sigh

englebert humperdinck's 'please release me' has been a staple tune in my head for a long time. my dad's a huge influence in my musical tastes.

but nowhere in memory has it been this loud in my head.

it's straight to it, the love is dead. let's move on sayang. the end of it becomes a downright plea of desperation.

"please! release me, can't you see?! you'd be a fool, to cling to me! to live a lie would bring us pain... release me and let me love again!"

it's astonishing how determined you are to continue trying to salvage this. but, admirable, noble -- even touching -- as your intentions may be, i have told you time and again that i cannot find it in me to continue.

and i have been upfront about it, honest, even blunt. but you're just swatting all that away "let's just not think about that shall we? just be nice to each other and move along, we don't need to end"

i mean, what's the whole point of this sayang? i loved you, i really did! what snapped it? time i guess... it just eroded. i don't see how our families can blend either. hence any future i may have seen has just gone up in smoke.

cruel as i may be to have that point of view despite how strongly we wanted each other, but that's how it is.

please understand this isn't easy on me too. i have to be cruel to be kind to you because i will be a worse person to play along and pretend. it'll be a lie.

even your closest friends have been trying to talk sense to you, to make you see that there's more to the world than just you and me, that there's a world beyond me, that really, in the end, there's always someone else!

i can't make you stop loving me, but i don't want you losing your head screws either. it's getting rather pathetic to look at you. and i'm angry because you have more self-worth than that. it's just pathetic. definitely not what i fell in love with in the first place.

i sometimes wonder if i'm really doing you an injustice, but i've consulted the very same friends who were advising you and none of them said so.

am i a jerk? am i an ass? am i a touch n go s.o.b? but i'm told that at least i'm honest enough to tell you instead of just walking out.

you say you're praying to god that we can work this out. i'm praying to god he lets you see that the only way this will work out is when you see that you're better off loving someone else than me. 

i've always had a special place for our friendship, and it was lovely that it blossomed to what it was. but i can only say it ran its course and really i cannot go on anymore.

so please, release me, let me go. i have done so with the slightest pang of guilt, but knowing that i'll be even guiltier if i continued and lied. please move on.

our time together can never be replaced and will be cherished, but that's a closed book now.

"to waste our lives would be a sin, release me, and let me love again."

 

hmmm

i'm going to wade into the dog story here.

the video starts with what looks like a guy, wearing his baju melayu and cargo pants, walking his dogs down a road with the 'takbir raya' playing in the background.

upon reaching their destination, the guy proceeds to wash his dogs' feet, his own feet (looking like he's doing his ablutions) and then dries himself.

then he gives his dogs kuih raya, pets them and poses for a group photo with a selamat hari raya message, reminding us that we should be kind to all species.

first things first, it's a woman in that video, not a man. not that it makes any difference, i'm just clarifying because i genuinely thought it was a guy, and found out it's a lady by the name of Maznah.

now, the uproar.

i can't comprehend it. insulting to islam? really? how? that a person is keeping a few dogs, and spending raya with them, petting them affectionately, and giving them kuih raya is insulting to islam?

i still don't see the insult. she just chose to care for a few creatures created by god himself.

i speak from memory here and recall rather clearly that, muslims cannot consume pork and dog meat. coming into physical contact with them, however, requires a specific cleansing process before you can begin your religious activities, such as praying, reading the holy quran, etc.

therein lies my perplexity: she's merely caring for them, keeping them as pets, not consuming their meat. so how is she insulting the religion?

alvin tan and vivian lee were insulting muslims, knowing full well that pork consumption and the muslim religion are like oil and water.

what alvin and vivian did, was obviously a case of 'cari pasal', yet i don't detect that notion of ill-tasted mischief with maznah and her dogs.

put in cats, we'll all be gushing at how cute they are, but because it's dogs, it becomes associated with dirtiness, the halal/haram spectrum and everybody's interpretations of what a muslim can and cannot do with dogs.

but i still don't see where is the insult coming from.

to insult is to treat or speak of something with disrespect and scorn, so how has she done that by spending raya with her dogs?

rather than fussing over a muslim who seems to have great chemistry with an animal that most other muslims in this country would have no clue how to deal with, please, pay attention to the real problems at hand.

homosexuality, alcoholism, prostitution, misguided islamic practices, drug abuse, polygamy abuse, real education of islamic principles, not mere regurgitation of holy scripture from memory are among some of the major issues our religious figures can contribute their workload to in making sure muslims in malaysia don't fall victim.

yes, while you may be accused of conservatism, won't that be a better argument to have than the rights and wrongs of a dog trainer whose alleged insult of islam isn't even clear?

dear me...

i sit and type everyday, telling the country, perhaps world, stories of what goes on in and around the country,  and have them either tell me i did a good job(rarely), that i need to improve here and there(quite often, but that's good because i learn), or it just passes by without anyone noticing.

such is news. we painstakingly think up an intro, put the facts in order, then be made to look like a fool by editors because i'm such a noob, then up the story goes on air for about ONE bloody minute, and it just flashes by. one days work for a minute's presentation.

