T3 had become busier and busier. There, he saw a bunch of slim africans checking in the same flight as his. All of them were in track suits, looking very sporting. He saw them soemwhere, before..... It was the singapore marathon. They were the african runners and one of whom, kibet begged the chmapion of the man open race. He wanted to take a picture with himm but all of them look the same to marathon man. So he gave up the idea.
the 9-hr red-eye flight made the unsettled body and mind very pique. and finally it landed in doha airport before dawn.
marathon man shook his jacket before he put it on. then before the plane stopped from taxing, he found out that his $510 frameless, transition-lense glasses were missing from his pocket where he used to clip them when he watched the in-flight movies( he finished 2, 'kung fu chef' by sammo hung, a funny bone. and 'moon' which was a boring sci_fi cum psycho trash). he checked out all his pockets, the seat pocket in front. the seat, but it was nowhere to be found. he kneeled dwon to check the floor. also did not find them. the other passenger were alerted. helped him to find. did not bring any happy outcome. finally, the plane stopped, people started to alight. marathon man remained there. when almost all passenger left, he alerted the air stewardessesw ho helped him to search by turning on the reading lights. as the second ticked away, marathon man wondered where could they be? could they land themselves on someone"s luggage and no more in the plane? as he was feeling a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, he saw something underneath the seat in the opposite row. he realised he was onto something.
How the heck they landed themselves in that spot, he wouldn't want to fathom, he just felt so relieved. he said to the stewardess, " i found them! thank God."
The helpers also were happy. One of them said, "next time, put on your glasses before the plane lands."
He said, "oh, I think I would. You know what, I left my glasses in the seat pocket, the last time I took this airline."
She said, "oh. That was no coincident, you better check whether you leave anything elsee?"
Her reminder triggered a switch in his grey matters, she was the one who brought him back his glasses when he was waiting in the transit lounge. Oh boy, other than thanking her for her kind service, was he not captivated by her arabic-euro facial fetures and her slender shape and her oriental demeanders or what? That face stuck in his mind even when he landed in turkey.
Now he was looking at her.
He said, "yes, I did leave my heart in doha........"
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
padang - singapore marathon
singapore marathon - he arrived padang at 7.15am. but not allowed to run from starting point; he's did not register. went all the way to marina blvd, towards the marina barrage. the so-called marina bay was now surrounded by tall buildings from the marina square hotels, the shenton way banks, and now the SAIL, asia financial centre building, marina residences, and the IR. it looked more like a pond. the planners must be regretting when they did the land reclaiming years ago, they did not envisage a grander vision to make the water a real bay of magnificent size....
when he wanted to give up the run, and turned back to town, before he entered shentopn way, he met up with the starting group of runners of the 10k run, followed by the bulk of the slower ones. he joined them. the route was a familiar one - the benjamin-sheare bridge, the area around republic blvd, then back to the durian, ended up infront of the old pariahman house. when he was about to reach the finish point, a mashall stopped him and asked, "where's your tag?"
"no tag."
"cannot finish."
so he went sideway and continued running, anyhow.
as they said, you run, when encounter a block, take a break and run again.
when he wanted to give up the run, and turned back to town, before he entered shentopn way, he met up with the starting group of runners of the 10k run, followed by the bulk of the slower ones. he joined them. the route was a familiar one - the benjamin-sheare bridge, the area around republic blvd, then back to the durian, ended up infront of the old pariahman house. when he was about to reach the finish point, a mashall stopped him and asked, "where's your tag?"
"no tag."
"cannot finish."
so he went sideway and continued running, anyhow.
as they said, you run, when encounter a block, take a break and run again.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
gallery by the straits - bad moon rising
"look the sun is rising!" his gal fren shouted excitedly, pointing to the horizon to the east of the straits of johor.
sea breeze blowing, the dark sky brightened up somewhat with the pale lighting from the orange obb. the food was good - lemak curry fish-head, kailan fried with scallop, black pepper crab, and meat-stuffed toufu.
