The Daily Whine

A couple of days ago, May inspired me to take a good hard look at myself. I must admit I didn’t really enjoy the sight — I’m as close to a Men’s Health model as Iraq is to peace. The executive office lifestyle is killing me.

Love handles, I’ve heard them being called. I can’t for the life of me fathom why, but if I had to guess, I suppose you could grab hold to them for leverage when executing difficulty 10 maneuvers. Frankly though, and this is just my humble opinion, if the handles exist I somehow doubt there’ll be a lot of acrobatics going on.

Anyway.

So I looked at the man in the mirror and see he’s flawed. Not like a Greek hero, of course. We’re talking shortcomings. Little bits of unsavory. The sort of minor blemishes that would prompt May to invoke her warranty, but not exactly ask for a new toy.

So in a bid to constantly remind myself to become a better man, I’ve made a list of my flaws.

Minn’s List of Flaws

1. I ask too many questions
Curiosity kills the cat, yes? We’re watching a show, I see a familiar face, my natural reaction is to want to remember where and why, so I ask aloud, "Where have I seen her?" or "Why does he look so familiar?" or "What was the name of that show this guy was in?" And naturally, May’s reaction is to get pissed at me.

2. My memory sucks
This is a corollary to number 1. Strictly speaking, being curious isn’t a bad thing, but being curious and having a bad memory spells disaster. If I could remember where I’ve seen her or why he looks so familiar or the name of that show this guy was in, I wouldn’t have to ask. Angry reaction avoided!

3. I’m too forgiving
To err is human, to forgive is divine. To forgive and not remember about it is plain stupid. Which happens to me a lot. I really should do a better job keeping score. In a tit-for-tat discussion, I can never remember how the other party (read: angry girlfriend) has committed the exact same fault that I am accused of, except that she has. Hence, I lose.

4. I don’t have 30 million in an off-shore account
The biggest flaw I have, I would say, is not having a bullion stashed up somewhere in the Caymans. Escape is not a possibility. Neither is buying happiness.

5. I like my job
And it’s a problem because my job doesn’t pay me enough to build up a retirement fund somewhere in the Caymans. I wish I hated my job, that way it’d be easy to leave. But it so happens I enjoy the bullshit that is advertising. I just wish it paid better. If we end up having kids and they ever say they want to be like daddy (which is very likely since being like mommy would involve being surrounded by a lot of stupid people), I’ll just snuff them and end their misery.

6. I like Paris Hilton’s new song
Yes, I know it does nothing for my street cred, but that song is catchy, ok? Back off already!

7. I’m getting stupid
It’s my main grouse these days. I used to be a lot more clever about things, I know this. I used to know stuff. I was actually pretty good with the pen once. And God, I used to love to watch movies and break things down and try to figure out the work on multiple levels. These days, I’m more interested in where I’ve seen that actress.

You can’t take any away from my crew. It’s the weekend before the week-long Ramadan holidays here, and most Jakartans have already "pulang kumpung" (gone back to their villages) all over Indonesia. Not my team. They’ve got a tough assignment — by the dictates of Murphy’s Law, we had to send the Final Artwork out to Singapore on the morning of the longest weekend in order to get the printing process started and not lose a week to the holidays.

Even tougher: the design was in constant revision through the wee hours of this morning before we (including the head honcho in Singapore) agreed on the right treatment.

The gang pulled together. AE. AD. Designers. FA Artist. 18 hours through the evening and morning. On such short notice (we walked away from our client meeting at 6.30pm yesterday, realizing we had to pull out all stops to get this off). What a team.

Nobody enjoys burning their weekend like this (everyone’s exhausted now; I doubt anyone will be doing much other than sleeping this weekend). But nobody complained. I asked for help, and they all gave it.

I salute you, team! RESPECT!

Happy holidays! Take a good rest, yah!

I think I have it. I’ve been feeling pain in the soles of my feet for weeks. Last night, I came across an article in Men’s Health on Plantar Fasciitis, so I Googled it. From most of the write-up on it, I’d say what I’ve got is PF.

Apparently, PF is often confused with Heel Spurs. Until last night, I’d never even heard of HS either.

It hurts like a mutha’. The first few steps I take every morning shoots a sharp pain up my spine and into the brain pretty much the way I imagine an axe to the vertebrae would. It gets a lot better as the morning goes along and my muscles loosen, but those first few steps each day… I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.

So when I told May just now that I’d have to ease off the running for a while, I was expecting some sympathy. What I got was an earful. She made me sound like I was a hypochondriac looking for another excuse.

All I’m saying is, that pain is there. And at the moment, it feels a lot more real than her compassion. She’s going to feel a lot a lot of pain when my feet stop working and I have to retire and will no longer be able to afford her DVD habit.

So May and I finished the second season of Entourage. Couldn’t stop laughing. It’s one of those shows where you look forward to watching because it leaves you so cheerful — even the episodes that end on a slight downer. The show has a very sunny disposition (maybe it’s the setting) that rubs off.

It so happened I read Chuck Klosterman’s column in the latest edition of Esquire, in which he compares Lost to Survivor. In it, he observes that at no point in history has television been better. Watching Entourage, you simply can’t disagree.

