Goodbye, Readers

"Y can't u b my jorah mormont? he's so cool ok. He kissed her n told her he'd b true2 her 4ever :'( swear fealty to me nao :("

Phoebe in an SMS text

After she started reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series, I kept getting random messages like this.

In a few short hours, I expect go on a leisurely 2-kilometre morning hike to the Melaka Sentral where a shuttle bus will be waiting to whisk me to the unglamorously-named Low Cost Carrier Terminal. There I will board flight D72506 which is bound for the Indira Gandhi National Airport in Delhi, India, and I will not return till the end of April. Or I may never return - there's always that slender hair of possibility. Anyhow, in case these are my last words, remember that I died godless, doing what I love best: reading, writing and going places.

Everything I imagine I'll need is stuffed up tightly (and chaotically) in my black-and-orange backpack which, at the last weigh-in, is a very manageable 10 kilograms haul. I planned on taking two extra-thick books with me, but I threw in a third at the last minute, just in case.

Oh, I'm also taking along this clever little device,

Fiat lux, motherfucker.

It is a dynamo LED torchlight, powered by whatever kinetic energy the muscles in my arms can generate. One minute of cranking produces twenty-five minutes of illumination. At full-charge, this baby can supposedly shine for two-and-a-half hours (but it certainly lasted longer than that when I field-tested it). But let me tell you; I never really appreciated light until I have to crank out every milli-candella with my bare hands.

It'll never need new batteries, so that's good for the environment and my wallet. Furthermore, there's zero risk that it'll run out of juice on me when I'm out camping on the mountainside. I'll be able to read all night long if I wish to, or at least so long as my arm is able to crank out the luminosity (I have had lots of practice doing repetitive motions for extended periods of time with my arms, let me tell you). One caveat is that the thing was made in China, so it remains to be seen how much of a piece of shit it really is.

I'll probably update this blog whenever I find a cyber cafe or an unattended laptop, much like how I did the last time I went traipsing about the subcontinent. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got some maps to study. My first hurdle upon touching down on Indian soil will be to navigate through the smoky, perilously labyrinthine, over-peopled city of Delhi - and to escape it. Destination? North!

I may be ahead of myself here, but I do declare that this is going to be grand.



P.S. Ah, just as I was about to step out the door, I discovered that a new episode of The Tobolowsky Files just came out, hot off the press. Excellent. Into my MP3 player it pops.

Stoked,

k0k s3n w4i