Happy 2nd Valentine's Day to the bestest in the world.

I love you.


This is Chris, signing off. 

P.S. Wayne Rooney, what a goal.

2010 - A Look Back, Part 1

It's been a good year.

Because I don't really remember 2009 nor the one before that. 2007 and before? I went through all of that? I must've coasted by those years because the memory sure is fuzzy right now. In all seriousness, this year has been a good one. So starting with this entry I'm going to recap (to the best of my recollection, naturally) various aspects and events of what has transpired the last 12 months. In no particular order except what came to mind first:

Work
I've changed two positions this year. The first was a highly promising and exciting post that made transformed me from a lackey doing support work to a big-time Charlie undergoing projects and helping to sell the company. Could it have gotten better?

They told me all of that after I resigned.

Then the second opportunity came and immediately I was taken by the prospect of being the boss. Who could say no to that, right? Turns out I was going to be the boss, the lackey and general garbage collector. Did I hit the jackpot? You bet your Irish bailout money I am.

Truth be told, there was a tiny chance of striking it the third time.

Final judgement to come next year. Stay tuned.

Food
Angus beef? Absolutely and delightfully delicious. Wagyu beef? Wow. Who knew cow fat could taste so good and make me, the Phil Heath-wannabe, eat it knowing it packs an enormous amount of calories? Or what about having balaclava in Melbourne, thinking its name is cool but it's sweeter than eating a spoonful of sugar? Those are some of the firsts of mine and certainly won't be the last time. I've become more open and ready to eat and try anything at least once in my life.

It's been a wonderful gastronomical ride and I can't wait to sample more.

Though, I think I'd rather down a spoonful of sugar than have another go at balaclava.

Music
The current most liked song is Linkin Park's Waiting for the End. A week ago if you told me that I would've taken a spatula and hit you on the head 3 times and wish for a new spatula. Have I gone to the dark side? Or is this precursor to something more sinister?

Fuck no.

I guess I'm slowly starting to be more receptive to other genres besides my beloved heavy metal. I've always been open but I find that I no longer am excited by the latest br00tal as heck death metal band who can play at 260bpm in every damn song.

What's next? Justin Bieber? Kill me if that ever happens!

Training
As you most of you know, I am a gym freak. From being a lard of tub to a tub of hot, the past year has been a brutal year. But having said that I reckon I still am about a year or so from achieving my ultimate goal. I've accomplished two things this year: 110kg deadlift and 300kg leg press. Not bad for a guy who couldn't walk properly 3 years ago.

Look out for part 2 next week where I will discuss friends, fashion and what's it like to be a ballet dancer.

This is Chris, signing off. 

P.S. Note to self, no tutus next year.

Flickr Me

This is the Flickr Meme that I stole from id. Thank you!

• Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
• Using only the first page, pick an image.
• Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into FD’s Mosaic Maker.

The Questions of Light

1. What is your first name?
Chris. I think that’s quite the obvious since this blog is called Chris’s Abnormally Normal Critiques.

2. What is your favourite food?
My mom’s cooking followed closely by a nice big, juicy burger.

3. What high school did you go to?
A crap one. Seriously.

4. What is your favourite colour?
Believe it or not, it’s actually dark blue that’s almost black. On second thought, nah, it's black! But for clothes, it’s either black or dark red.

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

It’s actually a salacious triumvirate of Aya Ueto, Song Hye Kyo and Jessica Gomes. But since I’m a one-woman man and I'm really into this chick, Jessica Gomes, I'm going with her as my current number celebrity crush.

6. Favourite drink?
Rooiboos tea with a bit of honey. Divine, I tells you.

7. Dream vacation?
At this point in time, any Scandinavian country would be fabulous. To a lesser extent, probably some South-East Asian country besides Singapore and Thailand. But honestly, any place where I get to relax would be just dandy.

8. Favourite dessert?
Strawberry pie topped with a lil green tea ice-cream. It's good!

9. What do you want to be you grow up?
Filthy rich.

10. What do you love most in life?
The fact that I can actually get along with humans and still resent them is truly remarkable. Don’t you agree?

11. One word to describe you.
Unusual.

12. Favourite flower?
Urm. A dead one? Just kidding. I wouldn’t say no to a black rose.

The Questions of Darkness


1. What has been your least-favourite nickname?
Fatty. I’ve been “blessed” with a multitude of nicknames but that takes the cake. Literally. On a happier note, those who called me that in school/college are now fatties themselves! Haha!

2. What is your most hated food?
I don’t really have a most hated food, per se, just food I’d rather not eat. For example: offal.

3. What was your worst subject in high school or college?
The one I majored in: Mechanical Drawing. I failed it brilliantly.

