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Suicide Blog
You may have noticed that for the past month I haven't been quite myself. Actually I haven't been quite myself for the past three months. No, no, no. I take that all back. In truth, I don't even know who the hell I am.

I go through the "Who the hell are you and how did you get in here!" routine every morning.

Ever heard of the I-love-myself-I-hate-myself complex? Imagine the Tasmanian Devil with that and, well, you have me.

It's all rather confusing. So I have decided to take my frustration out on all of you. Yup, I've decided to revamp my blog.

Oh, this one will still be here but I'll be updating on timyang.com. That's my new site.

I decided to call it the edge in reference to a fairly decent movie but a much better book about a woman who lives on the edge of her own self-destruction. Some say that her story is about the life of those who grow up in an over-priviledged environment and the corruption of drugs and other forms of abuse. I think it was rather about the bravery of a person who reached an epiphany of her own identity and about the bravery of stepping away from the edge of self-abuse. You'll probably get it when you see the design.

The tone of the new blog will be slightly different. It will be significantly less interactive and more like most other blogs. In other words, pretty damned boring. Sorry, I don't pull any punches. That's just me.

Hey, that's right. That IS me! Heck, this new blog is starting out pretty good already.

Resolution
Have to remember to stop posting personal stuff on the blog.

There are just too many sickos masquerading as doctors wandering around here. I mean, when was the last time you ever met a doctor who gave free advice?

Get a life, you sicko!

Escape from the asylum!
Assertiveness simply put is the social skill with which one asserts his or her rights without impinging on those of others. As a skill it isn't always well-performed, but when it is, assertiveness is a form of respect for the rights of others and the acknowledgement of one's own rights. Assertiveness isn't a social norm like good or evil, but like those two, it is best understood in relation to two very extreme forms of assertiveness -- passiveness and aggressiveness.

(By the way, I just made up the previous paragraph. But that's basically what assertiveness is.)

The reason why I bring this up is because of the epiphany I had a few days ago that I am assertive. And it seems I have always been.

Up till last week, I always thought I was a passive/aggressive sort of personality. I was often moody and depressed, resulting in a "oh-who-gives-a-damn" kind of passiveness. Or else I would lose my temper and give in to a "are-you-some-kind-of-idiot" aggressiveness. As such I'd been led to believe that I was simply not a nice person. This self-impression weighed so heavily on me that I sometimes became even more passive or aggresive to compensate.

My therapist pointed out that assertive people have numerous abilities. One is the ability to say "no" and are able to articulate in a calm manner the reasons why and without guilt. Another is the ability to weigh up the consequences from the point of view of others before making decisions. The third is to honestly and succinctly articulate one's feelings while acknowledging the feelings of others at the same time. Fourth, is the ability to express one's own opinions while calmly acknowledging the points of view of others.

Strangely enough, that's exactly what I'd always tried to do.

I'd always thought that was the only intelligent way to behave. However, I'd always been surrounded by passive/aggressive personalities who thought that because I'd often tried to articulate my opinions that I was aggressively argumentative; because I didn't always follow the well-beaten path and tried to reason out better or simpler methods that I was too rebellious; because I often said "no" -- usually to ill-considered decisions or arguments -- that I was a trouble-maker; because I spoke my mind and tried to reason sometimes against the consensus that I wasn't a team-player. Admittedly sometimes I'd be a bit too aggressive, but I quickly realised that that tack might wear down others quickly in the short run but wasn't useful in the long-run because it tended to spoil working relationships. So I trained myself to watch moods and gestures and earmarked habits and twitches for tolerance levels.

When I looked back I realised that my passive and aggressive moods were actually an extremely minor part of my personality but seemed huge because of that numerous occasions that people seemed to point them out. And what's more they were evident only after troubled periods of which consisted of, oh, about 0.001% of the time.

What a relief it is to find out that I AM NORMAL!!!

Woo-hoo! Yee-haa! Kick my heels and call me daddy!

I'd been carrying that false impression of myself for the last fifteen years! (That's what you get when you grow up in an Asian society and upholds the ability to submit to authority without question as an ideal.) It's a fantastic to feel that weight lifted off me.

But this epiphany is so fragile. Which makes it even more imperative that I never never never go back to work in Asia ever again and that I find a social setting which promotes assertiveness rather than the passiveness that tends to thrive in Asian cultures.

Whew! Gotta send out more resumes.

Trivia spot
Can anybody guess which Anne Murray song this was in reference to?

Cast Away (2000), starring Tom Hanks, directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Dreamworks SKG.
The theme of Cast Away is the control that we exert in this modern life. Or rather it is the loss of it. This theme is vocalised in one of the last scenes as the protagonist, Chuck Noland, reminisces over his time as a cast away and admits to a colleague that "I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had control over nothing."

