IzzMedia Launched!

Finally, it's out there. After 2 years of getting the domain and not doing anything with it, izzmedia.net is now online.

It took so long because...well, I found out that I was a hard client to please. I kept rejecting my own designs. But seeing my buddy Benjamin swiftly launch his website lights a fire under me, and I finally roll my sleeves and party like a monkey!....umm, I mean get my website done. Not much content at the moment, it's an ongoing process. I stick with my original choice for the CMS (sNews) despite toying with other CMSs like CMSMadeSimple, Wordpress, etc. So far, it's good.

I had intended IzzMedia to be my online design portfolio, but along the way I decided to include other personal contents as well. So now it's like a mish-mash of foods - imagine a plate full of sushi and donuts, sprinkled with mustard and honey on top. With coleslaw on the side. Aggh, that doesn't sound good...

What will become of Izzatics? For the time being, it'll remain alive. I might still post stuff here every now and then. But IzzMedia will be my priority site. It's been great.

Approaching...the end?

Since over a week ago, I risked my well-being to 'reset' myself. Ideally, to 1997 levels. No easy task, but doing just fine so far. Slowly and surely. The weather is surprisingly on my side, too - it only rained in the evenings, which gave me ample time early in the morning.

With this reset, I probably had to welcome back some stuff that I had left behind. My old nature, my fear, my ability...my old friend. Early next month I'll reflect to see whether I'm any closer to my goal or not.

Setting up some stuff on my domain (izzmedia) so I am currently toying with the idea of fully utilizing IzzMedia as my online presence, which in turn will have me leaving Blogger. Unlike some, I rarely experienced problems with Blogger, it's been a real blast to blog here. Or maybe I'll just turn my domain as my web/graphic design work repository, and maintaining this blog for my personal stuff still. Still deciding...most likely I'll have the answer by next week.

The end? Maybe...maybe not. We'll see.

Post-Raya Withdrawal

First entry since after Hari Raya, and that means I could eat lunch again...and consequently gained back all the weight I've lost during the fasting month. I know, I know. My willpower was next to nothing. To make things worse, I recently found a new love: Big Apple's Donuts. Mmm-mmm, so good.

Raya has been...largely uneventful. Tiring at times (since I'm the unofficial family driver) and just plain nuts. On Sunday (5th Oct) the traffic was pretty bad everywhere due to people getting back from their kampungs and back to work. My younger bro was supposed to take the express bus back to his college in Kuantan that night at 10.45pm. The bus managed to finally arrive after midnight...but then I heard a collective groan (and one guy actually yelled) when the bus is apparently broken down. Some other people had been waiting for their 8pm bus, which arrived later at around...1am. I have never seen a group of people with fiery homicidal urges in their eyes. It's a war zone out there. My bro's group eventually got a replacement bus the following day at 5.30pm...which also, you guessed it, arrived LATE. ONE FUCKING HOUR LATER.

Fuck Transnasional. I really mean it. You fuckers screwed up when other no-name bus companies still able to provide buses. One time, my mother and sis was left behind by a Transnasional express bus when they were in the toilet. So you guys pissed off when a passenger is taking their time? How is it that you could let people wait endlessly for a bus that is eventually broken...and not even making an announcement about it???!!!! SO FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU and FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES! Oh, was my language too harsh for you?....boo hoo hoo, assholes deserved no respect. Get a fucking grip and improve your act, and don't ever toy with customers when things go awry!

Wow...that's too much anger in one post. I am spent now, and goddammit I gotta find the energy to continue work.

Question | Mentality

Today is one week before Hari Raya. I'm not exactly jumping for joy here, it's just another holiday to me. I don't see the big deal about it. Thanks to current business/marketing practice of 'water-everything-down' and mass media's insistence on harping about it WAYYY before the actual day - these factors helped to kill my festive mood dead. Dead like a snail ran over by the damn bulldozer.

For the past few weeks, I haven't exactly been productive. Not that there's nothing to do...just lacked the drive to do it. My workrate is like The 6 Million Dollar Man in slow motion. Sometimes it's indifference, sometimes it's pure hate. My career path was based on what I loved doing growing up, so basically what went wrong? If I am now hating doing what I loved, then what happens now? 

