Ball Bearing

Two days ago I woke up and discovered that the ball at the end of my tongue stud had come loose and fallen out. The first time this happened I recall waking up, spitting it out and going back to sleep. When I woke up I realised that no, it wasn't a dream and I located the ball rolling around somewhere on the bed. So this time I searched the bed and couldn't find it. Giving up, I got hold of replacements.

Yesterday I found the missing ball.

In the toilet bowl.... Y.U.C.K. I know.... Ewwww....!!!!

Natalie laughed her ass off and took a picture of the ball at the bottom of the bowl. I couldn't stop her, she's disgusting. I am not publishing the picture. You'll thank me for it too. Flushing didn't do anything so I got hold of the toilet brush and with the aid of some toilet paper, removed the ball.

Now, I could let the thing soak in methylated spirit for years, boil it in water for days and borrow my dad's autoclave and put it in for hours but there is no way, NO WAY!, it is going back in my mouth.

YUCK!!!!

Cause and Effect

We are the products of our upbringing, experiences and observations.

True?

I think so.

I made a comment today about my children. I said that I do see something of myself in them. I have to be aware that they learn from me. Not just the things I tell them but the things they see me do and the things they hear me say. It's a heck of a responsibility being a parent.

Some of my friends seem to be oblivious to the fact that they liberally use bad language around children. One of them should be in trouble sometime real soon because he's already an uncle from his sister's marriage. I'm surprised she hasn't already sat him down and given him an earful. I'd have.

As a parent though, you can only control so much. You teach your children your values and your ideals. Then you hope that what happens to them and around them in the big bad world doesn't push them too far into the red areas of your morality, values and manners. How much do you do to protect them? Would you be able to pick and choose their friends for them? What do you do when they reach the rebellious stage? How do you determine punishment when you feel lines have been crossed?

Times have changed. I feel that there is so much more now to fear for our children. The rules are constantly changing. Social structure, morality, priority, tolerance, values, people and parenting are different from generation to generation. What the world was like and what people were like is vastly different between my parents' generation and mine. And my generation compared to today's youth is a whole different world. I actually think we've gone too far. Children are allowed to get away with too much these days and this is also an opinion I have watching my friends' children. Some of these people I grew up with. I still think sometimes their kids deserve a smack upside the head or a good scolding after.

Apparently their mother and I are too strict with the children in this day and age.

Apparently.

But I also notice my children are a lot better behaved than a lot of other little brats out there.

Spontaneous

Have you people been playing with that facebook thingy? For now, it's fun. Something to do. There's this application where you can describe your facebook friends in 5 words from a list of 50 or some number like that. But you gotta pick just 5 words.

A friend of mine, Farhan, decided I am 'spontaneous'. I wondered why for a moment and then came to a decisive moment.

There was a bunch of us at Chemistry in Bangsar and for reasons best known to himself, Vince shows up in a manky sleeveless top. He gets drunk and falls asleep on the padded bench with his arm stretched out. Upon seeing this, I get hold of a lighter and set fire to his armpit hair. Farhan thinks this is quite funny. However, when he does the same thing, Vince's eyes pop open and he gets up and starts windmilling on Farhan.

I had to grab Vince and try to hold him off. Not easy cos he's a big guy and perhaps it was insight as to what should have happened had Vince opened his eyes and seen me instead. I didn't think much about it. I just had an idea pop into my head and I went ahead and did it. I think that would justify the label of 'spontaneous'. What should be noted is that my timing and luck is pretty good as well!

Hazard

Hit the golf course at Bukit Utama on a whim. It's brilliant having a golf course 5 minutes away from home. Okay, so it's only 9 holes but hell, it's 5 minutes away!

I didn't play particularly well today but it was alright. Not too bad.

But the hazards on the course are pretty formidable. Undulating fairways, multi-tiered greens, varied elavation, blind greens, water and the like. I can't talk about the bunkers today because I didn't go into any. But nothing beats what happened to me today.

I hit a good drive off the 4th hole and watched it land a distance away with satisfaction. Then we drive up in the golf cart and that's when I see a dog dropping a ball out of its mouth. The damned mutt had picked up my ball from the fairway and dropped it at the trees. What's the rules book say about that? Damned if I know. The dog was chased away by some brandishing of the golf clubs. It sat there wagging its tail looking quite proud of itself with the ball at its feet and somehow managed to look like it had its feelings hurt when it was chased off.

It wasn't a game of fetch!

Fucking mutt!

18th October

18th October is my father's birthday. Happy Birthday!

Only when I wished him it was a little bit weird. He called me up in the morning to talk to me relating to some property that belongs to the company. So we talked about that and he was about to hang up so I quickly said, "Hey! Pop! Happy Birthday!" And he said, "Oh. Yeh. Thanks. Bye." and hung up.

That's my father for you.

I think he was pleased though that I remembered because he went home later and asked my mum if she had reminded me.

Plus I sent the card via Pos Express to make sure it arrived on time. And it did. Way to go, Pos Malaysia. Just don't send anything via ordinary post is my tip for the day.

The card said something along the lines of "Dad! Remember when I had an awkward question to ask you and needed to tap your wisdom, your experience, your knowledge? And you always told me...."

