All Price Must Rise

What if I told you,
That the furore over rice
And the increase in its price
Could not have been denied--?

What if I told you,
That the rising price of oil
Will similarly recoil
Even on Malaysian soil---?

What if I told you,
That prices will never go down:
Whether in village or town
Because it benefits some--!

Because I have to tell you,
The price of steel and cement
And all your other laments
Are all irrelevant--

And because I have to tell you,
That due to your demand,
The farmers and miners chant,
"We cannot fulfill your wants!"

And so I have to tell you,
That scarcity makes things dear,
And if it is the rise you fear,
Then follow me and change gear--!

Change the pace of life:
To favour simplicity;
And favour the price of paltry
And thou shalt never be sorry--!

The Mythical Land of M

In the mythical land of M
Its people are known to stand
U N I T E D
(Citizenship is invited)

Every once in a while you'll see
A little hegemony
It's S I G H T E D
(But never admitted)

Some of us have become Great Conquerors
Some of us have become Great Concur-ers

Some of us have become Great Patriots
The rest of us have become Great Touch-Me-Nots

Funny Sleeping Pills

pop a pill:
and hope it will
calm you down
and make you still.

soon comes slumber!
swift descending!
the brain blacks out--
the mind still thinking.

sleeping, dreaming
waking, doing
which is which?
how came the switch?

your eyelids open
to see the sunrise
and along with it
a small surprise

whilst sleeping well
the night before
you wreaked all hell
with a mighty snore.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Comment:

1. Ambien, Lunesta -- Heard of them?
   If your answer is no, then you should start paying attention. These are sleeping pills normally prescribed by pharmacists. The US Food and Drug Administration has identified 13 sleeping pills that cause strange behavior.
   



2. Strange? How strange?
   Pretty strange, in fact. You might be curious. So, read this quote:
   
   

   The agency's review was prompted, in part, by queries to it from The New York Times last year, after some users of the most widely prescribed drug, Ambien, started complaining online and to their doctors about unusual reactions ranging from fairly benign sleepwalking episodes to hallucinations, violent outbursts, nocturnal binge eating and — most troubling of all — driving while asleep.
   
   Night eaters said they woke up to find Tostitos and Snickers wrappers in their beds, missing food, kitchen counters covered with flour from baking sprees, and even lighted stoves. Sleep-drivers reported frightening episodes in which they recalled going to bed, but woke up to find they had been arrested roadside in their underwear or nightclothes.
   
   ^{Source: IHT}




3. Sex while sleeping?
   Some people have reported having sex while sleeping. Strange, but it's true, and if you wish to wake up having had sex with certain furniture, go ahead. [link]



4. Further reading
   Here is a list, with entries in no particular order:
   
   
   
   • Dark Side of Sleeping Pills, an online e-book [link]
   
   
   • Consciousness and Sleep -- Lecture notes [link]
   
   
   • Sound and Relaxation Discussion [link]
   
   
   • Sleep @ Wikipedia [link]

1914 Cable Machine Cost Only $10

Source: The Iron Barbell [link]

Old is still gold, or so I'm told,
And when I saw this, I was quite sold:
A marvellous charitable plan,
Affordable fitness for this humble man.
Think you twice before you decide,
That old is wrong and new is right.

...................................

A friend mentioned to me that his car was not functioning that well anymore, that it had trouble starting up. Definitely, it was a problem to do with the sensor or the starter. But he could not be sure. I told him that he should get the sensor and the starter both changed, but my friend thought that he had better sell the car, before it becomes any worse. His logic: Sell the car, and use the proceeds as downpayment for a new car. I felt that replacing something still usable is incurring unnecessary expenditure, but then again... We have that mindset about casting away our excess baggage.

Tonight was the celebration of Chap Goh Mei¹, where lovely lasses of all sizes and ages threw mandarin oranges into a pond, some of which carried a telephone number scrawled by marker pen. These naive young ladies harbour high hopes that hopefully, their Prince Charming would pick it up, and spark a romance to last the ages. Truthfully, though, throwing your telephone number to the world at large on the rind of a mandarin orange is a foolhardy move, when you consider the following: Who will pick up my orange? Which guy? That guy? No, maybe his kid brother? Oh wait, neither one of them picked up my orange. Who's picking up my orange now? The MPPJ worker who cleans the pond in Taman Jaya the very next day, that's who. And pretty soon, you will get a phone call from "Muthu" or "Kassim" who will be only too happy to converse with you in his native language (and I doubt it would be English).

....................................

Notes

1. Chap Goh Mei has a website! For this, you can probably thank MCA. [link]

Why People Are

Some people are noxious,
And others are nauseous;
Most of them unconcious
That they need a compass.


They blunder through Life
As a husband or wife
Thinking that one night
An epiphany will shed light

On their predicament:
As though a God sent
Would aid them to repent
And reclaim the years spent

In the wilderness, out
where the mountains shout
Back at you, and the clouds
Shower to end the drought.

So if you are obnoxious,
And he easily nauseous,
I've learned what the cause is:
It's how you cope with losses.

Nausea, from fear of loss;
Obnoxious, to be the boss.
They are all the heart's walls.
Next time, let a coin's toss

Decide...

the imaginary frown

each time we leave her¹ house,
i feel her mother's heavy frown.
thinking perhaps, that i would pounce
on her lovely flower, and proceed to pound
the heaving, luscious mounds.
but i am no such louse.
no! i shall keep my trous-
ers on.

----------------------
Note (updated: 24.2.2007):

1. This rhyme is purely fictional. I put myself in the shoes of a fictional character that I read in a short story.

equality of feeling

can a person love untruly?
such a heart, must be unruly?

if she loves not truly, will
the world stop, end, and stand still?

for her, my heart i will gladly
efface, and all my ambitions
shirk for her beauty.

“i love you true” - but it is untrue
her pity is no thrill.

for “i love you” - it is true
but the loving, is not.

awkward mush

a gnawing suspicion, of being in love-
could it be so? my blood circulation improves
each time we meet. you spring my mood
into cheerier days. and i munch my food
with mucho gusto. bravo! a flower
will i pluck, to tempt you as a lover
tempts his beloved; an independent rush
of happiness, joy; the face is flush
with gladness apparent - otherwise known as a blush.

the new blogger

there is a feeling one gets when one starts to blog. I will now attempt to describe that feeling, elusive though it is, that I feel.

I
am now
Powerful!
To think that I
Could not find the words;
Yet now, they come tumb-ling!

words came not easy;
in silence, i dreamed;
yet now, the power
of a newfound eloquence
is mine.

so go forth
and froth
my everlasting thoughts!
effervescent though you may be.

i gawk, gape and google --
i GO to google to OGLE.
and the [b]¹ has gotten to [me].


------------------------
Note (updated 24.6.2007):

1. When Blogger first began, its logo was [b] -- and I meant that "blogging" had finally reached "me".