Freeganism

I was a little bit shocked to find that there's such a thing called Freegan (from free and vegan) Freeganism is an anti-consumerist lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on "limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources".

The world's most material girl, Madonna, has done quite so well in bringing us just that much closer to materialism. I am one hell of a big sinner too. Things things things. Separation does make the heart grow fonder! The longer I can't be with another thing, my heart just longs for it so bad. But as soon as a desire is satisfied, another one pops up just like pimples on a teenager's face.

On the Big O today, this woman, who was previously earning a 6-figure salary, gave up that life and started picking up food from dumpster. She even organised trash trips for people of the same interest. Such trips are not fancy trips with fancy drink but trips where you get closer to a possum or rodent, skill-wise speaking. What striked me the most, was that our society wastes so much. American, being 5% of the world population, consume 30% of the world's resources. Madeline and her troop could find buckets of food, loaves of bread, fresh fruits, muffins, cereal, salad and canned food from just a handful of dumpsters, mostly all from grocery stores.

Have you not picked an apple and seen a small dent on it and not purchased it eventually? I have. These perfectly fine fruit are thrown away, they are not even given to the poor or homeless (due to some restrictions). And how much food have I wasted? If I remember correctly, $30 BILLION of food is wasted annually in the US. Now wouldn't it timely if the CEOs of failed companies started embracing freegan lifestyle?

Consumerism, I think, is a more serious problem than drug or alcohol addiction. It is a problem that is so serious but it lives under our skin so comfortably that we don't even realise it. I am sure there are lots of things that I don't need in my life. Looking at the bigger picture, we are digging our own graves and hauling our asses into them too. One the one hand, we scream to preserve the nature; on the other, the economy would stop now that it has become so reliable on consumerism, if people don't buy new clothes for 3 years, like Madeline.

One very good example, products from Apple - all the pods. Even better example, cell phones. I have always wondered, how the heck are we going to save electricity if everyone has a cell phone now? Or iPod, or just any electronic gadgets that are bombarding the market daily. Or TV, it used to be that one family had one, but now every room in a family has one too. There's only so much switching off all electronic devices can do in terms of saving electricity. There are 2 fridges in my apartment.

Back to myself, living as a freegan is probably my ideal. But can I do it? If so, when will I truly give up all things material in the world?

Plush Toy?

Malaysia's New CRIME Minister

If these 2 are not ashamed

Bruno

Spun Round and Round

As much as I was a Kylie fan, I had never like Spinning Around much until I heard this concert version. Smartly remixed with Cheryl Lynn's Got to be Real, which has now become my top-play, these 2 great dance/disco anthems are a match made in heaven. I just wish Kylie made a CD of this concert because I really really hope to have this track as mp3 so that I can blast it from my N95. The costume is brilliantly made reminiscent of music video Spinning Around itself, where Kylie makes golden hot pants a smash hit worldwide.

Another concert remix that really has me going is Madonna's remix of Music and Disco Inferno, the love child being Music Inferno. Not only it's fierce, this kind of fierceness can only come from the Queen herself (and her team) - whoever the person that came up with the idea of mixing these 2 pieces of iconic songs has my hat off to him/her.

Let’s Talk About S3X

I have a problem with sex. I have a problem with people’s attitude towards sex.

I have always thought no more about mankind that it’s all about sex. About procreation. About love being just chemical reactions and lust being the under-acknowledged side effect. I can be very cynical about love, that’s it’s no more than a physical (i.e. protein in your body) illusion that make you shut up about the pain of raising a child with a husband that’s alcoholic, bad-tempered and fat.

My point is that so many things have been sexed up. A lot of things in our life have been associated with sex.

A sexy sale person. Understandable.

A sexy bartender. Even more understandable.

A sexy sex-worker. Need I say more?

What is so in my face, is that even a couch can be sexy. OK, I hear you say people may be induced to have sex in it. I’ll let you have that.

What about a sexy car? A car? Sexy? Something that’s cold, metallic and boxy reminds you of sex?

What about a sexy mobile phone? You often hear “sexy” thrown into anything. Selling something by putting sex into it has never been more evident nowadays. Even a mobile can be sexy? Perhaps this is what people talk about – acceptance eh? Even though I don’t quite get it but I should assume some people do get aroused by a mobile phone?

If you think that my definition of sexiness is that literal – I admit it, as I don’t know what else to think of when people use the word sexy. Are you even surprised that human sexual activities now involve having sex with a car?

What else is sexy that you hear in your daily life? We’ve so far covered cars, mobile phones and furniture. Why not throw in a sleek and sexy laptop to spice things up once in a while?

