Today's mindfuck is brought to you by TEDTalks.



The column, halfway finished. 1mm thick slices piled up on one another creating a most intricate structure.

There was a moment this afternoon when I felt like I wasn't really there. I wasn't really in front of the counter at my friends' cafe laughing and sharing wit. Like everything around me wasn't really real. B-grade cinema quality, dim lights, that feeling where you're an overseer -- like in a dream. It was really unsettling for me because I knew it was real, I knew I was there but it's like my soul wasn't. It was terrifying and liberating at the same time.

I am terrified of what's become of negara ku, Malaysia. Tanah tumpah darahku, I would bleed for my country but not for criminals of petty theft. Others have bled and their lives lost because of the lack of care by the government for her people. Corruption. Lies. The greater majority have turned into sheep for slaughter.

I sit here, AutoCAD, a scale ruler, a pen, my phone silent as the night -- oh, where have my people gone. I'd done some CAD things and now I'm trying to find an idea to run with. Anything at all would be a great thing.

I stumbled upon Ashie's blog, Glowdown, and on one of her posts was http://www.artyulia.com
Delicious and vibrant, so titillating was her paper art that it may have pushed me into the direction of paper quilling for my next project. Surely quilling would alow me to adorn the quick idea of a mask/breastplate of paper -- no sequins of course, it's not my style. Paper is such a malleable object!

I am, eventually, going to attempt making Kuih Akok and Onde-Onde...

Akok, which I like to eat straight out of the fridge:
Ingredients:
9 large eggs
1 coconut, extract cream equivalent to 1 bowl
2/3 cup sugar
70-80 gm rice flou
Method:
1. Beat the eggs lightly with sugar
2. Pour in coconut cream and mix well
3. Add in flour
4. Heat the brass mould
5. Spoon mixture into mould and close the lid
6. Remove when cooked.


Onde-onde:
Ingredients:
250 g Glutinous rice flour
200 ml Pandan juice (Blend 10 Pandan leaves with 220 ml water.)
150 g Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar), finely chopped
100 g Grated coconut
A pinch of salt (or sea salt)
Method:
1.In a large bowl, combine the glutinous rice flour with Pandan juice and knead lightly. Pinch a small piece of the dough (about 40 g) and drop it into boiling water.
2.When the dough rises up the surface, remove it with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water.
3.Mix it back into the main dough and knead well to form smooth dough.
4.Cover the dough and set aside for about 15 minutes.
5.Mix the grated coconut with a pinch of salt and steam for about 2 – 3 minutes and let it cool completely.
6.Bring a pot of water to boil.
7.Pinch a small piece of dough (about 15 g each) and flatten lightly.
8.Fill the center of the dough with gula Melaka.
9.Roll them in your palm to form a smooth ball and cook the glutinous rice balls in the boiling water.
10.When the rice balls float to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water.
11.Coat the rice balls with grated coconut and serve immediately.
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If this works, you can expect some to be served on the day of my open house because I'm lovely like that. AND Sirap bandung because it's awesome.

Rest easy that the obligatory Raya poem will make an appearance eventually, fasting started out well but I still need to drink more water.

Things to do:
- Source out Some cartoony photos of a bunch of characters and some topography maps for The Expanded Screen (ES)
- Do all ES readings in prep for Tuesday's class.
- Buy a sketchbook for Make and start sketching things
- Sketch out idea for the 'paper' portion of Make and hopefully not get overambitious
- Design two different ideas for the same house, zoning, examples of images and types of materials to use for the house for Light Trap (LT).

Really, now that I've written all those tasks down, it's not that much of work actually...

P/S, today's mindfuck is brought to you by AntiVJ


EYJAFJALLAJÖKULL from Joanie Lemercier (AntiVJ) on Vimeo.

I had done this little ditty on the plane because I was woken up rudely by sudden lights and food. Which I did not eat. So, naturally, I got quite annoyed.

