Allan's Brother

It has become a little bit of a pet peeve with me. Being referred to as Allan's brother is a little bit of a thorn in my side. As if I did not exist or defined by my own merit. Being defined as a person by the infamy of my brother's exploits. Its like I don't matter at all... well at least until I am inroduced as Allan's brother. Bloody hell.. even my client, inroduced me to her friends as Allan's brother! Egads!

Perspective

At a friend's farewell dinner last friday, I had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of new people. They were mostly expats sitting on my table. Amongst them, Patrick is officially Malaysian, but I think he used to live abroad for most of his life. He is married to Debbie, who is British but born here in Malaysia and live the better part of her life here. They met at the Wimbledon tournament. Anyway... the fact was that they love it here in Malaysia. Peter and Tina, also British, have lived in Asia longer than they have in their homeland. They share many of the same sentiments as the expats on the table. They extolled the virtues of living in this country for most of the evening and I listened in facination.

You see, I have been a little disanchanted with Malaysia of late. Whilst I love it here, I feel something is fundamentally wrong with the fabric of society. We sit miles away from the typical situation in Carcosa, socialising, speaking well of others, enjoying the company over great food and good wine. I cannot help but feel that whilst the expats that we were there that night and that they trully believed what they feel about Malaysia, they cannot really understand the underlying rasicm that is so tightly woven into our society. Gaining some perspective from our expat friends helps a little.

Unfortunately, some twat will so easily change all that. Today, I experienced one. I drive behind this fella. We wait at a junction to turn left. We do at the next opportunity. He however decides to almost immediately stop by the roadside after making the bend! I toot at hime in disgust, noticing the many NO PARKING/NO WAITING roadsigns along that road. As I make my way past him, he comes out of his car and gives me a great big intimidating stare and a posture of violence. Is it just me or are our Malay friends getting a tad more violent in nature these days. Maybe the rethoric brandished by the idiots in Umno is rubbing off afterall. I pray for us all... The day will come when it will all come to a head. How can it not?

Halo Effect

Just finished watching a 20 minute online demonstration of the iPhone. To say I want one is an understatement! Only problem is, it ain't here yet. The lucky fellas in the states have about 170 hours left to wait, but it will be at least 6 more months before I can claim one for my own. What I felt right after the demo video, was obvious, I want one now. But knowing I cannot get one yet, something deep within my consumer minded mind was shouting, GO BUY a MAC now. Easy pay it! 12 instalments on a RM5000 macbook is a pittance a month! Go buy. Satiate that need. Go buy NOW.

I guess I should avoid watching anymore Apple demo videos for a while....

Boiling Point

You will first see the water churn, strange things are happening to the water you have just put to boil. The air trapped in the water starts to get agitated and form tiny bubbles which float quickly to the surface. The once lifeless water is not bursting with new found energy, it becomes more syrupy to the eye. Its funny, watching water boil because while a great many things are happening to the precious liquid, it does seem to take forever to reach the boiling point. Its a slow build-up of energy transfered through the heating elements through the kettle into the water, until it suddenly bursts with such intensity it almost always catches you in surprise despite the inevitably of it. This my friends is the boiling point!

My colleagues and I are kind of experiencing this same phenomenon at the moment.

We started the year with a niggling fear of a slow-down. Us advertising guys are usually the first to get hit with a slow-down in the economy. Clients hold back budgets, reigning in spending to protect their bottomlines. Wether this is the right thing to do is a topic for another discussion. We couldn't be more wrong. We have been busy as bees and it has in a way taken us by surprise. A little heat never killed anyone and we were all quite happy taking on the numerous projects thrown our way. Start the year well we say, and the rest of the year should take care of itself.

Just like the water first introduced to the flame, we got buzzed. We got excited. We were however clueless to the inevitable boiling point.

This is my fear. When will we reach that point? When will we cease to enjoy our ourselves in our work and lose our cohesion? I fear the time is quite near.