Congratulations, both! Make it good!

The King of Pop passes on. His music, however, will still live on. There was this remix of "Rock With You" that I worked on for 8TV's So You Think You Can Dance Malaysia in 2007 that did not get selected for the performances. I thought I'd give it the due exposure here as my tribute to the greatest entertainer of the world whose music I grew up listening to. Rest in peace.

Download: Michael Jackson - Rock With You (Remix)

Via Seth Godin's weblog:

• When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.
• When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.
• When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.
• When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.
• When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.
• When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.
• When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
• When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
• When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.
• When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
• And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

The cursedness of my universe in the context of Newton's Laws of Motion can be simply put as follows:

1. An object in motion will always be heading in the wrong direction.
2. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
3. The energy required to move an object in the correct direction, or put it in the right place, will be more than you wish to expend but not so much as to make the task impossible.

Perhaps I should start living opposite days.

If Dick Cheney is regarded as the most dangerous United States Vice President ever, I would like to regard Utusan Malaysia (UMNO's mouthpiece) in its current form as the most dangerous widely circulated daily that our country has ever had. Not once, not twice, but on too many occasions already has it been the accuser, judge, jury and executioner on several critical issues, supposedly on the pretext of championing Malay rights. Seditious as they downright are, yet, they can get away with it with hardly a slap on the wrist, unlike other publications.

Seriously Utusan/UMNO, you're not doing us Malays any favors with your antics (or to put it bluntly, you're just making more enemies for the Malays). When other people can already stand and walk on their feet while you're telling us Malays how we should be grateful and content that we can sit comfortably on our laurels, pulling other people down and making them sit just because you can't and don't want to learn to stand yourself is not going to earn you any fans, let alone the respect you seemingly like to command from others.

I'm glad that's off my chest. If anybody feels like flaming me for this post, by all means, do. I'd like to see how my flame retardant suit holds up too.

I turned another year older over the weekend. So it's been 34 years since the day I was evicted from my mother's womb. Apparently, I still have trouble looking the part, let alone acting like one (although with the grey hair that's showing, it's getting a bit easier on the former). Perhaps my belief that "60 is the new 40" contributed to that effect. So if anybody needs affirmation that the power of affirmation works, come see me!

In other news, calling your wife ugly may soon become offence . Meanwhile, you can still get away with the variety of Yo Mama jokes.

Sometimes if you're stuck in traffic with the same people, mile after mile, they genuinely become your neighbors. These are the people you turn to for solace. You complain to each other. First, you make eye contact. Then, little sympathetic sighs and dismissive waves of disgust.

Once in a while, you even roll down the window and chat. "Hey, can you believe this?"

"Well, this sucks, doesn't it? How is it over in your lane? Sucks?"

"Here, too. Sucks. Guess it sucks everywhere, huh?"

You develop a relationship with these people. Which is why I get upset when somebody tries to pass. It's like they're breaking up the relationship.

Your first response? You're shocked. You didn't see this coming. "What do you mean you're leaving? Why? Where are you going? I thought we agreed we'd stick it out together... What is it -- you want to see other cars? Is that it? I guess you need a space of your own, huh? Well, fine. Go... Just go."

And the great moment of revenge: Two minutes later, they come crawling back. They want back in. But, of course, you don't let them in. You've been hurt, scorned -- make them sweat.

"Hey, look who's back. I guess life in the fast lane didn't work out like you planned. Suddenly I'm looking good to you, huh? Well, get in line, baby."

"Oh, and I hear that I'm eligible for that frequent traveller rebate programme on the LDP now too."

Quoting Altimet on his Twitter page, "We wanna say Selamat Datang to H1N1, aka Swine Flu, to Malaysia. unfortunately you are not eligible for the Malaysia My Second Home Program."

A quick late evening doodling with the recently released Ableton Live 8 got me marrying Shazzy's "Ketikaku Remaja" with Utada Hikaru's "Apple And Cinnamon".

Download: Shazzy Vs. Utada Hikaru - Remaja Dan Cinnamon

While I still can't get myself used to Live 8's new way of warping tracks, I think I kinda got the hang of writing blog entries like this on the iPhone using VirtueSoft's BlogWriter.

See that image above on the home page? It's back! To the uninitiated, back when this website was running on the old weblog engine, there was an image that simply showed whatever stuff that was captured by my computer's video card at any random moment when it's online. It went away when I introduced the new version of this website (the current iteration). Fans of the Phuturecam can stop with the textual harassment now that I brought it back.

We now return you to your normal scheduled programming.