Games, Fantasy, and everything else.

So every once in awhile I feel this great desire to blog. Like now. I've been spending quite a lot of time doing nerdy things, which is something I've always loved. Nothing like holing up with an awesome fantasy novel or playing RPGs late into the night. I used to do quite a bit of that as a kid, always loved SF. Then I turned 17, and I decided to be all grown up and only read serious books (or trashy ones written by friends) and I forgot all of it. Writing fiction became almost impossible. When I sieved through my old compositions (you know, the stuff they make you write in Secondary school) last Christmas, I remembered thinking, 'gee... I wonder where I got all those crazy ideas from'. They were good too.

Then, at some point, I 'grew up' and started wondering what the point of all this fiction was. They were set in other non-existant universes, they had no bearings on reality, they didn't aspire to be um... politically or socially critical. I stopped reading or watching anything that I felt wasn't educational in anyway. Studying animation didnt' make it better. Imagining things, and creating art became work. And so I forgot how fun these things could be.

Then somehow, Dani persuaded me to play this game called Dragon Age:Origins. I was totally against it at first. What a waste of time! But I think about SF differently again. It isn't a waste of time. It sparks something in me; almost forces me to want to imagine other worlds. And I've started writing fun things. Not like that stupid memoir I never wrote (which I supposed would have sold resonably well back during Belle DeJour days).

A friend of mine (the DM when I was playing D&D in Singers) started reviving his book, Thagoth. Phil had told me many times before that it was brilliant, and I'd always wanted to read it, but I don't have a kindle, so I never got around to it, until now. I guess part of the reason why I read it was because I wanted to stay in touch with a friend. I was really surprised at how good it was. But then again, he'd always make up really interesting narratives when we played D&D. They were always very... human.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'll try to post more often. I keep saying that. Life is good. Dani and I do surprisingly well, admist all the failed relationships we see around us. We really take time to make the relationship work. Especially him.

Designed to Fuck you Over.

I'm back in Holland. Lovely weather. No seriously. Sunny and cool. The air feels cleaner already. Dani threw a whiskey tasting thing last night, which was lovely. An eclectic collection of guests showed up, and there was plenty of swapping of war stories admits the indulgence. Like M, for example, who was caught at the border while trying to escape Iraq a total of 11 times. You know all those stories you read in books like Persepolis, it's actually worse in real life. He hid in a mountain hut somewhere in Bulgaria, in the middle of winter, with 34 other men, for days. I don't think I could ever imagine that of him if he never told me. I don't think I'm still comprehending any of it as having been a reality of any of the people I've met that have told me such stories. 

Victor reminded me of the existence of The Consumerist. Read it an learn. I've just started an annoying back and forth with getting my gym to cancel my membership because I'm no longer in Singers. Fun times. I know now when I have a gut feeling that I'm being coerced, I should listen to that gut feeling and act on it. Anyway, get this. The whole system is designed to FUCK YOU OVER.

Everything is designed to make you feel like you don't have enough. That you don't earn enough and that external forces require you to spend more than you make just to reach up to some sickening, wasteful ideal to imply that you do (make a lot of money).

I've spent a lot of time letting guys spend their money on me. I'd say it's given me lots of great experiences, and I really appreciate them for it. And hopefully it's not wasted and one day I'll be an awesome artist, or something. But looking back on it, I'm just realising that most of them didn't really have all that much. If you get a lot, you spend a lot, and in the end it's all designed so you end up having nothing. Of course you only live once, and you can't take it with you. But that's not the point I'm trying to make. The point is that the system is really trying to screw you over. That somehow we've created a world in which we are compelled to milk everything we have at our disposal, in return for negative value. 

We are pathetic. 

Back in Singers.

Okay geez. Who fucking reads this anymore, but I guess I should update it regularly anyway to keep my friends feeling like they still wub me. Or something. Whatever.

