I'm big in the Philippines

Apparently so.

As of last night, I've received four Friendster 'friends' requests from teenaged girls in the Philippines.

I don't get it. Is this a joke? Is it a scam? Are they real? What do they want?

I haven't replied to any of them.

And they don't even seem to be friends each other, which makes it even more puzzling.

What am I missing here?

Is this happening to anyone else out there?

I just downloaded the Kooks' album and am listening to it.

This is what I'm doing.

I'm bored. And a little anxious. A little worried.

I have a buzz from just having played basketball. We won. We're just too good for the competition. We win even when we play crap. There's just one team that we reckon can beat us.

I use up a lot of my head space with playing guitar and singing and writing songs. But I'm not sure if I'm wasting my time. And money. And effort.

I don't think I have any discernable social skills left. I can't small talk. I can't chat up girls. I say and do stupid things when I'm drunk.

I think all my friends have left or are leaving. Well... not all...

I think I'm in a bad spot job/career-wise. I'm surrounded by people that I don't do any work for. I'm in the team and I'm not. It's getting awkward. My boss is disorganised.

I think Mean Girls is better than Clueless. The girls are hotter.

That makes me feel old. Everything makes me feel old.

The Kooks have a few good songs but it's not as good as I expected.

That's called disappointment, I think.

Take a bow, Mr Murray

I just witnessed, a few minutes ago, Rafael Nadal beat Andy Murray in 5 sets to move into the quarters of the Australian Open. In the end, Rafa simply bullied Murray with sheer physical strength. Murray just didn't have much left in the tank by the 4th set, while Nadal had that same pit bull look that Mike Tyson used to have when he was just about to knock someone out.

But I'll tell you what, Andy Murray is the guy who will get me excited about tennis again. If tonight was a taste of things to come, he's going to be awesome. Maybe not Federer good, but very very good nonetheless. He's what every tennis purist dreams of. At 19 years of age, he's already a master tactician. He's ridiculously flexible on the court. Not particularly fast, not particularly strong. Not even particularly consistent. And he's shown tonight that he lacks the stamina. But he's a thinker. Uber creative. Yet he's also emotional and expressive.

Not since Pat Rafter and Gustavo Kuerten has anyone gotten me so excited about tennis. The other two never quite made the most of their talents (mostly due to injuries). Let's hope Andy does better.

Introducing... THE IMPRACTICALS!

What happens to the superheroes who got cut from the X-men?

What happens to the ones that Spider-man doesn't wanna be friends with?

What happens to those whose super powers have limited practical applications to fighting crime?!

They've banded together to form...

THE IMPRACTICALS!

Name: The Sweeper
Alter ego: Sweepy Chan

A mild-mannered computer programmer by day, Sweepy Chan becomes The Sweeper by night. With the uncanny ability to locate all the mines in any Minesweeper computer game, The Sweeper almost made the Avengers roster until it was discovered that his powers did not actually work with Mac OS versions of the game.

Name: Heidi Seek

Astronaut Heidi Seek was sent on a scientific mission to Uranus, during which she got caught in a cosmic storm. Upon her return, Heidi discovered that she had gained the power of invisibility - but only when her eyes are closed!

Name: Exchanger
Alter ego: Karen C Ekschange

Not much is known about this former international superspy, except that she has the incredible power to convert all foreign currency to local currency at the touch of her finger. She decided to join the Impracticals since her last gig paid her in Mexican pesos while being based in London.

Name: The Shrink
Alter ego: Mike Smaller

As psychiatrist Mike Smaller was cleaning his attic, he discovered a mysterious box in the corner. When he opened it, he found the Shrink suit! This remarkable suit allows the wearer to shrink by about 4 inches off their normal height, making crime fighting in low-ceilinged spaces just that much easier!

To be continued...

My weekend

It seems to be true that gay guys are crap at ball sports.

On saturday, I was playing captain ball on a team of women in their 40s and 50s, and we managed to beat a team of young (well, around my age) gay guys.

OK, so we did lose to the gay cops team. But considering that one of our team members can't squat and that probably only I could run 100m in under 2 minutes, I think that's saying something.

At this point, you may be wondering where I was that I was playing ball games with middle-aged women and gay cops.

Well, yes. I would wonder too if I were you.

On SundayI had another jam session with Mark and our new drummer friend, Trevor. We're really coming along nicely, I must say. Much better than I had expected, to be honest. We have a song list now of 8 or 9 songs and they're beginning to sound alright. Trevor's drumming really adds so much to our guitars that we no longer sound like two guys playing in our living rooms. I can't say we're 'a band', but there are definitely moments when we sound like one.

One thing I'm trying to do (besides generally becoming a better guitarist) is finding 'my own voice', so to speak. I mean, when Ryan Adams sings Wonderwall, it sounds like Ryan Adams doing his version of Wonderwall. But I feel like when I sing Wonderwall, it sounds like a guy trying to sound like Liam Gallagher, which is a hard habit to break and a bad one to have. I know we're all just starting out, but I guess I'm just thinking out loud.

