Friday 21 July 2017

if I would, could you?


What I felt about Chester Bennington's suicide, is this.

Everybody makes mistakes, everybody had some sort of "past", every men you knew or never bothered, had and lived through their own Troubles.

I have friends who died at young age, some friends still struggling with addiction, jobs, life and whatever hell life has placed them. Some have moved on, on their own unique path.

Some achieved success, some saw faraway places. Some still begging in their prayers.

That's why I hate trolls, the norms of this generation.

They like to laugh on other's shittiness.

The truth is, most men I knew, try to walk as upright as they could,  with their Troubles in their back laying silent.

Some tripped, snapped and made decisions they could not revert.

I don't think most guys of the younger generations knew this, it seems to them whining is normal. And laughing at other's shit is normal.

It should be reminded, people have round shoulders for bearing heavy loads.

Alice In Chains - Would

Know me broken by my master
Teach thee on child of love hereafter

Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way

Drifting body it's sole desertion
Flying not yet quite the notion

Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way

Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way

Am I wrong?
Have I run too far to get home?
Have I gone?
And left you here alone?

Am I wrong?
Have I run too far to get home?
Have I gone?

And left you here alone?

Saturday 15 July 2017

to lie dormant is certain death

a MIG-21.
Source : Facebook page Russian Aircraft 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/589984121087488/

firdaus 9898

There is few guys with the ID firdaus 9898 which is not me nor have anything to do with this blog.

https://www.facebook.com/firdaus9898/
https://www.instagram.com/firdaus9898/
https://twitter.com/mfirdaus9898

And somehow, with these happening, I felt lazy to update this blog, to spend time and effort for this blog, only to find other people just register things under the same name, and you can't do much shit of it because of internet neutrality and this is a goddam free world where everyone reserve their right for free speech and free to express themselves in whatever way they felt comfortable with.

But to delete this blog, I will not, simply because, everytime I got online, this blog will be a homepage for me to start surfing.

Anyhow, life's is ephemeral, and there will come a time when my physical body dies and God knows what happens to this blog.


world most epic handshake


Watching this video, only reminds me of recent Mahathir-Anwar relationship. (Malaysian shit politics)


other video which tickles my funny bones




positive tone in life


Read the comments section of this video, the funniest comment there is this.

"I was biking to school with this song on, and when it finished i won the tour de france."

Now I realised why most bloggers who are good in drawing characters, comics, sketches, seldom update their blog nowadays.

It's just not worth it.

People will just take it away and claim as theirs. Worse, they might abuse it and make it shameful.


"If you have a skill, if you have a talent, if you have experience doing something, never give it away for free. You should always charge and you should not be afraid of charging. Because, quite simply, number one, obviously, if you give something away for free you won’t make any money off of it. But number two, if you give something away for free, people won’t appreciate it as much."


And so this is a perfect song for this blog at this moment.


Auld Lang Syne is Scottish for "old long since".

The singing lyrics is this,

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?

Anyhow you can go wikipedia the song and the lyrics.





Monday 10 July 2017

echoes / effortless

Eilif Peterssen - Summer Night, 1886
Source : Wikipedia

Echoes

And so last week, I felt, was a week full of chicken noises.

Monday, a relative of mine, suddenly went berserk with his own religious interpretation of things, which I deemed insane, as  per entry http://firdaus-9898.blogspot.my/2017/07/small-talk.html

Then there was this issue of Shell girl.
Followed b this issue of a Muslim girl with her dog. http://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/6767/

As usual,  everybody started shrieking like little chickens.
Including an online friend of mine. 

A lady.

As usual, she started bashing males all over for being stupid. When I commented, she told me I was being apologist, then I told her, I'm against stupidity, but hell, don't over-generalise all men..and somehow I felt tired of explaining things

 Then the second issue blew up, and she went into rocket-firing mode. She started bashing JAKIM, her logic is Quran comes first before Hadith, and Hadith is something that is...does not need to be followed?...only Quran is obligatory...and so forth. Since Quran does not forbid dogs, so why must we follow Hadith.... <== her logic.

