Excession Quasi-review

For those who are unfamiliar with Mr Reynolds' works, I can say you can start reading Pushing Ice and Terminal World. I strongly recommend these both. The tone of these two works is very different. Pushing Ice is more towards a TV-drama with super-episodes which it narrates how life is hard for humans on Janus, a fleeting moon from Saturn. But Terminal World, wow. Steampunk. Meaning there isn't any room for spaceships and fantastic physics. The exile of a doctor and his journey back looks more like a pilgrimage to me. His noble acts make me think of Merlin. (If you do not know who Merlin is, I suggest you to wiki it. No offence.)

Excession, written by the late Iain M. Banks, was (no longer 'is') my first attempt to keep off my addiction to Alastair Reynolds' space operas. Yes, in case you wondered, I am indeed addicted to Alastair Reynolds' works and I am waiting for his latest novel On the Steel Breeze and I will definitely grab it from the bookstores and burn it with my eyes and heart.


OK, see how much I flood (and flirt) myself with Reynolds' works?

Back to topic.

Excession is bought, mainly for the reason that... erm... I love blue colour. Notice the book cover and you know what I mean. It's the same reason how I broke my novel virginity with Reynolds. Yeah, I know I am stupid. And, yes, there is another reason. I love BDO.

You may ask what BDO is. It's a literary device meaning "Big Dumb Object". It means a huge object appear in the arc of the story but plays little or no significance to the story. Like the yellow brick road in Wizard of Oz, the brick road serves no purpose.

In Pushing Ice, the BDO is Janus, the huge (tiny) moon from Saturn. And in Terminal World, a relatively significant BDO is Spearpoint, a megastructure.

For Excession, we have - no prize for guessing right - a perfect black-body sphere that does absolutely nothing except protecting itself for no reasons (till the end is a different story, though, it even bid me farewell).

So, this novel is a very different novel. So different that my brain stops functioning for days before continuing. Reason? OK, so usually a story is written in any person's point of view. Like Snow White's story, you can get what Snow White did but never know what the Queen is doing due to the view is focused on Snow White.

In Excession, man, the point-of-view of characters are not living things at all! Gosh, you can see ships talking to each other, AI speaking and scolding a human etc. My mind suddenly requires additional time to settle things down. It's like listening two tables having a chitchat over a tiny table with a glass of weird coffee.

But all in all, the story is fun. You get to see a huge narrative on different subplots that makes you slowly sinks into the couch before continuing. The late author gives you time to set in, that's a huge plus otherwise I think your mind will go bluescreen and open in safemode.

If you wonder whether I will recommend this book, I say, three-and-a-half out of five yes! Try reading things in a weirder perspective! You can have more surprises than before!

Confused

So, lately my heart has been tweaking my brain a lot. Some flavours changed across the months being out of reach of campus life.

I suddenly feel plain. I feel cold in my heart. Whenever things that are meant to be happy things to me suddenly becomes bland. The biggest example is my, ahem, bruder. Whenever he just texts me (no, no calls), I don't feel like how I used to feel - awesomely happy. It feels like, I have just received an ordinary message and I just have to reply that message.

Is it going to get worse? I don't know. I don't have much time to reminisce my campus life. I feel like I am moving on and away from what I used to have.

Worse, I have the feeling that I always bug people's life. I feel that I am getting drifted away from this 'bruder relationship'. I feel like I shouldn't be in that relationship at the first place. I feel like, wrong. I feel like we shouldn't have been bruders because he already has his.

Weird.

We seldom chat now. He is more busy with his FYPs, reports, bros and his-gals. Well, I, on the other hand, remains empty. Well, it's OK, actually. People move on to their personal life. It's not up to me to tangle myself to them again.

Will I actually get lost?

I remembered writing a sentence like this during primary school:

"River flowing ever quick,
there aren't any flowers to pick.
Hear your friends' voices,
telling you you have no choices.
But to move on and on
and forever gone."

Is this so-called self-fulfilling prophecy coming true? Is that why I have cycles?

If no, then will I be forgotten in my own memories? My friends' contact number has been inactive for years. When I browse through my contact list, I find no one to text with. Is this wrong?