Speaking of the Gallaghers, sure they might be tossers, but playing their music has made me appreciate more that some of their songwriting are just brilliant. Their melodies and chord progressions are simple but they just work. I mean, the pre chorus of Don't look back in anger is just beautiful, and when the same chords are played underneath the solo, it still sends shivers down my spine no matter how many times I've heard it before.

This music thing has really been a godsend to me and I wish I had started much earlier. There are times when I'm playing and singing (especially with the psuedo-band) when I can genuinely get lost in the moment. I can't say that many other things in life can do that for me. Maybe there is something to that whole 'dance like nobody's watching' saying. I always just assumed it was cliched crap.

I'm loving this because it's something new that I'm learning and it's creative and it's collaborative and sometimes you get that whole 'the sum is greater than the some of its parts' feeling.

My tutor told me that he envies where I'm at right now because I've just cracked the surface of what I can do with the guitar and there's a whole new world under there. Oh, I do hope he's right.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke

Ever wanting to be poetic, I felt that I should buy this book while I was in England, but the exchange rate at the time scared me away and I bought the Stepford Wives at a bargain bin price instead.

But I eventually got around to buying it once I got back to Sydney. I'd heard so much praise for it from my preferred literary circles (geeks and snooty intellectual types - the two rarely agreeing!) and now I've finally finished reading it.

And boy, has it lived up to the hype! It's probably the longest book I have ever read (at about 1000 pages) but it was a breeze to read. And not in a Dan Brown kind of way. Actually, I probably went through it a little too quickly and probably missed some little things along the way. But instantly it climbs up my all-time favourites list!

To summarise, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a fantasy of sorts set in England during the Napoleonic Wars. It has been 300+ years since England kinda lost its magical mojo and all that is left of English magic are simply remembered and studied, but never practiced. But this is only until a new magician appears on the scene to revive English magic and bring attention to himself by bringing a girl back from the dead.

And then a second magician appears.

And this is pretty much how it starts.

Yes, it is fantasy. But not Tolkien fantasy. Or even Harry Potter (I must confess that I've never been able to get into the Harry Potter books. I just never found the writing style very agreeable... but that's another story.). This reads more like Jane Austen. In fact it is as much a portrait of the 19th century English idle rich as it is a fantasy novel. The actual magic in the book is bizarre and often clumsy. Like when Mr Strange animates a bunch of sand banks into horses to defeat the French, except that he didn't know how to turn them back into sand banks so they just ran around for a few days and then returned to their sand bank forms, except in really inappropriate places.

Also, the novel is peppered with footnotes that further elaborates on the lore of this version of English history, while at the same time intertwines fiction with real historical figures like Buonaparte, the Duke of Wellington, the mad King George and Lord Byron.

The scope of this novel is just so immense. Its sheer ambitiousness would be praiseworthy enough, except that it actually does what it aims to do. It's a tight story. There won't be moments like in da Vinci Code where you go: 'Why the hell don't they just freeze the damn vinegar and crack the thing open?! It's the bloody 21st century!!!'

I really cannot praise this book enough. I know I'll be spending hours on the internet now looking for stuff to read about it (commentaries, reading guides, etc.). You all really HAVE TO read this book! It's brilliant! It's fantasy, but it's also literary and has oodles of mass market appeal.

If you still won't go and get a copy on my recommendation, then read Amazon's reviews and if that doesn't get you, then eventually the movie (when it's made) will convert you.

__________

On a separate note, there's a film being made that I'm also really looking forward to. Stardust should be ready sometime this year and this is also based on a (very English) fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman that I love (though on the Jonathan Strange level of love). Read this book too. This one is short.

As usual, I'm happy to lend out my books and... um... OK, I'm going to bed.

The Last Christmas

It’s Christmas eve and in a few hours we’ll be having our annual family Christmas party. It’s an Event. Every year. We have a website set up for it. We have a very involved Kris Kringle system. It’s fun. It’s quirky. I really love it.

I’m making Flemish stew for the dinner component of the evening. It’s going to taste amazing. Even if I do say so myself.

But this year, there’s a cloud hanging over us and I don’t really know what to do about it.

My cousin is dying. At this rate she will pass as early as today or as late as New Years, but probably closer to Boxing Day. The doctor has put her into a deep sleep from which she will live out the last days of her life without pain.

I visited my cousin when I went to the Netherlands just a couple of months ago. I stayed with her and her husband. So I kinda got to say goodbye, but not really. By then she was already breathing out of an oxygen tank, but she did manage to get dressed up for her thirtieth birthday party, which I am so happy I was able to attend.

Now, before I continue, I would like to say that I won’t pretend that her death will consume my entire existence or anything that dramatic. There’s nothing I hate more than a disingenuous reaction to a death.

My father’s death shook me to the core and has made me, in some ways, an irreparably damaged person. I am convinced that approximately seven years worth of my innocence died with my father that day. So I do realise that whatever I’m feeling now is not on that level.

