invisibleogre

reminders and futures

2010-11-06T07:58:00.000-07:00

A letter to a loved one who I thought I was going to lose some time back.

I post it to remind myself that sometimes we need to learn to let go to preserve. And that even I have come to learn to love another.

---------------------------

[---],

My dearest angel. I want to tell you that I miss you.

I know what it's like to move to a new place and be overwhelmed by a lack of supervision, a new environment and a whole host of new people. Everything's brand new and everything has to be tried at least once! I also know that I've encouraged you to go out and be brave and I'm really glad that you've found close friends there. On the flip side, it means less time for us left back home and that's something I thought I'd be able to deal with.

Turns out that maybe it's harder than expected for me too.

When you first arrived in [---], we filled each others' loneliness with sweet nothings and virtual contact. But an [---]-shaped hole in my days opened up when you started exploring and filling the [invisibleogore]-shaped hole in yours with all the new obligations, places, experiences and people thrust on you over there. I've never been before and never ever want to be a naggy, clingy bf. I want to be the devoted boy back home waiting with supportive words and always ready with a biiiiiig hug (or e-hug) and kisses to brighten your day. Someone who you're proud to show to your friends and say 'He's MIIIIINE!'

I've felt neglected and been asking for more attention than you've had to spare recently... and thus been doing a rather rubbish job of being supportive. I do not want to smother you and drive you any further away... so in hope of another chance to steal your heart away, I offer to you the only things in my power to give now. My understanding, an apology and a step back, without recriminations, to give you all the room you need to spread your wings.

Understand this, I've grown to love you lock, stock and smoking barrel and do not want to lose you. If I remain special to you, it would be good for us to sit down and have a real talk to adjust expectations and about everything else, no matter what the outcome.

Whatever happens, spread your wings and grow, beautiful soul. Fly. I pray that you still do miss me enough to let me keep you company on your journey and to take shelter with me from the storms life brings. Otherwise, I pray that I've learned to love you enough to let you go and become the person you're meant to be, finding satisfaction in your happiness even when your road lies far away from mine.

I haven't stopped missing you and will be waiting for you with arms wide open... but only if you want me.

All my love,
[invisibleogre]

:)

2010-11-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

You should never lie, cheat, steal or drink.

But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must cheat, cheat death. If you must steal, steal away from bad company and if you must drink... drink in the moments that take your breath away.

satisfied minds

2009-03-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

when a man moves from a dark place to one filled with light, it is freedom.

freedom from the weight of expectations and the chains of convention. in the light everything looks vivid and beautiful. yet always on the horizon you see the clouds. the good times don't last. and you ask yourself 'why?'. then you brace yourself, hitch your collar up and trudge on towards the next brighter horizon.

but then comes a time when there isn't a brighter horizon ahead of you. it is no longer worth fighting the darkness. and you never want to go back. ever.

live fast die young. burn fast but bright. shining as the sun. and go not with a whimper but with a bang.

god help me, i understand.

rest in peace, old friend.

yourself... plain and simple

2008-11-27T06:09:00.000-08:00

What is up with people who say 'your own self'?

Making sentences longer does not increase their relevance or weight. It does not serve to help convince others that you know what you're talking about either. All that happens is you waste words, maul the sentence and sound like a fool.

I reserve special scorn for gun-nuts who look squarely at a camera and say 'if there was someone trespassing on your property, wouldn't YOU need a gun to protect your... own... self!'

No. I wouldn't. I'm not going to stand at my doorway yelling 'Git off ma prah-perty or ima shoot yo punk ass'. I would lock my doors, call the police and get a nice strong pole. Because I know how to use it and chances are that it's not going to take a life when used in self-defence. Guns kill people... that's all.

Asking if I want to protect 'my own self' only earns you a mocking laugh. Especially when my views are diametrically opposed to yours.

life

2008-11-18T08:56:00.000-08:00

sometimes we forget what should be most important.

let me never forget, amidst the pressures of this world, that we take nothing with us. yet leave so much behind.

Mediacorp... bringing you mauled English!

2008-11-17T00:11:00.000-08:00

They are bringing you some football team's attempt to secure a 'historical' third league victory... live!

Dot. Dot. Dot.

What happened to good old copywriting? Or is that not necessary in television nowadays? Recap: Historical means a past event. Historic means an event of import. Get it right! Cute little kittens are dropping like flies here people!

And did people know that there's apparently a new actor in town? 'Gurmit and Fiona goes' somewhere to bring us some fantastic food report. Grammar 101: 'Goes' refers to a single person. When you want to refer to a group of individuals, you say 'go'.

