ThePigeonHole

Technology.

2006-03-17T14:44:00.000+08:00

say,

what is it with technology anyway..? its supposed to make our lives easier. its supposed to make us sleep better at night and allow us to live longer and YET, its causing us to work harder, sleep MUCH less and die younger..what is it about technology..? or is it technology's fault..? maybe its the immediate problem and fault of the human civilization to blame everything on everything else (in this case everything else being technology) for their own shortcomings of greed..?

but thats the next topic...for now, lets blame technology..

technology was supposed to help us live better..or rather, more efficently..but what technology has only done is increase our expectations..technology has given the masses cause for arguing something against the minority (the people who KNOW technology) are unable to provide and do..

"why is it that i lose my ASTRO reception when it rains and yet i can still use my handphone?"

"why is my computer still slow when ive purchased the bestest computer around?"

or better still

"why does it take you so long to get back to me about that computer problem?"

its because with all the above arguments, there are any number of finite permutations as to what went wrong..and to fully understand the problem would be to investigate ALL the permutations the feeble human mind can come up with...

why is it now that with technology, we grow restless while waiting for an email..? i know i cant sit around without checking my email every half hour when im expecting a not so important reply..what about our grandparents who had to wait for weeks for a letter (piece of paper with a smaller piece of paper called a "stamp" on it)..at that rate, by the time it gets to you, the writer might have already been run over by a bullock cart..

so how has technology made life better..? i dont know...i cant sit here and think of how technology has DIRECTLY made my day any easier..okay, MAYBE you can argue the PUTRA LRT that took me to work this morning..but other than that..sure, my handphone has made it easier for me to be called upon at anytime of the day..and yeah, my iPod has given me a shield against boredom..and yeah, the computer is allowing me to talk to you right now, but think...if it wasnt for that handphone, i wouldnt have to constantly run around being called by people..if it wasnt for that iPod, that cute girl on the train might have come up to me and talk to me (wishful fu*king thinking!!) and without the computer, i wouldnt have wasted your time with my idiocentric conversation...so, has technology made any of our lives easier..?

(yes, for all of you who have relations who are now surviving and living with technological pieces in them instead of normal organic stuff, you have cause for argument, and thus, i wont argue with you..)

but on the flipside, i dont think i can live without technology..ive almost become as dependant on it as the man with an organic heart...my technological paraphernalia has become a part of me..i feel like bionic man without the cool theme song..i feel useless without any of my technological parts...i feel powerless without my iPod..i feel lost without my handphone..and i get irritable if i dont get to use my computer....

my iPod makes me Superman, my handphone makes me Batman, and my computer is my Green Lantern..

(yes, i read quite a fair bit of comic books..with politicans in our world, who else to teach you the good from the bad? who else to teach us moral values..? teachers..?! HARUMPH!)

but the key, as is with everything in life (including but not confined to money and sex), is moderation...one needs to know when to turn off the iPod and listen to the wind blow through the trees..a person needs to know when to turn off the handphone to play in the sandy beaches..and you sure as hell need to know when to leave the computer so you can really LIVE.

man that was a long one.

Dogbert (Dogbert for supreme ruler of Earth!!) once commented

"information is gushing toward the human brain like a fire hose aimed at a teacup!"

i think thats how most of us feel when it comes to technology.................

A Quick Look at Attraction.

2006-03-14T18:06:00.000+08:00

Wow. So, the last entry was on the 13^th of October, 2005, a day before I turned 22. I’ve left this blog free of any personal information. No names, no details, just thoughts. And after a hiatus of (1..2..3..4..) about 5 months, I think ill keep it that way.
Here is a conversation I had with someone a while back. To those who read this blog (yeah..im talking to the 2 of you..), go find that someone to do this with. Find that someone you can just sit on a car bonnet in the middle of the night, under some streetlamps, on a quiet street, and talk. About anything and everything. Find that someone who starts a spark of conversation in you, and lets that spark grow. Not saying anything. Just listening to you talk to your heart’s desires.

