Squash-ed?

Squash can be magical as well as atrocious. Ask Aqtar for that. 

1. Cemeti of death - This cemeti or whiplash in English is used when the player is too 'flail-y' resulting in a weak and astray service. Intended for lazy deltoid muscle. Can be 'adorned' at the tip with spiky rusty nails which can also be used to shred the deltoid muscle more easily.

2. Taser of doom - A device that can evoke alertness as well as squashing lethargy in the opponent. Due to its limited range, it can be attached to the aforesaid cemeti.

3. Tameti of Hellishness - The mother of all weapons. The first name is a dead giveaway as to what it is made of. It's the cemeti plus the taser and the usage can inflict not just pain but also everlasting misery long after the initial hit was dished out. Meant for the severely hopeless cases.

But the inflicter has also his own poisons.

1. Elixir of Self Destruction with resurrection capability - Taken when the Master is defeated by his worthier disciples.

2. Elixir of Self Destruction with no hope of resurrection - When David beats Goliath. In other words, when the Master goes down to his student who is now scrapping at the bottom of the league. 

Nifty eh? Who says that squash can't get any better?

All about him

An epiphany struck me as I made my way back from the Anatomy Lab, smelling of formaldehyde; affection can make you evil. It's a God simple truth that I've overlooked time and time again. It's not a blatant accusation on this honest deed, it's merely a dissection of it from a different plane. Affection is intimately linked to preferential treatment which in turn leads to dissatisfaction. It's never difficult to be showered in this good grace as a whole spectrum of characteristics can please the affection giver. One can be thoughtful and coherent in conversation or one can be competitive in many aspects or one can be very brooding and enigmatic to elicit love from people around him. You see, the list can go ad infinitum. On the other hand, one can be very chatty or one can share plenty of good moments yet one might not come across as too appealing to the people hence one gets reduced to an omnipresent state. This ubiquity can also be afforded by long contact hours. Inevitably, people get weary of the same person. 

Here are the few things that happened to me in the last couple of days (more like weeks?):

1) I lost half of my socks pair at the mosque today. Walking with my right foot naked against the innerside of my shoe did not feel comfortable at all. Least it was amusing.

2) The buzzer system has been fixed. Finally.

3) Unfortunately (referring to the previous point) the maintenance crew fails to see into the problem of having a lightless stairwell. Walking down the stairs at night has never been this daunting.

4) Anatomy lessons can be made more effective have we had more staff and materials. And we desperately need lecture notes for pre-practical lectures because it's humanly impossible to memorise everything the lecturer has just said without a proper visual aid.

5) I chanced upon the beauty of Edinburgh a few days ago. Indeed this is a very pretty city. Romanticising the city that I live in might sound daft but it's a truth that I can't dispel. 

6) Shopping can be very depressing. If your bank account is ailing. It's not long before I need help from IMF....

7) I'm not too excited to do the HNOP interviews. 

8) I WANNA SEE SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE!!ANYONE??

"It's out there that I get hurt"

It's the silly season again. By that I'm not referring to the wads of rejection/pool letters from a certain, very much revered institution which might have arrived in carts at the wonderful Puan Kas' office this time around. Nor that I'm commenting on the much talked returner's week. I'm talking about the awards season. To me, Hollywood is in a precarious position. The ongoing development in the world somehow requires me to shun this very potent type of opium, at least until it subsides. Many of the studios are founded or linked to Israel and it would be politically incorrect and humanly insensitive to show undivided support to them. Indeed it's a grave embarrassment to note that I'm more keen to keep tab on who's in the Oscar race than the racing number of deaths in Gaza. Shame on my self...

Another post abound with digressions so let's get back on the track. As I said, it's the time when the bigwigs at Hollywood decide to release films that are conspicuously groomed for the prizes. Heavy dramas and epics which are scrawled all over with the print "Oscar material" in glaring red paint swamp the cinemas and attract the crowd in droves. Some of them are downright pretentious with A-listers spearheading them with storyline that is difficult to swallow and set at an agonizingly slow pace while others camouflaged under the banner of indie flick that most of them are so indie that they are almost a work of art. The tactic is a well worn one. It's a pattern that most studios follow if they want to guarantee their films to win awards. It's not a bad thing but it's kinda obvious that the movies which are released in December/January are tailor made for the awards while summer blockbusters are just meant to be - well - blockbusters.

