love, life, school and coffee.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

NovaMatrix - Chapter 1

Enothe Bulwark stirred in the seat. It creaked under his weight. In this day of space travel and clean synthetic materials, the wooden chair felt so quaint. Everything about the place was quaint. Who cooked with spices anymore? Most of the food cooked at homes were pre-packaged with flavours infused into the freeze-dried ingredients.

This "Oracle" must be some old hag, Enothe thought to himself. He wondered why Colonel Woolf had sent him on this “mission”. Seems more like a spiritual rite to me, he muttered to himself. This wasn’t a mission, it was something to pander to Woolf’s superstitions. At least I’m being paid a normal rate for it.

The brunette who answered the door walked through the bead curtains into the sitting room. She was stunning, in an awkward way. Her green eyes don’t go with her hair, but man! She has great skin and a wonderful figure!

“The Oracle is ready to see you now, Lieutenant Bulwark.”
“Call me Enothe. And you are?” Enothe gave the most dashing smile he could offer, but got an impassive smile and an uncomfortable silence in return. He quickly held his arm across the bead curtains, pushing them aside and walking through the doorway.

Enothe had never seen so many plants indoors before. Where were the smooth, dirt repellent walls? All he saw were leaves, like he was inside some living organism. Tending to the plants was another stunning lady, wearing a vibrant green toga and a brown sash draped over her exposed shoulder. She had green-grey eyes and long black hair with luscious waves.

“So you’re the one.” She remarked coolly as her eyes studied his form.
“I’m Enothe, actually. That’s E-N-O-T-H-E.” He stepped forward and raised his hand out for a handshake, inadvertently brushing it against his slug-throwing sidearm. It was a subconscious reaction whenever he was in an unfamiliar place.
Her face betrayed a hint of scorn, but she quickly covered it up. She kept her hands firmly on the watering can, only choosing to say, “Woolf tells me you’re a real soldier. A real fighting man.”
Enothe weighed the words in his head. That was hardly a compliment, but she wasn’t being rude either. “Woolf told you that I’d be coming?” He replied simply.
“Ah, at least you’re smart enough to side-step my earlier comment. I’ve seen many other ship captains either take insult or let it go to their heads. What did he tell you about me?”
Enothe bit his tongue. She didn’t answer my question! Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he answered, “That you’re the oracle. That you’d tell me some things of importance.” He wanted to continue to say ‘That you could tell me about my parents’, but thought it trivial.
“You’re holding back. You’re not feeling comfortable in this unfamiliar surrounding. But today’s session will end with me saying this: A powerful enemy approaches. A knight will come forth and end the constant feuding amongst the Great Nations. But strength is not your enemy. Fear is.”
She smiled inwardly at his scowl. “You’ll come back to me soon, Enothe. I’ll be at Mumble Jumble night. Find me there.”
Enothe did not hide the disbelief on his face. “The Oracle goes clubbing?”

“Oh, please. Don’t call me that. It makes me sound like an old hag. You can call me Iris next time.”
Enothe walked out of the door, feeling extremely light-headed. This is just some silly trick by Colonel Woolf, Enothe. The Oracle, the gift of foresight? Iris? What the frack do they take me for? He quickly left the place and headed back for his ship.

“So what do you think, dear?” Iris asked the brunette.
“I thought that someone with his reputation will be more confident. He did try to be charming on me though. I expected him to hit on me outright.”
“You’re not fully using your gifts, my young templar. But is it just as I have foreseen?”
“Yes, mum. I’m starting to fall for him already.”

Monday, May 21, 2007

R and J


This picture is about as irrelevant as the post that follows. That's a very nice Honda Civic, by the way.


For the longest time, Romeo Montague had been a Singtel user. His father was a Singtel user, so it was only natural for him to be one. It made the handling of bills by his father easy. His father didn't want to make the billing even easier by subscribing to the MIO plan, but that's another story.

Romeo never had a problem keeping to under 300 SMS each month. His old plan allowed for 360 sms, and he had to struggle just to hit half that number. Romeo never was popular. He often hung out with the same few people; they would communicate with very curt SMS messages like, "Same time, same place, doing the same thing". He never had that problem, of course, before he met her.

