Last year was a fantastic year for music. Below are my non-exhaustive favourites for the year:-
Patch for the human OS
So there I was at the paediatrician’s office, watching my little Chloe get her shots, when it hit me – we’ve advanced so much as a species.
These days they’ve got these miracle 6-in-1 or 9-in-1 vaccines that protect babies from everything from Hepatitis to—I don’t know—spontaneous night farting. (Okay, maybe not, but for our sake and anyone within nostril-shot of a diaper change, they really should include something for odor control.)
The whole experience reminded me of those painful computer upgrade sessions we all loooovvveeee so much. You know the drill: Microsoft or Apple proudly announces you’re installing “the most advanced piece of software known to humankind,” which apparently translates to “please stare at this progress bar as you wait for the imaginary paint to dry on your spanking new windows.”
After what feels like enough time to grow a small garden, your computer triumphantly announces it’s ready to launch this technological marvel. And what’s the first thing that happens? Seventeen windows pop up begging you to download another 8,000 gigabytes of updates because apparently this “revolutionary software” aged like milk accidentally left in your car in the open-air carpark in Central Market.
Which, if you think about it, is basically how human babies work too.
Our little bundles arrive perfectly designed with the latest evolutionary upgrades, only to immediately need “patching” against every virus that’s developed since our ancestors figured out walking upright was a neat party trick.
Looking at today’s shot schedule makes me think newborns must have the most confusing medical records. “Day 1: Existed. Day 3: Received 74 vaccinations.” I’m just grateful babies don’t come with peripherals like cameras or scanners. Can you imagine? Patching the device drivers for those suckers is hell.
Another baby post…
Becoming a new parent is like being on perpetual standby– nothing takes priority over your baby’s welfare. Your time, energy, and sanity are all at their mercy.
Take my favorite hobbies, for example. First, I’d need to miraculously find time to indulge in them. But even if I do, my enjoyment is entirely contingent on Chloe’s cooperation. Watching a movie? Sure– as long as she doesn’t cry. And if she does? It doesn’t matter if Liam Neeson is mid-rampage in Taken, single-handedly dismantling a human trafficking ring– the movie stops. Chloe wins. Every. Single. Time.
Books and magazines? They’ve been downgraded to doctor’s waiting room status– just there to kill time until the next crying emergency demands my attention.
A baby’s attention requirements are nothing short of relentless.
Completely helpless, they rely on able-bodied adults to do their bidding. And their arsenal of control?
- Ear-piercing cries that could shatter glass.
- Disarmingly cute faces that trigger involuntary compliance.
When combined in varying proportions, these tactics override any form of adult resistance, reducing fully grown humans into obedient drones programmed to fulfill their every whim.
After two years of servitude to the tiniest (but most powerful) dictator I’ve ever met, it’s time for payback.
I’ve decided to secretly train Chloe in household maintenance– a carefully disguised “hand-eye coordination” development program. The syllabus includes:
- Floor cleaning
- TV console dusting
- Defragmenting my computer
- Queuing my favorite shows on BitTorrent
- Performing system maintenance
- Washing the car
- Making my morning coffee
And because structure is important in parenting, I’ll even draw up a chore schedule to help her develop responsibility (purely for her own good, of course).
Maybe it’s time to consider an army of kids– imagine the productivity levels! Hehehe.
House Renovation
At the end of 2007 and in search of a new home, we looked around from Taman Tun Dr. Ismail to the myriads of new and confusingly named Damansaras but somehow Lake Fields always had a spot in our hearts due to its contemporary design and finishing. At that time, the realtor had 2 units from us to choose from: a Feng Shui friendly one (which had the entrance to the powder room sealed and hence not facing the main door) and another one which didn’t. In the end, Feng Shui played no part in our decision and we chose the one that was nearer to the guard house and the water tower. We figured then that the clear unblocked path from the main door to the powder room would work out well in cases of emergencies that couldn’t wait.
Flash forward to roughly 7 months ago, which is the amount of time required to “complete” a purchase of the property (which warrants another rant), we appointed a contractor to perform some renovation work on the house for us. Perhaps “some” is relative as the work turned out to be quite major indeed. In addition to sealing the powder room entrance (after reassuring ourselves that the odds of the sort of emergencies that would actually occur in which such a configuration would serve to be beneficial is quite infinitesimal), we decided to include a show piece in the house.
One idea that immediately struck us was that our new place has a double volume living area. This would look very nice if the house that we got was a corner unit like below:-
But unfortunately, we got a non-corner unit so it unexcitingly looked like this:-
Which wasn’t too bad but we wanted to explore what we could do with all the space. That was when the thought of building a loft came to us. The more we thought about it, the more we fell in love with the concept of having a loft overlooking the living room. To build the loft, our contractor first built the structure of the platform with wood (as a mold for the concrete) and reinforced the stucture with intenal steel wireframes.
Next, they poured the first layer of concrete onto the structure. The holes in the walkway are for the downlights below. The white pipes contained electrical wirings.
Once the initial layer is set, another layer is added on top to even up the surface.
The whole concrete structure was allowed to dry. (I resisted the temptation to run into the area to jump up and down).
And penultimately, they’ve added the railings recently which made it safe(r) for me to climb over there to perform my jump tests. I did and the new loft was strong enough to withstand my jumps.
The whole process of building the loft took place over the span of 4 months. The final step will be to add in the wood railing and the timber floor which will take up another 4 to 6 weeks.
Hopefully, we will be able to move into the new place before June this year (fingers crossed so very tight!)
Shoot the Dog or the Messenger?
An office colleague of mine recently sent an e-mail soliciting signatures to stop Guillermo Vargas, a Costa Rican artist from repeating an installation that he did in 2007 of a starving dog. The event was scantly reported in the local press but it seems the installation involved tying a dog up in a corner of the art gallery and allowing it to starve to death by withholding food and water.
On first reading of the e-mail, I was outraged. But I did a little digging.
Peta and other reports on the web indicated that the event could be a stunt and the dog was actually fed daily and released quietly at the end of the installation.
The the artist said that the “art” was performed to show the hypocrisy of people. We treat abandon animals no better and yet we get outraged when one of them is displayed on the stage for all to see. We see his act as an abuse of the animal but yet we are no better when it comes to the treatment of strays when we see them loitering near our houses. Neither do we shed any tears when they are carted off by the city councils and shot.
I brought this to my colleague and she was angry with the artist. She sees the artist as being inhumane, exploitative and inconsiderate. I don’t blame her and the multitudes who signed the protest petition as I believe that everyone can take out different messages from an “art”, especially those that are meant to provoke.
I do not know whether the artist truly planned it that way but it did raise my consciousness towards our hypocrisy towards issues bigger than just stray dogs. If the BBC has not highlighted the plight of the unknown war in Congo that has killed more people than World War II, will the world care about it? Or are we so fixated on the global war on terror not because it has killed more people but because it is more shocking and received more airtime coverage?
Has art evolved to a point in our modern world that artists have to resort to shock art to get their messages across? Is this an example of the relativist nature of art?
Happy In Langkawi
Recently, our Happy team was in Langkawi to launch our no-frills mobile service to the island. I’ve posted some pictures of this trip at flickr. Click on the photo below to see more.