From the time I started knew her, she was Anti-Hadith of some sort, hence this time, I knew well, that explaining things will only tire me, so I just kept quiet.

And I quietly removed her from the friendlist, and blocked her.

Why so harsh?

Last week, I was cruising the road with my small motorcycle while listening to Joe Satriani's Surfing With The Alien (mp3 player).

The sun was setting down, the orange brightness and the nearby gloominess nearing darkness.

It was then, I was captivated by this track "Echo", the last song from that album.

from Surfing With The Alien, 1987

After maghrib prayer at nearby musolla, I drove my motorcycle to a "romantic sight" nearby my house for a little time with myself, around 8pm or so.

I looked at the sky above, with the stars, planets and their moons, and God knows what and how much up there,

all glitters, and somehow, a thought came to my mind,

hey look at all those glitters, those are big mega things, and yet they moved around,
those big things, with their big issues and big agendas,
all moved silently 
in a space where there's no sound,
where those lights might light years behind,
and those beautiful lights might just be echoes.

While I'm here, in my small planet, where most people are noisy and rocket-driven, shouting and screaming to get their points across,
they might resort to bombing cities so that some leaders might agree,
and yet,

those big things up there move in silence and echoed in lights.

And so that's why I just kept quiet, blocked her FB from mine, as if our lines no longer intertwines,

and you know,
one day one of us might die and we all will stop communicating too,
so why not?

Suddenly I feel at ease, and remembered those who do stop communicating with me, for whatever reason there is,

I no longer blame you, and I now understand the feeling.

Whatever happened, as those things that is happening, will sometime in the future to come, 

be memories, and just echoes.



Still Another Day: XVII/Men

The truth is in the prologue.
Death to the romantic fool,
to the expert in solitary confinement,

I'm the same as the teacher from Colombia,
the rotarian from Philadelphia,
the merchant from Paysandu who save his silver to come here.

We all arrive by different streets,
by unequal languages,
at Silence.

by Pablo Neruda


from Surfing With The Alien, 1987





Eilif Peterssen - Under Salmesangen (In the Church) (1878)

Effortless

I learned this "effortless" thing from  my wife, my sister-in-law and some female friends who are into elegant fashion, and the trend in the "tudung" / scarf fashion now is the Neelofa scarf.



And so, the catch here is, beauty itself is not a stand-alone quality, for beauty to become "elegant", it has to become "effortless".

The "effortless beauty", or so to speak, the element here is actually on being "natural", trying not too hard to look beautiful, the beauty has to be somewhat effortless.

If you type in Google "Effortless beauty", you can see for yourself.

Effortless is portrayed as a positive adjective, and it is cool to "look" effortless even though the action itself is hard to do.

For example, every soccer fans "wooohs" and "waaahs" over a cool flick at the ball by a player, a basketball player look cool when he tried to score that unbelievable 3 pointer, being effortless never cease to amaze and wonder people.

Eilif Peterssen - Lake Fishing, 1889
Source : Wikipedia

I remembered a story, told by my senior when I worked together with him in a shopping mall project.

There was a time in the company, where there were two senior engineers, that was about to be promoted to project manager, my senior and another guy.

Most site personnel seldom reports to office, they usually do it weekly and maybe once-a-month (to collect paycheck hehe). But there was this slight difference between this other guy and that senior of mine.

That senior of mine, was always "quiet" whenever he came back, he just smiled and had his cool persona, light heart jokes with colleagues, and then whatever discussion needed to be done, will be held personally 1-to-1, if it is with boss, they'll smoke outside and chat, or tea-time, 
if it is with the accounts or HR, then keep it brief and simple...

The other guy, I was told, always came back to office with a "drama". Meetings will be held, there will be an "aura" in the office signalling his attendance, he'll be busy with stuff, printing this and that.

