Saturday, July 02, 2005

Books and Signal

OK, it's not that I dun like books, in fact I'm sort of like a book worm though I kinda abandon this liking for books after I started working a few years back. But lately I bought lots of books, at least that's a lot to my standard as I tend to borrow from either library or my endless resource of well-read friends. Lots to what extend you may ask, 5 in 2 months? Haha... it's like compensation to the lack of it the few years back, fueled up by the thought of tax exemption up to RM700. Haha..... si kui me comes in the picture again. I bought mostly chinese books with one exception, a book by Thomas Friedman called The Lexus and The Olive Oil. Evidently, he's a good author and his pieces touches on his feeling as a journalist and facts about globalisation. Good book for those who reads the world news and not phobic about political scenarios around the world (for those who even ignorant to our own country's political scenario, forget abt this, ok, no offense). Bought 2 bookagazine hahaha.... (i donned this word myself (hybrid of book and magazine). It's actually published by Taiwanese publisher under the series of Net and Books. Each copy will emphasize on different topics and the entries and articles are very nicely packaged with illustration and you will find very ecletic choice of correspondence submitting their opinions on the specified topic each issue. The two copies I bought was on Greece and Music. I am always fascinated by the Greek mythology since I was small and I remember I used to have a pen-pal from Greece but we lost contact these days. I was always dumb-strucked by the breathtaking sceneries of the blue-Santorini sky and sea decorated by its cluster of nicely built and painted houses scattered around the cliff of the islands of Greece. I always wish to remember each specific Greek mythological figure i.e. Zeus, Athena etc... but being older each day, my memory turned me down in such a speedy rate hence having a book is way much easier. OK, my next dream destination is Greece, actually it was always my dream destination but somehow got detoured for my own trip after my UK training, due to mostly economical and logistic reason. The next volume is on music and it covers quite a complete range of music and entries of ppl like Lin Qiang (folk rock singer turned electronica-punk singer from Taiwan), Luo Da You and Chui Jian (godfather of Taiwan and China rock scene respectively) plus an entry by Lei Guang Xia surely made it a sure-buy. Haven't read yet. Actually I want to buy the volume called "Alone"/"Yi Ge Ren". Wouldn't it be more appropriate??? Haha.... gonna read the book and match it with my own life now and I think the similarity will be at least 80%. MC, one of my friend mentioned that it will be more depressing to read this kind of book but who cares??? We can't be any less depressed by not reading that right? Haha... Saw another book in Popular by this Japanese gal, I think called "Five Years of Living Alone" (sth like tat lah). It's again the illustration book which caught the hit bug lately (or maybe since few years ago) after the success of Jimmy Liew (known fondly as Ji Mi) about life of living alone. Well... come to think of it, I can actually start to write something like tat. However, my drawing sucks so I may opt to use image/photo instead. 4th book is an illustration book by Miao Ru, famous for her Exchange Diaries series. The title is My Life in Seattle, of course about her life in Seattle after moving there with her Norwegian husband. Seattle.... the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan classic comes in mind but after n-times of watching the reruns which was repeated-shamelessly in our local TV stations, it lost the ummpphh.... Only my fascination with the soundtrack stays as it was a good compilation of nice jazzy tunes, not to forget it did revive the Nat King Cole's classic, When I Fall in Love. Nice and light, the book by Miao Ru. The 5th book and the latest is the one on Stephen Chow. Yup, u read it right! The book actually opened my eyes on Stephen Chow's film though I kinda develop likings for his recent film esp "Eat God". Very impressive fanbase and big names submitted their entries to this book as well, e.g. Wakin Chow, Nan Fang Sth (dunno how to pronounce but he's a very famous social commentator), Tsang Bao Yi and Stephanie Sun the singer, famous film critic Men Tin Siong and his amazing fans. Some interesting facts here, Yu Fa, the famous ugly sidekick of his films, fondly remembered with "her" nose-picking (digging more aprtly) antics is actually Stephen's classmate!!!

sig·nal ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sgnl)n.
An indicator, such as a gesture or colored light, that serves as a means of communication. See Synonyms at
gesture.

The above definition was taken from dictionary.com and I guess it must be sent to millions of drivers in Malaysia as they don't know what's the meaning of it and how the little device in our cars which normally on the right hand side of the steering (sometimes left side e.g. Proton Waja) can perform the function as SIGNAL!!!!!!!!! Imagine you are waiting at the junction, trying to get into the main road... not any main road but seriously busy main road with continuous stream of cars. You are there, patiently waiting for a chance to move thinking that if there's any car which want to turn into ur junction, that's ur chance to end ur patience-testing wait. But those drivers are just too ignorant abt that little device in their car called SIGNAL, just drive elegantly into the junction without considering the feeling of the other party who may have been waiting for ages!!!!!! Seriously, the traffic police should be stationed at those strategic junction and send the summons to those drivers who failed to give SIGNAL!!!!!! It can cause a major jam with cars queueing endlessly trying to get out to the main road and I'm sure the consequences such as time wasted, fuel wasted, temper provoked, foul words and swearing shouted are enough to justify the station of traffic police. Come on, friend!!!! Do give signal when you want to turn into any direction if it's not your current direction!

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