The Honeymoon [Part 4/8]: A Magical Evening for Two

Paul has to eat something. After hours of crying and vomiting in his hotel room, he needs to eat regardless if he is up for it. He left his work phone for charging, grabs a jacket and exits the room. On his way to the lobby through the caged elevator, he keeps wondering if he should just fly back to Singapore and see Dini. What's the point of staying here when you are sick and your heart's not in it anymore? Tell Jen you have to work. Tell her there's a company crisis. Get Mark to call you and let her know that it's serious. Without you, the bank will fall apart. Whatever, do something. You have to go back. 

The Honeymoon [Part 3/8]: Bed and Breakfast in Treviso

Paul is in the hotel room alone. He has used the sick card again to get out of sight-seeing with Jen's new found friends. He isn't lying because he is really ill, with possibly the latest bug that is going around infecting everybody. So infectious that it is mandated to install a hand sanitizer at everywhere you turn, and hand shaking can be fined. But his real intention of staying behind is to call Dini.  

The Honeymoon [Part 2/8]: How to Say Love in Italian

Paul looks visibly shaken after listening to his voicemail on the cellphone. His plane though diverted to land in Treviso due to a medical emergency, remains on the runway for a good 70 minutes. The plane is now locked down for a police investigation. Passengers are now breaking into groups and generating heated discussions among themselves. Paul overhears the group behind raving about how the emergency landing grown to become the airline's plot to steal from their luggage.

At one point, a huge white guy wearing a Michael Jackson t-shirt stood up and spat, "Don't think we have no idea what you are trying to pull here! This country is down in the dumps and now they are desperate enough to do anything! First thing outta the people that step into this land. I know my rights! Give me my money back!" When Michael Jackson guy catches Paul looking at him, he sneers, "That means you as well! Job stealing nut here, there, everywhere." A police officer moves over to hush him down.

The Honeymoon [Part1/8]: Romantic Destinations

Someone in a couple of rows behind coughs repeatedly and violently.

Jen Kwok wakes up in her seat, her eyes flutters open softy in tears at a dream that she could no longer remember why she is crying. But she knows that it was a good dream and a positive vibe that better things are coming her way. Why not? After all she is with the man of her dreams, on their way to Venice, one of the most romantic destinations on the planet for their honeymoon.

In darkness, the man of her dreams is sitting right beside her - Paul Quek whom ironically is not having the most romantic time of his life. Paul is wrapped in whatever blankets and sweaters they could find on the plane; positions himself diagonally with his head hyper-extended, possibly for better airway ventilation, his eyelids swimming in an overactive REM sleep and complete the image of a bubonic plague victim with large pieces of tissue paper plugging up his swollen nostrils to stop the leak.

Poor baby.... She combs his hair sympathetically. Her fingers trails down his arm and finds that he is still clutching on to his work phone. Paul is a workaholic, as competition has always been stiff in the banking industry. Jumping hoops for an upcoming promotion, he sprung straight to work after their wedding and had wanted to postpone their honeymoon.

Keep on writing!

Here's a picture of me and my baby boy on his 1 year old birthday party. He is 15 months old now and we affectionately call him Baby Boat.

Becoming a father has changed me greatly. I am more emotive and reflect on past events on a regular basis.

There are two things in my life I have never ever expect from living through this skin and life:

1. I'm a father of 2 before the age of thirty.... (yeah, Wifey is 3 months pregnant, again)

2. I can rap....

Hell if someone had traveled through time and told my 5-years-ago-me that, I would have never believed it!

Then again, I can't believe that they are folding Multiply. It's sad. My daddy emotional are acting up again. It's getting hard to let go of the beautiful stuff. I will miss the stories here and most of all, you guys...

Let's drop by here more frequently before December. I will do some backup-ing and write you guys one more tale for the road. Actually I have been plotting to rewrite a horror story for Multiply since the dawn of 2012, but I have been sitting on my fat ass then doing so.

Now, I have a deadline. Great, I eat pressure for breakfast ya noe'?

 

Bat taste in my mouth, or Top 10 reasons why TDKR is shit. (Spoiler alert ahead)

The only thing that was good about Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, in short TDKR, that it analyzed why its predecessor Dark Knight was the undisputed champion of Batman long list of franchise movies. Hell, this insight also showcase all of the flaws of every superhero gems that fail across the board in their theatric forms.

