“Another thing fellars, don’t argue. You cannot win. You cannot beat a woman in an argument. It’s impossible. You will not win. Cause men, we are handicap when it comes to arguing. Cause we have a need to make sense. Women ain’t gonna let a little thing like sense fckup their argument. Cause she’s not in it for sense. She’s in it for distance and irritation. ‘How long can I talk before this mfckr snaps?’“
- Never Scared

For the moment:
Never Scared - Chris Rock

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I drink a lot of water and persuade those around me to do the same. A girl once told me that there is good in holding your bladder.

For a man, it is usually much wiser to argue with a woman. Because should things not go your way, you can twist the argument into a joke by saying something annoying or pretending stupid. Which in most cases, you’re indeed stupid.

She knows you’re twisting it. She’s just too kind to tell you how stupid you are.

To argue with another man, if you pull the same stunt, you’ll be deemed as a loser. Which in most cases, you’re indeed a loser.

The bladder argument was basically about how a person should always go to the latrine, urinal or jamban. Depending on which your home village have chosen to adopt. Mine, all three of the above. Very muhibah.

Anyway, this girl insisted otherwise. By holding your bladder for a little while, she moots, you are actually training or working out your bladder muscles. Thus keeping in active and functioning till old age. If you don’t do this at all, when you get older, your muscles can’t hold it too well.

You know it. It. Like bring it on. Like that.

Can anyone attest to this? Or better still, attest to my view. Because the argument was like 2 years ago and I’ve had it with being stupid.

This morning I woke up to see 3 emails contaning photos, regarding this post.

There I realise that perhaps the brief was not very clear and precise enough. My mistake. I have updated it. Please have a look again.

Below are the pictures I received from Zarith Sofia, Phoon Khai Meng and Haikal Shahruddin. I have mainly cropped and resized their files. It is not the best of examples, but I like them. They are all mostly brilliant. But ultimately, it must suit the need of the project.

I have posted it here as an example for you, should you be interested to send in your pictures.

Slideshow

1. This one was actually huge. In filesize and in actual size. I cropped it big time. This is what RWWP needs. But preferably the person doing nothing. By ZS.

2. Simple and authentic. By KM.

3. Brilliant. But again, preferably, her doing nothing. But that does not mean, she has to look out the window gazing into something out there appearing artistic or intelligent. No. It’s not about that. Save the acting for someplace else. Maybe another project. By KM.

4. This is brilliant. But its more about photography that it is about the subject. Cropped version. By HZ, and so are the rest that follows.

5. I like this one. Hits the subjects spot on. You can see that their doing nothing particular but waiting. Except for the whole colour (dis)figuration. Lets stick to simple natural real life colours. Reason being is that if alot of pics are going to be gathered and theres too many kinds of filters/colours, it won’t gel well.

6. This is nice. Shows movement. An element I didn’t previously think of. But prefer if its not in black/white or greyscale.

7. Amazing. See how many subjects are there ‘doing nothing’. All in just one frame.

8. Cantik man.

9. Same same. Great platform shot. Would love to have a shot like this in normal colour version.

10. Nice.

11. Nice faraway shot. Or whatever they call it. Captures the whole jinbeng.

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Comments above are not solely regarding the pictures, but it with regards to the needs of the project. So most importantly, thank you Zarith, Khai Meng and Haikal for your prompt submission. I look forward to seeing more from you.

Flip Chart

Melbourne Comedy Festival 2006

2006 International Comedy Festival Montreal

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• Be it at the gates, platform or in the train itself. In and out of Malaysia.

• Very young, young, kinda young and not so young people. Boboy or girlgirl.

• As long as they’re human beings.

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Picture Criteria: People waiting doing nothing.

• Snap photos of people waiting for something. A companion. A train. A destination. Please don’t simply snap a frame of anyone or everyone. Only those you see who are standing, sitting, squatting idly waiting.

• Angle can be from the side, diagonal, back, front, top, bottom (anything goes).

• It is up to you whether or not it shows their face. Both would be good. I need both. When the photos are publicised, I will decide on whether there’s a need to blur their faces for respect of privacy.

• Please do not do one of those SLR focus on a persons nose and blur the background shot. RWWP does not need a cheap trick pseudo cool shot. You can, but don’t get carried away till you’re gone with the wind.

• Don’t get the whole place and leave the subject(a person) so small in it. The idea is not to capture the surrounding, but the person and his/her act (of waiting) in that surrounding. Examples here.

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Submission: by Tuesday 20th May

• Send a maximum 10 of your best shots. Email them to RandomActs@RandomAlphabets.com.

• Quality doesn’t have to be super high resolution 30 megapixel 2 megabyte per file picture. A size that is conveniently downloadable. A resolution not too great till I can count the bulu on their jari.

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Thank you. Thank you all.

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In November 2006, during the same month I started ‘blogging’ and a year before that blog was moved to RandomAlphabets.com, I had a notion/inspiration to do something. A project or somesort. It came to me when I was on the way to class for a 5 week intensive foreign language course*. At that point, I’ve not the slightest idea that it can happen, let alone how to make it happen.

This post is a vague introduction and teaser about that project.

*The relevance of that statement and the picture above, will be made known when the time comes. Read about what you can do to help here.

