45. No Ordinary Morning

Right, it's 3.41 am now. And I'm wide awake. The reason could be that I'm possibly pondering the important issues facing the world today; poverty, rising oil prices, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Chelsea's recent defeat to Manchester McUnited at the Trafford Superdome. Only I'm not.

Instead I'm thinking, wouldn't it be nice to fiddle round with my blog's design a bit? Golly, it sure would!

It's good that I'm actually off from work for the rest of the week. Good because it enables me to spend time doing these sort of things. Work takes up so much of our time that we can't fully concentrate on the really, really truly important things in life. Like which background template should I go with for the re-design of my blog? Should it be the sparse minimalism of Minima Blue? Or should I go for the bold colours of Snapshot Tequila? Ahhh, choices, choices.

And besides, we all know how work is detrimental to releasing our artistic instincts (those of us who work as pornographers (bastards!) not withstanding of course). I should probably go on now on some anti-establishment rant about how we are selling our souls to the Man just to earn a buck or two. Only I won't. The Man pays my salary, of which funds the numerous vices I partake in, which in turn causes me reason to be happy, and being happy brings a smile to my face. You wouldn't want to see me not smiling now would you? Of course not.

Being on extended leave has also afforded me the luxury of spending inordinate amounts of time on the net, which in turn is surely contributing to the deterioration of my mental health. As yet, I haven't succumbed to doing what those little voices in my head are telling me to do, of which numerous overzealous wankers and obnoxious pricks I've had the displeasure of knowing should be ever grateful (don't be too happy, one can suppress those inner voices for only so long).

I've also managed to catch up on all those great series' (downloaded quite illegally I assure you) that are airing over in the States. So far, Prison Break and Surface look to be among the better ones. And of course Lost is still going strong and getting weirder by the episode. I'm just waiting to get totally disappointed to whatever explanation they have at the end for the entire thing. Until then, you can count on me to continue to tune in with the rest of the you mindless zombies.

Have also watched some films I downloaded (why buy pirated DVDs when there's such a thing called bittorrent eh?), Crash and Green Street Hooligans. Both excellent. Speaking of Crash, will definitely post something on it soon, only for the reason that I can tick racism off my list of topics to pretentiously rant about. Yes, us important bloggers keep a list.

Speaking of bloggers, if you were to visit Kenny Sia's site (which I recommend, the dude's freaking hilarious), you'd find his comments about a famous Singaporean blogger's rather infamous rant concerning her recent visit over here in Malaysia and on toilets for disabled persons. I won't elaborate on what she said, but she sure stirred up a hornet's nest, to the extent she's lost a sponsor or two on her site (which incidentally is very nice and pretty, with bright and happy photos of her scantily clad self plastered everywhere) because a famous Malaysian blogger took offense to what she said and kicked up a shit storm. Needless to say, she wasn't particularly pleased with the entire thing and had her say, just like how he had his. But after all that fuss, the both of them behaved as mature adults do and patched up their differences in a civil manner, thus making the world all bright and shiny once more. Well actually she told him to fuck off and he's been slagging her off ever since. But who gives a shit anyway?

Ok, just an observation here. Now as a blogger, we tell ourselves we have the bloody right to say anything we want 'cos it's our damn blog right? Of course, that's why most of us do it. To bitch, to rant, getting things off our chests. Whatever reasons for our blogging, be it self-gratification (without getting your hands all sticky) or harbouring delusions of grandeur (hoping that one day your blog would be famous and worshipped by millions on the net), it's our prerogative on what we post about.

Fair enough. But of course, when you give your comments with all the bravado in the world, you also have got to take as much as you dish out. Not everyone will agree with your opinion because not everyone shares your ideals and beliefs. It's not because you're right and they're wrong or vice versa (unless of course, they're disagreeing with me, which definitely makes them quite wrong and hopelessly stupid). It's because, well, they're different.

Now, they might post a comment on your blog telling you how great it is. Alternately, they might offer the opinion that your blog sucks major ass and that you're a complete idiot. Or even better, throw in some random derogatory statement or two that has nothing to do with what you posted. Man, shit happens. It's the freaking net for Pete's sake. Too many people with too many opinions and too much time. What's one to do?

Well, for one you could brush it off and ignore them, maintaining a dignified silence (in your mind at least) on the whole affair while everyone else thinks you're just been pussy-whipped to silence. Or, you can respond and defend yourself, which in turn will make everyone think you're an over-sensitive prick with body odour issues. Then again, if you're Peter Tan and Ameer Zulkifli, you can go ahead and make a police report like how they did over some seditious comments posted on their respective sites (www.petertan.com and www.brandmalaysia.com) some weeks back (you might recall that it made front-page news). On that, I don't really have much to say. To each their own.

Now on the other side, say you're the one reading the blogger's opinions. And say don't like what the person's going on about. You could choose to ignore it by not visiting the site which would save everyone the trouble of having to read your comments on how much you disagree but are actually really trying to say how much cooler you are compared to him/her. Or, if you think you're cooler than the writer, you could post a comment on how incredibly cool you are, making the rest of us just want to hunt you down and kill you. Slowly. Again, you could also take it to the next level and try to do what you can to attack the blogger, be it to the blogger's reputation or to his/her pockets (like in the case of the above Singaporean blogger).

Whatever you do, however you respond, it is your right to do so, just like how it is someone's right to express their opinions that so offended you in the first place. There's always a consequence for your actions, always expect it.

My opinion on the whole thing? I just think some people are more gifted than others, as always. Peace.