Back in Sing, met up with the lot. Phil, MGM, my crazy ass sister who is even crazier than ever. They're all still as lovely as ever. But of course, how else would it be. The D&D real life RPG group is still happening (it's just an excuse to pretend I'm 12 and drink lots of beer, not like I need one though). I know more about it now after spending cold winter months rained in playing computer games on a 27in Mac.

Anyway, I guess I better face it. This blog won't have that much slutty activity going on any longer. I mean, Dani and I try to slut it out as much as possible you know. Seriously. We've even talked about it while frolicking through the fields about engaging in lewd kinky behaviour with a rotating tag team from various dodgy sources. And okay I'm not ruling out the possibility that it'll happen, which it will. But real life kinda sets in for all of us, and I'm no longer a student hobo, and since I've tried the tantalizing prospect of high class escorting and found it not at all suitable for me (c'mon, me in the service industry? Eh, fuck that.) So work it is!

So, I'll just blog on random stuff I guess. God knows what.

That other thing.

Ok, so here's the dilemma. We've been invited to a party night in Amsterdam by a French model and his transexual girlfriend. I don't know if we'll go. Will decide on Thursday I guess. Will do post on Amsterdam red lite district tomorrow. With photos. We went to A'dam on a project (of Dani's) to shoot portraits of some of the working girls... you have no idea how difficult it was to get them to pose for a portrait.

Are you happy now?

I suppose I should apologize for not blogging for just about forever. Only I hate apologizing, and I don't really know who reads this blog anymore. I've been thinking of shifting everything to my babelogica.com site, maybe that would be more appropriate. There are a few reasons why I haven't been blogging. Mostly because I'm out of practice. It's always very difficult to write after going away for awhile. There's this great sense of guilt that I haven't been talking to an old friend, and that I should. The longer I don't write, the greater the sense of guilt, and so on.

The other day, a friend asked me a most peculiar question. It was this : Are you happy now? I answered that I was (what else could I say?) But the question is a little more complex. I can't say that I'm ever truly happy. I'm more content now that I was before, and despite the bad weather and the lack of the sort of good friends I had back in Singers, I'm very happy with Dani. I know it's kinda cheesy, but a good relationship really does make all the difference. Gradually becoming deeply intuned with another person is real special, and very satisfying. It's also a plus that we work together on projects, which has given me a better sense of direction as to where I'd like to go, career wise. I feel things are less impossible now with someone else working with me. We haven't done alot yet, but it's beginning.

And alright. I'll blog more. I promise. Especially about the stupid shit.

In the meantime, here's some advice on how to beat your wife from a religious point of view.

Autumn.

Goddamn, spring has gone, summer has past and it's autumn already. Last night I noted it was dark at 7 pm. It was almost slightly dread inducing. You can see how those damn vampiers get depressed (yes, too much True Blood. And they should have placed Russel in a controlled UV dosage solarium instead of concrete, which seems like the perfect recovery tool...).

Dani and I went to Antalya for a sun scortching holiday where we spent most of the time attempting to resemble our food (salted, oiled and broiled in the sun). We stayed in a cute hotel run primarily run by a funny gay dude of a very feminine desposition that kept on hitting on him. For some reason, that particular hotel had more then its fair share of gay couples, I felt. On the last night, after we'd paid the bar tab, Dani asked if he was completely clean concerning the bill and the guy told him "Oh yes, always clean sir... and very handsome".

We saw a bunch of Hellenistic ruins, most wrecked and preserved by a series of earthquakes. Some drowned, some trapped in calcium, some still standing, some appropriated by tourists into a public bath (as was its destined purpose). Food was awesome. Holland is pretty good for things like art and design and music and herbal supplements, but food really isn't one of them.

I've been kept busy with some design work, which is great. There's nothing like gainful employment after years of dicking around. Although that said, there's still not enough work, which bugs the hell out of me. Always easier to have jobs thrown at you then to be inspired enough to hunt them down or create them for yourself. We hooked up with some of Dani's colleagues that are working on some documentary stuff, and it'll be nice if a positioned opened up for it, but these NGOs take forever to get anything going.Well, we'll see. It'll be awhile yet.