I...

I seem to be lost.

Lost in my own memories.

Help me.

Love

This is a story used to share by my Moral Education teacher when I was at my prinary school. This story goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a man, named Jack. He had kept three animals in his house:
 
a dog, a cat and a hamster, and he had kept them in three different cages.

 

Once in a while,
     he would
          bring the dog out for an evening walk or a morning ball game.
          take the cat out and scratch her lovely fur till she purred softly.
          put his hamster in a sophisticated playhouse for it to run and run.

Every meal time, each animal would be given a dish of exquisite meal dedicated to the type of animals he had. He would never give salmon fish to the dog or corns to the cat. Each had its most wonderful meal differently, everyday.

And the animals love Jack very much. So did Jack. To him, they're the most loveable animals in his house.

But, one day, he left the cage open before sleeping. The next morning, the hamster was eaten by the cat and the cat was injured by the dog. The dog was also injured by the cat scratches and it ran away from home.

Jack was puzzled at why his loveable animals turned so violent. He thought it was the food, but then he knew...


HARMONY is not given by segregation.
BENEFITS are not given by segregation.

To instil peace, harmony, unity and happiness, everyone must take initiative to know and understand each other. When we all know each other's differences, we will put aside that, tolerate, and then establish a common ground where everyone is happy.

If, like Jack, we treat people by groups, each group will love you for the benefits you give, but each group will envy towards the treatment you give each other. If that envy grows into a monster, we all are monsters.

Give time to blend and mix, not give benefits to create peace.

Learn to give, dear Malaysians. Learn to love. Humans aren't as ugly as you think, unless you are paranoid.

If Jack didn't want to open the three cages for us to mix, we open ourselves, if not, we just talk across cages, because soon, the cages will not be needed anymore.

Peace, Malaysia.

I love you.

Voice of Hayley Westenra

Hayley Westenra, born in 1987, Soprano

Recommended songs from her (ranking does not matter):

1) Never Say Goodbye

2) River of Dreams

3) Who Painted the Moon Black?

4) Hine E Hine

5) Dark Waltz

6) Beat of Your Heart

7) My Heart and I

8) Across the Universe of Time

9) Heaven

10) Wuthering Heights

11) Mummer's Dance

Bee-Eater

A pair of European Bee-eaters

Bee-eaters have slender bodies covered with vibrant feathers and are found mostly in Africa and Asia, with minor populations dotting in Europe and Australia. They are diurnal creatures unless their migratory path is interrupted by sea or unsuitable habitat.

As their name suggests, they prey upon flying insects, mostly bees and wasps. Honey bees turn out to be their favourite food and that alone constitutes 90% of all insects eaten. They remove the stinger from bees and wasps by hitting and rubbing the insect on hard surfaces continuously. Strangely enough, they only catch flying preys in the air, or "hawking". And once the flying insects land, the bee-eaters totally ignore them.

Dust-bathing

Bee-eaters always use 10% of their day having fun, or known as "comfort activity". These activities include sun-bathing (to heat up their body), dust-bathing (to clean their body of parasites) and water-bathing (to bath)



"Zero distance"

Bee-eaters live in colonies by nesting in burrows on the side of sand banks. Despite being in colonies, bee-eaters are strictly monogamous for one or more breeding seasons. Instead of pulling out a wedding ring, bee-eaters pull out their food to feed their mate, which is known as courtship feeding. After getting alone with each other, the pair begins digging their nest together by jabs of sharp bills and kicks from their tiny feet. Their home is rarely used twice and is considered unique. The love of these couple can also be observed by their "zero distance standing" where they stand so close to each other till their feathers touch.








"So, watcha lookin' at?"

*Pictures obtained from Wikipedia and Google Image Search



Of Nowadays (Part One)

Maths is a dead subject now. No longer living. I gave my 13-year-old-and-scored-7As-in-UPSR cousin this question: One class as 30 students where 20 of them love Science and another 20 love Maths. How many students love both?

 

He stared at the question and quickly-as-a-matter-of-factly scribbled this:

 

 

30 - 20 - 20 = __
 

"Your question got problem," he frowned.



