A Misanthrope's Throne

I was at work on Sunday, and used downtime to check Twitter. Seeing Benedict Cumberbatch at the F1 Grand Prix at Sepang just gave me so much turmoil (especially since he was leaving for Adelaide on Monday), yuncyn finally popped a question:

"If you want to stake out his hotel, I'm game."

We roped in axtar and futomimii and after picking them up around 9PM, the game was ON.

( Epicry begins here! )

The best part? I COMPLETED the draft.

Ttly kicking back with some root beer to celebrate.

To prevent ramblage (and because it's finally CONFIRMED and stuff), I'll try to put this in point form. ^^

The gist: I'm going to Tokyo from the 17th to the 26th of July. Shopping will inevitably be involved. If I can meet up with Deru and Iluna, even better.

The deal: I don't mind delivering/buying some stuff for you. Showing me where to go to get said stuff will be a plus.

The REALLY BIG CATCH:
1. Unfortunately I'm limiting it to the first 3 commenters (I'm also doing favours for a friend or two, so it adds up). If I can meet you in RL, it'll be much easier.
2. Passing me the cash in Japanese yen will be a BIG help as I've already converted my monies and don't plan to convert more.
3. A CD, a book or two are fine. Maybe a gashapon. NO "3 long wigs from Zephyr" or a Super Dollfie or a cosplay costume, please.

The bonus:
I'm watching Gazette in concert, so I may be able to get you some Gazette merch at the venue. If you're not specific I will buy you 800yen Gazette mineral water, I'm not kidding. And then you will pay RM30 for strange water that may or may not have been distilled from their body fluids. Bwahahaha.


Feel free to ask any other questions if you have any! ^^

So today I went to the MPO to watch the Tchaikovsky Spectacular with gan_sakura and Lishen.

The conductor was this apparently really awesome Japanese guy who is also REALLY short. I'd estimate him to be about 5 feet since he barely reached the shoulders of the first violinist and -that- guy was your average white guy. That's not all, no - the conductor wore a LEATHER tuxedo with its collar turned up.

He was a 5-foot midget leather-wearing BANCHO. If that's not amazing enough for you, I don't know what is.

Oh, and he also conducted the entire night without a score. It's pretty impressive to have the entire score in your head and know it so well you can conduct without even looking at it. Never mind the conductor bar reached his shoulders, he was a pretty good conductor. Very expressive - at the beginning of the concert it seemed his nose was twitching a lot. Then the twitching went to his mouth and...well.

Throughout the whole concerto he seemed to be more concerned about the pianist than everything else. Have you seen a conductor draping himself over a grand piano? Well now I have!

At the end of the concerto the pianist gave an encore and this guy just SAT DOWN at the podium like a little kid (the guy's 50) and listened to her play Liszt's La Campanella (thank you Youtube!).

At the end of the CONCERT, he got every section to stand up which was funny because here's a midget bancho weaving through the orchestra telling them to stand up, and when he received the customary bouquet he took out all the (I think it's plastic) flowers and gave to some of the female players. Then he took 2 stalks of roses for himself, gave the entire remainder (there were only the LEAVES left) to one of the female violinists, kept a stalk for himself and THREW the OTHER STALK into the audience where a MAN caught it. Then everyone cheered and the guy waved the rose and shouted "W00T!". XD

Most awesome conductor ever I kid you not; I think if he was conducting again I'd just plunk money to watch HIM. Have you seen a conductor look like he's giving the finger to his orchestra?

Thought so.

( That's all well and good but uh...the music? )

On the 2nd of January I found no less than THREE people starting on Project 365 (one was doing Project 365 #2!). And then I remembered the other three people who did Project 365 last year and didn't make it.

One day someone asked me how did I manage to have the drive to complete Project 365. Granted, it's not that hard, but maybe someone out there would like a tutorial on how to actually take 365 photos and upload them.

So because I'm feeling very shamelessly thick faced...

( How to take a picture every day religiously and not get sick of it! )

Me, kemuridono, minses, elderg, kimango, and dai_kurotenshi found you the best birthday present in Singapore! It was like THE ONE RING.

Elder: I'm not meeting Deru anytime soon, can someone keep this?
Mintos: ME! ME! 8D
Me: NO YOU CAN'T you'll take it away for yourself!
Mintos: ;(
Me: I'll take it since I see Deru more often.
Elder: OK

So Elder is Gandalf and I'm Frodo and Mintos is Boromir and Max & Ezel are Legolas & Gimli and Kemu is Sam and KM & Dai are Merry and Pippin LOOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

By that definition...DERU YOU ARE MOUNT DOOM!!!!!!!!!!1111111 8D

So don't buy anything for yourself until AFTER December 10th!

( Your hint picture lies within! )

AFA Report to come (hopefully by THIS MONTH yes)

So I was up against 2 past winners (with their names engraved on the trophy), a typical HOT BLOODED SHOUNEN college student, and the underdog.

( And the hugeass trophy goes to... )

Thanks to:

- flat_foot, immanuel_aj for popping over during the competition (and annoying me XD)
- kimango, mistressnaoko, ilunari, elderg, _deru, evo7gal, and everyone else on IRC that night for helping me brainstorm.



Next stop: Area-level competition, 8th October.

Reviewed the Dark Knight on my blog.

And here we go.

And now, quizzes.

( Old quizzes are very old. )

Crossposted from this post on my blog:

Today I collected bone marrow samples from 4 patients.

1. They're children.
2. They have cancer. Well, 2 of them, at least. The other 2...prolly just as debilitating.

I ain't LJ-cutting this because...I think we all need to remember that for every emo LJ post we make, we've a lot more to be thankful. Like how we don't have to have a 4-inch steel needle in our spine every other day.

