The Fortnight That Was – Jan 10 – 24, 2010

“Hopefully I could keep to a schedule of a minimum of 1 blog entry per week this year. “

Right!

That went out the door almost immediately after I said it :-p

Anyway … I promise myself that I will update the blog once a week so that I don’t get too rusty when it comes down to writing. Which by the way also applies to my stage play writing which I still have yet to start. I have all these stories running around in my head but have not found the drive to sit myself down and write them all out. This has always been a problem for me. Once I get started then I would usually sail through the process but to find the momentum to overcome the initial bump to start can be at times infuriating. This is why I am totally envious of some of the people I know who can just sit there and churn out full plays in just a few weeks.

Work continues on steadily. Not many surprises in the 2 weeks. I guess it’s the nature of the work that I only really into high gear when something breaks down. Other times, I have plenty of down time to plan for improvements and other things that I want to do during the day. The only exciting thing that came up was the news that our team will be going for a team building excursion at the end of Feb. I have never been on one so I guess that you can say that I’m looking forward to the experience.

Had a few gaming nights within the 2 weeks. The first was to play “Munchkin Quest” that I finally got a copy of after waiting for it for months. As exciting as it was to get it, I have to say that our session experience was less than exciting. I don’t fault the game or the people playing but I think that MQ is a bit difficult to introduce to non gamers especially those who have never played any of the Munchkin card games before.

We had better luck with playing “Castle Keep” and “Wasabi!” in the other sessions. Both are simple tile laying games that people can get into pretty fast and were high on the fun quotient. “Wasabi!” especially got a vote from the group for a return engagement the next time we meet up for some games. I’ve read about the game for some time from the BGG website and knew that it would go down well with them.

My birthday’s coming up in a few weeks. Will be turning 37 this year. Every year is a happy surprise for me since there was a dark time in my life that I thought that I would never make it beyond 30. Happily those clouds are behind me and I look forward to each day with as much gusto as I can muster.

No one can ask for more.

The Week That Was – Jan 3 – 8, 2010

Another year rolls by and a new entry for this oft-neglected blog :-p

Hopefully I could keep to a schedule of a minimum of 1 blog entry per week this year.

2010 rolled in for me with the company of great friends who we celebrated with in Melaka. I could have not asked for a better group to see the new decade in. It’s actually funny to see the digits “2010” roll in as growing up we have always seen this decade to be the one to look forward to for all the futuristic bits and bobs. Having finally reached the promised date, I could not help but feel a bit disappointed that the reality didn’t really turn out as fantastic as the promise. Of course we do have technology now that we would never dream of 30 years ago but we are definitely still far away from the vision that the sci-fi masters have put out in both literature and films. Guess we will have to wait for another 30 years before the Jetsons style personal jet packs solve the traffic problems in KL.

Work continues to be without any surprises this week. Most of the time, I spent tying up loose ends from what was left over from last year’s work load. I’m looking forward to start implementing a few new projects and changes that I’ve been planning to at work. Hopefully I would be able to contribute more improvement ideas for the team in the year ahead. I’m definitely sure that some of the items I have planned would help out but it would take some time to get it in.

2009 saw me put in 3 plays to be staged at klpac and I look forward to be able to pen more for consideration. KL has been chasing me to submit something for “IndicineLive!” but I find myself hesitating because I don’t know if I can actually write something funny. It’s one thing to have humor in the script as an unintentionally byproduct but it’s a whole other ball game of trying to write something that you hope people would get a laugh out off. Still it is an intriguing challenge and I still have one more week to figure out if I’m up to the task. I probably try to put pen to paper this coming weekend and explore if I do have a funny bone to tickle.

Board games have recently featured a lot in my social life of late and I’m thoroughly enjoying them. Just recently we played a round of “Kill Doctor Lucky” with a group of people who never played it before and everyone had a good time. I’ve also found really good small plastic containers from the chain of 100Yen stores in town that help made the games pieces I already own more organized. To top it all off, I’ve caved in an purchased the iPod version of the popular “Settlers of Catan” board game and have been enjoying it since then. I would definitely be adding the game in my board game want list so I can get it and introduce me gaming rookie friends to it.

On a sad note, I woke up today to the news of the torching of a church in Desa Melawati that people are might link to the recent controversy of the court ruling of allowing the usage of the word “Allah” by the Herald. I stand by the belief that if Heralds wants to use the term in their mass publication then they should use the full terms that are used by the Christian Arabs throughout the Middle East. Using the terms "Allah al-‘ab" (الله الأب) meaning God the father, "Allah al-ibn" (الله الابن) mean God the son, and "Allah al-rūh al-quds" (الله الروح القدس) meaning God the Holy Spirit instead of just “Allah” to refer to the aspects of the Catholic Trinty would clearly differentiate the usage of the terms.

Regardless, I personally condemn those who burn down/destroy/deface houses of worship as people who belittle the importance of religion for the people and have no right to claim themselves as being pious or religious. An eye for an eye will only leave us with a people who are blind physically, mentally and spiritually who would have no discourse to accept the first one eyed man as king.