cheap therapy. I am not about to pay some shrink 200 bucks an hour so I can lie down on his couch and let him tell me that I've got unresolved issues with my mom! I don't have a psych degree and I can tell you that I DO HAVE UNRESOLVED ISSUES WITH MY MOM! Don't we all? So this is the best form of therapy for me. A therapist who doesn't talk back.

I mean what is up with shrinks anyway? Actually there was a point in my life where I wanted to become a child psychologist. But there were also points in my life where I wanted to be a Police Inspector, Fashion Designer....enough said!

They sit you down (or rather lie you down), and make you tell your innermost secrets. If you ask me, shrinks must be closet gossips. They thrive on other people's stories. Of course doctor-patient confidentiality does not permit them to repeat the stories, but then again you never know what goes on in those Doctor's Conferences anyway! They probably swap patients' stories! Who has the whackier one wins the pool money! Which is why it is probably going to take a court order for me to end up in one of those tacky leather couches!

Not that I am putting down those with psych degrees, but it was probably the easiest option in obtaining an MD. No yucky surgeries, no gooey dead bodies, just come up with silly explanations for certain behavioural conducts and voila! I mean come on, wasn't Freud already a dead giveaway?!

So in the words of Samuel Goldwyn, "Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined!"

For as long as there continue to be reruns of FRIENDS, I'll be fine!

The Institution of Severed Animal Heads....

The time is 12.47am and I can't sleep....Hence the blogging....

There's something that was not quite right with the institution but instead of addressing the matter all they did was come up with reasons and justifications to appease the matter and basically they found a way to sweep it under the carpet. Little do they realize that the impact will be felt later on when the carpet begins to rise and is no longer able to withstand the bulk of shit that has and still is being shoved underneath it. And here we are today, carpet ready to spew forth the mess it has accumulated over the years. The result? Akin to opening Pandora's box. Or a more common saying; unleashing a can of worms.

The institution needs to realize that as time progresses, so does the mind. With great technology comes great risk. What risk? The expansion of the human mind. The ability for people to think outside the box. The masses' inability to merely take things in without asking any questions. That is the risk. And today the institution is paying for their lack of foresight that eventually people will start asking questions. People will begin to retaliate against matters they feel are suppressing their intellect and rights to a just and equal living.

It is actually a simple matter of common sense. It doesn't take a genius to realize that suppression no longer works. Neither does spoon-feeding. Nor does nepotism. The masses are getting smarter. No thanks to the public education system though. Our public education system doesn't even address matters like civic awareness much less inculcating decent common sense. How can we expect it to address matters of a more intellectual manner? The institution needs to wake up and realize that knowledge must be applied. It is one thing to teach children that 1 and 1 makes 2, but it's a whole other ball game to tell them that 1 bad apple will eventually spoil the entire bushel.

The problem started a long time ago. And today we are paying the price for having neglected to solve it back then. As much good as the institution of the past have done us, it has also done us a great disservice. It choose to reason and justify instead of address and solve. The institution did not bother to think of the consequences that might occur later in the future. The institution was so eager to break free from colonization they forgot to ask themselves, "Are we even ready?' As we can see today, history is repeating itself. The opposition are so eager to take over from the ruling government, they don't realize that they are actually not even capable to run a children's nursery, much less an entire nation. And the institution has been so comfortable in their position they forgot about evolution and intellectual progress.

Our nation today is a product of an escapism.

We wanted to run away from the Brits. We did it. Albeit with a hefty price to pay for the people of this country. We wanted to run away from the blue weighing scale. Selangor, Perak, Kelantan, Kedah did it. And look what's happening to us now. Citizens are voicing out their grievances. Citizens are getting arrested for voicing out their grievances. Political leaders are hurling accusations at one another. Places of worships are being torched. Severed animal heads are fast becoming the latest fad on the streets.

What does it take for the institution to realize that something has gone wrong somewhere along the way and they have to get back to the old drawing board and figure it out. Enough of self-agendas, enough of racial arguments and justifications. If I was born in this country, my Chinese and Indian friends were also born in this country, how does that make me more Malaysian than them? Just because my IC happens to read Malay as my race?

Problems can be solved if common sense is used in place of idiocy.

Put racial justifications aside and the institution will once again prosper; with its people backing it up. Ignore the problem and the people will continue to hurl insults and dance around sporting severed animal heads as the latest craze in accessories.

Pity the cows and the pigs. They want to die with their body parts intact. Very much like the rest of us.

I Want To Break Free....

The kid has grown. Yet the adult can't seem to accept it. The kid wants to roam free but the adult wants the kid to stay a kid forever. Think I'm talking about a parent-child dilemma? Not even close! I'm talking about the me dilemma. The person born 28 years ago is now a full-grown woman, but the full-grown woman wants to remain being a kid. How do you make these two worlds work hand in hand. Not an easy feat.