Juliet Capulet was an M1 user. Like most mobile plans go, it didn't make any difference who the provider was. They offered very similar plans, caused by this freak of nature called competition. She had always overshot the sms limit, but it didn't matter to her father, who paid for her bill.

Romeo and Juliet were the in the throes of SMS passion. He's send her an sms every morning to greet her and wish her a good day ahead. From there, they'd continue messaging till they slept at night. It was a good tool for communication and for staving off boredom.


"Romeo! What the h*** is this?" Mr Montague bellowed. Romeo glanced at the piece of paper in his father's hand and answered, "It's a phone bill."
"Not just any phone bill, young man, but YOUR handphone bill! You overshot your talktime by 7 minutes!"
"It's 7 minutes, dad. And it's the first time I've done so in my 4 years with this subscription plan."
"And what about this? Doesn't your plan provide 1000 free sms? Why are they charging us for the 45 messages over 500?" He stabbed an accusing finger at the figure on the bill.
"Oh, the plan's only allows 500 free sms to Singtel customers, on top of the 500 free. That adds up to 1000."
"So why the h*** did you send so many sms!"
"Dad, all this while I've only sent 200 sms TOPS. You complain that I'm not fully utilising my allocation, that we're not milking the most out of my plan. I overshoot by 45 messages this time, and you start yelling at me. So what is more important to you? Scrimping, or fully utilising my quota?"
"I want you to control yourself! Stop sending so many messages!"

Mr Montague was not making sense to Romeo. To stop sending "so many messages" was to not fully utilise his sms quota. But oh well. Romeo decided that his SMS relationship had to end. The only way out of this was for Juliet to move to Singtel.

"Why Romeo? Why can't you move to M1?"
"My dad's a Singtel shareholder." Romeo answered simply, as it that answered the question at all.
The couple sat quietly, watching each other fidget once in a while.
Romeo ventured unsurely, "So I guess this is it. Your dad won't switch to Singtel, and mine won't move from it. Our sms relationship is doomed."
Juliet stirred. She wanted to say, "Don't leave me, Romeo." But she could only have done it over sms. So she reached out and grabbed his hand.

For the first time, they touched. It was a different sensation as one they got from tapping plastic keys repeatedly. It felt... warm. They pulled each other close and shared a long kiss. "We'll have to meet up more if we stop our SMS relationship." Romeo whispered.
"I don't mind. I feel so much more complete this way." Juliet cooed in reply.
Romeo pursed his lips and said, "Good. My ez-link card doesn't have a quota." -Jimmy

Thursday, May 17, 2007

All's Fair in Love and War

The dying moments of a U-boat. The captain is forced to surface in an attempt to slow the heavy flooding. Once on the surface, he is at the mercy of the massive guns on the destroyer hunting him.

While combat submarines made their debut in The Great War, they were much more notorious in WW2, most notably in the form of German U-boats. Of course, U-boats are the anglicised form of u-boots, which itself is an abbreviation for unterseeboot. It's all the same, really. They're "undersea boats", adept at both surface cruising and underwater operations.

U-boats were ultimately just sophisticated launch platforms for their primary weapons: torpedoes. Early war models ran on a straight course to their target. All the torpedo officer could do was set a gyro angle for it to turn to, such that the sub need not directly face the target. Misses were high, duds were common, but a shrewd U-boat captain could rack up a large amount of merchant tonnage with a combination of both skill and luck.

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of merchant ships, cargo and fuel were sent to the bottom of the ocean in the few short years of the war. Ok, the fuel won't sink... the tanker sank. Needless to say, the number of lives lost could almost reach the figure for tonnage sank.

However, the allies developed anti-sub tactics. Subs could not move underwater, move fast and move silent all at the same time. Destroyer and frigate captains used these limitations to full effect: the sub had to move underwater in the presence of these ships. The captain now had to force the sub captain into moving fast, thus creating more noise and making it easier to detect the sub. Forcing a sub to move fast usually involves dropping depth charges into the water over a sub's suspected position, forcing the sub captain to take drastic action or risk losing his boat. In moving into his attack run, the warship captain has to throttle up his engines, creating more noise and making it harder for him to detect the enemy sub. A skilled (or lucky) sub captain can use this increased noise to quickly put some distance between him and his predator. It was a harrowing cat and mouse game for the sub captain.