My goodness, maybe I should give up this whole legal shtick and be a script writer in Singapore. I'd either make a fortune from fixing all these silly errors or starving because English, apparently, need not be spoken well on Singapore television.

I cannot wait til I get my set-top box. It will be welcome to not have to deal with CNA and Channel 5 to get my fix of video news! I will be retreating to the safe, happy zone of BBC News. And sometimes even American programming... where the English is at least accurate, if spoken strangely.

memories

2008-11-13T11:39:00.001-08:00

I just read the first entry in this blog from my time as a passionate law student writing a paper on assisted dying in the UK.

So fiery, so passionate, so angry... and still so true.

Singapore is now going through the throes of contemplating assisted dying. And the same old arguments are popping up.

Slippery slope, family members' love and care, value of life. Been there, heard that, rolled my eyes at the nay-sayers.

Dignitas, my dear friends, is called Dignitas for a reason. They let people die with dignity. Perhaps it might abhor you, you who fear death, but sometimes death is the lesser fear... the greater fear is of having a bright, sharp wit, trapped in a body unable to do anything more than drool, piss and shit all over itself. that's what happens when you lose control of your involuntary muscles you know.

Or to have a healthy body... but a mind so ravaged by Alzheimer's that you beat your wife... someone who's loved and cared for you through the best and the worst of times. Is that dignity? Is that a beautiful time of bonding?

It is not the thought that they are dying which brings tears to my eyes, it is the thought that they know not only the pain and suffering which they are going to go through but also that they bring the same upon those closest to them... for who else would care for them in the end times? And at what cost is it provided? A wife who is glad when her husband of 30-odd years finally dies? Is that the cost our society would demand?

Unless the government can provide Christpher Reeve or Michael J. Fox style treatment and care death might be their only dignified path left. Better to pass at a time of your choosing, in possession of your wit, surrounded by people you love who will never grow to hate you.

The years may pass but convictions will not waver.

/flame on

2008-11-13T10:05:00.000-08:00

The recent presidential election in America was truly a historic event.

Yes... 'a historic event', not 'an historic event'. Unless, of course, we've started swallowing our 'h's the same way the Americans have. How many people in Singapore say 'erbs' when they mean 'herbs'. Take note, CNA, if you want your television reporters to say 'HIStoric' instead of 'IStoric', it is an 'A' that belongs in front of it. See what I did? I used the correct word!

Moving on, it seems that the copywriters at Mediacorp have latched on to the 'historic' tag and gone wild. Apparently, an upcoming football match in the S-League or some-such is going to be a 'historical' event. Oh, really? Has it already happened? If it was going to have that much of an impact, it would be a 'historic' event... the two are NOT interchangeable for the love of cute baby kittens! Historic means it is an event of note, some sort of history-making thing. Historical means that it has already happened and is an event of record. Historical events need not be important, in fact the vast majority of historical events probably aren't. Going on that though... the upcoming football match in 'one of Asia's top 10 leagues' is likely to be just such a historical event (see what I did again? I"m clever, me!) unnoticed and pretty much not cared about.

Moving on again, what on earth is with the use of 'ironical'? Making a word longer doesn't make it sound more intelligent or emphasise your point any better... Why? Just... why? Just because something may be logical, it doesn't mean that 'ironic' needs to be dressed up with '-al'. Something may be ironic and retribution may be ironically come by... but what use, ironcial? It's just 'ironic' with window dressing... unnecessary, ugly window dressing.

Next, 'so-called'. I used to be platonically acquainted with this phrase. Never in love, mind you! Our relationship was purely platonic and I did use it from time to time. For example: 'Your so-called friend just ratted on you, hah!' I can even tolearate 'this so-called financial crisis'. But oh, how I've grown to hate it. People use 'so-called' much too often. Particular annoyance: 'This so-called plaintiff'. Excuse me? It says right here on this piece of paper we call a case report that this was the person who started the action. Since people who start actions in court are called plaintiffs, ipso facto, this person is a plaintiff. No 'ifs', not 'buts' and certainly no 'so-calleds' about it. If it's true, it's true.

Oh and one last thing! 'Voir dire'. Learn to pronounce it please. please. pretty please. baby kittens die every time someone gets it wrong. It is not, in my approximation of IPA (call it pig IPA), Voo-ire die-er or Voy-er die-er. It sounds something like vwa di-r(with a little bit of a roll of the tongue on the 'r'). C'est comme 'voir dire' en francais. But the term is derived from an old French phrase which means 'truth say'. Tidbit done!