There are loads of other things I'd like to say, but I don't have the ability to put them into words right now. Too ephemeral. Too inconclusive. Can see, can't define.

X

The Must Haves, Gotta Roll.

Ok folks. Dani and I did this thing with the Must Haves ages ago. There were all sorts of problems like other commitments and the original soundtrack was never put in till now, and blah blah blah. But here it is. The attack of the Izzys. OMFG!!!

Group Sex and the Life of Plants.

Ah fucket. I know I should blog more, but there's been so much work, and I keep on getting distrcted by shiny things on the internet :-/

Not much has happened. Dani had a rock grandma come over for a photoshoot for a music festival. She came Grace Jones style real fit and in leather, but they put her in a granny frock and fluffy boots -_-" There was also another grandma, but she was too frail and couldn't lift her arm up to do the 'horn' sign, so she couldn't be used. I tried to make everyone drink this cocoa leaf liquor that makes you jump off the walls, but I ended up guzzling most of it myself. I thought the effects of the substance might be beneficial to those of age, you know. Just trying to help out a little. Bah.

Over the weekend, we met a couple for some group sex. Yeah, weird shit. Gotta try it. I've done it before, but usually it's a little bit more spontaneous. The girl was some Costa Rican lingerie model and the guy was your typical run of the mill Dutch computer nerd. It was alright. She couldn't speak English and we couldn't speak Dutch or Spanish, so the communication part was a bit wanting.

She was petite and sexy and sweet and all of that, so she was a treat, really. I liked her. But the guy was a bit pushy, and I didn't find him sexy at all, so well. That was somewhat unfortunate I guess. Plus  he wanted to stay for-fucking-ever. I was really twatted by 3 a.m. because I've been on this new programme at the gym where Rogier (the guy with the previous job at the inquisition, remember?) breaks my back, but he was still suggesting 'another round'. I was on the verge of asking Dani to put on "The Life of Plants" (BBC, with Sir Attenborough) because I just wanted to chill out, and didn't want anymore herbal substances to help me along. :P I think hence forth, that will the the way forward to get rid of people when they've overstyed their group sex invitation. The Life of Plants.

In the past I used to put on "Planet Earth" at 6 in the morning. You gotta love "Planet Earth" when you're off your tits. I also love it stone cold sober while riding a horse upside down too.

Meh. Back to work now -_-"

5 Books for the Subway.

From the Paris Review:

Can you recommend any books that will make interesting people approach me if I read them on the subway? During A Moveable Feast, people came up and quoted entire passages verbatim, and it really enhanced the reading experience. —Alexandra Petri

The trick is to choose books that have cult followings, and so create a sense of secret fellowship—but that large numbers of your fellow-riders have actually read. That's why it depends somewhat on your subway line. As Philip Roth is to the Seventh Avenue trains, so Jonathan Lethem is to the F. For the Q I might carry either story collection of Edward P. Jones (impress your new friend by pointing out that the two collections are linked, story by story) or anything by Lipsyte or Shteyngart. (Each of whom is also beloved on the L.) On the Lexington Avenue line, The Transit of Venus. For the G train: War and Peace, A Dance to the Music of Time, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2666, Gravity's Rainbow, the complete works of Charles Michener, etc.

Of course, certain writers are good bets anywhere. Thanks to my bike, I have no particular subway, but I will instantly take a friendly interest in anyone I see reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's memoir The Beautiful Struggle, Norman Rush's Mortals, IJ, anything by Adam Phillips, or the essays of Charles Lamb. Possession of these books is sufficient cause for me to ask which part you're at. Maybe for others too. All of which is to say: be careful what you wish for.

I can't imagine reading War and Peace on the subway. The book I've read on the subway, which I've had the highest instance of seeing other people read on the subway is The God Delusion. Mostly because it's hard to miss even in a crowded carriage and I have a feeling that people that read it on the subway are trying to project something about their beliefs to everyone else. The last person I saw on the train reading it had an entire summer's worth of rave bands on his wrists and a Pangea T-Shirt on his back. It's not a very well written or memorable book, but it's definitely one that will start you conversations, for sure.