4. What colour looks most dreadful on you?
Bright green. Or more commonly known as "that’s gonna bust your eyeballs" green.

5. Which celebrity do you never want to hear about again?
Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, or whichever socialite girl that decides to destroy her life with the public as her audience.

6. What drink gives you the worst hangover?
Most alcohol but the one that gets me all the time would be rice wine. Holy shit, that's some intense stuff.

7. Worst vacation spot?
It wasn’t a vacation, per se, but rather, a school excursion gone bad at the beach. How bad, you may ask? Well, the kitchen and the toilet at the place we were at wasn't that far apart. They were beside each other. And I forgot to bring my towel. Yay!

8. What is your “I’m having a crappy day” stress snack?
Come to think of it, none. But somehow milk would be an ideal choice.

9. What was your worst job?
Too many and too painful to recall. Oh. Well. Might as well just suck it up and reveal to the world: Salesperson.

10. What is your biggest pet peeve?
Cowardice. It’s something I’m guilty of possessing, too This also nicely segues into the next question:

11. One word to describe your most annoying trait.
Silly. Refer to 10. Thank you.

12. What is the first name of the person you like the least?
Nil. I like everyone. Yeah, right! There’re just too many people I dislike!

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: Wow, I survived two weeks without football. Amazing!

Proof that I am not a sadistic metalhead with a bullet belt and a thirst for blood

I wanted to post something really thought-provoking but I wasn't provoked enough. So I decided to do this instead. One word summary: Wow.

And one of the funniest spoofs I've seen in a long time.

Hope you all enjoyed them as much as I did.

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: That little girl can really sing, eh?

Them black buttons scare me now…

The best children's book ever.

How’s everyone’s year been so far? I hope it’s been good. As for mine, it started off pretty all right. As usual, I did not celebrate it. Why? Simple, it’s just another day in my life. I do not see the need to surround myself with people who are sweaty and have the look of someone who’s just celebrating the New Year just because it’s an excuse to get drunk and party till the break of dawn.

Truth be told, I wasn’t invited to any New Year party celebration thingy and frankly, I didn’t care. I was sober and guess what, I saved money. Yep, parsimony indeed rules.

A few days later I went to the local bookstore to take advantage of the 20% discount card I had. Even though I have a backlog of about a small library to finish off, I decided that such an opportunity shan’t be wasted. I saw the new Terry Pratchett book and decided to give it a pass and focus on other books (I did buy it a few days later). I remember distinctly to look out for Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, which came highly recommended by Marz, who has proclaimed that she will never, ever, read this to her children. Neil Gaiman + frightening as heck (the Lemony Snicket blurb on the cover is so apt) + Dave McKean (who’s illustrative work is abstract and creepy to say the least) = why the hell it took me so long to get it?

As soon as I got home, I tore off the plastic wrapping of the book and read the first chapter. In typical Gaiman style, he sets the setting early on and it being a children’s book (though which parent would want their child to read this at an early age is beyond my understanding) isn’t as “deep” as his more mature works. This makes it even all the more enthralling. I won’t go into detail but in summary the story revolves around a girl who discovers a secret room, finds creepy versions of her parents, with black buttons for eyes, who seemingly to genuinely love her, something her real parents show a lack thereof. (A review will be up soon, I hope, so keep your eyes open for the update.)

The story got me thinking of a parents’ love. My life isn’t what I had hoped for but it’s my life nonetheless. People who know me on more a personal note, know that I have another face behind the one I show them and others. Initially, this surprised them, because they only ever see the other side of me: highly animated when talking about anything, daft about most things, and relatively capricious that when I tell them my real self, they find it hard to believe.

Just the other day, while I was waiting for my turn at the post office, I saw this little boy sitting quietly, looking at people with a happy face, including me. For a moment I felt weird, normally little children would be frightened at the mere sight of me, but this lad was practically beaming. It’s one of those moments where I forget to be this pseudo, wannabe, macho, subscriber of upturned collar guy.

I have vowed that—while I didn’t get the childhood that all children deserve—I will try my best to give my children (I say children because I’ve always dreamed of four children, two boys and two girls though with inflation and escalating costs I’m thinking very hard about even wanting to get married let alone have children) the childhood they deserve. I’m only 22. I have the world ahead of me. Youth is by my side, as many have pointed that out to me. So why am I thinking about the age in which people start to lose their hair and see their waistlines expand perilously?

Maybe it’s because I’m older and slightly wiser. And perhaps, perhaps, knowing what I want in my life.

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: I definitely will read Coraline to my children.

“No son, she’s gone to heaven for awhile. What’s that? Yes, you’ll see someday.”

