Dead Ends

2017's second book and we're right at her rear end and I'm still only on my second book. Boy have I been lazy.

Its a story about two boys, one's a smart but a hard-ass delinquent and the other, mentally challenged. As odd as pairing goes, these two boys manage to find more similarities than they would like to admit (well at least on the protagonist's side). 

To summarized: Boys with daddy issues.

God, I'm a fucking lazy bum.

Books 2017 - The Alpha Male

My first completed book in 2017 and my, was it an annoying read.

First off let me start by saying how disappointed I got when I discovered that the book is actually just a collection of short stories instead of one. Fine. I'll concede, not through anyone's fault but mine. But hey what the fuck right ? Short stories could be fun.

No. Wrong. Dead wrong,

I was kinda hooked with the first story since I didn't know it yet at that time that this was gonna be a short story, so it didn't matter that the character was a self absorbed has-been actor who thinks far too greatly of himself. He has an entire 100 pages or so to redeem himself or so I thought. After all I am a sucker for a good 'Pheonix rising' story.

But no. The character stayed his asshole self and I wasn't even compensated with a good ending. It ended abruptly like I hope does the author's career.

On to the next stories. As if it hasn't been already unbearable, the author decided to put a little bit of fantasy / dark comedy spin to his already annoying assemblage of lukewarm self important jackasses. Don't get wrong I already don't dig dark comedy but adding that kind of insult to injury is just plain nasty.

I have never been so mad at a character or a book but I hated the book and by extension the author and the only reason I have persevered is because I wanna finish what I started and I already have like 3-4 books I have started and dropped for a while, as is customary with me. So there you go. Nak type bagi habis nie pun malas. 

So screw the author I hope he never touches another pen again in his life.

2016 Wrap - Books

My short attention span and my obsession with new things means that I get tired of them fairly quickly (books, songs, food, people :P etc). I may have started a couple or more books which I never did finish thus could never be counted as 2016's reads.

So in come the eve of 2017 and the end of 2016. I was only at my third book and a half. Which is, well since I'm such an uptight, feels a little bit not OK. I remember talking from my five storey horse, declaring that I wanna finish at least four or five books per year, so no matter how sucky or without progress my life had been the previous year, I will have the sense that something was achieved. Some progresses, no matter how minor had been made. So three and a half feels a little bit like a failure and I need no such reminder that my life has been a relatively stark one at that. Well, no not really a failure per se, but for theatrical purposes lets just roll with it k ? Sheesh.

So a few months back I had started this book The Glass Palace. Seemingly innocent and captivating enough to get me started and actually hooked. But as is common with me, since berak is for me a really enjoyable experience and I kinda cherish them. One, for the obvious fact that you know, its berak. C'mon people. Secondly, I get to read them books I have stashed on the towel lines in the upstairs bathroom. But this is also the reason that it has taken me this long to finish this book. So yesterday, before 2016 breathed its last breath, I vowed to get me my fourth book to salvage what has been a well, now that I think about it, 2016 is actually an OK year for me. LOL. But yeah, to make it more OK than it has been towards me. I had to get my fourth no matter what. So I read basically half the book in just one day, give or take the same amount of pages that took me months to finish.I was like why the fuck is the book taking such a long time to end and right after I was done, on the cover it says 'a story of three generations' LOL.

Mental note: Should have pick a slimmer book next if the purpose was just to meet the quota. (Not taking away anything from the book though. It's fucking gorgeous!) 

So fuck my rambling self, here's a recap of 2016 reads. 

Yay!

May 2017 be a kinder year, book wise :)

Book Updates!!!

2017 menjengah around the corner. Finally finished the book. This book and the other, somewhat make me feel a little bit tired with UK writers. They could drag the whole story around the bush telling you about nothing and they could do that, amazingly in 300 pages. 

The Normal Me would have quit long time ago. But I want to be a finisher. I wanna finish things I have started. So I soldiered on. 

Not to say that it's an entirely bad book, but the best parts, the parts that somewhat moved you were in the last hundred pages or so. Dang!

Look, I'm no expert to review books and stuffs. But damnnnnnn!

OK. Whatever.

Third book of 2016. Yay!

And still a month and a half away for at least one more book or a head start for 2017. Whichever comes first.

Please pardon the title. I'm a hopeless romantic, the little girl inside me cries for these corny, mushy stuffs. 

So there.

