Month: June 2008

A Wild Sheep Goose Chase.

Sorry, no pictures for this post. Blogging from my precious eeepc.

One of my best friends lent me a book a while ago. It’s called A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. He said I’d like it and he wanted me to read it. So I wiki-ed and google-d the book up and it seemed that it’s a MUST-READ and no one had anything bad to say about it. I was all hyped up to read it. Another notch in Kim’s pursuit of culture & class so to speak….

The novel read very easily. Not many rare tongue-tying words which meanings I’d be too lazy to find out. I like the part about the girl with a pair of mysterious sexy ears and I was looking forward to descriptions of the protagonist having some “good time” with her. They came and went with a thud :(

Then on to the main premise of the story. The wild sheep chase. Protagonist met up with mysterious fella from secret organisation (Hrmmm). Asked to find sheep with a star on its ass (Hrmm). Ventured on a journey with said girl with sexy ears on journey to find sheep with a star on its ass. (Oooh more sex?). Not much sex really (sigh). Protagonist moved into a deserted house (oh sex now!). Girl with sexy ears left (damnit no sex). Weird male hobo in sheep costume stalked protagonist (oh THIS is the sex part huh *snigger*). Most scandalous thing that weird male hobo in sheep costume did was drinking a can of beer (wtf!). Male hobo in sheep costume turned out to be protagonist’s long lost friend who is called Rat and is also the sheep with a star on its ass.

So after flipping page after page, filled with anticipation of a chapter that would finally tie everything together ala Tarantino’s flicks….I reached the end of the book.

What the fuck did I just spent 5 hours reading?? I have absolutely no bloody idea -_-.

I tried to find an answer to my conundrum. Among the stuff I’ve discovered is that Haruki Murakami wrote all his books in Japanese and the english versions we’re reading are courtesy of elite translators. Could it be that the whole book is consisted of metaphors that only a native Japanese would understand? Does that mean that everyone who has raved about the book has at one point or another immersed themselves in Japanese culture or literature?

Am I the only person who doesn’t like the book, for when I googled “A wild sheep chase sucks” not many relevant explanations popped up. Or are people too embarrassed to admit that they don’t get the bleeding book due to peer pressure? Heh heh.

Of course, I’m not disputing the fact that I may be just another freaking knob-head. Classless, uncultured organism from Cheras aye!

So really, I appeal to anyone of you who have read the book or a big fan of Murakami please enlighten me in simple straight forward english sans methaphors….what is A Wild Sheep Chase talking about? :(

I want a washing machine.

Been a busy, busy week, which turned into a busy, busy weekend!

Besides that, one of the reasons I’ve not been blogging is because of my damn laptop. For some reason, it overheats and then shuts off by itself after about 15 minutes. So it’s been a biatch to work and most of the time I’ve been using my precious eeepc (which runs on linux so there’s quite a lot that I can’t do for instance photoshopping my pictures to throw you off the real me) and bf’s desktop (I try not to leave too much of my stuff in my bf’s machine).

So anyway…..Nuffnang Wild Live Party is finally over. It was a blast!!! Still remember vividly when Tim asked me to handle the PR, it seemed just like yesterday. And now it’s become another happy memory. You got to admit this, Nuffnang throws the best parties ever and that’s why it really isn’t that baffling to me that there are people who are thick-skinned enough to crash the party, illegitimately. Dear dear, the solution is really simple, be a part of the Nuffnang family :)

Anyway, this post is not about Nuffnang Wild Live Party. I will talk about it again it, soon! This is about AMBP’s The Smashin’ Gathering. This is about me speaking in public (gasp) about my experience as a blogger.

OMG.

It was truly an honour to be invited by AMBP to speak alongside people like Peter (my man!) and Aizuddin (omg where on earth have you been?) and Vin Sen (one of the bosses of Cinema Online) and Mr. Rohan Thomas (from Microsoft).

Peter spoke about how he uses his blog to reach out to people and open their eyes about living with disabilities. He also mentioned that we don’t get to see a lot of disabled people on the street because they’re virtually imprisoned by our fantastic amenities (or lackthereof) and a couple of his bad experiences with local airlines.

Peter Tan
Peter Tan, blogger and rights-based advocate.

Aizuddin talked about the 5 year old PPS and I truly agree with him that PPS does not need to be improved in anyway – it just works.

Aizuddin
Aizuddin, founder of PPS.

Vin Sen talked about marketing movies with Facebook, which is something that I’m really interested in. Good stuff.

As for Mr. Rohan Thomas, he talked about Microsort Popfly. For people aspiring to build a personal website but has no guts or time to do it should check out Microsoft’s Popfly. Besides websites you can also create customised games and embed all the third party applications like flickr and twitter into your websites without having to know what’s html or any mind boggling programming language.

PopFly presented by Mr. Rohan Thomas.
Mr. Rohan Thomas talking about Microsoft’s Popfly.

So what about my speech?

The honest truth, I only prepared my speech the night before, specifically right before bed time. Just because I like to put off things that make me nervous…heh.

I woke up and found my laundry bag full and the only clean thing available was the same top I wore when I appeared on The Star, twice -_- (here and here). I can hearing KY making his kim-doesn’t-wash-her-clothes joke again….

Sure enough, I appeared on The Star for the third time in the same top. With the most gormless expression. Ever. Sigh.

Okay enough about me and my over-worn top. Not like it really bothers me cause if these sort of things really did bother me I would have hit the gym right around Boxing Day last year, right?

Here’s a video of my speech.

Yes darlings that’s what being unprepared does to you. And speaking in front of a crowd that may or may not have seen your same smelly old top for the third time does to you – forgetting lines and fidgeting like a mofo.

Urgh.