5 books I have read on the subway I see most often by other people reading on the subway: The God Delusion, The Black Swan (I read fooled by randomness, but the two are really the same book), The Tipping Point, Freakonomics and uh. Stieg Larsson.

5 books I have read on the subway previously that I wish other people I met on the subway were reading too, so I can chat them up on a long and boring train ride:

1. The Bottom Billion (on poverty)
2. The Closing of the Western Mind.
3. The Singularity (it's tech-trash, but fun, and only a certain kind of weirdo would read it).
4. A Dandy in the Underworld (Sex, drugs, Savile Row, a botch up cruxifiction and a great white shark).
5. The Omnivore's Delimma.

Stolen

Quiet days here. Experimented with some coke liquor thing they manufacture in Holland, nice stuff :-P Feels like the real thing, only more expensive. The only reason why anything is legal is just so they can tax your ass. Nah, I don't really believe that. While randomly browsing the web, I found this post from Socks and Violins. 

"If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

Neither intelligence nor general ability has anything to do with wealth.

Simply look at the wealthiest people in the world. These are not the best of humanity, nor the brightest. They are merely the wealthiest.

If anything, ability tends to relegate one to the upper edge of the lower classes, because it only makes sense that ability should be used. If you have dancing ability, you should dance. If you have musical ability, you should make music. With remarkably few exceptions, using real abilities does not make much money. In the end, it is always limited by time, and time is always too short for riches.

I once calculated that I was worth $2000/hour to one company. They didn't pay me that, of course, or anywhere near it. But had they paid me that, and had I been able to sustain that work for a full year, I'd have earned four million dollars. A typical lawyer, working at $300/hour, would require nearly seven years to earn four million dollars. A mechanic, working at $50/hour, would work for 40 years to earn four million dollars.

You cannot earn a hundred million dollars in one lifetime with ability. You certainly cannot reach a billion dollars.

The only way to accumulate such a substantial fortune is through leverage, which means -- one way or another -- gaining a legal claim on the labor of others, and taking for yourself a disproportionate share of their earned reward. There simply is no other way to do it.

That doesn't require ability. It requires understanding the truth that underlies the game: that it isn't about your ability at all. It is about other people's abilities, and their willingness to work for a lot less than they are worth.

For the Hackerspace Guys.

Met YY in Amsterdam. She's got a boyfriend now (a funky Polish, Russian, French +++ mix) , an interesting fellow working with in the field of augmented reality who was giving a workshop in A'dam. That stuff sounds like a whole lot of fun - the concept is inspired by a sci-fi story, Rainbow's End, by Vernor Vinge; engineers and scientists seem to have a lot of fun these days. Or maybe western media has been glaming it up to wean subsequent generations off their dependency on nerdy Asian students. I've been thinking for years now I'm in the wrong boat, career wise. Should have listened to daddy... :P

It was a lovely meeting her in A'dam. Funny to see her sitting outside the Van Gogh museum lost in her thoughts, sketchbook in hand, wearing her funky art shoes. There was a great deal of boyfriend talk, of her adventures in the south of France, literary fairs etc. She's doing well. I like hanging out with her and Sara alot. They're both lost and enjoying the adventure.

Most of the girls I went to school with are no longer in Sing. They're all doing some weird shit elsewhere in the world. I like it. I'll probably try and visit them in the UK sometime this autumn. Oh, and I hope there's been some girls to replace the 3 of us at HS for the time being :P

Morning Star.

I know I promised I wouldn't talk about the weather, but I can't help it. It's been lovely. Cold and wet but sunny. And the sea breeze blowing through always, I love it. The air's always fresh here.

Last night, before I went to bed, I thought about how nice it was to be able to go to sleep with the windows open. It gives you the sensation of sleeping outside, without actually having to sleep outside. I hadn't done that in a long time, mostly because it's too hot and rainy down in the tropics.