Even though the other guy looked busy and productive, my senior was the one promoted. 

In this working life, not only you have to deliver, but you have to look "effortless" in delivering the results, if you want to go to the managerial level and above.

That's why, my senior explains, why most of his friends in construction, sleeps 3-4 hours daily in their homes, because they are busy preparing things for work. Never stay up late in office, hide your effort, deliver your results "effortless" ly.

The problem with generation nowadays in reading this, maybe, they emphasized too much on the style and look and not on the result. This is stupid, like wearing a cool blue necktie without wearing any shirt ie. naked.

“Rushing into action, you fail. 
Trying to grasp things, you lose them. 
Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.”

- Lao Tzu 

from the 1998 Crystal Planet album (my first Joe Satriani album)



Tuesday 4 July 2017

Heritage Tourism Malaysia | Balai Seri Andika


This video is a project from UITM students, 
my cousin is the interviewer in this project.

This entry is to promote their video.

Monday 3 July 2017

small talk


Gustave Courbet - Snow Effect, 1860
Source : Wikipedia

Last Saturday, my wife and I went to my auntie's house for Raya celebrations.
My mom was there too.

It was a joyous occasion, we were happy, and we took photos of the warm moments.

There's a photo of myself, my wife and my mother standing proud and happy, which I shared in my FB.

But, stupidly, I made a mistake of sharing it to someone dearest in Whatsapp.

I felt angry by his remarks.

But then I remembered I've written this in my blog.

'A man, I feel, is a shit asshole if he have these two shitty qualities at the same time.


1. Hot-tempered
2. Talkative'


As a man, don't talk when you're pissed off.  The quality of words will be shameful.

I tried to ignore but my heart felt fire.

So I read something online, and I searched Poemhunter (www.poemhunter.com), I found some nice poems.

Don't Go Far Off

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

by Pablo Neruda



Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die

by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Somehow I taken by my imagination while reading Pablo Neruda's "Don't Go Far Off", I drawn a picture in my head, of the KTM Komuter station, empty, silent, but someone alone waiting there.

And these words sprinkled out from the imagination.

"You might wait for a that train, asleep, for it will somehow rise back into action, for none of us could wait for lost time, for it will be long gone, whether you wait or not.

Hence, with that in mind, I wrote this sloppy thing in Malay and shared it in my FB.


Aku tadi dimarah orang

aku tadi dimarah orang
kerana gambar ini, mahu berperang
dikutuk aku di waktu petang
bagaikan aku berlaku sumbang

secara sinis aku diberitahu
dilontar pada ku pendapat berbuku buku
gambar2 ni sia2 lagi maudhu'
perbuatan tak berlandaskan tasawuf

aku beritahu, jangan marah2
gambar diambil di saat meriah
kenangan waktu ber-ramah tamah
mungkin anak aku nanti buat folio Sejarah

namun hati orang keras tak sudah
di Whatsapp nya aku gambar habuk sampah
"nah! jadikan lah pula ini hikmah"
kata2 sinis lagi menyampah

aku diam lagi membatu
baru kini sebabnya aku tahu
mengapa ISIS mengebom batu
di tempat sejarah dan di tempat sujud

bukankah dunia terlalu letih
banyak bising perkara remeh
banyak kecoh perkara leceh
banyak melayan drama sedih

semua orang kan berlalu pergi
semua orang kan berlalu mati
gambar ni menjadi bukti
hidup aku, pernah gembira dan disayangi

kita hidup sambil menanti
tapi saat pergi takkan kembali
aku kongsi untuk memori
untuk saat senyum senyum sendiri.

-sendiri sendiri 3 July 2017

Anyhow I want to end this on a light note.
So this is a Malay funny video on poetry.

Gado-Gado Sudut Puisi

(Update 9:58[m 3 July 2017 : I deleted the FB entry just now at 9:58pm. Quite a number of people "liked" it, but I don't want people to share and viral it, as there's a photo of myself, my wife and my mom.)