Let’s go to the most obvious one – clothes. I think we human create lots of problems for ourselves. We’re such conflicted energy patterns! Let’s just picture an office scenario where a married manager just sees his secretary with clothes that you would call sexy (as you’re told when you see the advertisement that the clothes have such an effect). Day in and day out, this man is stimulated but not taken care of. Every minute he’s reminded of sex, of sex that he’s not having. Can you really blame him for having an office affair?

So why are we worried about children maturing much early physically? Apart from food that we eat, like I say above children are exposed to sex much earlier than those people selling sex now. People are also hypocritical – whilst we allow these sexy intonations reverberate loudly in our daily life, we condemn nude paintings of a child.

I feel so confused living in our society. Whilst a penis or vagina or even butt and breasts are pixelated on TV, we’re screaming of sex by all other means. For what? Just to sell products. Just to abuse consumer psychology.

Sleepless Beauty

Have not slept well in the past few nights.. Mom, bro and I all woke up at about 5am on Monday morning. Didn’t know what happen actually, Mom said she had heard a frog yapping (I don’t how does a frog sound in English) away… The night before – I woke at 5am because I had just had a bad dream about my bro. We were fighting as he had done something wrong, I scolded him, he drove/ran away, things were smashed, I might have cried… And I found tear stain at the corner of my right eye when I looked in the mirror.

Again, it was an early morning today. I tried to stay in bed till 6.45am. It’s 11.45pm now and I am waiting to fly to Melbourne. It’s way past my bedtime and I normally don’t sleep well sitting. Perhaps I knew I would be missing home, hence the dream and sleepless-ness.

I don’t know what to feel going back to Melbourne this time. In my heart, 95% of me doesn’t really care about what may or may not happen with AIG. I already gave up when I decided to go back to Malaysia in Dec. No matter how hot it is in Tanah Merah, how fierce the mosquitoes are, how long-winded my Dad is, home is still home.

this post was incomplete some time in Jan/Feb 2009 – I decided to post it anyway…

Hardest Task

Climbing the Everest? Giving up a kidney for your mother (the daughter of a friend of my Dad did this)? Or simply resisting temptation of a chocolate-glazed donut?

Have you ever considered forgiving yourself? For whatever experience that you might have suffered from, or inflicted upon others, or being inflicted on by others.

At times, the reason we can’t let go of something is because we haven’t forgiven ourselves. We can forgive others easily. Being self critical is one thing; being ignorant to the truth is another.

I was watching Oprah the other day. A female deputy sheriff was being raped by her husband. And an ex-beauty queen also being raped by her husband. I found from the interviews that we never/seldom admit to ourselves, not even to people whom we’re very close to, that we have done something stupid. It’s so shameful and hard to admit that we indeed have made a wrong decision and are now afraid to stand up to admit it, let alone if it has the opportunity to drive our lives to misery.

Elton John also says “Sorry” is the hardest word and Chicago agrees that it’s hard to say one’s sorry – Sorry to oneself is even harder than apologizing to others. We can’t forgive ourselves for making a mistake, a mistake which in our own hindsight is so not worth making. And ever since, we hope to eradicate any consequence or even go as far as reversing the situation – all but futile.

Yes we know where we have fallen and we’ve learned our mistaken but our memory is forever imprinted with the mistake and the shame that comes with it. It is so critical to tell ourselves to give up hope of changing the course of history. Whatever you do now, to yourself, is basically self-punishment. But what’s the point of beating oneself when the outcome is invariable.

点给我的好朋友们-想念你们

那片笑聲讓我想起我的那些花兒，
在我生命每個角落靜靜為我開著，
我曾以為我會永遠守在他身旁，
今天我們已經離去在人海茫茫。
他們都老了吧？
他們在哪裡呀？
幸運的是我曾陪他們開放。

啦……想她。
啦…她還在開嗎？
啦……去呀！

她們已經被風吹走散落在天涯。

有些故事還沒講完那就算了吧！
那些心情在歲月中已經難辨真假，
如今這裡荒草叢生沒有了鮮花，
好在曾經擁有你們的春秋和冬夏。
他們都老了吧？
他們在哪裡呀？
幸運的是我曾陪他們開放。

啦……想她。
啦…她還在開嗎？
啦……去呀！

她們已經被風吹走散落在天涯。

他們都老了吧？
他們在哪裡呀？
我們就這樣各自奔天涯。

A clearer version here.

Come back please come back

I am missing Priscilla: Queen of the Desert so much - what a magnificient musical it was. I should have watched it again in Melbourne. I hope it comes back to Melbourne soon.