Patient #1

The girl gets a room all to herself, which is probably for the best since the place looks like her second bedroom. A stalk of plushie flowers at the bedside, lots of colourful striped beanbaggy pillows, a grey teddy bear propped up next to her pillow. I ask her mother if I can move the containers of cereal and food from the table to put my stuff. The food's been there for so long that ants were swarming under the tupperware.

I go to the bathroom to fetch wet paper towels to wipe the table. The sink is cluttered with bottles of shampoo, liquid soap, sweet-smelling stuff; I stretch my hand to reach for the dispenser. Turning on the tap, I try not to knock anything down.

A large green duffel bag stuffed with clothes sits under the table. I move it away and find a 20-cent coin and an animal cracker behind it. The mother apologizes - it's only been a month, but it feels so much longer that the mess has become second nature. I smile and assure her it's no trouble.

Doctor enters, and the mother (and presumably grandma) leave. We put away the blankets, the beanbaggy pillows, and put the girl to her side. Doctor notices the large bruise on her right side, and tells the nurses to flip her over - he's already worked on that spot. He needs an unbruised area.

All the anaesthetic in the world does nothing for the girl; before the doctor can apply the antiseptic, her hand sweeps to her back, trying to swat a nonexistent needle. The nurses assure her the needle's not in yet, she'll be knocked out before that happens, it won't hurt really struth swear to great lallapalooza, but I'm sure she knows that's a lie - if grown-ups cringe and tense when the needle enters, you can damn well bet it won't hurt any less for her.

Even though she's knocked out, I see her eyelashes twitch.

Patient #2

It's not every day you get to see a bald 1-year-old baby. I keep wondering if she got her head shaved or something, since she's got bits of hair on her head.

Bloody hell, she's huge. Huge size...huge vocal chords.

Doctor waves to her. His eyes smile, since the mask hides his face. Baby stares at him, but raises an arm. It looks like waving, it must be!

The nurses coo, but it doesn't stop her from screaming her lungs out. The nurses pull out a catheter from underneath her shirt to administer the anaesthetic, and she won't stop. I almost catch her screaming "PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN" in chinese, but I'm sure I'm wrong - I don't know mandarin after all. Baby stretches her arm for her mummy. Mummy grips her hand and its little pudgy fingers until the anaesthetic finally kicks in. Gawd I never thought the screaming would end.

I peek between two large nurses - that baby's eyes are open. It's just not moving. Much. It takes a lot of effort to take blood from a baby; so much so the baby finally stirs. Doesn't help the needle is STILL INSIDE. Baby goes "wheh wheh". The nurses clamp down on the baby, reassuring it. Last thing you want is the baby to start going nuts when there's a 4-inch steel cylinder in its spine, I guess.

Patient #3

Entering the Cancer Ward is a whole new experience - you get the feeling the staff are being happy for the sake of being happy because there's no point depressing everyone else further. While finding the children's day ward, the staff are all smiles and chirpy. The patients though, are another matter; they sit on their beds, staring at the ceiling/wall/you. No amount of greeting them politely helps. If they're not malingering too much about their doom, they might nod at you, but they're not going to smile. Stories about cancer survivors/people being smiley? Ever notice it's seldom a group of happy people? Yeah.

The children's area is yellow - little cartoon wizard mice parade in a marching band across the blinding yellow walls. A tv showing Gummi Bears is suspended so high above I can't hear a thing. I wish I could, because then I wouldn't have to hear 4-5 kids screaming PAIN PAIN PAIN MOMMY I'M SCARED DON'T GO AWAY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY in full dolby 5.1337 h4x0r surround sound. Maybe in a parallel dimension, it would sound like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, but I'm not putting money on it.

The kid (9 years old) looks healthy - he's got a round face! Bald, but healthy and pink! Though I think the pink is from the amount of yelling he does when he pleads to his mum to please not have to go through this. Doctor pops by and checks up on the boy - he's pleased the swelling has gone down.

The nurses administer anaesthetic, the kid screams, then mellows, then mum goes away. Third time and it's almost routine. Doctor's taking a long time processing things, so the kid just lies in bed and...keeps quiet. Five minutes ago he was screaming his lungs out in 4 different languages (Bahasa Indonesia, Hokkien, English, Mandarin), and now he's just staring at me with a "watcha looking at punk?" face. I swear, kids hate me; I must've eaten children in my past life or something.

When the nurses turn him over, it's not hard to notice the black cancerous tumour at his scrotum. Men all over the world wish for balls that large, though in a more natural, healthy, safe manner.

Patient #4

This kid lies in a bed across from Patient #3, is 3 years old, and has really happy parents. Either he's been in treatment for so long it's second nature for the Doctor and the parents to talk about the kid's treatment like it's a school timetable or the parents are coping in their own weird way. Part of me wonders how much all this is costing them. Obviously they can afford it because they're not on the papers begging like common paupers, but how much work does the father put in? Does the mother work, or did she quit her job to monitor the kid full time? If the dad's accompanying his son on a weekday afternoon, does he own his own business so he can take time off, or did he have to take an extended lunch break? How long have they been doing this that they can be cheerful? Is it a front? Are they tearing up inside when their son cries because he's dreading the pain but they can't because they don't want to and need to be strong for their son? Are they just optimistic their son will be better? I really really really want to ask, but I need to take the samples back to the lab.

Before I leave, I ask the nurse if it's hard for her to be stationed there.

Nurse: Yes, but you have to get used to it. Otherwise you can't work.
Me: How long have you been working here?
Nurse: Eight years.

So that was my day in a nutshell. How was yours?