Book Updates

2016 is nearing an end. No firecrackers, no flashlights and no half naked girls congratulating me on my achievements for the year yet. Most probably due to the fact that I don't have any.

And United kalah. By that smugface mukababi Pep Guardiola.

But as is customary with yors truly, I started off reading something and finished another thing altogether. 

Whatever.

This. My second book of the year. All that extra hours in the toilet paid off I guess. So hrm, the title. Fuck it. A book is a book. I hope I came out a little wiser even after reading such a book. Not gonna review it. Too fucking lazy.

Laters you fucking punks.

Saya Sebuah Buku

I dunno if I should do this at the end of year or now. The fact that I'm writing in spite of the thought means you already know what I'm going with. Thank you subconscious, you are definitely the more decisive one in comparison with your physical counterpart who is clearly a fickle-minded schoolgirl. Damn you Fakhrol.

Anyways, true to my fickle schoolgirl nature. I have officiated 2016 with a love story novel. This Is A Love Story by Jessica Thompson. I was so damn annoyed the entire time I was reading this, well alrite, halfway through the second half. God. Grow some fucking balls already goddamnit! Alrite anymore beans spilling would spoil it for those of you who might have too many time on their hands and might wish to read this. 

Plus, I don't think the ball-less-ness situation is conjured by the author entirely for sake of pulling the readers. There are a certain degrees of truth in it as well. Heck, it took me.. Well, that's another story for another time (or dimension, well hello Matthew McCounaghey!). So I kinda can forgive him.

So that's my first book for 2016. Better log it now before I fucking forgot. Well, my second book... Damn. I finally know now that I'm such a fucking gooey at heart. OK, I lied, I've already known it for a long time. Well, my second book is titled 'The Two of Us', Damn. I concede I am a little embarrassed to a admit that. More on that on my second log of 2016.

Two books. Half a year. Hrm.

Bird Watching

There's a National Geographic moment happening in my backyard right now. Ada sekor burung who'd built a nest on what's left of that small piece of yard behind our house. Selebihnya, according to my father, has all been and I quote - "Belanda rampas tanah". (LOL)

Mak buat wet kitchen dekat belakang tu and she's seriously not happy that bapak keeps on mentioning the Belanda rampas tanah thinggy. lol.

But anyways, back to the burung story.

Damn. What an interesting thing to happen. Small piece of land. A barely grown tree with branches and leaf so scarce, people would thought that we erected the damn thing over there. But life finds a way. There you are a mother bird who would constantly fly off to God knows where and two (or three, I cannot yet ascertain) hatchlings who would only make any sort of sound when mommy comes back with a large opening on her mouth along with KFC. In fact they were so silent, there a few times I wondered if they had abandoned their nest, since there is also a minor construction going on on of our neighbour's house and its fucking noisy. But they're good. They're really good. In one of my stalkings I could see one of the bald hatchlings being more aggressive than the others. 

Oh well.

Maybe I'll take pictures sometimes. But I don't wanna scare the mommy off. Hrm.

Nuang & Some Other Side Notes

I just stumbled upon an entry I wrote in 2012 about a copycat blog, my copycat blog. lol. What a poyo guy. Biar la budak tu nak plagiat your thoughts. You should be proud. Things we do in our younger days. And the foolishness they allow. Makes you smile. (Makes you feel all the same, unfortunately)

Anyways.

As we speak, Hadi and Jahed, my nephew are climbing up Gunung Nuang again today. I wanted with all my heart to topple her again. A peak denied me when I injured myself climbing the top of her in 2013. Notice the sexual innuendo there ? Well, me neither. Back to the topic, I injured myself climbing the mountain because I thought wearing jeans while climbing up a 4,898 ft mountain was a good idea. One that I pains-takingly, literally, learned was not a few hours later.

There is a time window you have to adhere to when climbing up Nuang. You have to be the at the peak and start making the climb down by or around 2 PM to avoid getting trapped climbing down treacherous path in the dark. And I'm not kidding when I say treacherous. I've heard stories that there were these couple of guys who were lost and and ended up at Janda Baik! Which is not too weird considering, if you take a look at the map above, that Nuang is situated between two states namely Selangor and Pahang. But let me offer another perspective, you basically started off your hike in Pahang and end it in Selangor! lol.

We were late, of course, caused by the injury of our members, me and Jahed, the two fatties who went and get their selves injured in an outdoor activity that was supposed to be fun. Goddamnit Fakhrol!