Sometimes I just wish I could throw in the towel and behave like a child for the rest of my life. But biology and the ever-moving process of time doesn't allow for that. Decisions have to be made, bills paid, work done, car driven, house cleaned, money made, life lived....the list goes on and on....

How do you stau a kid and adhere to the rules of biology and grow up?

Word Play 101

Have you ever taken a second to ponder over our Malay language and some of its words? Sometimes I wonder what those people in DBP are actually doing because the way I look at it, they seem to be resting on their laurels and not doing much. Especially since information becomes informasi and globalization becomes globalisasi and the list goes on and on. But the best has got to be these two words: didemutualisasikan and diliberalisasikan. Whatever happened to dibebaskan? Doesn’t that carry the same meaning as that diliberablablabla word? Perhaps dibebaskan is just not fancy enough. I mean seriously, DBP, what the hell do you people do? Add a di and a kan and give yourselves a pat on the back for a job well done?!

What about words like serenti, pengurup and menyampah? Hahahah now this will boggle your mind, I kid you not! Just work with me for a second here. If a word begins with a se- or a pe- and me-, they are known as imbuhan hence there’s a root word in there somewhere. For example the root word for penyapu is sapu. Therefore for the three words I mentioned above, I challenge you to tell me what is their root!

Here’s my take on it….

The root word for serenti is renti (which means stop according to the northern dialect!). Serenti is a place for drug addicts (oh wait sorry, the politically correct term these days would be drug users!) so the root word renti works fine here. In short, rentikanlah isap dadah tu! Hence, serenti.

As for pengurup, that has me stumped! Could it be kurup, or urup or ngurup? Macam cakap jawa la pulak!

Menyampah literally means having had enough of someone or something to the point of hatred. So the logical root word here, according to word etymology by me 101, is sampah! You hate sampah, don’t you? So that’s where menyampah came from!

I’ll bet there are more of these words around, but you get my drift.

Back on the screen....

After a few years of staying behind the camera, I went back on screen for a short stint as the model for Adnan Othman's video clip for his song Norma. Yes, I was Norma.

Had to embody the perempuan melayu terakhir thing but I guess it turned out okay. Not too bad. Of all my past acting gigs, I was never asked to do a video clip, so this was a first. But I had a good time. We shot at Dataran Merdeka, luckily they weren't too many onlookers with the exception of a few tourists who found the whole thing amusing. The crew was nice and funny and made everything easy.

Adnan Othman was a nice man, very humble and obliging.

The heat didn't seem to bother him much. He was willing to sit in the middle of that area playing his guitar for the clip. And then we had like a little dating scene which was funny but turned out to be a lot of fun.

I must say these past few days have been quite a few firsts for me. But all in all, I enjoyed every single moment of it!!!!

My Directorial Debut!

After almost ten years of devoting myself to the exciting yet gruesome world of entertainment in this country, I finally got myself a directing gig. It wasn't much but I cherish the opportunity. A big thank you to Dreamchaser Entertainment who placed their trust in me and allowed me to direct the video clip for Azlina Aziz's Di Sini Buat Pertama Kali! (hahahah now that's what I call a freakish coincidence! But that's another story!). So there I was, last Sunday, August 16th 2009, my concept, my ideas, my directorial debut!

Initially it was supposed to be Wajah Siapakah Di Hatimu, but someone made a ruckus and insisted that it be Di Sini Buat Pertama Kali. So I scrapped the ideas I had for Wajah Siapakah and came up with brand new ones for the Pertama Kali. Simple ideas, I wasn't even sure how they would gel together, but I had faith and I decided to go ahead and just do it.

The first location was Quattro at Avenue K! Macha's place.

Felt right at home there considering I've hung out there quite a few times. Did the first scene at the stage section of the Spring Lounge. The next scene was at the Rain Pathway. Beautiful corridor made for a brilliant scene.

If Azlina was agreeable to rainwater, I would have had the management turn on the sprinklers at the pathway but never mind, the scene still came out beautifully. Then we shot an autograph mob scene at the entrance to the Spring Lounge.

I had my doubts about the male model we were using but he turned out ok on camera.

The last scene at Quattro was at the Winter Bar.

After that we went back to the studio to finish up a few more scenes there and then at 10pm it was a wrap! I was on a directing high that was beyond words. Couldn't describe how ecstatic I was!

Anyway, yesterday I went to see the editor and we sat down to finalize some adjustments. The video looked great! I mean it wasn't totally fantastic, I know I could have done better, but all things considering it turned out absolutely great! Everything just gelled together brilliantly. Thanks to John, the editor who cut it up and joined everything together nicely.

All in all, can't wait for my next gig! Azlina Aziz was extremely nice and co-operative. She was humble and obliging. Very understanding to the fact that this is my first directing job. The male model also worked out fine although I had my doubts when I first laid eyes on him. With the exception of the Wicked Witch of the West whom I completely ignored throughout the whole thing, everything went off without a hitch! Oh and of course,how can I forget, a big thank you to Terry and Ray for believing in me!