"what? how can it be? how can the sun rise in the nite? it's the moon.... "
"oh... but look, it's so big and so bright. ya.... i think you are right. it's the moon...."
'bad moon rising', the backgroud music went.
but the nite was good.
dinner at gallery by the straits in saf yacht club in sembawang had a good start. the conversation topics went from tiger woods and his hole-some transgressions to tiger whips for people to boost their hole-some activities.
marathon man asked, "if you were tiger's wife, would you have gotten a divorce. remember the man is worth over a bil."
"maybe, maybe not, depends."
"on what?"
"on whether there's still love left between us."
"ok.... but even if there's this thing called love, would you not be tempted by that fortune that you could take possession of, if you did the right move?"
"well.... money is good for almost everything. but it can't buy love. in fact, money breaks up love. further more, she loves her kids...."
"oh... i see. difficult decision for his wife, indeed."
"don't worry....we, women will make a decision when we need to make one. we have the intuition to make the right decision."
"you think so? why?"
"because, we are holely!"
sea breeze blowing, the dark sky brightened up somewhat with the pale lighting from the orange obb. the food was good - lemak curry fish-head, kailan fried with scallop, black pepper crab, and meat-stuffed toufu.
"what? how can it be? how can the sun rise in the nite? it's the moon.... "
"oh... but look, it's so big and so bright. ya.... i think you are right. it's the moon...."
'bad moon rising', the backgroud music went.
but the nite was good.
dinner at gallery by the straits in saf yacht club in sembawang had a good start. the conversation topics went from tiger woods and his hole-some transgressions to tiger whips for people to boost their hole-some activities.
marathon man asked, "if you were tiger's wife, would you have gotten a divorce. remember the man is worth over a bil."
"maybe, maybe not, depends."
"on what?"
"on whether there's still love left between us."
"ok.... but even if there's this thing called love, would you not be tempted by that fortune that you could take possession of, if you did the right move?"
"well.... money is good for almost everything. but it can't buy love. in fact, money breaks up love. further more, she loves her kids...."
"oh... i see. difficult decision for his wife, indeed."
"don't worry....we, women will make a decision when we need to make one. we have the intuition to make the right decision."
"you think so? why?"
"because, we are holely!"
Thursday, December 3, 2009
nowhere - boring
human invented language to communicate - and to do so, language supposed to have precise meaning in each word..... so that people can understand what you try to say. so when someone says, "i'm HAPPY." you know he's not SAD. but is that true? how do you know that he means he's really, really HAPPY and not SAD? but in actual fact, he's SAD.....
if you don't believe, you can try this with your thesaurus(the book of synonyms and antonyms). start with HAPPY, pick one of its synonyms from the thesaurus, in this case, it's CHEEFUL, then find one of the synonyms of cheerful, POSITIVE and so on......
happy
cheerful
positive
certain
specific
limited
narrow
tight
rigid
stern
grave
grim
gloomy
sad
see how HAPPY means SAD!
when he's not running about, marathon man likes to play this game of turning the meaning of a word to its opposite with the help of the microsoft WORD - Tool-> Language -> Thesaurus....
try it, it's boring..... you got it, i mean it's fun!
if you don't believe, you can try this with your thesaurus(the book of synonyms and antonyms). start with HAPPY, pick one of its synonyms from the thesaurus, in this case, it's CHEEFUL, then find one of the synonyms of cheerful, POSITIVE and so on......
happy
cheerful
positive
certain
specific
limited
narrow
tight
rigid
stern
grave
grim
gloomy
sad
see how HAPPY means SAD!
when he's not running about, marathon man likes to play this game of turning the meaning of a word to its opposite with the help of the microsoft WORD - Tool-> Language -> Thesaurus....