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If one pauses to think about the modes of transport, the world is rather quite smitten with air travel which honestly is just a glorified cattle truck to take a person from point A to point B. I say cattle truck because that's what the economy class is all about. It matters little if the branding of such transport is considered 'low-cost' or the average, each-country-has-a-goddamn-airline deal. A cattle-truck is a cattle truck.
Being sucker punched by bright, white lights in the middle of sleep is the least of your problems and if you're a heavy traveller with a large amount of travel points in your little shopping cart of been-there-done-that, you're probably mastered the art of a. keeping yourself busy and b. sleeping in awkward positions which would probably cause you a fair amount of bullshit when it comes to medical bills but I digress. The lovely art of dozing off in relative discomfort -- albeit before being jolted awake by the coming of the food cart. Actually, I might still be a little miffed about being woken up.

I think, if I had to take a little gander at what the whole shebang must've sounded like if it was put in short bursts off words punctuated by swearing it'd sound like:
GOOD MORNING YOU LITTLE FUCKERS, WE HAVE FOOD, YOU LIKE FOOD! HERE! HAVE SOME BLINDING LIGHT TO GO WITH THIS LOVELY ANNOUNCEMENT! YAY OMG!

Good lord. If I'd had a go at everything. And I still need new headphones.

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Moving on.

I'm safely back in Melbourneland of sejok and senang. Paid the water bill, unpacked stuff and put some away but I've still a few things to put away but I have neither the want nor the tenacity at the moment. I would rather sit here and type in my most morose of moods.

A most interested post surfaced on my Facebok feed last week. It had said:

Bad grammar aside, it's quite true. Human nature is such that we've begun to hide away our true emotions in the opposite display because we, I, have decided that real emotions are too complex and disturbing for everyone to simply know about. One has to be in the thick of it to know anything I am feeling and so a close knit of people are held near and dear with my secrets.

I'm sneezing a lot right now. I hate the cold. Really. Another few months of solid labour... FOR THE PARENTS! I could just live with a pass.

I have issues when it come to toilets/bathrooms. I don't like wet toilets. I do't like smelly toilets. I don't like steps and random level changes in toilets.

Anyway, got back from Redang a couple of days ago and I must say, the trip was delightfully fruitful. It wasn't one of those meandering lepak sessions, more of a proper diving trip. Did one shore dive on Friday and three boat dives on Saturday. Big BIG BIG ups for the blokes who were dive-mastering. I can't remember what their names were (because I'm heinous criminal when it comes to remembering names) but those two shall henceforth be known as botakman and bleachguy.

Bleachguy was trip's diving hero. He was the one lugging me around on his back like a suitcase. A pretty heavy suitcase. In and out of the water, in and out of the boat. And I made some acquaintences with other divers as well. Most from KL. Kepong though. So the chances of meeting them again is slim to none.

Other heroes of the trip would be the pack of guys, and one girl, I went with. Big, big ups to you guys too! I scarcely know you but y'all made the trip easier. A+ for effort.

Back on the home front, I think mom's gotten pretty proud of my headstrong d everything and anything I want attitude. It may still bring her large amounts of anxiety but I am what I am and there's no running away or changing that.

Until the next post.

Typing here on my new Asus Transformer Pad, after a hearty meal of homemade tacos (recipes for the whole shebang, below). The Transformer Pad is awesome! A worthy replacement to my old Vaio netbook which is around 8 years old and behaving terribly. I'm slowly putting all the important softwares in the form of apps into it so I can quickly access it when I have a pretty good idea. I probably need to wipe out everything in the other computer before I hand it over to the fatherling.

I'm in the midst of packing for the Redang trip which I'm leaving for tomorrow night. 4 dives for the weekend, or 3. Depending on how I feel. I haven't met up with my grandmum and I've got a dinner with my grandad and uncle FH since he's back from London. Such a sweet old man. Hopefully the dinner with my grandfather will mean the confirmation of my club membership... Aaaaaaand that made me sound like a brat. Hahahahaha...

Now, the recipes below are pretty much only for me to remember what I had put in because I have a habit of cooking blind and realising later, after eating the delicious edibles that I'd probably would want to make it again. The tacos come in a few parts, most of which require preparation, especially the Chili con carne which tastes better when left overnight to let the flavours merge.

