詮索（いや、取調べ？）

「今日、また図書館？」

放課後、相変わらず詮索してきたんだ。

「いや、帰るよ。用がある。」

冷たいけれども、それは答える気がないから。

「用？デート？」

こいつ、最近うっぜなぁ。疑問形多すぎ。次々と押し付けられた質問にいちいち答えるつもりはねぇよ。

「ほぉ、今帰って、６時までに渋谷へ…間に合うよね…きっと、そうでしょ？」


また疑問形…無視されたにもかかわらず、取り調べを続けた。いかんにシツコイッ！誰か渋谷ってったっけ？誰かデートなどってったっけ？まあ、いいや。こいつの妄想力はどこまで暴走してんのか、俺も知りたいから、しばらく付き合ってやるよ。

「渋谷？東京って、渋谷だけじゃないよ。」あえて聞いてみる。

「だって、便利だもん。両方にとってね…」そして、自慢げな顔をして、ニヤニヤと。

どうやら、こいつは俺があの子と何かがある、と確信してる。

ぶっちゃけな話で、確かにあいつには気に入るんだけど、それ以上の展開は望んでおりません。（…うむ、かな？）まあ、とりあえず、各自の「妄想力」にお任せします。もう詮索だけは勘弁していただきます。

Hyottoko and Okame

This one is related to a post two weeks ago. (No Entry, October 28 2008)

Okay, after coming all the way to Yokosuka, my plan was ruined because I was refused entry into the Navy Base. Sure enough I left before they changed their mind and decided to give me an anal probe security check.

But luckily, I managed to take some cool shots during the procession earlier. Now, that made my trip worthwhile. I've posted these photos on both my Flickr Photostream and my photoblog. I know it's redundant, but I'll just post two of them here together with the short descriptions which can be found on the other two sites.

Kagura Masks: Hyottoko ひょっとこ

Kagura (神楽 - God Entertainment) masks are used in Shinto theatrical dance. They can often be seen in matsuri (Japanese festivals). This one here is a boy character called hyottoko. (Those who have watched the Japanese movies, Death Note and L: Change the World, can probably recall the mask used by L to conceal his identity.)

There're several versions to its origin. One has it that it comes from hi-otoko (火男 - fire boy), who blows out the flame in the kitchen stove with a bamboo stick (thus the shape of his mouth).

The other version comes from a local myth in Ishikawa prefecture. It is said that there was once a boy with an odd face who produces gold in his navel. Ever since his death, it is believed that by placing a mask resembling his face at the kitchen stove, the family will be blessed with prosperity. Somehow, the name of the boy hyoutokosu (ヒョウトコス) transformed into hyottoko.

The girl character, okame complements this one.

Oh, and that's not a salut. it's just the awkward mechanical way he walks (imagine tin man with stiff joints marching in a parade and you'll get a rough idea).

Kagura Masks: Okame おかめ

This one here is a girl character called okame or otafuku.

The squished round nose, the high cheeks and the moon face are the main characteristics of this character. She complements the boy character, hyottoko.

Sometimes, though, it is also used to represent a boy character.

When Dreams and Reality Run on Parallel Tracks

It's true that my blogging style has changed - not to say the blogging frequency too - since a year ago or so. I don't have to re-read my previous posts (I never do) to come up with that conclusion; I'm aware of the circumstances that lead to this.

It's not that my life has become uneventful these days - there're plenty of things I can blog about. The fact that I no longer bother about sitting down, arrange my thoughts and put them into words, is a worrying sign. This is not motivational at all, but admittedly, I'm beginning to simply accept things the way they are.

Contentedness, what's so bad about it?

It doesn't have to mean that you're satisfied with your life. No, it's not contentedness but apathy, to put it crudely. It means that you no longer care about what's going on. And in extreme cases, it happens because you don't give a shit about dreams and hopes anymore.

Remember those childhood days when you sat next to the window, imagining flying a jet when you grew up, or visiting that twinkling star in the night sky at a place far, far away - nothing was too far-fetched. But in the process of growing up, you're brought back to reality; you start to realize that your dreams are too far-fetched. That's why as adults, we dismiss those thoughts as "day dreaming". It's a "dream" because one day, you're going to wake up and come to terms with reality.

I quote a friend of mine who said these words in a nomikai last week.

人間は誰でも夢を与えられるべきだ。俺は相思う。 (I believe that everyone should have the right to dream.)

It still amazes me how a semi-drunk man could spout words as inspirational as these. It kept me thinking. True enough, without a dream, there can be no motivation. And once you lose your motivation, your life is no different from that of a washing machine.

Angela Aki, a famous J-pop artist wrote a letter to her future self when she was in high school. I was about to do the same after reading that article. Even though I've long passed high school, I wonder what I'd write to in my letter to my future self. About the list of things to do when I grew up? About the girl in the class I had a crush on? About how well I did in the recent test?

But most of all, whatever is the content, would I have the courage to rip the envelope and face my former self, with pride and dignity?

Gone in a Poof

There're two main reasons I keep this blog.

1. To rant
2. To brag

I'm here now because of reason number 1. I'm mourning, my external HDD is dead, bringing together with it 250GB of data, if not 300. Mind you, that's a colossal loss:

Photos - Fortunately, I happened to backup part of them on a DVD. But still, bye bye to all the photos taken between April to July this year.

Videos - Not many but just two or three video clips that I was considering of submitting for screening in next year's Cannes Film Festival.

Documents - The blueprints for a new Death Star, the ingenious plan for world domination (and oh, some of my assignments and reports) are gone forever.

Others - This accounts for 90% of the loss, but no further elaboration on this because they are stuff that'd incriminate me for copyright infringement. Well, you know what I mean.

But now that I think about it, I should have seen this coming. You see, when I went back to Malaysia during the spring holiday earlier this year, I did something unimaginable. Without realizing that my external HDD was without a power adapter, I simply plugged it in and, horror of all horrors, it exploded. No kidding, it exploded a soft poof and white smoke wisped out from the air vent.

That happened less than 30 minutes after I reached home from the airport.

Come on, why on earth does Japan has to have a different power voltage from the rest of the world? And what the hell, don't all electrical appliances nowadays come with a power adapter that supports different kind of voltages? Sigh, some people are just too stupid to consider about what stupid things some idiots like me can manage to do.

Anyway, after sulking for a few days, I managed to persuade myself that it was the power supply that went kaboom; that the hard disk was still intact. True enough, I managed to get it back to life by plugging it into a new casing.

That worked, at least until recently. Sometimes, it just went on strike. I guess the damage was done during that little incident that happened back home. Yet, I didn't expect it to go so soon. I guess that's what it means by "death comes at least the expected times".

With my dead comrade relegated to the neglected dusty shelf, I've just got a new one. This time, a 500GB. (Heck, it cost less than my former 300GB.) Cool. Now I've got 500GB worth of virtual real estate at my disposal. Frankly speaking, I'm quite at a loss about what to do with it.

Anyway, I'm still trying to persuade myself that my former comrade is just in a comatose state. Perhaps all it needs is a new casing...