I’ve found my “someone”. Have you..?

So anyway, here’s a long awaited post.

After reading my previous post, my special “someone” commented that she wasn’t one of those women who were wooed (is that even a real word..? wooed…?) by money. I’m not saying women are wooed by money (although some are..) its less the AMOUNT of money that is owned, and more about the status it can imply...

I’ts the same as saying men are attracted to beautiful women...but even then, the term beauty can mean different things to different people...

So its almost the same as women..not all women are attracted to money..some are attracted to the number of credit cards a guy has, some are attracted to how rich a guy looks or acts, and some, although they deny it, LOVE getting expensive gifts and love to live the life...it depends..

not many women are really wooed by money....but its just that with money, its much easier to woo women...it sorta levels the playing field....gives some people (ugly but rich) some chances of procreating..if it wasnt for money, women would just go for cute guys...that would leave the aforementioned group (ugly but rich) and that other one (fat but rich) no chance of creating offsprings.....

now if only there was something the majority of the population (fat with no money; ugly with no money; fat AND ugly with no money) some hope for a future life partner....

(at the time of writing i have yet to decide which group i fall in..)

oh well.

TIME Magazine Research Piece.

2005-10-13T13:16:00.000+08:00

if there ever was a point in time that id like to visit, itll have to be the time when our ancestors (geniuses i tell you) came up with the words, and how all the words just seem so RIGHT....i wanna interview them and sell it as a research piece to TIME magazine...make it like a series of lil columns..

TIME Magazine Research Piece Interview

ME: so, how did you come up with the word "PURPLE" ?

ANCESTOR (GENIUS): well my boy, when that in-DUH-vidual ate that plant over there, he made a sound, much like "GURGLE" and he soon no longer fought back when we kicked and punched him... The in-DUH-vidual than turned an odd colour..and it was a colour that we had seen before on other things and other in-DUH-viduals who no longer fought back when we kicked them, so in honour of our fallen in-DUH-viduals, we named the colour "Gurgle" after the sound he made..

ME: and how did "Gurgle" then become "Purple" ? Dont get me wrong..i think the "Purple" has a much nicer ring to it, but still..how did it change..?

ANCESTOR (GENIUS): it does have a nice ring doesnt it..? well, that change can actually be attributed to my son..he had an as yet un named disease that rendered him unable to pronounce "G"s very well..he kept on pronouncing it "P"..he kept on saying "Purple" and eventually, after many of his friends died after eating Gurgle plants after my son called them Purple, we decided to just change it from Gurgle to Purple to avoid the confusion..

ME: i see...quite insightful..thank you so much for clearing that up for me..TIME magazine will pay me bucketloads of money for such an honest interview...

ANCESTOR (GENIUS): what's money..?

ME: ah...well, thats an amazing little piece of paper that will afford you any such luxury, including shiny rocks to woo women, shiny clothes to woo women, shiny metal animals to woo women, and many other such things to woo women...

ANCESTOR (GENIUS): you mean you can no longer just club a woman..?

ME: no.

ANCESTOR (GENIUS): i dont want to live in your future..

ME: that's good cause you wont survive to see it anyway..

ANCESTOR (GENIUS): that's good...

ME: yeah. Bastard.

and thats pretty much how itll go.....

Thesis on Natural Selection.

2005-10-06T10:55:00.000+08:00

what means drives a man to reach under a cow and squeeze its udders.......?

i mean seriously....what was so desperately bad that a man (or rather homosapien) decide to reach under a cow and squeeze those pale red things hanging down and THEN to drink whatever came out of it...?!

i mean seriously! what the hell was that guy thinking...?!

but on the other hand, i think thats how nature and evolution decides on the stronger (or in this case, the smarter) to survive...there had to be a way for the rest of the homo sapien race to survive, so, the stupid ones went around eating poison ivy and tried to milk a crocodile, while the rest of the homo sapiens (the smart ones) waited to see if they died....

if they did, then the rest just goes
"oh well...guess those lovely GANGGRRELAYY plants cant be eaten after all.."