I hate getting lost only to find out after 30 minutes of circling in the same area and in the pouring rain to find out actually, I wasn’t lost at all. If this were the Amazing Race I would have dragged someone to help me locate the elusive house. Turns out my uncle did give the correct directions, it was only the reverse of it. Left became right, straight became back, and I nearly gave up in the end. When I did finally arrive my aunties, uncles and cousins were all there and other relatives I knew I’ve seen them before but I couldn’t remember their names. The atmosphere was decidedly calm, laughter could be heard and one or two relatives still were slightly shell-shocked from the sudden departing. I’ve met the departed auntie a few times and all of the encounters were full of smiles and she saying “Wah, lu dah beser!” (Wow, you’ve grown!). And all this while I wondered who she was. She was my grandmother’s sister who makes her my mother’s auntie therefore she’s my great-aunt or something to that effect. As well as if you twice remove a certain uncle and further removing an auntie you’ll get my cousins.

Only in a Peranakan family will you hear a myriad of languages. Besides the usual English and our mother tongue, Baba Nyonya, there was Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu and even Tamil could be heard in one corner. The amazing thing is that you could speak a different language yet the whole family has this built-in translator of sorts in which you’ll be able to understand each other. I kept telling my grandmother that I have already eaten in English while she answered me in Baba Nyonya.

I asked my other auntie as to how she died. It seems that she was alone one day and fell awkwardly, landing on her back. Her son came to drop his son there, as usual, and the son came running out telling daddy that grandma is on the floor. When the ambulance arrived, she was declared dead. The little boy was oblivious to the crying and sombre faces surrounding him. He knows his grandma has passed on, yet he knows not what death means only that his dear grandma won’t be there anymore to take care of him, to feed him when he is hungry or to soothe him when he feels ill. But what he does know is that she is at a much better place and will look out for him, always.

The quiet murmurs of the Buddhist priests chanting could be heard amidst the hubbub of people catching up with each other. A short prayer performed by the priests and the immediate family members was done to appease her soul, and to wish her a safe journey into the exalted halls of those who have left their mortal shell. A cymbal rings and a light tap on the Chinese drum told us all that it was time to send the dearly departed mother to the heavens. As is customary in Buddhist tradition, the burning of effigies and paper doll deities signifies that her soul has been released from its earthly bounds. The burning paper ascends to the sky, the moon shining even brighter as though she was smiling at us, thanking us for being good sons and daughters.

As I approached the coffin, I said a small prayer, wishing her all the best in the afterlife. It was the least I could do for a woman who meant so much more to others. She looked calm and at peace. I think that was what she wanted, everyone to be happy and not be sad with her passing. I was about to leave and the little boy ran pass me, happy and laughing. I smiled and went home.

Gute Nacht und Gutes Glück.

PS: This post is dedicated to the memory and family members of EePoh. May her soul rest in peace.

Kids are wonderful

It's a magical thing when kids think you're cool. Seriously, being cool in their eyes is well, cool. Kids being kids will hate you once you make them pissed. Of course, you have to be a complete jerk to accomplish such a feat.

I'll be the first to admit that children under 12 scare the bejesus out of me simply because I’ve not a clue on how to handle them. Do I play along and go "Goo goo bah!" or do I be the meanie with a perpetual stern look? Not too long ago, I figured it out. Finally, I now know the secret. The secret to make kids believe that you're one of them. I’m in the inner sanctum of Kiddom. All I had to do was just talk to them. Of course, talk to them about their likes and dislikes and not how one does detects a face using algorithms from Laplace, Sobel and Canny.

After much time spent with my wee free cousins, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not the ogre I thought I was. Sure I do feel like smacking overly rude and downright stubborn children who after repeated threats of bodily harm, continue to wreck your beautifully trimmed bonsai trees. Or trying to see whether or not lil Jack the terrier has worms in its tummy, with a machete no less. I gush (ugh, this is so unChris) whenever I see babies and kids. Provided they're cute and not bugging the heck out of me.

In their eyes, adults are just bigger people with even bigger wallets. They see us older folk as a means to fuel their passion of cheap plastic toys made in Taiping, contraband like fireworks the size of my shoes (11) and sweets so sweet I swear diabetics will run away for dear life. But it's all good really. To see their smiles, the laughter, the pure joy of it and its innocence, is simply priceless.

The greatest achievement so far for me was when I made friends with this little girl who upon seeing me beat my cousin at rock, paper and scissors, announced that she can beat me. Me being the obliging guy, proceeded to beat her senseless. Her incredulous look every time she lost left in me stitches. She even sat on my lap at one point. And I found out later on that she's actually a really shy, quiet girl and doesn't take to anyone easily.

That's when I realized that the world is not that bad a place when there's such happiness and purity.

Chris signing off...

PS: I can tolerate naughtiness to a certain extent but if it happens to be the spawn of some cacodemon, then that's a different story...