i can't remember the last time i actually sat down to get in tune with myself over the keyboard.

it has been one hell of a year at work. it has been one hell of a year in my personal life too.

i just don't know where to begin, and so, as the name of my blog so aptly captures, i shall exercise my right to ramble.

i feel a certain kind of emptiness. a kind of empty that really can't be explained, defined, described.

i had a good love life, i shall stress HAD. and she's still a very very special and dear friend, despite all the emotions, and tribulations of dealing with those emotions. i sometimes wished the break-up was a bad one, so it'll be easier to get through my days.

but thankfully, though i lost some kind of romance, i never lost a friend. and that means much more to me.

i enjoy my job. i love it. the going out, meeting people, talking to them, getting up close n personal. but the stories i do are to serve the purposes of the company. i have yet to find a beat that i can truly call a beat.

i used to think that i could walk into the sports desk and reel off names of every superstar there is. turns out i am sorely mistaken. thank god i didn't stick my head that far out.

i work in the general desk, and cover anything that i'm asked to. from politicians, to loan shark victims, to funerals, and the occasional crime.

what do i enjoy writing about most? after one whole year, i honestly still don't know. apart from my ramblings, i really don't know.

thankfully though, i have had the good fortune to meet good people. and recapture some fun moments with old friends.

living alone here is the toughest thing. it's one thing to be a student away from home, very much another to be earning your wages away from it.

as a student, you can ask for extra allowances without batting an eyelid. as a wage-earner, it becomes so so demoralising.

i guess that's one source of the emptiness or the slight unhappiness that i feel. i love my job, but my friends on the other side of the atlantic doing the same job are earning comfortably more than i do. which gives me a real sucky feeling.

because i wanted to be there, i asked to be there, i hoped to be there. but for reasons that i might not know till my last breath, i was put here. where i feel like i cant string two sentences together without feeling like an absolute douche.

let's see how my fortunes change after the general election. insyaAllah.

i have never been one to put criterion on the kind of girls that i would like to go out with.

but i guess i just didn't know what i wanted in the beginning... it was all about just trying anyone i fancied.

now i sort of have an idea... a general idea. that she must be able to cook, and learn mum's cooking. that she must be able to be the better home-maker than me. that her priorities would be her children, me and ONLY THEN her career. will it matter if she earns more than i do? as long as she takes care of me and the children well, i don't give a flying fuck how much she earns.

earn all the money you can my love, as long as you can take care of me and the children while doing so. i also hope that she has a stable family background, though i know every family has their fair share of skeletons in the closet, basement, ceiling and in the walls. as long as agreeing to disagree can be practiced.

i think i've rambled enough for one night. please don't think that everything i say tonight, will be the same in my head tomorrow. some might stay, some might change, some might be totally forgotten, until i go through this post again and wonder what made me say such things in the first place.

god bless, and good night.

rimble rumble ramble wumble

taking a jog down memory lane while i'm alone at the office working the graveyard shift.

story done, nothing to do, so i listen to the bee gees. and how lovely they sound.

it's almost how it used to be...

dad had just bought the home theatre system with 5 speakers, a marantz amplifier and a vcd player

so we were having a good few weeks of karaoke-ing and enjoying the sounds.

then dad brought back the bee gees one night only concert in las vegas. boy was i hooked. i guess i was hardly 10 or 11. but i was hooked on the bee gees.

dad even remarked one night 'if only you memorised your books like you memorised that bee gees concert'

because here's what i used to do: i'd get home from school, have lunch, and turn that cd on and just sit in front of the tv entranced, singing along, pretending i was barry or robin or maurice in his hat.

i'd be jumping to 'night fever', pretending i had my 'more than a woman', or being all mellow with 'words' and  'i started a joke'.

until mum would come by and nag my ears off to do my homework, NOT BEFORE SHE HEARD A FEW TUNES HERSELF.

i knew of the bee gees before i knew the beatles even existed. of course, i developed my love for the other oldies tunes as i grew up, but i never outgrew the bee gees.

they represent something more than just their music. they are a reminder of my dad's boyish eyes as he drummed his fingers to their tunes.

it is worth mentioning that my dad is very much a beatles guy. but being a band boy in his younger days, he sang everything, and the bee gees were as good as anybody, musically.

it's thanks to my dad that i love music the way i do. it's thanks to him that i have made music my way of getting in touch with certain aspects of my emotions that i wouldn't be able to express otherwise.

don't ask me why, but time has passed us by.

klang and thames

The River of Life project initiated to galvanise the Klang river aims to make the 110 kilometre stretch of pollution suitable for recreational use by the year 2020.

Fortunate to be able to join a media boat ride up the river organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, I was able to experience first hand the notorious repulsive stench that permeated from some stretches of the river.

As our boat navigated away from our starting point at the Selangor Yacht Club in Port Klang, we were greeted, not only by the effluent smell but also by the sight of waste throughout the journey. 

There were even parts of the river that were less than two feet deep!

The Klang river begins somewhere in the highlands 25 kilometres northeast of Kuala Lumpur and flows through four major cities along the way: Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, Kuala Lumpur and Klang.