(note: "GANGGRRELAYY" means Purple...i use this term cause the word Purple, or in fact the word Colour had not been invented yet and im almost certain that "GANGGRRELAYY" was the word, or rather expression when describing the colour Purple of the poison ivy..) (the word "GANGGRRELAYY" was invented or coined based on the facial expression and noise made by the homo sapien eating the "GANGGRRELAYY" poison ivy...)

so i believe that was how nature chose the ones to survive and the ones who didnt...we thank those homo sapiens who died for the greater good of the whole homo sapien race..for if it was not for them, we wouldnt be around to smoke pot and drink alcohol and ride around in big iron animals that made strange noises and run other people down.

Thus, concludes my Thesis on Natural Selection.

Thank you.

Music Redux.

2005-09-29T14:46:00.000+08:00

I know ive been here before but i just thought id go back down this road...

There's this one stream of music that just stirs something inside me..its not any particular genre..its just something about THAT particular song..or rather songs...it makes you want to call that special someone and just smile as you listen to her go on and on about how crazy you are for what your thinking (invariably crazy also means she's crazy about you for thinking that way too)..

its just something about the song..the guitar riff..the loaded sex appeal in the melody of the lyrics..all the while not really being about sex or being sexy, but just pure sensual...its the sort of song you want your signifficant other to greet you in as you come home to her arms..and just dance till the evening ends..

You just cant help but smile and think of falling in love with that no one in particular..its easily the soundtrack of two star struck lovers dancing in love, or two broken hearts going seperate ways..it can be the song of remorse, of love, of falling in love, or a song of pure pain..its weird that way, that the same song, heard at different times of the day, can evoke completely different emotions within..

admittedly, its probably due to memories created in the past, or just of memories youve created of the future..these songs will stay with you and become the soundtrack to countless other memories and images in the eye of your heart..

currently listening to Renee Olstead's "Midnight at the Oasis" for the umpteenth time today..

"Ill be your only dancer..prancer...and you can be my sheikh..."

An Explanation.

2005-09-24T11:31:00.000+08:00

Although admittedly, the fact that ive got more than 3 comments to a response is *COOL*, i would like my 3 (or maybe 4..?) readers to know that this blog isnt meant to provoke, its not meant to decide whats better or worse..this blog is just about me, writing what im thinking..its about interesting discussions i have with friends or with myself, in hopes of finding like minded strangers (preferably those who speak English) to have further interesting discussions with..

the best thing i can hope for is for this blog to make you think..if you agree with my opinions, then great..but if you dont, thats great too...
as long as you have an opinion...

Discovery.

2005-09-24T11:24:00.000+08:00

do you really think the human race really has anything else to find..? besides finding aliens, which has been the aim for so long, is there anything else we need to find? Columbus had his New World (even then im starting to think its that Chinese Muslim explorer...cant remember his name..) but what do we NOW have to look for? sure, we have barely scratched the surface of (ironically) the depths of the oceans, but we do know, or rather have some form of an idea of what is down there....

fishes.

(okay, i admit..that was HORRIBLE generalization but you get the idea......)

is there anything left out there the human race is TOTALLY clueless about..?

maybe..

(this next argument has been totally stolen from Scott Adams' book..i didnt ask for his permission cause i doubt he knows about my blog..besides, i dont think youd tell cause i dont believe you know Scott Adams either...so there....)

or maybe itll no longer be about finding new things to look at..maybe in the next century, the next big discovery of the human race will be finding new ways of looking at things..

read that line again, ill wait.......

got it..?

best example; what if there are more than 3 dimensions..? what if, we as humans are totally inept at living in more than 3 dimensions? maybe there's a 4th, 5th and 6th dimensions, but we just havent been able to "see" it with our senses...maybe we lack the senses to "see" and "use" those other dimensions..
maybe its just me...

or maybe the one true thing the human race has left to find is ourselves.