I looked at him. He was going to take the private school entrance exam and if this question cannot be solved, I have no hope for him to obtain at least a quarter-scholarship (of course there is no such thing as quarter-scholarship).

"Think," I commanded.

He gripped the paper and ran downstairs seeking help from a mechanical engineer father. "Pa, do this for me."

I stared at him ridiculously. "What? I asked you to solve and you turn to your father!"

They both ignored me. Then another shocking news reached my ears:

"Eh, you don't give him this question. You look carefully. Your question is faulty," he said.

*JAWDROPPED*

*

Diameter and radius, who would have not known? My cousin is peculiar. He claimed it was NEVER in his primary school syllabus. It was supposed to be a secondary school syllabus. When I directed him to revise his books, he found it.

"Oh, diameter is like this," he said, drawing a retarded circle and a line jamming through the point of origin. From a clock, it looked approximately like 12.30pm. Then he extended a line from the point of origin and touched the circumference, such that this radius is pointing at 3 o'clock. "This is radius." He smiled.

I took his pen, and drew a radius pointing to 5 o'clock. "Is that a radius?"

"No." He quickly replied.

"Why?"

"It wasn't pointing at that direction," he signified with his index finger pointing to his right.

I was totally surprised. I rotated the paper such that the radius I drew pointed to the direction he intended. "So, my line is it a radius now?"

He scratched his head. "Where got people rotate exam paper one?"

Don't tell me. You should know what your reaction is.

*

Creativity seems to be the latest horror story to any child. I remembered my cousin's face suddenly folded over several times and let out a disgusted noise, "Use my imagination and creativity again?"

I nodded. It was a question of drawing a 10-metre wide circle with only a pencil and a compass.

He quickly turned to his papa and mama, whining, "Pa, Mi, if I give you this and ask you to use imagination and only..." he paused and revealed the tools I have given him to his parents, "this," he said disgustedly, "to answer, can you do it?"

His parents glanced at it.

"I have no time for this. Your cousin gave it to you, so you do it on your own," the mother said.
"What is it? Let me help..." he stared at the question long enough. Then he said, "I don't know. You go ask your cousin."

Then his face glowed truimphantly as if he is the king of answers. He shoved me the paper and tools. "Nah! Papa and mami also can't solve it. How can I solve it!" Then he turned on his computer.

I sighed. My parents are not university graduates, but they are my powerful encyclopaedia. They sometimes can't help me on maths, but they open my minds. I am glad I have such parents.

*

One day, his sister came to me, saying that there's a word she can't understand. I looked at it and it wrote "fertiliser" in Chinese language. So I told her in English is "fertiliser". She stared at me as if I didn't explain anything at all.

"What is fertiliser?" she asked.

Being a 8-year-old toddler, I couldn't blame her much. So I said, "You know, mami has plants outisde? The flowers? Sometimes they need something like tiny fishballs to become bigger and healthier."

She stared at me even stronger. "Huh?"

"You go ask mami. Maybe she can show you," I gave up.

She ran to the kitchen, found her mum and did what I tell her. Her mum came to me, wiping her wet hands on her shirt, "Ah, sorry to tell you, we don't use fertilisers. So I can't show you."

I... collapsed.

*

"Gor gor, how you draw so beautiful?" my cousin sister tugged at my sleeve.

"Come, I show you. You see this...?" then I began how my father and mother taught me about observing power. How the size and perspective matters. How shadow shifts under light. How things must be balanced. How object must be logical.

"Can you fold paper swan?" she meant paper crane.

"Yes."

"Can show me?"

"Yes."

"Now?"

"Later."

"When later?"

"Till you know how to draw," I gave an evil grin.

You know what's best about an innocent child? They will give whatever it takes to get whatever they need. I soon saw her struggling to draw and ask me about the pictures. But I pitied her because she had to draw on newspapers.

"Meimei," I called her. "You don't have papers to draw on?"

"No. Papa mami din buy also," she shook her head with her sorry eyes.

I reached my file and gave a stack of A4 papers. "Nah, draw for me, every day."

She gladly took it.

Creativity is something to be explored. Seriously. If you have the tools, you make wonders. Don't ask your children to read, read and read. That's not learning.