Sure, TDKR had a bigger war, stronger enemy, sexier female lead and a menacing batplane, but like any movies without the element of story and acting, had me writing a long and teary farewell note to the 3 freaking hours I had wasted sitting in the dark with yawning strangers. The only person who could act was Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth. Anything else that barely resembled any signs of acting was that nuclear bomb in the truck. Christian Bale as usual was as stoic as Tay Ping Hui. Anne Hathaway grinning dumbly from scene to scene. Morgan Freeman was acting Morgan Freeman acting as Morgan Freeman. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was always staring faraway dreamily as if he was shooting some tampon commercial and was perpetually enjoying an unbridled bliss from his crotch.

F**k this shit.

Love the way you lie cover by Nursing Jamz

Nurses performing Eminem and Rihanna's Love the way you lie. I'm rapping.

Us covering Love the way you lie

Fallot's

I have a rare heart condition called Tetralogy of Fallot since birth and was considered by doctors to be a miracle baby to survive past infancy. I always enjoyed memes, and thought I'll make this meme to show you my journey so far.

Updating stuff I messed around with so far

Find YSL!

World's Greatest Mum

 

I rarely see my mother these days. I tried to avoid her. I think it was when she told me this -

Me: "I have been busy with work lately. This is what is happening, I got a very good appraisal at work just this week."
Mother: "Really? Is there money in it?"
Me: "What? No, I guess, a few hundred in the bonus. It's not much."
Mother: "..."
Mother: "Do you know how much does your younger brother earn nowadays? He's earning big bucks."
Me: "Oh."
Mother: "Don't you want to change your job?"
Me: "I like my job."
Mother: "Your brother is really earning astronomically."
Me: "I get it."
Mother: "Alright, alright."
Me: "..."
Mother: "Say, your brother has a bunch of clothes he don't wear as much now. Do you want them?"

Sure, I want them to build a parameter around the refrigerator box I will be living in with my meagre wage and they will be also handy to collect rainwater for me to drink.

Set fire to the rain

In Frank Miller's grisly version of Batman (graphic novel) - 'The Dark Knight Returns', when the caped crusader had retired; in his fifties, hang up his cowl and sealed away his cave, his soul would not let him. It drew him and cajoled him.

Particularly in page 25:

"You are puny. You are small. You are nothing a hollow shell, a rusty trap that cannot hold me. You cannot stop me - not with wine or vows or the weight of age..."

I think a similar voice is calling out to me. No, no to dress up like a rodent and plummeted criminals night after night with my bare knuckles. No.

Something grisly I have helped put away, is returning to -

I don't know what it wants. For months I grew increasingly restless. I paced around like a old bear in a tiny cage. I loathed the mundane stuff and people and conversations. Food devoured without passion or satisfaction. Days went without really meaning anything. I stared ahead hoping that if I try hard enough, I could see.

I tried to trace back to its origins.

I think it started when I thought better to improve my game. Time to nut up and get some serious writing skills, clean up your grammar, plan structure with plot ends, twists and motivations. Edit, edit and edit. Write journals, write to newspaper, write to a bigger audience. Write well. Write clean. Write shit that people read.

And that's when it started to head south.

I wrote hard for official letters and journals. My grammar improved and there were files of characters and plots and motives to fill my cupboards. I joined a writing club of budding writers.

I haven't been able to write the past year. I can't write shit now. Paralysed by anxiety of writing for people, I forget to write for myself. My writings have accustomed to a solid structure that it bored the crap out of me. When I read back my former posts here, even though the grammar and structure had sucked, I wrote lyrically and out of the box. It was thrilling.

If what I write now is better, then I don't want be better. I don't want to be a stick in the mud and buried deep alongside with literary greats. I want to be roaring alive.

Comic shot of L4D2 - Tank was late

Drawing of Mr Tan Kin Lian

Drawing of Mr Tan Jee Say

The real identity of Danny the Democracy Bear

Drawing Dr Tan Cheng Bock

Drawing Lady Gaga for Modpak

The human ouroboros

I often have to remind myself to dismiss estranged ties and unreciprocated relations; like severed appendage and gangrenous limb.

Then I realise -

I was that severed limb. From the very beginning.

1st attempt at caricature