I had intended to put the picture of Nuang's peak I would search from Google but fuck it, no. Am going to conquer her one day and then and only then will I share with you the pictures. The ones that I'm gonna take myself. If not for class commitments I have, I would have been wetting my socks with her cold river streams now. Sighs.

Books

I wanna keep track of books I've read in a year. Well. More like flip-flip because the only regular reading time I got (or willing to allocate) is the five to 10 minutes I am in the toilet everyday. But of course when I am in the loo it isn't going to be a 10 minutes ride, usually it'll be fifteen to twenty due to the aforementioned habit.

So since I did not keep any tracks. I will recall and I think it'll be accurate since two to three pages per session isn't going to make me a fast reader but nonetheless I think I have finished four (wow four ?) books proper this year (of course some of them have been read commencing 2014)

1. Twenty Thousand League Under The Sea by Jules Verne

2. Bad Boy by Stephen Gray

3. Ocean At The End of Lane by Neil Gaiman

4. The Inheritance by Tilly Bagshawe

I've started Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray but had just now go and purchased John Greene's An Abundance of Katherines due to the expiring MYR 50.00 voucher gifted by Popular a few months back. I might jump straight into it and put Wilde's work on the back burner for a little for the time being. 

So hooray for a new tag!

:)

Tak tahan dugaan. Happy camper I am a such. 

Up next - The Batpod.

Viva la Revolución!

After a couple of weeks of living like reclusive hobo battling last minutes assignments and a truckload of, semester worth of formulas in one night, I can finally see the rays of sun shining through my bedroom window again. I am finally ready to rejoin the human population.

So here's a few things I plan to do today:

1. Clean my room

2. Clean the hamsters' room

3. Workout

4. Assemble some Gundam backlog

But.

I will probably do none of those things and instead, will sit on my ass daydreaming about stuffs and toys I wanna buy next but will probably end up buying tomorrow. And I will probably plan about planning things I wanna plan next.

Viva la Revolución!

Save Moi

Gosh I really need to curb down my spending on these 'hobby' craps. Every time I see a Tamiya or a Gundam ad I have this uncontrollable urge to click click click. But I just.....

Its one of those things you've had to hold yourself from when you were a kid. You want this and you want that and you can never really have it because it was not financially prudent for your family to trade a plate of nasik goreng so that you can have an Ultraman figure, so to speak. My family's not exactly 'poor' poor but we aren't rich either. My father used to drive a cab back then aside from his post office job (yeah, I never knew what he really did in his younger days in Pejabat POS, when I asked he said he never was a postman but rather he delivers letters by vans, but lets just keep that part for another day) and my mom worked as an information assistant at our old, beloved airport Terminal 1. I think its safe to say that we were the perfect example of a lower middle class family during those glorious booming Malaysian economics.

I remember one day I saw an Ultraman figure I think it was RM 6.00 or RM 12.00. So I never really get my way during those days and you've learnt to just accept that your family can never really afford it (or can they ? I guess I'll never know) so you just ask once and you're 99% sure its never going to be affirmative but you asked anyway. But where I went to school from my standard one to five in Kampung Tunku, PJ (1991-1995) the brats there were made of mostly upper mid to upper class income families and I've heard stories from my friends if they would have just stood their ground, eventually their parents would give in and buy them those toys they want, just to get them away from the toy shelves. And so I did. Not only that it didn't work, I was a little embarrassed that my father would scold me there and then. Adoi malunya. That was the first and last time I ever tried to pull those rich kids tactic. Tahi la. Dengan family aku tak jadi punya!

So when you're working and these things from your olden days, things you once had but was too stupid to hold on to and somehow damaged it beyond repair, things you totally had no idea what happen to. And most importantly things you MAY NEVER HAVE in your capacity as a kid back then. So when these things appear right before your eyes and you know, now, though not filthy rich, it is still within your financial capacity to get, mata jadi buntaq semua nampak semua nak. Homaigod its so not healthy. Yesterday I resolved to control my spending more and right after I bukak Instagram this bugger said in his ads "The last of the Hublot wristwatch stock. Lepas nie tak restock dah" and despite the years in you, you get influenced by these things. So despite my staunch resolution to curb down my spending to only planned stuffs and essentials. I went ahead and contacted the seller and bought the wristwatch. 