*

One day we went to Sushi King. Me and her mami craved for baby octopus. So I grabbed a plate.

"Gor gor, what's that?" my cousin sister words glued together, sounding like "wazzat".

"Baby octopus," then I added before she put any wild imaginations on it, "it tastes very nice!"

Her papa suddenly said. "You don't eat one lar. Really one, you don't eat."

I ignored him and cut a tentacle for her. She cautiously put it in her mouth and grinned. "Nice lo."

Sometimes, as a parent, you have to give chance to your kids. Don't go laying conclusions when your kids have no exposure on them, unless it is not beneficial.

Thank You Notes

I hope you are truthful enough. I have given you the colour and please check your notes based on your given colour. No dishonesty please!

BLUE
Don't be so blue, like me. Be happy! Nah, just joking. I thank you for being my coursemate or faculty mate although I didn't do much on your life, except my serious face problem. If you are an enemy to me, I thank you if you become my friend (if not, ignore this part. LOL). All the best in your future undertakings yeah! Belanja me OCHADO during convo and I buy you Sushi King's Bento Set! I promise!




RED
You are like a family to me. Your presence in my life has changed me. Seriously. I am very happy to be with you and sad enough to leave you because of graduation. I know I have no internet connections, but please, do contact me when you are bored, OK? You are my primary colour that taints my tertiary life! Keep tainting me!




ORANGE
You somehow, hmm, doesn't "fit in to either category". Don't be sad. You are unique. I wish to know more about you, but time doesn't allow. Or maybe I am too shy. I will work hard on it, OK? Maybe someday we will have a great chat under a Mamak restaurant or something. But do look out for me always! Thank you for being a tiny presence in my life. Don't take it as a prick; in fact, having you is better than losing you!




PURPLE
Unique. Like the colour suggest. You are one-hard mysterious object. I know you but I don't really know you. We are best friends in a sort, but maybe because distance is better in playing a part of strengthening bonds. I guess if I grow too close to you, disaster will strike! Thank you, peep! Send me letters, if you want to! I will give you my address! It's been a long time since I collect letters and stamps!




YELLOW
Always cheerful, I think. That's how I look at you. You brighten my day up! Don't you have a sad moment or something? Playful and cheeky. But please, sometimes don't be too self-obsessed. I wish I can be as bright as you! Thank you, although we didn't know each other long enough, but I believe the moment we had walked together would suffice! Danke!




TEAL
DANCE CLUB ROCKS! See? I purposely put up a Dance Club section. You guys play a serious role in transforming me, especially Angeline Tan. Because of her "You can laugh or not?" question, I am able to change myself. Though, some of you still are strangers to me, but I love you guys. For me, Dance Club really is a club! It progresses, adapts and grows together with members and members' interests. A good family to be with. You can go ahead and read the RED section if you want to.


FUCHSIA
Music and similar interest bonds us. I am very very happy that I know you! Through events, maybe, but most importantly, music and interests! You are the one big fat fuchsia colour I cannot miss. If only we can meet earlier, we could have been a gang or something to dominate the campus. LOL. Anyway, thanks. Had it not our interests, I don't think we are friends. Right? Rhetorical question, though. I wish I can do something for you!

GREEN
I don't know you. SHOOOOOOOOOO. Haha. I am sorry, next time PM me more. I can't just say THANKS to a random stranger without knowing their deeds, right? But thanks for being my FB friend though. Harrass me with your wonderful PMs!

[MESSAGE]

Hey bloggie!

[Copy & Paste]
I just found out this cool thing about "tossing a bottle into the sea" by using Blogspot. You write your whatever-it-is message (be it cool or sad or nostalgic) and post it as a blogpost with an additional tag of [MESSAGE]. When others drop by and saw your post, they will forward it on their own blogs! See whether the world is round when you will pick up your own bottle!


OK, so this is it. This is my first time tossing a bottle into this "Blog Sea", hope anyone would forward it and carry my message far beyond.