Sha's Chili Con Carne:

4 tbsp cumin powder
1 tbsp cintan manis (I have no idea what this spice is in English)
3 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika powder
1 tbsp Cayenne pepper
2 tbsp cacao powder (give or take)
1 tsp instant coffee (for a secret kick)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 stick cinnamon
a few habanero peppers, cut, blended or left whole, whatever tickles your fancy
a bottle of pickled jalapeno peppers, sliced

2 cups white onion
1 cup red onion/shallots
3 to 4 cloves of garlic

1kg fatty beef, cubed or ground
2 cans of kidney beans
1 can of other beans, I don't know what the white ones are called.
250g canned chopped tomatoes or tomato puree
salt to taste

Epic Tomato Salsa:

5 chopped tomatoes
1/2 red onion blended to a paste
1/4 cup pickled jalapeno peppers blended to a paste
1/2 lime juice, give or take
1 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
salt to taste

Delicately nommy Guac:

2 ripe avocados
1/2 red onions blended to a paste
1 tsp pickled jalapeno peppers blended to a paste
2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 lime juice, give or take
salt

Other stuff to prep for tacos:
Taco shells, sour cream, thinly sliced lettuce

Usual posting will resume in KL. See you soon MADAFAKAS!

Mo posted this onto her FB feed  (http://goinswriter.com/writing-voice/) and I thought I'd answer a few questions before starting tonight's Lace sketch and then going to bed. I'm not a writer or anything but I find these questions alluring to that self-absorbed part of me who thinks I'm a writer.
Some will be answered eventually when I have time to think about it.

Describe yourself in three adjectives.
-Witty -Random -Awesome
Ask (and answer) the question: “Is this how I talk?”
Yes, Yes this is how I talk.

Imagine your ideal reader. Describe him in detail. Then, write to him, and only him.
My ideal reader is amazingly worldly, intelligent and completely non-judgemental. When he reads what I write he imagines everything in detail, if there's no details he'll make it up and laugh at his cleverness. He reads my words with a cup of coffee while he's either sitting in awe or amusement. His name is probably Steve.

Jot down at least five books, articles, or blogs you like to read. Spend some time examining them. How are they alike? How are they different? What about how they’re written intrigues you? Often what we admire is what we aspire to be.
I'll cut to the chase: I read when the writer is tongue-in-cheek yet serious, witty, not demanding, fun, quick and important. (tbc)

List your favorite artistic and cultural influences. Are you using these as references in your writing, or avoiding them, because you don’t think people would understand them?
Robot Chicken, Everything pop culture pre 1995, English Wit (because it's just so lovely), Stephen Fry who is a genius, Garfield (because for a while, the obese cat had it going on), Everything. I like everything because everything makes life life. Except pop music and pink.

Ask other people: “What’s my voice? What do I sound like?” Take notes of the answers you get.
This has no relevence to me.

Free-write. Just go nuts. Write in a way that’s most comfortable to you, without editing. Then go back and read it, asking yourself, “Do I publish stuff that sounds like this?”
Toto bumped his head on the wall once. It hurt just like he knew it would. It was day three since he was changed from a being of pure light to this monkey in a suit. Thanks, dad.


He was so arrogant that day as to shout to his heavenly father, his creator, that he was his best asset. A being who did not falter in the face of duty. If it had to be done, it had to be done. In hindsight, he probably shouldn'tve made such a bold declaration. Dad can be a bit of a dick sometimes.

-- I actually do publish lots that sound like the abovewritten. I call them 'brainfarts'.

Read something you’ve recently written, and honestly ask yourself, “Is this something I would read?” If not, you must change your voice.
I would read it a million times over. I actually enjoy my brainfarts, even if it gets a little bit too ludicrous.

Ask yourself: “Do I enjoy what I’m writing as I’m writing it?” If it feels like work, you may not be writing like yourself. (Caveat: Not every writer loves the act of writing, but it’s at least worth asking.)
Because I don't write for cash, and most of what I write is drivvel anyway, it's a damn blog, it doesn't need substance. I love writing!

Pay attention to how you’re feeling. How do you feel before publishing? Afraid? Nervous? Worried? If so, you’re on the right track. If you’re completely calm, then you probably didn’t risk being vulnerable. Try writing something a little more dangerous, something a little more you. Fear is good.
I dont think this is relevent to me either... *shrugs*


The End.