In summary: Hire people who can speak English to write it; English is a beautiful language if you craft it right... and longer words do not make better English; be accurate; and pronunciation (in pig IPA, pro-NUN-si-ay-shun) is everything.

Thank you.
/flame off

Re-discovered

2008-11-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

I'm back.

Older and wiser.

Queen?!

2006-07-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

Holy shit! My brother listens to Queen...

Graduation in about a week, life's moving on...

assisted dying redux

2006-05-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Continuing with my rant about assisted dying.

The fools in Parliament have rejected it again.

The news says 'Oh forget it, it'll never pass.'

Pro-life boobs say 'It's a victory for the sanctity of life!'

I say 'Fuck all of you.'

Just as a democracy does not mean that anyone is allowed to say/do anything they want, sanctity of life is not about keeping someone alive without regard for anything else.

A lot of tits in America think that their 'great democracy' is a freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Want a supersized Big Mac? Deserve a supersized Big Mac. If you get fat, don't worry you can always sue McDonalds for making you a fat bastard. Want a gun? Deserve a gun. If you kill someone don't worry, bearing arms is constitutional right. After all, 'It's what my great-great-great-great granpa fought the British and Injuns for! The freedom to bear arms and do whatever the hell I please. Every inch of America was won for true Americans with our ancestors blood it was. So all you foreigners stop whining about poverty cause you're all IMMIGRANTS and don't deserve land of your own. Compensate INJUNS you gotta be joking, they lost their land to our great-great-great-great granpa and it ain't none of mah business.' See the irony? Want a war? Deserve a war. Unilateral war is the only currency terrorists understand... says Bush while losing ground on domestic policy polls.

Okay, if rights are so important, how about basic human rights like the right to be free from torture? FUCK that says Uncle Sam. The rules of war on terror are different! No Geneva Convention, no UN Declaration of Human Rights. We'll hold whoever we damn well please without trial and without accountability. Oh and if we attach live wires to their balls while we're at it it is NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS. Oh but wait, that doesn't apply to you China. We'll cockblock you every step we can because you violate human rights all the time and that's just baaaaad.

Democracy in international law is a joke with America throwing its weight around like an overweight, unfit wrestler. Sooner or later someone big enough *cough*China*cough* is gonna come along and shove right back. Oh... is THAT why they're being blocked all the time. Right. So democracy, what's that?

Democracy was never about being able to chuck your weight around and do whatever you want as long as you have the muscle to back it up. Whether that's on the national or international level that remains true. Pushing others around and achieving the best for number one has a name... it's ANARCHY. Democracy is about the regulation of freedoms, regulation of what rights people have in order to achieve a balance.

After that big arc, back to assisted dying. Just as democracy isn't about the complete freedom to do whatever you want, protection of huamn life should not be about forcing the terminally ill to struggle through their last few months. It should NOT be about religious pressure groups blocking forcing their views on the dying. It should not be about who has the loudest voice or deepest pockets to hire the best publicist. It should not, basically, be about forcing people to suffer through a life they DO NOT WANT TO LIVE.

The sanctity that needs to be protected is the sanctity of choice. Just because someone doesn't want to do it doesn't mean that his/her view should be forced on all the other people suffering from terminal cancer or final stage motor neurone disease. That person still has the choice to live on... his/her actions prevent the others from being able to release themselves from suffering.

The assisted dying bill is about allowing someone in the last stages of terminal illness to say 'Please, I've had enough.' Being forced to live on ventilators and artificial life support is the closest I can imagine to undeath in our present world and I view it with as much horror as I would walking corpse.

It is not Lord Joffe, Ludwig Dinelli or Dignitas who are committing crimes against humanity. And neither was Kavorkian, although he operated in the grey areas of the law. They gave or would give sufferers a choice, a light at the end of the tunnel if you wish. It is those who deny the truly suffering that very choice who are the true criminals against humanity, it is they who violate the sanctity of life.

Steam

2006-05-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

Running out of steam seems to be the predominant problem with me. Start off all gung ho and just losing the goal after the first couple of weeks.

Sometimes when you're on a roll the little bastards on the sidelines throw roses to trip you up... all the while claiming it was all for the best. 'But they is ROSES mate!'

...

yeah...

the noise

2006-04-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

my housemates have the noisiest girlfriends in the world. white noise machines pitched at the upper edge of your hearing. right at that range where your vision blurs and blood starts seeping out of every orifice. when something gets both of them going i want to rip my ears off.

and my room is sitting pretty in between. no escape

The lawyer's toast!