I am going to talk about something not of emotions, I think. So I hope you are patient enough to follow me. ;)

Do you know somethings are not supposed to be completed? Like, when you bake a cake, you don't put it in the oven and claim it complete. Sounds crazy, right? But wait, hear me out, I have this cool gift from someone. It's a music box! The song (I dunno what song is that) ran for 5 minutes, as I was told.

And...

I didn't finish listening to it. Till now, 12 years has come to pass. And my gifter had gone away, somewhere in Europe I think and I can't get in touch with him till he comes back, which will be another 8 more years, if he had enough money.

I didn't want to hear the ending of the delicate music because it feels sad to end it. I want to hold that music on forever till I meet him once again and let the music continue.

It's... sentimental, I guess.

I don't have his address or contacts, but I do wish this message would reach him by the help of Sea Bloggers!

PS: Maybe you can toss your own bottle too! Who knows I will pick it up and forward it on my blog?


Cheers,
Linji.

Blue

This
is the blue I am obsessed with. Often, I just call it "Copper (II) Sulphate Blue" (CSB) because that's the blue (approximately) it exhibits. I don't know why I am obsessed with it, but it happened suddenly during my primary school years.

It's like asking why some girls love pink. I can't give you an exact answer. This blue has troubled me over the years which I failed to understand the reason I fall for this.

What I do know is that, I love Neptune the most when I was four, fascinated but unable to quench my own thirst about what lies beneath Neptune since space exploration those days (till now) hardly made it to Neptune.

Then I developed a strong taste for the Pleiades Cluster (above). I don't know. I've heard these stars had significant effects on New Age people. I am allegedly naming myself a New Age person. If you want to ask me how to define New Age, it's hard to tell, because we feel it coming, like the surge of an invisible tsunami overwhelming your spirtual sense, heightening your spatial sense and emotional level.

OK, back to topic. You want to know why I posted this?

I want a marble, jewel or crystal with that blue. Maybe an orb or irregular crystal, I just want to take it! The urge of that is unbearable! Can somebody please buy me that?

Please...

Please Insert Your Parking Ticket

Automated voice is unpleasant, sometimes, especially at those malls where their ticket payment requires an autopay machine. The pre-recorded female voice (maybe it's a male voice at your area) keeps repeating the sentence till it drives you crazy.

"Please insert your parking ticket.

Please insert your parking ticket..."

It can repeat a zillion times if you are a slowcoach in pulling out your parking ticket.

Monotonous and yet deeply annoying. I know it serves well for people who have special needs, but at least make it more melodious and cheerful than a flat tone "please insert your parking ticket". Maybe you can have it repeated twice or thrice, but not everytime whenever the sentence ended.

This supermarket near my home is specially made for annoy people. The full "conversation" of the machine goes like this:

Please insert your parking ticket.
Fee is One Ringgit.
Insert XXXXX card for discount.
Please... etc

And it repeats at least twice per sentence. I wonder these variants are good for fun:

#1:

Please insert your parking ticket.
Fee is Two Ringgit.
Insert One Ringgit for discount.

Say what? Insert another Ringgit just for a discount? Work your maths and you can see you incur losses no matter how cheap your fee is. LOL.


#2:

Please insert your barking ticket.
Fee is Two Ringgit.
Insert your dog tag for discount.

Dog Mall. Definitely. Either that or dogs have evolved.


#3:

Please insert your parking ticket.
Please insert your parking ticket.
... (silence)...
"Hello? I am waiting for the amount needed to pay!" a payer screamed.
I'm still calculating your fees by entering logarithms, differentiation, Kaluza-Klein theory, higher spatial dimension math... etc.

Maybe this wil happen in a future Silicon Valley, or somewhere high-tech.


#4:

Please insert your parking thicket
Seen is too small
Buy fertilisers from the machine.

Florist, perhaps.


#5:

Please do not insert your parking ticket.
Fee is credited from your account.
Please pay to compound.

At the bank, surely. Prepare to be LIQUIDATED.


#6:

Please insert your f**cking ticket.
Fee is One Dollar
Insert your co*k for this cu*t

Rude! My goodness. Maybe this is for the prostitute house?


#7:

Please...
Puh... p-puh...
Pt.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. PLEASE EXIT THIS BLOG NOW.