Entourage is extremely well-written. The dialogue is hilarious. It’s pacy. The way Vincent, Johnny Drama, Turtle, E and Ari (especially Ari) play off one another is genius. Nobody talks like that in real life — the closest any real person I know  who can comeback like that is May, but doesn’t count cause she’s a cartoon — but this doesn’t detract from the entertainment. This is believable writing because it’s good writing, regardless of its similitude to anything you know.

And Entourage isn’t alone. I rate Lost very, very highly too. Throw other shows like Arrested Development, Prison Break, The Office and 24 into the mix. Even CSI and other cop shows have been a lot more entertaining than the kind of fare we got just 10 years ago. Go back further and you’re comparing those shows with The A Team, Knight Rider, Magnum PI, Murder She Wrote… all the way to CHIPs and Hawaii Five-O. I think it’s pretty clear Television has never been better produced. Larger budgets, better production values.

Personally, I think TV started getting interesting when Fox showed up just over a decade ago. I don’t remember too many shows, to be honest, but I recall The X Files and the fact that each episode cost nearly a million bucks to produce. As far as I’m concerned, that radicalized TV. It got the whole crew to start thinking outside the set. And then a little later, HBO started producing TV shows. That’s the perfect case for competition. I don’t think TV has looked back since.

In my mind, Seinfeld is still the best comedy I’ve ever watched. Immortal lines galore! But a large part of that is nostalgia too. And it would not be disrespectful to suggest that Entourage and Arrested Development, just to name two, are not inferior.

Finally, a little rain.

A list of tour stops and dates can be found here.

Sydney on 3 Nov is sold out. Melbourne (1 Nov) can’t have too many tix left. Bummer. Those are the nearest venues from here on his tour. May and I would’ve gone if we’d known earlier. We’ve already made plans now.

Big big question: what’s JM doing in UAE and Tokyo? Tokyo’s already sold out. WTF??! What gives? Didn’t realize Joen-nu Mah-yo-san was big in Japan. I’m trying to imagine throngs of screaming 18 year old Japanese fangirls stripping off and tossing their panties at JM to a chorus of Ewor Booty-o Is One Dhaleng-desu. The horror! The horror!

Wah, our Senior Minister the indefatigable Lee Kuan Yew has actually apologized to Malaysia’s PM Datuk Badawi for asserting that the Chinese have been systematically marginalized in Malaysia and Indonesia. (Check out Xpyre’s commentary on said episode). Apparently his remarks touched a sore nerve north of the causeway and their politicos aren’t too happy and have been demanding an apology. Looks like they got theirs. Newspapers there splashed "I’m Sorry!" loudly across their front pages all of yesterday. Don’t play play ah.

But wait. Surely that can’t be. LKY saying sorry?

Full ‘apology’ here. Read and snigger.

At 83, Uncle Lee might be older than extinction but he’s clearly not lost his fight. Observe his cuteness — the Annex of the letter publishes a list of media reports Malaysian leaders talking about the alleged marginalization of Singaporean Malays. Note, also, that he’s sorry for causing "a great deal of discomfort", but not the remarks. Brilliant.

Restepc!

PS: Xpyre’s blog entry on LKY’s apology letter says it all. Just more succintly. Enjoy!

PPS: It gets better and better. The Jakarta Post asked Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry why, unlike the Malaysian PM, President Susilo Bamband Yudhoyono didn’t get a full apology for LKY’s comments. Apparently, he didn’t send an angry letter to LKY. It’s all here!

May came back from Singapore with the new John Mayer album, Continuum. I haven’t really listened to it yet, but the one that I remember is that poppish tune which has a greyish video of John walking around New York City, I think (I only glanced at that MTV once) — Waiting On The World To Change. It’s quite catchy in a la-la-la way, not really meant to be taken very seriously, which I supposed is perfectly apt because he’s preaching a philosophy of fatalism or at least non-determinism (waiting for the world to change, hello?)

The album also contains a less bluesy version of Gravity (originally heard in Try! with the John Mayer Trio), which is fantastic. This song grows on me. When I first heard it on Try! I thought it was pretty disappointing (hell, I thought that whole album was). But I really like that tune now. And the version on Continuum is just top drawer.

Anyway, May forwarded me the link to John Mayer’s blog last week and excitedly exclaimed that she really gets John Mayer. As in, she and John connects on some mental and emotional level. I ignored her. Then yesterday, she returns to the apartment waving the latest copy of Rolling Stone and tells me, animatedly, "I really do get John Mayer. You know in his new album there’s this song which, when I listened to, reminded me of the Beatles, and then in this issue of Rolling Stone there’s a story on John Mayer and in it he says while he was working on that song that he was inspired by the Beatles!"

Excellent. My fiancee shares wonderful chemistry with the highly talented John Mayer. They’ve got a little camaderie going on where he’s even called her a "cheeky little minx" or something along those lines (it’s true, she interviewed him once while she was still with 8 Days, that very glorious Singaporean institution of weekly entertainment gossip). She can’t stop effusing about John’s latest effort.

The signs are all there. May is going to leave me for John Mayer.