Once out of the depth charges' range, a cunning sub captain might want to initiate a little payback: firing from the stern mounted torp tube. The hunted now becomes the hunter; the destroyer captain now has to scramble to react accordingly.

Thousands of lives were lost in battles like these. Many were because of attrition. But many were also shrewd soldiers who ran out of luck. Literature calls the U-boat "wolfpacks" people who fought hard and fair.

Did they really fight fair? Was it fair to take out unarmed merchant ships or oil tankers? Was it fair to call the 2 years before allied ships wised up to U-boat attacks "happy times"?
All is fair in love and war.

In a war, an unarmed, undefended convoy is fair game. Don't lament over the few ships that were taken out by the U-boats. Blame the powerful governments and the politicians that started the war. The submarine captain was merely following orders; the politician declared the war.
How about in love then? Have we only ourselves to blame for looking for love? Is it fair to backstab a friend so that you end up with the girl both of you were fighting for? If you are heartbroken after a breakup, isn't it your fault then for investing so much of your emotions? Don't complain if you can't find a boyfriend/girlfriend, ask yourself why. Is it something about you? Are you trying hard enough?
I've had friends who keep making a big fuss about how they've been single all their lives. Hey, I've been too, so just go home and hunt some British destroyers on your PC -Jimmy

Monday, May 14, 2007

L

I've always respected the privacy of people mentioned on my blog, so I've never posted names of the friends I blog about. So today, L comes along and asks me to write a post about her. My very weak counter-argument (besides the fact that I was feeling lazy) was that 'S' was reserved for another friend. So L says that she'd be known as L. Not "Friend L", mind you, but just "L". She thinks it's cool to share the same letter name as the kooky detective Laweit, the mascara-ed dude who has a fetish for sugar in the popular manga "Death Note".

Anyway, L wanted a piece of her legacy imprinted on my blog, so she demanded that I say she's awesome to the very few people who actually know the existence of this blog. (That's you. And you.) It wasn't so much a demand, really. I kinda negotiated a bargain such that I gain airtime on her blog too. We are so shallow.

I was wondering how I was supposed to cast a blog post around just one line proclaiming her utter greatness. I'm really not that good with words.

L and I met last year during the SMUGS nitebiking event. We had a very brief chat about how a superhero with the powers of a lizard could ambush his supervillians by dropping his pistol-wielding hand and leaving it as a 'present' for the enemy. No worries, though, he'll grow that hand back. Lizardman could also wage a psychological war with them by leaving poop all over the place and hiding his reptilian brethen in the supervillians' Milo. (Think kiss-kiss lizard suprise)

During my election speech, I feigned interest in her to gain a few cheap laughs which boosted my confidence for the rest of the speech. And we didn't keep in contact since. Earlier this year, though, I added her on MSN and we started having kooky conversations about ice cream, lying to our mothers and standby spouses. However, I really got to like her when she let me drive her dad's car. (It's a long story. I may or may not talk about it next time.)

She's goes clubbing, I hate it; She's extraverted, I'm far from it; She's got cable, I don't.

Just now, while reading her blog, I realised how some of her posts are actually replies to some of mine. She also provided some convincing counter-arguments to the ones I put forth. I've been impressed by her a number of times, this one should count quite high on the richter scale.

I had been part of the "envisioning process" when Friend H wanted to start a blog. We wanted 4 guys and a girl to provide viewpoints on issues that were bugging them. Someone posts an issue and the others provide their points of view, each with his/her own quirk. I was supposed to be this boy meets world guy, giving very conservative views on things. In some ways, I've always been like that when posting. The girl was supposed to be the fiesty one, providing really kooky viewpoints that still hold water about as well as ziploc bags.

I think I found that girl. L, I think you're awesome! -Jimmy

Darts of Pleasure

Words of love and words so leisured
Words are poisoned darts of pleasure.

Some time ago, I had this conversation with my JC friends. Friend I had just gotten attached, and Friend H was sharing some of the things he could look forward to in a relationship. H talked about pet names.

"Pet names are one of the things that are unique in a relationship. You come up with names like Hunny Bunny for each other."
Friend I asked H what pet name he gave for the girl for his longest lasting relationship.
"Oh, I'm a lazy person, so I just went for the one syllable 'dear'."