And inside the card, it said, "Ask Your Mother."

He pretends like he doesn't.... but my dad's got a sense of humour.

Which is good or else he'd have drowned me in the fish pond years ago.

Happy Birthday Pop!

The Second Hole

I know I've been neglecting my blog. Well, that much is quite obvious. At this time I've got, once again, nothing much to say. The difference this time is that it's not bothering me like it did before. Well anyway, last night I had something blogworthy happen. Yeh, finally! And it's so mundane but never mind. It's something I can write about.

I had my ears pierced in 1992 when I was 18. At 20 I added 2 more. I had 2 on the left and one on the right. This was in college of course. In uni, I let the one on the right side close. Then I had two on the left ear and then I started work when I came back. Of course I couldn't wear them at work so I took them off. That was in 2001. I'd put them back when I wasn't at work, like on weekends. I had thought then that the second hole on my left ear closed. Then last night, six years later, I experimentally stuck an earring into it.

It went in. Six years and I never knew it.

From a Window

As seen this morning from my bedroom window.

Someone's getting balloons. Lots of balloons.

How to Injure a Footballer

I just watched the roundup of the second day of the second games of the group stages of the European Champions League. The game in question is of course Celtic's defeat of AC Milan. The incident in question though is of course, a Celtic fan running onto the pitch and giving Milan goalkeeper, Dida, a tap on the collarbone.

The words the media used and indeed are using are fucking ridiculous.

at·tack [uh-tak]
to set upon in a forceful, violent, hostile, or aggressive way, with or without a weapon
to make a sudden, violent attempt to hurt or damage

al·ter·ca·tion /ˌɔltərˈkeɪʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[awl-ter-key-shuhn]
a heated or angry dispute; noisy argument or controversy

What I saw was neither of these things. Fair enough, the guy should never have been on the field of play but for fuck's sake, call a spade - a spade. After Celtic scored their second (and winning) goal, a fan ran onto the pitch and in running past Dida, tapped him on the top of his chest. The 6'5" goalkeeper built like a brick shithouse at first started to chase the fan but suddenly collapsed to the ground clutching his face. He was carried off on a stretcher holding an ice pack to the side of his face and didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. You pathetic piece of animal waste.

Compare that to another player with a reputation for diving. When Cristiano Ronaldo went down the night before in Manchester United's game against Roma, at least he had the decency to bleed. And he damn well walked back to the dressing room himself. Without an ice pack I might add. Although he did have to hold a bit of dressing to his head to contain the bleeding.

It's already in the media as an attack and an altercation. That makes the headline writers just as lame. Sensationalism is too mild a word for it.

The man should have never been on the pitch but whatever it is, facts are facts. What I saw was a huge hulk of a professional athlete go down dying from a tap on the shoulder from a Glaswegian who probably has too much beer and chips in his diet.

Nélson de Jesus Silva, also known as Dida, that stinked a lot worse than a dog with diarrhea.

This recent incident far outshines the last piece of brilliant footballing I've seen. At the 2002 World Cup when Hakan Unsal kicked a ball at Rivaldo's legs and he went down holding his face. Unsal was subsequently sent off from a second yellow card.

It spawned the joke: How do you poke a Brazilian in the eye?

Answer: Kick him in the knee.

Don't go to Brazil for your holidays. You just might really hurt someone while you're there.

Graduation

Sunday was my little girl's pre-school graduation concert. Of course I went for it and watched with immense pride as my little one danced away with confidence and enthusiasm. I think she'd been stressing out over it but it's done and done well too. And of course she got to don a mini gown and a cap after to receive her mini diploma. After it was over she ran to me and jumped into my arms.

I remember her concert from just a couple of years back. She lacked confidence and didn't exactly dance with the rest of her class. Then there was the sports day when she got distracted in her race and was chatting to her competitors mid-race.

It seems not long ago and yet an age since my children came into my life. I can look at them and see a slight reflection of myself in them. I have, after all, had a bit of a hand in bringing them up. But it's been easy. They're such good kids that sometimes I fear for them in this great big ugly world. A couple of weeks ago I was talking to them about recycling. It was a little irritating for me that my daughter had been taught about recycling at school but there was no recycling project or bins in her school and she didn't know enough about it. I was explaining paper is made from trees and trees make oxygen and how CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we're already at the tail end of the latest ice age and we need the trees and so many things are made of wood, wood comes from trees and blah blah blah. And they were like okay, daddy's upset, better nod head and absorb the overload. They've come such a long way. I'm so proud of them.

I wonder about the future though. My girl had been looking through old pictures and is wondering who the man holding her in her baby pictures is. She asked her mother. I was there. I could offer no help and no answer. She was told that that man is her father. Perhaps the word 'real' was missing and maybe used if I wasn't there, I don't know. My heart had sunk into my feet and was staying there.

"Two daddies?" Then she asked if father could be found.

Yup. How to tell a six year old and expect her to understand? That the daddy she knows is actually mummy's ex-boyfriend? I made my first appearance in their lives when she was two and a half and he was 18 months. My boy is fine because he knows no other and there are no pictures of him with his real father. Nothing really for him to question.

Yet.

All I can say to my little girl is daddy loves you and always will.

I'm proud you call me your daddy.