Pkchukiss – Reality Wine

I just thought I’ll raise my floppy hands to let you know that I am still alive, though I am barely in the mood to share anything. You see, I’m having a really bad time trying to sleep at night, and struggling to stay awake in the day. While my doctor has given me some sleeping pills, they aren’t really helping.

One of my colleagues offered to punch me out to help me sleep at night. Thanks for the offer, but it won’t help if I sleep in the office, and I’ll have a terrible headache to go along with the sleep. Did I mention that it sounds painful? Anyway, I am grateful that somebody is concerned with a person as anti-social as me.

Anti-social? Pkchukiss is a hermit? To tell you the truth, I haven’t been switching on the ringtones on my mobile these few weeks, and it isn’t just my sleeping problem. I’m confused on my relationships with some of my friends now, so I’d rather not say much until I’ve sorted the mess that is typing on the keyboard, sitting between the monitor and chair.

Scribbled under:
General

This is one of the rare times that I step out of the house without the intention of going to work. I woke up groggily from a 4am bedtime at around 10am, so that is 6 hours of non-accustomed sleep under the belt for the day. The cotton wool was stuffed in my head, and it made waking up a chore. After stealing a few more moments of sleep, I got up and brushed my teeth.

(more…)

Scribbled under:
General

It is one of those quiet nights, kind of like the umpteenth one I had to endure alone ever since becoming a nocturnal animal. Where most of the rest of the world sleeps, I get the time and space to ponder over my life in general. I don’t really like the silence, it gnaws unnaturally at my mind, looking out on the deserted street.

Empty of vehicles, the uneven orange cast of the street lights cast a hypnotic pattern on the tarmac, broken occasionally by the moving shadows of the leaves. Sometimes when I go to the pantry to top up my water bottle, I could see a slightly protruding shadow flitting through the trees, barely skirting the head lamps, and out of sight. It makes me wonder whether super heroes exist.

A guardian of the night, hiding in the trees, skipping stealthily through the city, scanning for signs of criminal activity, keeping us safe in our houses.

I’m lucky to be insensitive to the supernatural. After being mesmerised by the night scene, I return to my desk with a sigh. I thumb through the discussion lists on Hardwarezone forums. When things get slow, there is nothing like the troll, the snobbish, and pure stupidity to get things going on a slow night.

The latter starts a topic on something they are clueless about, the second one replies to “(expletive) Google it!”, and the first group to bring along their fuel and lighter for the party. I sit back and enjoy the bickering until an administrator comes along, and locks up that topic. Things start to cool down for a few moments before igniting in some other thread, but the frequency at night is so low (they must be too tired fighting in the day) that I usually stare at the same topic listings for upwards of half-an-hour before even a new topic comes along.

I start to think about the past. The dark (some of my colleagues like to work in the dark, for some inexplicable reasons) brings me into retrospect.

How I bombed my GCE “A” levels, got teased terribly in secondary school, and lost contact with many good friends. It makes me slightly bitter, leaning back on the computer chair. The heart does not heal from injuries – they are instead buried through the sands of time. When the conditions are right, memories will cause the hurtful past to rear its ugly head, even when you have moved on in Life.

A call from an extremely sleepy customer comes in. Everything is sucked forcefully back into the chasm and locked up tight with new locks; the key thrown away, leaving the heart reeling from the sudden adrenaline. I stared at the darkened office ceiling: now what? The future looks uncertain. While my friends have gone into specialisation fields, I had held off back then, severely influenced by my parent’s words.

“No…. Do not go into the IT field, there is no opportunity there anymore…”

Heck, that sounded typically Singaporean.

“You MUST go to the University, or there’ll be no future jobs for you…” the ghostly image taunted my mind.

“I didn’t want to be stuck working all my life”, I reflected.

“Follow your heart’s desire… Do you wish to enjoy working, or grind through miserably in a highly-paid hype?”