I whispered to myself "The last wants spending for the month" and bukak FB nampak orang jual Tamiya yang memang ada dalam mental wishlist. I straight away went and private messaged him. 

Though all these spending have got to do with my uncapped desires and wants, one of the truer reason I click click click at all these ads are the fear that they will forever disappear in the market hence I lost the chance to hold a piece of that beautiful childhood era forever. Wow that somehow came out pretty poetic.

To wrap, yeap I really need to curb down these spending sprees by:

1. Narrowing them down to planned purchases ONLY. Never settle. If the item is not reachable at the moment. Leave. Don't get a compensatory, slightly similar product just to console my buying urge because I'll end up getting what I originally want eventually. Sometimes paying bloated prices. Fuck!

2. Realize that these things, despite its ages, are available. ALWAYS. You just have to know where to look and the budget. By running rampant with my finance I blow away the money that could have been put aside for the original stuffs therefore I end up getting more secondary stuffs which are of course a welcome but not the wanted destination.

I guess break ups really bring out the nerd-ism in all of us. Gundams. Star Wars. Batman. Tamiya. And I wanna have all of 'em. 

Somebody save me.

Pet Lion

Someday I wish to have a pet lion. Look at that serene expression. So wise and calm.

F.ruZi ™

Awesome. Yes I know. That's what happen when pure awesomeness meets his dynamic duo. By the way this post is intended to serve as a reminder that FZ shall require his oil change when the mileage clocks 10,000. How time flies. And how KLIA is quite hell of a distant to go to work to from Puchong.

p/s: For those of you who hasn't noticed the obvious yet. F.ruZi ™ is the combination of Fakhrolruzi and FZ (yes, you're slow, I forgive you :P)

"The World is but a byproduct"

Just took a stroll with my FZ just now. Damn, I've missed you buddy. Again and again. Dear God, please cepatkan keadaan duitku. Sesungguhnya I have made my buddy wait long enough. I miss you buddy. And rest assured soon after I get my hands on those monies I will dress you up with a Knight's armor. Lets go see the world together again.

Just Me & You - The World is but a byproduct.

Note To Self.

FZ has just got his oil changed at 1460 mileage. We'll come to the 'who' later. ;)

Something Smells Fishy.

I wanna keep goldfish as pets. It all started when my father brought back with him a cute little vase and 3 adorable little goldfishes. At first, they all swam quite happily in the vase, though there's nothing really to venture in the tight little vase except for a couple of pebbles lying at the bottom of the vase. I wondered though whether goldfish get claustrophobic too.

However, a couple of days later, one fella went and met his Maker. I think that was just too bad, I still think the idea of keeping them fishes in the vase is still viable - even without the help of those filters and air pump devices.

The next day, much to my sadness, the remaining two fella did a little backflip and never flip their tiny fins again. I should've done something when I saw them gasping for air the night before. Silly silly me.

After coming to terms with the lost and a few sleepless nights, I went and godek the internet for proper goldfish keeping. Much to my surprise, internet holds loads and loads of valuable information in regards of proper goldfish keeping.

Here's what I could sum up from the goldfish study:

1. Goldfish if really cared for could live around 10-15 years. Or was it 25 ? Well results may vary depending on how we handle them. And its gruesomely common for goldfish to die after 2-3 days with a new owner, especially beginner owners.

2. That keeping goldfish in cute little vases is doable but not advisable. Due to the tedious nature of the caring part and some even went as far as the method is cruel for it shortens its life span due to stress. Yerp, you read it right. STRESS. And organ damage. (Oh My God.) - Err seriously ?

3. That overfeeding goldfish might result in speeding up its demise due to first, because goldfish are a naturally messy species in which they poo poo anywhere and anytime they see fit. Secondly, because of the fish food itself. This deadly duo might just intoxicate your whole tank.

Hrmm. But after all have been said, I still think keeping them in a vase is sexy.

Myself is not to blame, I used to have this quite a huge aquarium where I kept around 15-20 varying types of goldfish just for them to be terrorized and died by the hands of my cousins and nephews when we were small. And yes my nephews could be just 1 or 2 years younger than me. So figures. I was devastated but I didn't know how and who should I vent my anger on as the culprits were quite and still close to moi. But still, had they survived what a cool collection I'd have now. And back then they were cheap. I could get a black goldfish, the one with them eyes popping for just about 2 Ringgit for 2 of them.

I'm gonna get it I don't care. I'll get a vase with a pump then if its so cruel.