Why Did the Eel Cross the Road?

"Oh, we're sinking like stones,
All that we fought for,
All those places we've gone,

All of us are done for."

Don't Panic (2000) by Coldplay

First order of business; my apologies for being AFK for so damn long, but this isn't the first time really.The majority of my time was spent on research work for my in-progress fantasy novel and if you're familiar with the genre, you'd know that world-building requires a tonne of research in order to make a whole alternate universe sound and look plausible. As of now, I have about half of the first chapter finished - but I'll need to run it through a couple of editors before I'm ready to show it to anyone else (I am a bit grammatically impaired, you see - Phoebe, or anyone who reads my blog can attest to that).

Another thing that caught my attention in the previous week was this manga called Kodomo no Jikan by Kaworu Watashiya. I am reasonably sure about doing a review on it soon, because it is by far one of the best mangas I've ever read. In the meantime, try not to poke into my psyche too much if you actually know what that manga is about.

Before I get into today's post, I just want to say this about the new GI Joe movie: ICE DOES NOT SINK IN WATER, YOU FAIL PHYSICS FOREVER. That is all. Oh yeah, if you ever want to have the seats around you in a cineplex to be vacant, just pretend to cough really badly for about a minute. I did that before the flick started and the guys to my left and right immediately moved away. That's one good thing to have come out of the current H1N1 epidemic; everyone's all panicky and shit. And it seems like everyone's donning some sort of mask these days (and the recent haze attack makes it even more pertinent to do so). Anyone know where I can get a black one? I want it to match my very emo wardrobe.

Welcome to the living room of my house.

Two weeks ago on Monday, part of my house was submerged underwater, which has never happened before in all the 22 years I've lived in it. What's even more amazing was that it took only one hour for it to get from roadside puddles to indoor pond. I got home at 12:00 pm and when my grandfather woke me up at 1:00 pm from my afternoon siesta, the shoreline have migrated into my living room. Talk about flash floods.

The worst that ever happened was back when I was 7 years old, and even then, the water stayed outside. I remember having to use a two chairs to get to my school bus without getting my shoes wet - y'know, stand on one, move the free chair forward, then hop onto that and repeat.

Suburban swampland, previously known as my grandmother's garden.

This is my neighborhood. That speck is a neighbor.

Now they can play water polo in the field.

Of course, the rainstorm wasn't any harder than the ones we had before so it's really quite bewildering why it would flood this time. One popular theory that has been making its rounds about the area was that a nearby construction project was to be blamed for filling in a mini stretch of marshland behind the field.

Ripples.

A sinkhole in the making where I usually park my car.

The DAP guy (notice the rocket in his cap?) who came around telling everyone that this is all the government's fault.

While I was wading about the place, I spotted a snake-like animal writhing across the road. I'm reasonably competent when it came to basic zoology so identifying one of my favourite food wasn't at all a problem. It's an unagi! Alright, it wasn't exactly the species of eel the Japanese use for the dish, but it's the generic term for freshwater eel anyway.

"My homeland has expanded! Now we shall take over the world and make women shriek in fear at the sight of us!"

It rained pretty damn heavily last Wednesday too and my area got flooded again, except this time, the water managed to stop rising at my doorstep. An inch more and it would have been Waterworld all over again. I wish the city council would do something about it soon; deepen the monsoon drains or fix the construction site or something.

Right, that's that. A short update of my life. The next post won't take as long, I hope. I've been wanting to blog about Beve's visit to Malacca 3 weeks ago. Anyone who's curious about how she looks like, stick around and see for yourself :P.



Must learn how to build arks,
k0k s3n w4i