5 Basic Mindsets of the Malaysian Society.

2005-09-15T14:38:00.000+08:00

i think in our society, there are 5 general groups of mentalities..there is the older generation; the parents and grandparents who think that wearing pants around your ass is a sign of mental abilities, there are the young adults who for the most part agree with their parents (invariably their the eldest child) then there are the 20 somethings that are thinking for themselves, much to the first 2 groups dismay and encouraging the fourth group to do the same..and the fifth group is just sorta there...

its weird but if you seriously thought about it, im right..think of all the conversations youve had with people and you can rationalize the people in your life, based on their age mostly, and prove that they fall into the descriptions i mentioned above...of course, there are a few that cross boundaries, the ones that started "arty-farty" play halls and the like..but for the most part, the generalities fall right..

ill give you an example to think about...

my dad has been on my case about where i wear my pants..i dont wear it as low as most people wear them, but i do wear them low as compared to where my father wears his pants..(he wears it around his stomach..like my grandfather does...) NO ONE in my age group wears it there..if they did, theyd be rediculed to no end..but thats not the point..the point is that i wear it where i do purely cause its comfortable for me....my mom is pretty cool so no real complaints there..

my elder sister doesnt read the papers..nor does she watch CNN..nor does she go online to check whats happening...and i notice a lot of people in her age group dont either...their in the interim "MTV" age group that dont give a rat's ass about anything unless MTV told them about it...its weird but its true...she's the "safe" type..my sister is the type of person who never challenges herself by doing anything like being involved with a start up company..shed rather work a boring day paper pusher job...

then there's me... :D well, we'll leave that for another day......

then, my lil sister, who is further off left field than i am.....but she chooses what she wants to be, and she challenges herself constantly...the only difference she and i have is that she's more willing to challenge everyone else around her (my parents) where as i just challenge and push myself..

and finally, my younger brother...the one that doesnt know what he wants to do...and couldnt care less...even though he's sitting for his SPM (O' Levels for all you international kids) in less than 2 months.. so in actual fact, there are 5 groups of mindsets....

i will sum it up in the following...

The Pigeon's 5 Malaysian Mindsets Based on 17 Years of Research of the Pigeon's Family.
1) The Older Generation - mid 40's and above
2) The *huh?* Generation - mid 20's till marriage
3) The COOL Generation - Late Teens till early 20's
4) The Future Generation - Late High School to College
5) The *wha..?* Generation - Late High School below..

Thus is my thesis for the Malaysian Mindset....

What a complete waste of your time.

Time.

2005-07-06T12:55:00.000+08:00

i was having this talk with a friend the other day and she brought up the topic of time traveling..im not gonna go into the debate of if time travel is possible, but rather, assuming it is, would we have anything to worry about? a few years ago, i had read about a hypothic scenario called the Butterfly Effect.. (no, i have not seen the movie..)
best put by another author, the Butterfly Effect says that, even the most infinitesmally (really REALLY small) change in the past can, in due time, create enough of an effect..his example is as follows..
say there was a super computer that took everything into account to calculate the weather..i mean, EVERYTHING..from humans to the worms and the trees..but, it forgot a single butterfly..over time (millions of years), the butterfly's (i know butterflies dont live that long...!) flapping wings, would create a big enough ripple in the atmosphere to make the computer's predictions worthless..(but even at the current rate of computer advancements, it probably wouldve been obsolete a month after it was completed........)

so, coming back to the topic at hand, if a person was to go back in time, and accidentally kill a butterfly or bump into an ancestor, can he..? will he start to dissolve like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future..? or would it be impossible for him to bump into his ancestor in the first place..?
by him being there, doesnt that by definition mean, it didnt effect anything...? still with me? or have i confused you.......?

..music...

2005-06-21T11:57:00.000+08:00

Quiet down class..everyone grab a seat and lets begin...