In our bedroom, we've got the most ridiculous windown display. 6 cacti lined up along the windowsill. I think they're really good feng shui even though you can't see them because they're always covered by the linen day curtains, but I like them there. I look at them when I brush my teeth. Them, and the fattest pigeon in the world always hanging around the neighbour's garden, attracting all the cats.

There's one of them that has so far flowered three times. It grows this long stalk that takes forever to grow and then gives birth to the most stunning flower like a layered star that smells so fresh and bittersweet. The flower lasts for 12 hours, and then it dies. I really like that plant. It makes me think about how perfectly engineered all biological things are. Probably in the desert, 12 hours is the maximum trade off for the chance to reproduce with the loss of precious resrouces.

I was standing around looking at it when Dani suggested that I should polinate it. (The flower had both male and female parts).

"Pollinate it?"

"Yeah! Use your hair. I stuck my finger in it and tried to muss it around, but why don't you put your hair in it rustle it up a little?"

I thought it was an interesting idea (a little cute and some what silly) and seemed like it could work so I did it.

My Babies.

Rochelle came around. It always starts of like that, you know. With no intention of sex and then somehow things start degenerating. She was discussing the details of her private life with us (the best sort of conversation one can have, really. Much better than talking about the weather.) when Dani put his hand up my shirt and she started curling her legs around him. I was just feeling fat and unattractive from too much pasta (although I know the truth to be otherwise, but all women have a disconnect between how fat they are and how fat they think they are) but a bit more whiskey soon took care of that.

I like having her around. I think the best thing about it is how um... unpretentious the whole thing was. You know, a lot of threesomes are just weird. Where everyone's aware they're doing this thing and it's like, you know, a thing. Bah. We're going to get a strap on for me, soon. I like using the dildo on people other than myself, it's really hot. I get an idea of how a guy must feel. Not the essence perhaps, but a little teaser. Maybe in another life I'll be reborn as a cyborg-meta-human thing with a penis and a vagina, but till then. Dildo. Maybe vibrating.

You know how I'm all whacko anyway, and at some point, I think Rochelle was fondling my boobs and I started making up these sounds for them (all boobs make sounds when you squeeze them! What's wrong with yours? Meh.) She was pissing herself laughing (not literally, unfortunately - we're going to change the living room carpet anyway...). Sex is hot, and cute, and sexy, and ridiculous all at the same time. The best sort of sex is anyway. But you have see the ridiculous-cute side of it, ever. I have no idea how to make such a moment a filmic moment. :-/ Perhaps it's best not to try. It might just look stupid.

Then both of them started doing stuff to me, and for some reason I was so happy (probably all the endorphines from all that cuddling) and I came and I said, "My babies."

Oh my lord. :O

Flaming Mule

I met M&W. They were somehow connected back in Sing circles through Tom. W engineered her own retrenchment and M, fucked off with both law and economics threw in the towel and well, fucked off. They're travelling around the world right now. At this moment, they're probably riding a beat up Land Rover with, hopefully, a 3.9l fuel injected engine (and not a 3.5l with carburettors with a notoriety for overheating) across the driest place on earth (too much Top Gear lately)... W facebooked me a few days ago telling me they would be in the Hague, so we arranged to meet up for a drink or five. Turns out M's sister lived just across the street. Small world.

I always get a sense of "hey wow cool! Here you are all the way around the world!" Whenever I meet someone I knew from back in Sing. It's a small thrill, and I never get tired of it. This holds, even if I don't really know the person very well.

They looked very happy. They had the look of people on a great adventure after years of being pissed off at work; supposedly because they are. Who likes selling their lives for minimum wage, when you know you got the world for free... not.

It was a bit of a surreal night when they turned up. It was raining, and there was something about the light. Those IKEA paper lamps are great mood lighting. We sat around talking, and it was lovely because everyone warmed up quickly, and told stories of all the stange adventures they'd had. At some point, there was a blackout, and just to fit in with the adventure theme, Dani brought out the Flaming Mules. I don't think he knew what they were called before, but now they're called Flaming Mules (because they were talking about riding a mule up a 90 degree incline in Mongolia). There were a mixture of various creamy alcoholic substances lighted up with a hallucinogenic blue flame.