try it, it's boring..... you got it, i mean it's fun!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
maguindanau - fear
maguindanau massacre - 23 nov 2009. some kind of signal to the human race, there's something very seriously sick with the human psyche - ie after all we are animals, but with much mightier power to eliminate our enemies!
we kill to survive, and we kill to get waht we want, and we kill to get to the top.
once you are at the top, you can kill more, with immunity.
the winning killer will be king, and the loosers will be the victims.
what makes man become a killer? a meditated killer. it's no freak incident like the bukit timah flood that happened 12 days ago, that minister yacob said, it would only happen once in fifty years. meditated killings systematically happen across the world, at anytime in any place.... in aftghan, pakistan, the somalia, even in the u.s. of a.......
human life is nothing but a piece in a chess game. any piece can be sacrificed, except the king. so when you are the king, you have to protect yourself. or rather your people have to protect you.
maslow's hierachy of needs - 5 levels. but how do you achieve what you need? you do that by:
inheritance/gift
exchange
leverage
cheat
corrupt
grab
lucky people inherit wealth. honest people exhange their work for their means to live. but most people would just be scratching aliving with their honest work. smart people leverage - they put in little effort and hope to get bigger returns. and really smart people cheat like madoff who was commited this march to operate the biggest ponzi scheme the world had ever known.in the civilized world should not see corruption and grabbing, but we see them or rather we know they do exist even in the "cleanest" societies. and wars between nations and tribes and gangs and clans... are glorified ways of grabbing. glorified thru heroism of protecting one's country, clan, gangs....
hence if you look at the massacre in this light, it would not be hard to understand the motive of the incident. people just wanted to grab what they think belonging to them.
honest people exchange their work for a living. there's nothing wrong with it . if you think there's something wrong, you sure go nuts, and you would think that , cheating, corrupting, grabbing, or killing would be the right things to do.....
marathon man knows that all this wealth and power could be gone overnite just like the collapse of the dubai world one week ago.....
and he knows, precisely, that the fear of losing it all motivates people to want to gather in more and more, to eliminate whoever that threatens their possesions or positions - and that's what's happening in the maguindanau massacre.
we kill to survive, and we kill to get waht we want, and we kill to get to the top.
once you are at the top, you can kill more, with immunity.
the winning killer will be king, and the loosers will be the victims.
what makes man become a killer? a meditated killer. it's no freak incident like the bukit timah flood that happened 12 days ago, that minister yacob said, it would only happen once in fifty years. meditated killings systematically happen across the world, at anytime in any place.... in aftghan, pakistan, the somalia, even in the u.s. of a.......
human life is nothing but a piece in a chess game. any piece can be sacrificed, except the king. so when you are the king, you have to protect yourself. or rather your people have to protect you.
maslow's hierachy of needs - 5 levels. but how do you achieve what you need? you do that by:
inheritance/gift
exchange
leverage
cheat
corrupt
grab
lucky people inherit wealth. honest people exhange their work for their means to live. but most people would just be scratching aliving with their honest work. smart people leverage - they put in little effort and hope to get bigger returns. and really smart people cheat like madoff who was commited this march to operate the biggest ponzi scheme the world had ever known.in the civilized world should not see corruption and grabbing, but we see them or rather we know they do exist even in the "cleanest" societies. and wars between nations and tribes and gangs and clans... are glorified ways of grabbing. glorified thru heroism of protecting one's country, clan, gangs....
hence if you look at the massacre in this light, it would not be hard to understand the motive of the incident. people just wanted to grab what they think belonging to them.
honest people exchange their work for a living. there's nothing wrong with it . if you think there's something wrong, you sure go nuts, and you would think that , cheating, corrupting, grabbing, or killing would be the right things to do.....
marathon man knows that all this wealth and power could be gone overnite just like the collapse of the dubai world one week ago.....
and he knows, precisely, that the fear of losing it all motivates people to want to gather in more and more, to eliminate whoever that threatens their possesions or positions - and that's what's happening in the maguindanau massacre.
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