The next shift that came in found me in a daze.

“Hey, are you alright?”

“Yeah, somehow…”

“You must take care… Night shift is bad for your health. Don’t think too much ya?”

As my shift came to an end, I was no closer to finding an answer than I had before. It was frustrating, but I had no longer the mental energy to churn it in my head. I am…

Lost.

Scribbled under:
General

Eek! Dinosaurs are roaming the earth again!

I always marvel at how fast technology develops, especially where the telecommunication sector has gone, in just barely 15 years.

Back in 1994, pagers were the rage. It’s obvious, nobody wants to be seen lugging a “mobile” telephone around. Not even when it is packaged neatly in a briefcase. We don’t see it now with laptops, and you won’t see it with the next device they manage to make portable.

I still remember fondly how public phones were so common people didn’t give a thought to get mobile phones; basically businessmen were just a beeper’s width away, and had the convenience of returning the page as and when they felt like it. Sometimes, I miss that convenience, mobile phones has just made it that much easier for people to call while you are sleeping.

That aside, we can see how mobile phones have shrunk from the derivative of the stereo-typical telephone to the now light-weights that can no longer be used for self-defence. Transmitter, battery, speaker, microphone and processor all miniaturised into a space that is easily hefted, and stolen.

Scribbled under:
General

As a civil libertarian, any sort of debate on casinos is already moot: while I won’t place my money on the green tables, you won’t see me protesting their entrance.

What I’d like to focus on is the persistent cries by some quarters on the social ills that would befall the country with the ultimate scourge on our fair land (yeah right).

Firstly, how sure are you that the local gambling problem would “balloon exponentially”, and worsen in magnitude with legalised betting?

We have had legalised the sex trade in confined districts in the country, and I am not seeing myself being more inclined to become a patron any time soon. I am sure the same goes for the average person you see on the street. Those whom are affected were those who would have patronised the sex-industry, prostitution being illegal or not.

Along the same vein, we have a number of political blogs hanging around on the Internet, which despite the unconstitutional blanket ban on blogging during election periods, have broadcast election speeches, videos and manifestos online. Why has no action been taken when it was a flagrant infringement of the law?

Simply because things that are out in the open are easier to track and monitor.

The same goes for the gambling vice. Where you have gamblers coming out in public, you have the ability to track and monitor them. Though I do not advocate interference, groups that wish to evangelise to gamblers have a better opportunity, rather than spend days tracking down illegal gambling dens.

If you were planning on arguing that bringing in the casinos would wreck families, ruin people financially, there has been no study that has confirmed that legalising something which has already been going on underground for decades would create any new problems.

In short, showing violent movies on television screens do not make the rest of the world, which has not had any murderous tendencies any more violent than they already are. Children may be easily influenced due to the nature of their development, which is why parents whom desire to impose their values on their children need to do so while they are young.

The truth is, our society is surrounded by cushioned conservatives, whom desire to be coddled and taken care of, instead of doing the thinking for themselves. They detest control over their own destiny, and would rather look towards a higher authority to micro-control their lives.

It is a social ill that is the top reason why you don’t see any Google, AirAsia, Virgin, or a 2nd Creative Technologies for that matter. If you can’t start thinking for yourself, please forget about being an innovator.

I cringe in annoyance when I read that Singaporeans are clamouring for barriers at train platforms. No doubt that the logic of standing away from the edge of the platform when there isn’t a train escapes even their basic survival instincts, much less their brains, for that matter.

I wince when a parent wrote to the newspaper forum demanding that the government award her child a certificate for being awarded a bursary, even when the family is well-off enough to be rewarding the child themselves.

The stupidity (I can’t find a more apt description for this folly) is so jaw-dropping, it almost make me WANT to give them what they want. I’ll throw in diapers for good measure.

To those whom I have mentioned above, this venom filled piece is for you. You guys suck.

Scribbled under:
Current Affairs, Writings