We'll be meeting up again in the fall. I'll still be here. :)

Brussel Sprouts.

We went to Brussels for the weekend. I like Brussels, it's full of good drink and food and funny waiters with personality. It was awfully hot and humid, so it was a little bit like being back home. Except the beer was much better. Dani and I stayed in a hotel with a temperamental cooling system and sweated through the first night. I think it's a European thing to tolerate annoyingly warm temperatures. It's only a couple of days in the summer after all... we changed rooms the next night. Miss air-conditioned nation wouldn't stand for it.

We found a lovely wine shop with fantastic Sangria La Vinerie on Rue de l'Escalier . The guy was a funny sort of fellow with really big ears and skinny face, with a slight hunch in his back and a pleasantly weird disposition. "This Sangria, I made it last night, it's been marinating with the all the fruits and the spices... perfect... In the winter I make the hot wine, also perfect..."

Summer

Summer is here. I don't quite remember when it came, but at some point it finally did. My boyfriend is hot, I'm starting to get my shit together, learning more about love and life and how not to be a confused, selfish bitch, and meeting new people. I've got a couple of goals for the next couple of months; working on design work and my novel (the same one! I've kept to it... ).

I still have moods that go up and down, and I'm still insecure about a lot of things, and simultaneously excited and afraid about the future. But life's like that isn't it. I think it swings between states of happiness and fear, satisfaction and laziness, pride and insecurity. Only non living systems stay in the same state permanently, until they are programmed to fall apart. If you're alive, and not under the influence of pharmaceuticals that claim to make you well, you're going to have to feel all those things.

And I still miss all my friends in Singers. I miss them all the time.

But he's got a beard.

I finally called my folks back home. It was kinda nice to talk to them, just so they know I'm alive. Although I hope they make sure of that by checking my Facebook updates because I do that several magnitudes more frequently than I come into contact with them, even back when we were living in the same town.

I told my mother about Dani. The conversation went something like this.

Her: So you found someone?
Me: Yeah. He's awesome. He takes good care of me and is intelligent and sexy, you'd like him.
Her (jokingly): Sexy? He's got a beard! And he looks like the devil in his Facebook profile.
Me: What does having a beard have got to do with anything? And he doesn't look like the devil. From some angles I think he looks like Jesus, like the ones they paint in the pictures they used to hang above the blackboard at school.
Her: Do you guys go to church?
Me: (thinking best not to say more than necessary) Uh, ha-ha... ... No.
Her: He's from where?
Me: Bosnia.
Her: Aren't they communist? Used to be part of Russia, no?
Me: No, they're socialist, they were never communist, and it was never part of Russia, although he can speak very good English with a strong Russian accent. (While thinking, must repress need to throw in Borat lines about sex in mouth.)

I also told her we've signed a cohabitation agreement when she asked me how serious I thought he was about me.

Pretty committed I'd say. ;-)

The Hardest Part, No Puns Intended.

What is it exactly that we build love upon? Love that is lustful and romantic and rewarding and jealous and insane and frightening all at the same time. When we say we love someone, what is it exactly that we love?

Do we love them for what they intrinsically are? Their good genes and commendable upbringing for example. That they are intelligent, good-looking, sweet-natured, passionate but sane, etc.

Or because of what they are capable of making you into? That they are inspiring, and encouraging, and kind and complementary to your personality such that when you're with them, you feel your life is moving forward and they move along with you.

Or because you feel you give them a lot, and you feel you're appreciated and wanted, and needed.

Or because time and chance throws you in together with someone under the most peculiar circumstances and paves a road for you to take?

Fuck knows. I think at the end of the day, despite all of the above, the only way it can work is if you believe it. But it's the same with all the other great motivations in life (love, ideas, expression). You can know all the rules, and you can manufacture the perfect conditions in which to achieve them, but in order for them to happen, you must believe you are capable of achieving them. And that they seek you. And it's the believing in them seeking you, that is the hardest part.