At this point, I blurted out, "I 'dear' everyone on my MSN la."

The point of this post is about how easy it is to call someone "dear". Everyone does it in business letters. "Dear so-and-so,", they all begin with. But are those clients really dear to you? In monetary terms maybe, but is that the only way they endear themselves to you? By increasing the thickness of your wallet?

Friend D and I once had this conversation about calling a friend with terms of endearment. I remember telling her back then, "I'd only call close friends dear. Other than that, it's more like a term for exasperation. Like, 'Dear, now look what you've done'."

So what does that make me? A person who says 'dear' without attaching any emotional weight on it? A mere hand-dryer whose sole purpose is to blow hot air?

I might have gotten the answer last week. While I was grilled by friend Hf (I sure hope I've never assigned Hf to anyone else) on who I was dating, I coyly replied, "My heart only beats for you, dear." To which she retorted, "But I won't date you, cos you only say sweet words and nothing else."

Ouch. I guess I better find that power socket and start blowing hot air, then. Some of you might want that from me. He's much better looking as a cute little plastic box with a fan and heating element anyway. But don't you want to hear my side of the story?

Hf really is a dear cos she's smart and receptive. She has very good interpersonal skills and we have very easygoing conversations. That explains the 'dear' bit. How about the other thing about you only spouting sweet nothings like a Glade Air freshener? Well, if I said it once, and I meant it then, and I said it again, except that I was indifferent about attaching an emotion to it, does it count? I *might* mean it, but I definitely did not *not* mean it.

My view on the issue lies in the line from a Franz Ferdinand song. Leisured words of love are darts of pleasure, providing us with pangs of euphoria and ecstacy. But these same darts that provide pleasure are also laced with poison. Fire those darts wrongly, or let them hit you at the wrong spot, those darts might not be so pleasurable after all. -Jimmy

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Boys will be Boys will be Boys

"MG squad, set up on this position!"

Meet Greg. He's your average university kid. Dresses in t-shirts and berms, complains about proffessors like most normal university kids, does quite well in school and is great to have in a project group cos he comes up with lots of wacky ideas.

Now Greg and I didn't have much in common, besides one ill-fated semester with him in my BeeGeeAss group. Then, I went out for a LAN session with some of my friends, and he tagged along. We had found common ground.


Many days, we'd hit the LAN shops after school, earning our "Special Ops Specialist" badges and getting ourselves promoted to sergeant. We'd discuss our in-game performance after the sessions, and he was always entertaining to discuss with, cos he gave silly sound effects for every single thing that he did in-game.

Our other friends will always wonder how these two buggers always seemed to have time for "another lan session" while they were busy studying in the library. Many of them never afforded the time to go with our struggles for honour and glory in the virtual battlefields. Greg and I would discuss new games, or coo over the latest previews of the perpetually delayed juicy new titles. When the games come out, we'd raise our spynets and find out which LAN shop offered such games. (Actually, it's more like which LAN shop could handle the intense graphics of such games.)

We'd then exclaim in unison when we drop V1 rockets on the enemy base. Or giggle when the enemy tanks get shredded by our AT guns while passing through a chokepoint. It's a strange giggle, part euphoria, part sadistic glee, part exclaimation. It's a giggle only gamers understand.


So what's the point of my post? Well, we started interning recently as part of our degree programme. We're now part of the army of corporate drones, filtering into the impassive office buildings in the central business district. I have to wear a silly monkey suit everyday. I look like the thousand other guys, long-sleeved shirts, tie, dark pants and dark leather shoes. Greg has to dress like a monkey too. Admittedly, he doesn't look like the laid-back Greg I know.
However, one day, while eating lunch together, Greg started on the topic of computer games. I was explaining to him how glorious shield generators looked on "high" detailed graphics settings, what with the shimmery effect they produce. Then I got stumped trying to describe the "ripple" effect that the shields produce when dissipating the energy of incoming projectiles. As I fumbled through my vocabulary, Greg exclaimed, "Oh! You mean that 'pje-yonw' effect?" And immediately, I nodded.

Beneath the starched stiffness of our business shirts and the polished leather shoes, boys will be boys will be boys. -Jimmy