But I am feeling a hell of a lot more than I would expect to feel about someone who I’ve only had about five or six occasions of face-to-face contact. Yes, I have kept more in contact with her over the years than with my other overseas cousins, but I still don’t really know her. And she probably knows me even less.

This holiday season has been terrible. For the part of the year that contains my big three of festivities (My birthday, Christmas and New Years), I’ve felt horrible. I mean, I’ve still gone out with my friends to have fun, but it just hasn’t been that fun.

Maybe I would feel guilty if I had fun. I dunno. I feel strange. I feel confused. Right now, for example, I can’t sleep. It’s 5:46 am and I haven’t slept yet! I feel like I need to distract myself. That's probably why I'm writing this.

To keep this semi-concise though, I’d now like to write, in point form, a few thoughts, anecdotes and things like that, in no particular order.

1. I had a conversation with my mum about this a few days ago. And she said something that hadn’t occurred to me before – that for my cousin’s family, Christmas will be dead forever. Every one of them from this year forth will remind them of her death. That kind of stuff sticks with you. And that’s horrible.

2. Her story is eerily similar to the Belinda Emmett story. Both had cancers for a similar number of years and both are about the same age. Both their cancers started with breast cancer and then spread to the rest of the body. Both had gotten married quite recently to men who were quite well aware of what they were getting themselves into.

I was at this lunch not long after Belinda Emmett’s death and a work friend of mine made a joke about Rove being single again but that he would have ‘ghost issues’. I normally quite like this person, but for that moment, I genuinely hated her for saying something like that.

3. A few doctors and a psychic have said that she should have died long ago. Like a couple of years ago. But that she’s stayed alive this long through sheer strength of will.

4. OK, I’ll say this: She’s my favourite cousin. Always have been. With all due respect to my other cousins, this is absolutely true. Ever since I was old enough to actually converse with her, she’s been my favourite. I’m not sure why. But I’m sure this is why her death is affecting me like this. I feel a special bond to her.

5. OK, the next confession: It’s probably all superficial. Thing is, she’s cool. She’s pretty. Hell, I’d say she’s hot and we all know it! She has a certain radiance when she walks into a room. She’s always so cheerful and happy and positive, even when she was sick. I'm not saying she was a perfect angel, but she's just one of those people who are instantly likeable. I want to be related to someone like that! I’m proud to be related to someone like that!

The first time I was in Holland, a few years ago, we were having a conversation about relationships and whatnot, and she said ‘sometimes I feel like all I have to do is smile and guys all want to talk to me.’ And she said that as a matter of fact – lamenting it even; with all honesty, without a hint of arrogance and with a surety that I wouldn’t judge her as being arrogant (which I didn’t). And I love her for that.

6. On my last trip a couple of months ago, I was out drinking with her husband and his basketball friends. It was fun. Undeniably. But when I got back to their home and got into bed, all of a sudden, I started crying. Bawling, more like it. I dunno. Maybe it was the 25 or so beers we had that made me emotional, but suddenly I just felt the entire weight of knowing that this will be the last time I ever see her again. I felt so sad for her. I felt so sad for her husband. I felt so sad for her family. I felt so sad for myself.

7. As I was crying my eyes dry, I started thinking of what I could do. She had planned for a long time now to come again to Sydney with her husband in the new year, but as much as we all talked about it like it was happening, we all knew in the back of our minds that it’s never going to happen. So I thought of doing some grand gesture to keep her spirits up, but the only thing I could think of was to give her some sort of token and make her promise to give it back to me in Sydney. But I had no idea how she’d react to that. Whether it be positive, depression or anger. It was corny so I didn’t do it. I decided not to be so dramatic.

When I got home, I ended up writing a song about her (it’s about a fictional dream I have of her actually making it to Sydney) and I had some plan to record it and send it to her but I just haven’t had the time and she now will never get to listen to it. Which in the end is probably a good thing, seeing as though, let’s face it, any song written with my rudimentary guitar and singing skills is bound to be crap.

But I feel like I need to do something.

__________

I am sure there is a lot more to say but I probably don’t need to say them right now.

This is the worst birthday and Christmas in my recent memory. Probably the worst since my first one without my father, but enough has been said about that. And I know that it sounds selfish that I am talking about myself at this time. But as a man of faith and as one who has gone through a death in the family before, I understand that death is ironically infinitely more painful for the survivors. I must believe that her deep sleep will relieve her of the pain and that when she passes she will go to a better place. It's the rest of them – her husband and her friends and her family – that will take the brunt of the pain. And then people like me just feel the aftershocks.

To Oom Gie, Tante Tho, Cynthia and Johan, I’m really sorry for the loss that you’re about to face. I hope you all can get through this. We’re all here thinking of you and praying for you.

To Patrick, I thank you for loving her and sticking by her and adding some brightness to her life in her last years.

She’s my cousin.

She’s blood.

But more than that, I count her as a friend.

Fiona, I bid you farewell.

I love you.

And may you rest in peace.