I think at the end of the day, love is essentially a construct like a fine great arch, reaching into the sky. You don't know how it stands, or why it stands. But once upon a time, it was built with scaffolding that is no longer there. And after a time, it doesn't matter what the scaffolding was made off, or how safe or sturdy it was. The arch either stands, or it doesn't, and the idea is to keep it standing.

Away with thee cynicism.

At some point, I went from I would be crazy to give this up, to, if I give this up, I'm crazy. I remember my first spiritual trip. I was told that I should "Just feel, because if you think about the experience, you'll block it."

Tag you're it!

I've not been very nice. Actually I feel kind of rotten, and I'm too embarrassed and tired to talk about it.  :-/ But I think I see things a little clearer now. In the meantime, Phil tagged me here. The twist is I get to tag other people with 10 new questions.
hil's Questions:

1. Who was your 3rd grade teacher and were you in love with her? (Lesbian lust is OK, in fact even better.)
She was called Miss Pearly Chai and she was the best teacher ever. She read to us gigantic picture books in the garden and called me Machine Gun for talking non-stop. But I wasn't in love with her.

2. Is yours an examined life? If yes, did you find anything interesting?
Uh, probably. That we can only talk about the system from within? So we'll never get the full picture.

3. How high is the tallest mountain you have climbed, skied down, or tripped over (question for Singaporeans)?
Don't remember the name. Somewhere not in Singapore.

4. Speaking of storms, do you know, or DID you know, anyone who has been struck by lightning? Or indeed, by lighting?
No. But I know someone who peed on an electric fence and got a shock from it.

5. What do you like most about your job/studies/unemployment cheques?
Generally interesting.

6. Men: are you Miles or Jack? Women: are you Maya or Stephanie, Jack's fiancee or Miles' ex-wife? (You haven't seen Sideways? Why am I even talking to you?)
I think I'm somewhere between them. And I wouldn't have broken Jack's nose.

7. Would you rather write best-selling pulp genre fiction, or an art-house novel that confirms your towering genius but that not even your most sympathetic friends would read, except MAYBE under threat of torture? Trick question, eh what?
Best-selling pulp genre fiction. I wouldn't write anything I wouldn't read :P

8. Have you ever been on a cruise? On a ship I mean, not wearing leather and trying to pick up Mr Goodbar. If yes, did you fall in love on it, the cruise?
Yes and No.

9. Other than "I think, therefore I am", can you quote a major philosopher NOW? Without having to look one up? (Descartes doesn't count, he was a mathematician.) Please share your quote, if you have one. (I'm thinking, this is a wasted question.) No. The only quotes I remember are my own. And some Shakespeare ones.

10. Do you pay for an online newspaper? If so, which one? (If you are about to say The Straits Times, please leave this blog immediately.) No.

My Questions:

1. What is one novel that could define your life/ personality?

2. You're friends set you up on a blind date. The girl/guy turns out to be really cute and funny. Unfortunately s/he is a cripple, with prosthetic legs. They invite you back to their place 'for a night cap', would you?

3. Would you rather be a gear in a machine or some random swerving quantum particle?

4. The Flying Spaghetti Monster tells you that tonight, it will assassinate one political figure. This death will make things better for a lot of people. You get to choose the person. Who would it be? (and why?)

5. You've just been given a magic concert ticket. You're the only person in the audience, with any performer/s of your choice. What would the show be?

6. You get to look inside the head of one of your family members for a whole day, who would you pick?

7. If you could be in a film where you play yourself, what genre would the film be?

8. You're granted the ability to instantly learn how to do something really well. What would be it?

9. Where would you go to write your best-selling cult novel?

10. Pick one: Flying into outer-space, diving deep into the depths of the ocean, exploring the most beautiful caves, discovering a completely new island with absolutely unique life-forms... or make up your own.

I'm going to do the tagging on FB.