2006-03-10T14:51:00.000-08:00

"Fee simple or a simple fee
And all the fees entail
Are nothing when compared to thee
Thou best of fees, - female!"
- Gilbert Ray Hawkes, Esq., of the New York Bar in 'Literature and the Law' 11 Green Bag 234 (1899)

*snort* Hilarious!

Brand spanking new

2006-01-25T13:44:00.000-08:00

It's a brand spanking new blog.

No baggage, no deep thoughts, no emotional insights. just plain whinge the way everyone likes it. And the best part? I bitch and everybody else HAS to listen. Isn't that a change from being just another voice in the multitudes.

Time to voice my displeasure. Assisted dying's been around for bloody ages and the morons who run the country just refuse to acknowledge it. People just leave the country all the time to off themselves because British law makes it impossible to pass in peace even if you're in the very latest stages of a terminal illness, in tremendous pain and suffering and crippled to the point where you can't even lift a finger. The BBC's making a big issue out of Dr Anne Turner because she left a video diary of her last moments... Well, that and she had the showmanship to invite the BBC along to her suicide. How morbid is that? Then again, what difference is it going to make?! The assisted dying bill which the reporters are speaking of so highly was already dumped out of parliament last session and this despite the major alterations made to it by every single parliamentarian who wanted to appear sympathetic to sufferers yet would recoil to the very fibre of their being at the thought of allowing someone to die... not out of the goodness of their hearts mind you, rather at the thought that voting for the passage of the bill unchanged would kill his base of voters.

Some reverend was on the telly saying that we should convince these people that there was still some good in their lives, that they were still useful to society. In order to protect the sanctity of human life... hey sounds good doesn't it? But how sacrosanct is human life exactly? The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms seems to say a right to life is non-derogable and sacrosanct in every way shape and form possible... but scratch at the surface and the holes start appearing. It's apparently illegal to assist people in committing suicide... even helping someone onto a plane could be considered assisting a suicide. Oh just so you know, suicide IS NOT A CRIME but assisting in one is. Logic please? Police rarely ever use their power to prosecute people assisting their loved ones to commit suicide. It's the stupid ones who try to get immunity for their loved ones before the fact. The smart ones just off themselves and let the police turn a blind eye. If it works, why fix it eh? Well, let's see... Dr Turner's son travelled with her to Switzerland right? If he had any part in buying her air ticket, helping her on the plane or even carrying her bags on the way to the Dignitas clinic... guess what? He's assisted a suicide. I'd like to see him placed in custody the moment he gets back to the UK for a criminal act. Come to think of it... anybody who helped her on the trip to Switzerland knowing her intention would have assisted a suicide. BUT WAIT... nothing will happen to them! Why? Because the law ISN'T BLOODY WORKING. There is too much discretion given to the police in assisted dying cases and, although I believe it's generally been applied widely, that's just not the way it's meant to work. Think about this, Anne Turner was not the first... she was just the loudest about it. So much for protecting the sanctity of life. Fix the law, fix the uncertainty. After all, law is meant to be certain.

Back to the good, pro-life reverend... does he know exactly what patients going through cerebral palsy feel? Ask Diane Pretty whether she thought that there was any way she would feel useful (okay, fine she suffered from motor neurone disease but hey, same effect yes?). Loved, most definitely. Useful? She couldn't do anything for herself. She couldn't walk, clothe or feed hereself... she couldn't even get on to a plane to fly out of the country where she could pass in peace rather than suffer through years of court battles only to fail and be forced to die ignominously. Here I take a quote from BBC:

"There has been a real deepening of a relationship, or things that have gone wrong in the past have been put right," he said.

"Who knows what good things can come out of the last phase of a person's life?"

WHAT deepening of relationship? In final stage Alzheimer's that person's not going to remember you. What good can come from a drooling, dribbling body? Oh wait... I forget that Christian philosphy sees doing good as doing stuff that make you feel like you've done good. I'd sooner take a bullet through the brain than take care from someone who's doing it to make themselves feel better.

If I started losing my memory and regressing into childhood I think it would be a mercy to relieve me of suffering. I want to be in full possession of my faculties or under the ground. If I start drooling like an idiot and have to have my son/daughter/relatives wiping my arse for me, nothing in the world would convince me that I could be of any possible use or had any reason to live on. Family would miss me but leave me dignity. I wouldn't call leaving me drooling in a bed waiting to die a mercy in any way shape or form. Shut the fuck up and pass the assisted dying bill please... give people an option to pass with a shred of self-respect and dignity.