Chatter Of The Squirrel

Pekan Baru Again

Happily, was able to get a ride to the airport. Bribed a friend with a Magehunter of Ios to send me to the airport. I’ll claim the cab fare from the company later.

There’s the usual hassle of getting my baggage checked by customs before I fly off with all the fancy satellite equipment. It won’t be nice if I get slapped with import duties when I bring the items back when I return to Malaysia. Thus, need to get a document saying that this is the same crap that I’ll be bringing back later.

Accidentally left a pair of pliers in my carry-on luggage. Forgot to pack it into the baggage. Crap. Had to throw that away. Glad that they accepted that it was an honest mistake on my part, and not suspecting me of trying to hijack the flight to Pekan Baru. A cavity search would have been unpleasant.
The flight only took 45min. Managed to get some sleep. Tired from late night gaming the night before.

At the Pekan Baru airport, the customs X-Ray the baggage as they come in.

My baggage lit up like a Christmas tree. Lots of interesting electronics in there, and the officer immediately put a chalk mark on the bag. But my pick-up was already there, and had made the necessary bribes to get me through the hassle. Phew!

Two hours drive to the oil mill. A few hours to finish the job. There’s a virus infestation in their network. That was the problem messing up their internet access. Not because our equipment failed. A problem they could’ve gotten someone local to settle, and not have to make me fly all the way to do…
But at least this time, I was quartered in a better room: one with a TV and fully subscribed IndoSat TV, with HBO, Cinemax etc… Lots of crappy movies kept me well occupied during the dead of night.

And look, they helpfully supplied a very heavy and very sharp hatchet in the room also. On top of the guard-posts and security, I guess the bosses / managers that visit the mill on occassion are still somewhat worried about potential native uprisings…

On Saturday, I went to visit another plantation. Another 90minutes’ drive away.

This is where the nursery for the oil palm trees are.

Flight home on early Sunday morning. Had to wake up early in the morning to make the 2hr drive to the airport. Would rather have stayed in town on Saturday night. But such were the arrangements.

If I was able to spend a night in town, I could’ve gone to a local supermarket and buy a few cartons of Indo Mee. It’s much cheaper, and tastier than the ones made in Malaysia.

Managed to finish Forest Mage on the plane.

Cupid

Who knows Jeremy Piven?

He’s been around here and there. For me, one of his most memorable roles was the Versace salesman in Rush Hour 2. It’s hard to explain, you either noticed him then, or you didn’t. He had a three minute part, and he did the best gay salesman stic I’ve ever seen.

But then, I noticed him because I’ve known him from much earlier…

He produced and starred in Cupid.

Caught the show on TV many years ago. Brilliant story. Witty dialogue. Amazing actors. But the show was axed halfway through its pilot season.

Only 15 episodes made.

Years ago, I even looked for the show on Amazon. Complete VCD set for a few hundred USD. I loved the show enough that I was even mildly tempted.

Then last month, I was commiserating with friends how there’s nothing to download nowadays until the new season of TV shows start up again and the end of this month… And I suddenly remembered about Cupid.

I popped the word into mininova search, never expecting to find anything. It’s an old show, and had such a low fan-base. But what serendipity, someone had just put on a share a week before that!

It took a month to download all the episodes, partly because my friend put it as a low priority download. Anyway, I’ve finally got them all, and spent the last few days watching them again.

The show is still as great as I remembered it.

The story is about a psychologist/therapist who writes a column in the papers about love. Claire comes across Jeremy Piven, who’s a mental patient with delusions that he’s Cupid.

Cupid has been banished from Mt Olympos, bereft of his powers, and he has to match up a hundred couples before Zeus will let him back.

Or so he believes.

So there’s the pop pscyhologist, with all her educated and philosophical approach to love and dating. Running a singles group therapy to help people wake up from their dreams of romance, and learn to look for compatible mates. And there’s the god of love, who constantly plays match-maker and throws people together.

They’re like Fox and Scully. Love is Cupid’s UFO.

The banter between the scientific doctor, and the deluded madman / fallen god is brilliant. Naturally they argue constantly about love, about relationship, about human nature.

And through the couples Cupid tries to match, the show illustrates the games people play on each other in this tormentful game of love. There are many happy endings, of course. But not all of them are Touched By An Angel kind of inspiring romance. Science and statistics make many compelling arguments.

Many people have never seen a UFO. And remain sceptical of those who claim to have. Madmen hallucinate UFOs. Hoaxers make up crop circles. Some people spend their whole lives looking for aliens. And many go through life just fine never even thinking about them.
The series also never really resolved whether Cupid is really who he claims to be. And the show downplays this aspect of the story. But the soul of the show is the banter, and the witty repartes.

Doc: I can find women who are right for him…

Cupid: Right… What does “right” mean?

Doc: Right. Common interest. Common background. Common goals

Cupid: I don’t want to be set up by a woman who uses the word “common” three times to describe my dream date…

But sadly, the show didn’t pull in enough ratings. Maybe that’s understandable. An intelligent but flat-chested woman. A man with gay looking hair. Not the most appealing characters. TV viewers rather watch boobs on their boob-tube.

It is sad. But the crass common denominator determines what we all see or don’t see on TV.

And that common denominator says, “Baywatch and WWE”.

Is The Pope A Catholic?

Things that are good to read.

Things that make you think.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/1677

Legend fades to myth…

There is one way to tell if you’re a commited fantasy fiction reader.

“Do you read Robert Jordan?”

Because you’re fit to be commited to a mental institution if you are still reading the same story that’s 17 years in the writing, and counting.

RJ is really taking his time with his Wheel of Time series. 17 years. 11 books so far. So many pages that they’re a whole yard thick. And there’s still one more book to go. And he’s built up more than a hundred unresolved threads, that the last book will be almost 2000 pages long. His publisher will need to patent a new book binding process just to accomodate A Memory of Light.

And it probably does not bode well that his next series will be called Infinity of Heaven.

I picked up WoT in 96. And devoured the six books that was out at the time. And Crown of Swords came out that very year too.

Crown of Swords ended with a ton of bricks tumbling down on one of the major characters. Major cliffhanger, right? Two and a half years later, book 8 came out, and there was NO MENTION of Mat!! Fans waited FOUR AND A HALF YEARS before book 9 told us Mat survived.

Well, that’s the kind of thing we fans endured. We often worried that the bloke would die one day before he can finish WoT.

And then, I find this…

RJ has amyloidosis.

Pekan Baru II

ARRGGGHH!!

Going to have to lose a weekend flying to Pekan Baru again to check their satellite installation.

Hellish boredom!

And this is the weekend that Superiority finally comes in!