Anyways, I went to see The Wrestler last night with Jal. I was planning to see Slumdog Millionaire this week but after finding out that The Wrestler would be released on Friday, I was so excited that I deferred the previous intention. The story goes like this, a has-been wrestler who's on his way out tries to reconnect with people around him and make amendments along the way. His life is in total shambles; his meagre salary doing minor stints at minor ring is just sufficient to sustain his drug requirements and he has to do overtime at the store he works at to cope. He lives in a trailer park which can easily typecast him as a low end white thrash. He's given a chance to reclaim the former glory but an obstacle protrudes out of nowhere and threatens to take away this dream. I must not spoil the story so that you can make an effort to see the movie.

I honestly think that the movie is brilliant. I might come across as a biased prick to say that because I'm a huge fan of wrestling (I can hear from somewhere someone's brain whizzing hysterically in an attempt to digest this information). But you don't have to be a wrestling fan to appreciate this movie. I know that Jal is not even remotely interested in wrestling but she still considers it as a very effective picture. To quote her, the emotions are balanced in a way that none is over expressed at the expense of another. It's a tear jerker but it does it in a very subtle manner. It's not the desperate plea of the main character who wants to rebuilds his life that tears at the heart but its the insufferable loneliness that echoes throughout the movie that does. And who could have thought that a blood lusting wrestler who's hellbent to destroy his opponent with barbed wire and glass panes can be courteous, thoughtful, and sensitive?

The mechanics of wrestling are also on display in this movie. We all know that the outcome is fixed before the match takes place, the moves discussed among the wrestlers, and a tiny shard of razor blade is used to cause bleeding. What surprises me is the independent circuits do that too because if memory serves me well, all those are the tricks used by WWE and the likes. Oh yeah, if you're faint hearted, there is an extended scene of a really brutal match in the movie which leaves both wrestlers in a crimson bath. The stage is Combat Zone Wrestling, a real life company that pits wrestlers in bizarre dangerous matches where stapler gun, barbed wire (2 by 4 in the States), weed cutter and other sick instruments normally present in some tacky slash/horror movies are staples in the ring.

I highly recommend this movie despite its chances to be noticed by the academy for the best picture league is as slim as Triple H's chances to wrestle the gold away from Jeff Hardy in the near future. Mickey Rourke should be commended with an Oscar for his amazing portrayal as 'a broken piece of meat'. I don't care with people wanting Sean Penn to take home the statuette. Come to think of it, he's already won one and it's a quiet recent victory too. And he didn't have to spare his body to play an effeminate role in Milk. Kudos to Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood too. Marisa should at least be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She dares to bare all.

My final verdict: 5 out of 5 (is it possible to give it a half more?)

MIA:Musings.

I've been meaning to post this a few days back but I had to rush off to PBL. Semester 2 is A LOT more cramped than the previous one. 

The college community was once blighted by the sudden interest to blog made evident by a string of new blogpages. A wise friend who happened to own a blog prior to coming to the college, commented on the trend, stating that most wouldn't last for more than a few weeks. It was a fad that people clamoured to participate but left it for abandonment as soon as the wind changed. Quite surprisingly, most of the blogs spawned in that period still survive until this very day and the so-called original bloggers have seemed to leave their once trusted muse behind.

And it's quite obvious that I've slowly started to detach myself from my confidant. The idea is that I could no longer sustain the previously unstoppable momentum of blogging. Not to mention, life is getting more hectic these days. Curiously enough, I seem able to spare some time updating myself with other blogs but do much less to attend to the needs of my own platform of ranting. Speaking of rants, I can't help but to feel that my writing is not substantial enough for others to benefit. I don't have interesting daily encounters (right Ede?), I can't preach on a lot of things due to my own ineptitude, and I certainly can't generate and solidify an opinion. Most if not all of my posts are daft. Therefore, I must apologise. 

Perhaps I should start taking a sabbatical. Perhaps I should start reading extensively on relevant materials so that I have good things to report back. Or perhaps I can simply stick to my old prescription on how and what to write. But to do this, I need to search for the presently missing commitment. Yes, to keep a blog alive, one has to be a very dedicated person. 

A very American syndrome has infected me; I can't seem to stay in one place forever without asking "what's next?" It's this dilemma that I'm facing.

P.S: This is not a goodbye. Hopefully.