Chuck (played by Tom Hanks) is set up as the master of his own world. He is a powerful man who travels around the world trouble-shooting for his employer, FedEx. He lords his power over his Russian colleagues, chastising them in a demeaning manner regarding punctual deliveries ("Let us not commit the sin of turning our back on time!"). Chuck has demonstrably mastered the one thing that has eluded Presidents, kings, scientists and philosophers for thousands of years. He has mastered time.

It is during a Christmas dinner scene with his fiancee's family that we get foreshadowing of what is to befall Chuck. The sudden missive sent via his pager instantly removes his visage of power and control over his own life as he is called back to work. He attempts to re-negotiate control in the following scene as he coordinates his schedule with that of his fiancee, but the damage has been done as Chuck slips away into the night on a Boeing bound for Malaysia.

The viewers are clearly aware of the irony of his promise that he "will be right back". But it lessens none of the anticipation as Chuck's plane subsequently runs into a tropical rainstorm and crashes into the sea which washes him onto an island devoid of all life except plant matter.

Chuck lives four years on this island. And we see how he has to come to terms with his new lifestyle and to relearn all the most fundamental skills of survival. Slowly the scenes drum in the one lesson that the film-makers wanted to the viewers to leave the cinema with. "I have to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?" espouses Chuck after his ordeal. Yet it seems rather clumsily done, almost as if it were subliminal programming to pave the road to the Oscar's. It is nevertheless an effective lesson that many of us would do well to learn.

After watching the movie, it was clear to me that the screenwriters faced one dire problem with the script. In order to enhance the pain of being ripped from his modern world with modern conveniences and responsibilities, it has to be shown that Chuck has emotional ties to it as well. The screenplay barely has enough time to reveal this except with Chuck's relationship with his fiancee. Yet with the limited set-up it is never seen as being very close. However this problem was somewhat solved with the casting of the popular and earthy Helen Hunt in that role. She brings a anchoring part to the movie. It is not to the credit of the film-makers that they saw fit to extend her role beyond the emotional anchor and recreate her toward the end of the movie as the shattered fiancee. This part is never substantial enough to be fulfilling and seems so much as an after-thought than an integral part of the show.

Typical thinking of a dotcom idiot
Duh. Pyra still believes that marketing and long-term business planning has no place in its future. Everything is "features" and "cool functionality". And yet Pyra wonders why it failed in its attempts to sell the company.

Can you name a single company that would even consider buying another company that has no business planning?

Heard this one yet?
The Navy has announced that for the first time in forty-five years, it will be presenting a ADM Chester Nimitz Award.

The ADM Chester Nimitz Award was established in 1942 during World War II and is presented annually to the captain of the United States naval vessel that sinks the most Japanese tonnage in any one calendar year.

Of course the news aggregator site I mentioned below will be useless to me if I have to go back to Asia where the internet use and development lags so far behind the US and Europe models that I might be 80 years old before I could begin to implement many of the business models I have developed.

Sigh.

I've been applying for account planner jobs in a variety of cities in the US. But so far no success. I am doomed.

My news aggregator site
I have set up a news aggregator site especially for those who are interested in internet businesses, online marketing and the advertising and marketing industry. Internet consultants and advertising agency personel might find it useful.

I include analysis of articles that I have read from a variety of sources available through the moreover.com and echofactor.com news search engines that I have set up.

I also include a portal to various internet news, business news and advertising news sites that I use.

Listening to Eva Cassidy: Songbird (£11.79 at Tesco.co.uk)
I felt cheated when I heard this CD.

Like a lot of people in the UK, I was introduced to Eva Cassidy through a video made of her singing one of my favourite songs, "Somewhere over the rainbow", during a gig. As much as I love Jim Henson and Kermit the frog, that song took completely new meaning with the voice and the soulful rendition of Eva Cassidy.

Eva takes contemporary blues (Wayfaring Stranger) and even Gospel music (Wade in the Water) and rearranges them along with her versatile voice to give them renewed life. Like Ella Fitzgerald, she isn't so much a songwriter as she is a songbird.

I was intrigued by that video performance and took the opportunity to purchase her Songbook CD, her first album, with Somewhere over the Rainbow. However, the studio version didn't manage to capture her true self. Where was that Eva Cassidy that made those people in the audience weep? It seemed as though being in a studio robbed her of some of that spirit.

But I must say that her version of Sting's "Fields of Gold", the first song on the album, is the only thing that prevented me for returning the album. THAT was so pure, I can easily imagine Sting himself playing it over and over again in his den. Incidently, Fields of Gold is a live performance.