It is easy to blame the pollution in the river as a by-product of the incessant development that's taking place in those cities.

This is not helped by the sight of illegal residences that spring up along the river's quieter sections as well as the ignorance of the general population in caring for the river.

It would be wise for the minds in charge of the project to make an example of what England did to revitalise the Thames river.

Having been declared biologically dead in the 1950s, it has made a remarkable comeback, its waters now teeming with wildlife that had disappeared and have begun re-establishing their habitats. 

Thanks to consistent efforts over fifty years, the Thames was awarded the 2010 International Theiss River Prize by the International River Foundation, in recognition of its achievements in river management and restoration.

One cannot be blamed for being skeptical at the effort to restore the Klang River by the year 2020.

If it took five decades for the Thames to be restored, what hope have we to restore the Klang in the next eight years?

There are silver linings to be drawn, though. The river can be saved without having to hit rock bottom. 

It is not in as dire straits as the Thames was when restoration works began. 

The water has been classified as polluted and unsafe for skin contact, not dead. The wildlife has yet to totally desert the river on its less smelly stretches, judging from the family of otters, bangau and other birds we saw on our trip.

As long as the noble individuals involved in the project stick to their aims and schedules with the same unwavering consistency shown by the English, then we may even scoop an International Theiss River Prize of our own!

what's in my mind?

facebook asks me that question every day... and more often than not, i find that there are more things in my mind than i care to share as a status... so i'll channel the rest of it here.

screw it. 9gag distraction. later then. =)

clean and fair

let me clarify that i have no problems about the call for free and fair elections. campaign all you want. it is your cause, your grouses, your claims.

but i question the movement's methods, and strategy in all 3 rallies that have taken place so far. it's three times that you have taken to the streets to send your message. but, all three have turned unruly. yes, you blame the authorities, especially the police. but i can't see why, after july 9th, would you plan another round of rallying on the streets? 

july 9th was supposed to be a walk for democracy, and i must admit, the ruling coalition didn't do a good job for itself with the spectacular u-turn on their stadium offer. the rest is history.

april 28th was supposed to be a peaceful sit-in at dataran merdeka. but the request for the location was rejected and stadiums were offered. organisers rejected it, saying the offer came at the 11th hour and it was too late to change their plans. herein lie my questions. 

if the organizers planned to have a sit-in, with songs to sing and speeches to give, for two hours, how is it too late to just have participants move to the stadiums instead of dataran? wouldn't a stadium be a better venue so that people are encamped in one place, where you can address all of them, without the need to fill up streets and disrupt businesses and traffic for the general public? wouldn't it be easier to station 6000 security personnel and hundreds of medical staff around a stadium instead of a town square? if it were at a stadium, would you even need such a large number of security and medical staff?

wouldn't you minimise the threat of agent provocateurs if you were at stadiums? wouldn't you minimise the possibility of violence if you were doing your own thing in an enclosed area? wouldn't you eliminate confrontation with the authorities, the need for tear gas and water canons? wouldn't the press be able to cover your demands in a peaceful environment? wouldn't your own voices be louder, thanks to stadium acoustics, than in the streets?

if it was about sending a message to the ruling coalition, wouldn't it be better to give hard proof instead of claiming to have the facts? wouldn't it be better to win the minds (and votes) of people that way? having listened to your speeches, mainly by opposition leaders, all i hear are claims, rhetoric, and sentiments.

if the sit-in was supposed to be non-political, why were there chants of reformasi and hapus BN? isn't that already political? you are trying to send a message to the ruling coalition to make changes, and to not hold elections until your demands are met. why then, are you chanting anti-government slogans? it does not make sense to me.

if the sit-in was supposed to be non-political, why were opposition leaders allowed to make their presence? as champions of electoral reform, accusing the election commission of having members of the ruling coalition in their ranks, shouldn't you be showing them the way it should be?

i don't see how taking to the streets has helped raise awareness of elections in this country being unfair and dirty. if anything, it disturbed the saturday of a larger population of malaysians who weren't able to have a normal weekend. policemen, reporters, medical staff, who could've had off days, had to be called back to serve.

it's sad to hear speeches making examples of the arab spring, that they want the same to happen here.they blame the police for the excessive violence, i say, that's expected of street protests. they claim the local media to be biased, i say, everyone is. do the foreign press covering the event not have their own agendas AGAINST our country? yes, our local media has it's issues. but that's an issue for another posting.

the call for free and fair elections in the country is something that the government cannot turn a deaf ear to. they must show the people that the calls are really just harmless dog barks. otherwise, the opinions of people may sway. we have enough fence sitters whose votes can be won, like their chairman said, and i agree with her on this point, the numbers who turned up for the 'sit-in' have sent their message to the ruling coalition. what is the coalition's response? for that is the true marker of their preparedness to open ballot boxes to the public.

but long after the dust settles, i still think you should have just gone to the stadiums. would've saved us all a lot of worry, panic, airtime, newsprint, hospital fees, overtime, off-days... it'll just go on. no more street bersih, please. use your intelligence to plan better methods of calling for the free and fair elections you yearn for.