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I finally found a way to do it last night when I was enroute to meet Germ (RA’s graphic designer). It came to me while I was pushing my bike after it ran out of petrol near the Subang Jaya NKVE exit. It was not long before another bike came to push mine to the nearest petrol pump. A simple random act from a stranger to another, without expecting anything back. A common gesture between bikers that goes a long way. Something I’ll remember for a very long time.

Going back, as Germ was the first person I had contact with after I got the idea, when I jumping around excitedly telling him that I got it while pushing my bike on the highway exit, he interrupted with  ‘THAT WAS YOU?!!’

And then we both laughed, not LOL.

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Anyway, due to the nature of this project, a certain degree of the surprise element must be present. So I can’t tell you what it is yet. Even the RA Team do not know about it (I’ll table it to them when we meet tomorrow). However I assure you, once it’s ready to be publicised, you’ll be the first find out.

This project will be huge. Something so simple, yet so profound. That’s the best part about it. That’s what I love so much about it. My heart is in this one. Not KLFU, not the upcoming KLX. This one.

If that sincere teaser was enough to nudge you to want to help and be part of it, then read this..

Regards,
Zain HD

“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”
-Duke Ellington

For the moment:
Bahia - Angelique Kidjo
Mazuzu - Mahotella Queens

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A few weeks ago, RandomActs promised another project. We’ve selected the time, place and what project it will be (of course). Now deciding on the specific date and polishing the mechanics of the whole project. It is far more complicated than (the over prostituted word) Fr**z*. (Fr**z*-> to illustrate how exhausted I am talking about it. It’s brilliant to reminisce, but at the same time I’d like us all to look forward.)

Few days ago the team went on site to do research and plan it out. For almost 2 hours, we argued and bickered. The final straw came when two random Alphabets were murdered. After the funeral, Saddam HusZain spat on their graves and broke his spectacles for dramatic effect to win an Oscar thus concluding our outing with no conclusion.

Now he can’t see sh*t and I am typing this out on his behalf, while he’s lying on the bed gazing into the bedside lamp asking me why is the constellation so huge tonight? He’s going to make a new pair of spectacles when there’s a windfall. I asked him when is that, he said

it might rain tomorrow. Hopefully we get more than a breeze.

Ladies and gents, this is ‘what’ I have to work with.

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*If you’re not familiar with that lingo, it’s basically just telling you the the next project is very much so in the works and going splendidly well. Really.
*If you are interested to participate, join the group RandomActs and/or be a friend of RandomActs.
*If you have a video camera and have a good video eye, then email RandomActs@RandomAlphabets.com. If your eyes can’t read that long email address, then go make friends with Zain and take him away from here.

“A disorder characterized by sudden and uncontrollable, though often brief, attacks of deep sleep, sometimes accompanied by paralysis and hallucinations.”
-Dictionary.com

For the moment:
Bamboleo - Gipsy Kings

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A few weeks ago, I was on MSN Messenger and a person I know, had her MSN Personal Message as ‘narcoleptic’. I was in a good mood to initiate an inconvenient conversation.

Whyded! Are you narcoleptic?

yes i am
not medically diagnosed
bt the symptoms are there

Wow. Is it because of the music you listen to?

haha no

Are you sure?

yeah why

Is it because of the movies you watch?

no Zain
i dunno what its becuase
are YOU narcoleptic?

I don’t know. Let me check the music I listen to.

no la ure not narcoleptic

Are you sure?

yeah
have u fallen asleep while talking to someone? like face to face. not on the phone.

I don’t know. What does that have anything to do with being Narcoleptic?

do u knw what narcolepsy is all about?

Yes. Do you?

yes i do

Are you sure?

bt ure question there doubts me on whether YOU knw what its about
whats ur definition?

Cannot tell.
Secret.
*Isn’t this one of the most dense conversations you’ve ever had?

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“We was always taking long walks, and we was always looking for a guy named Charlie. We never found him.”
-Forrest Gump

For the moment:
Frisky Cyber - Huge-A
Lost Ones - Lauryn Hill

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I am beginning to notice, that when you’re famous or popular, people laugh at almost everything you say.

I don’t care if its admiration, response mechanism or the ism in the defense mechanism. Or the it in bring it on.

I find it amazingly annoying and remarkably ridiculous.

And I’m not talking about myself (or anyone specific). Far from it. That is just a bag those two wonderful people *ew…double ew*, I know in Singapore bought for me. Sarcastically.

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On a similar note, during the period where communism was at large in Malaya, Lee Kuan Yew, then a regular but influential citizen climbing the ladder of politics, went to one of their rallies to know more about them.

He noticed that there were a selected number of members spread out around the hall, taking cue from another member sitting on stage. The person seated somewhere on the stage will have a signal, and that would be the cue for these scattered members to start clapping. As a result, the whole hall followed on with the applause thus heightening the delivery of the speech and atmostphere of the rally.

When the rally ended, everyone got up and left the hall row by row leaving the chairs neatly in place as how they found it when they first came in.

He wrote in The Singapore Story*, despite not agreeing with their ideology, they were the most disciplined group of people he had ever seen in his life.

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*Correct me if I’m wrong on the reference. Someone borrowed my copy of the book and has yet to return it. Please do, it was a gift from my aunt. One of the best books I’ve read. Somewhat better than Mandela’s fantastic Long Walk to Freedom.