I suspect Eva is more of a live performer than she is a studio artiste. I suggest that if you're considering this album, give it a pass. Try Live at the Blues Cafe, her live album. Fields of Gold assuredly made me a fan of Eva and I'm going to shell out more for her Blues Cafe album.

Tenshi's questions
These are the questions Tenshi sent yesterday. Thanks Tenshi!

1. Why are you shutting down your blog?

In about four months time, all my posts here will be really depressing. Because that's when my visa in the UK runs out and I'll have to go home to a dreary existence of a job that pays very well, allows me to be creative and allows me to plan strategies that control millions in currency. But affords only the worst coffee in the world.

2. Where are you from?

Malaysia.

3. Should I have read all your entries before attempting to ask you questions?

Nope. You can pretend to have read it. It takes very little to make me happy.

4. Do you like soup?

All except my maternal grandmother's cure-all goop.

5. Do you know what a halter monitor is?

Err, someone with the job of conducting close-examination of women's skimpy outfits?

6. Can you guess what my favorite song is by the Beatles?

Possibly. I visited your site before reading this question. And when I saw the picture you placed on your site, I heard the words to "Hey, Jude", the melancholic and reminiscent song Paul McCartney wrote for Julian Lennon, John's eldest son.

Hey Jude donât make it bad.
Take a sad song and make it better.
Remember, to let her into your heart,
Then you can start to make it better.

Then I turned off my radio before continuing to read.

(BTW, I love your hair. Not that I expect my compliment should influence you to change your favourite song to "Hey, Jude".)

7. Do you even like the Beatles?

Yes. Very much so. I've got a copy of the multi-disc compilation as well as Lennon's Imagine album.

8. Do you have roomates?

I've never had roomates for as long as I've been able to afford it. Not because I dislike sharing. But because I like having my personal space. Lots of it. Besides which I also snore.

9. Do you hate them?

Nope. In my experience, they eventually hate me.

10. Do you really enjoy filling out the answers to all the inane questions people ask you?

Actually I do. Especially when they're interesting questions to which I can think of interesting answers. If you can think of more fun stuff like "Have you ever had to be hospitalised after a session of masturbating?", I'd be happy to accommodate.

Bad week
It's been a bad inconsolable week. Shall I count the ways?

1) I got two new cavities. I'm starting to think my dentist has a secret cavity room where she keeps all the cavities for all the naughty little boys who never brush.

2) My iMac's hard disk blew. I have been without a computer for several weeks. It took them over two weeks to diagnose it because they're the only Mac repair place for 100 miles around and they let their only repair guy go on a two week holiday. Now it's going to cost me £210 to get a new one. And it isn't even an improved hard disk. Just the same bloody model.

3) Some woman I didn't know manages to pick out something in an introductory piece that I wrote for my blog and twisted it on her About.com website directory to suggest that I thought I was boring.

On top of that David suggests in a message on my guestbook that I don't have cause to have such a harsh opinion of That Woman. David, how about if somebody posted a message on your HQ's duty roster board in big prominent letters saying that "David doesn't think he is good enough to be an officer. But give him a chance, ok?"

Condescending? I think so. But the question I put toward you is, how long would it take you to sign out a firearm, walk into the office of the guy who wrote that notice and pull the trigger?

4) Some guy picks on me on my own weblog when I am already feeling lousy. Go figure.

5) It's my birthday and no one remembers until I mail out emails reminding them again. And I still do not see a digital camera in my mail box.

6) Blogger denies me access to my own blog. Stop screwing around, Ev, and get a *&%*ing business manager!

7) Donna complains that my blog takes too long to load. Live with it.

8) I shut down my blog. And nobody asks why.

Blogvoices
I've decided to put Blogvoices back. There had been a couple of heated discussions in my Blogvoices that I didn't find amusing at first, and less so the second time.

Alex, MUST you always have the last word on everything? (That's actually a rhetorical question. But if I see any response in the Blogvoices of this post, I'll know I'll have an answer inspite of it.)

And the same goes for you too, Alexis. Don't goad Alex! I hate to lay down rules like this, but that crap has to stop.

Webstore now open
My webstore is now open. It has several pieces of Mac software in it as well as a couple of books. I haven't got any VCDs or music CDs available yet. I'm ordering some cheap versions from Malaysia for sale.

Acceptance of credit card information is pending. I'm working on that.

:-)
There's this luvvy wuvvy couple who have been working at the computer terminal opposite me. She's been complaining all afternoon about how fat she is and shoving her stomach into his face. And he has been so accommodating with such a sweet smile. Aw shucks.

Please go kill yourselves now.

Neopets
Check out Neopets! I'm Gobblewobble!

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Tim Yang