Music is a very important part of my life...music has been written for as long as human's have become to be called a civilised race.. (imagine this, a caveman campfire, beating on animal hide drums and grunting and screaming..it couldve been religious) (and who says music cant be religious..) i believe in god and all that good stuff, but think about it..why cant music be a religious experience..? however i think we'll save the religious discussions for when we have a more involved audience..

so, music..it feeds the soul and it soothes the savage beast...but then, what is music..? or rather, what is good music? someone once said that there are only 2 real genres of music, good music and bad music..and this is the topic of our first discussion...who really decides what is good music? is it the record company that is constantly pumping out bubble gum music, or is it the buying public that buys whatever albums or songs the record labels release..
is it sufficient to rate the quality of a song on its acceptance levels in the market? just because Britney and Jessica releases more singles and sells more albums (not to mention tabloids), are they really any better than Damien Rice or Michael Buble? What about relative unknowns like Michael Franti or Ari Hest? Just because theyre not played on the radios, are they bad music..?

i remember talking with a few friends about Damien Rice 2 years ago when he first came out, with singles like Cannonball and Volcano and The Blower's Daughter..but now that he's in a movie soundtrack, everyone's suddenly jumping on the Damien Rice bandwagon..or when my sister bought the Maroon5 album off the net a year or so back, no one had ever heard of them, but now, everyone's singing "She Will Be Loved"....

what does that tell you about what....?

ThePigeonHole

2005-06-21T06:38:00.000+08:00

First, the name..about a year ago, after the release of Shrek 2, a good friend of mine started to refer to me as pigeon..(the Fairy Godmother referred to her son, The Prince Charming as her pigeon) At that point in my life, I was also trying to get over the dirty business of a breakup (itll probably come up sooner or later) and coined for myself the alter ego, SuicidalPigeon..so from there BLAH BLAH BLAH, the PigeonHole..at this point, i still hadn’t decided whether to tell my friends or not, or just see if itll get around to them, but yeah..we’ll see…

The PigeonHole will be treated somewhat like a bar, which is somewhat ironic seeing i neither enjoy the company of drunks, or drink myself for that matter..but itll be treated like a bar in the sense that you can come in, talk about what you want, and get out when your done..just don’t piss on the floor, tip your bartender when you can afford it, and try and not throw up on the pretty lady that sits next to you..take my word for it, we probably wont get that many in the first place...

Here, ill talk about all the things that have bothered me in the past..or atleast the ones i can remember..i probably will also be doing reruns of subjects dissected amongst friends (hope you don’t mind guys..!) but names will always be kept confidential..as will be mine...unless you know me la….at which point, i hope youll continue to acknowledge me after this comes out… :p

i had wanted to do this ever since a friend of mine introduced me to a blog i thought was brilliant..for those of you who know me, ive never been a fan of the blog idea…i guess now, after much time, ive realized, that the blogging tool, like anything else, can be used for good or bad..i TOTALLY disagree with the idea of a blog being the diary of the writers day..i mean, seriously, i don’t quite care what you ate for breakfast, or what you had for dinner with the family…im more into the idea of the blog as a tool for discussion, or controversy of the metaphysical (Google the word) (is it just me or do you just LOVE Google?!).

This is my vision of this blog..hopefully, some of you might find it to your tastebuds, and if some of you don’t, write about it to me..or go write your own damn blog and link it to mine…
cheers.

The Start.

2005-06-20T16:07:00.000+08:00

So this is my first order of business...i know its probably been done before (atleast in one form i know of) but i wanna put that "6 Degrees of Separation" theory to the test..this theory states that, there are only 6 degrees (people) that separate each and everyone of us....so, what ill do is send this out to a few of my friends, a handful that know this pseudonym of mine, to pass out amongst their friends and they on to theirs and etc etc, and to see if anyone out there, would recognise me....

it would also be nice to hear from some of you as well..do note that this blog has just started, so there isnt anything here just yet...but with this lil experiment, i hope to gather up a big enough circle to get together a round of talks over a particular topic or thought i might have had....

yes, i know, this is all too familiar...its just that, the only one i knew has gone under, and i thought id start my own...
so there.