As a student, I was never the brightest - in fact, I am quite the slow learner. Just ask my driving instructor. Apparently I absorb and process info slower than others; but once it's in my mind, it stays there. Example: me and a friend tried to recall a song that was popular almost 20 years ago. With only a single line of the lyrics...I wracked my brain to re-construct the whole song in my mind - which I managed to do few hours later. This was 1997, where MP3s weren't abundant...plus, the song is like a one-hit wonder so locating the actual album is near impossible at the time. Yes, I got the MP3 now, and it's not all that great.  It's like trying to watch Space Cop Gavan now "...I liked to watch THIS crap? Why is that big blue dragon appearing for no reason? That's not 0.05 seconds!" 

Ok, back to 2008. What's the point of revisiting all that? I 'get' things slower and later than other people. I am the opposite of a prodigy.  Like Bizarro to Superman. 

So how to get back that 'fire'? How to recapture that spark, that energy which keeps me going and made me do things beyond my personal comfort and threshold? Some experts suggest to remember back the time when you had those feelings and revisit those 'good old days'. To be that person and absorb that moment. Kind of like method acting, but without the weight loss. 

I could picture those moments. I witnessed all the events in my past that gave me great joy, and made me feel like I could face anything and anyone in this world. I'd seen it all, but only from a distance. Somehow, I could never step back into the me of yesteryear...for we are too different now. I am just an audience to my past glory, unable to relive it.  

The truth is a little part of me knew what it takes to feel that way again. The missing piece of the puzzle that is vital to make it work. I just refuse to acknowledge it nowadays. Whichever era of my life I glimpsed upon, there's always a soul anchor - an apple of my eye. That one presence. Currently, no one is filling that role - it's an unbearable void. The void is growing into a black hole that threatens to suck me in, like a goddamn Protoss Mothership...Or whatever that Protoss superweapon is called. Sorry, Starcraft fans. 

Through it all, there is a faint glimmer of hope. I've had my back to the wall before, it's just another day in my life. I'll find whatever I'm looking for eventually.

Popsicles are for the summertime

It's almost halfway thru the fasting month, and even more time passed since my last post. True to my past promise, I hadn't watch any movie in the cinema since The Dark Knight. With crap like Zohan and Love Guru currently playing, I am in no hurry to rekindle my cinematic venture. I did, however, purchase a mother load of DVDs, mostly comedies.

And speaking of comedy, I got more albums from two more sources: Todd Barry and Mitch Hedberg. Todd Barry's Medium Energy was alright, although his delivery was extremely laid back - I actually fall asleep listening to it. Then again, it was around 2 to 3 pm, my 'sleepy and brain-dead' hours at the office. I enjoyed the album and laughed at the jokes, but not playing it as much as other albums due to my unwarranted bias against Barry's delivery style. It's just me.

Now, Mitch Hedberg. I downloaded two albums of his, Strategic Grill Locations and Mitch All Together...and I freaking loved all of the stuff. He is...unique in delivery and style, mining out laughs from places or things that is both unexpected and surreal. Sadly, he passed away in 2005 due to drug use. A loss of a great talent. One more album was released posthumously, which I am hoping to acquire sooner than later.

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On the personal side: currently in a state of total bore - not that there's nothing to do, just...not feeling it. I had practically wasted a precious financial opportunity recently by giving up a freelance job that had been on and off for quite some time. The blame was and is squarely mine. These days, I just don't give a damn. About anything and everything. Life, love, work...none of it seemingly matters anymore.

Some little part of me still looking for a cure to this problem. I know that I need that spark again. Desperately reaching for it, I embarked to the north - I had hoped that it'll direct me to it, but alas, the search will continue still. For better or worse, I am an instinctive man - this trait had saved me in some instance while doomed me in others. They asked, what kind of things/person you are looking for? I had no answer to that, for I have no template for my ideal person - only my gut instincts to fall back on.

They say good things come to those who wait. While part of me agrees, the other rebels against this kind of thinking. I am running out of ideas and out of time. I am hoping that I could start working towards a positive outcome. It's all in my hands now - I need to do this with my own power. If I could be bothered, that is.

Brief Exile.

After watching The Dark Knight, I decided to take a short break from my cinematic viewings. Been at it heavily for the past few months...it's affecting my budget too.

At work, things had been too crazy for me recently. I jokingly told a colleague I'd jump from the office veranda if the jobs keep piling up. Little did he knew, I was half-serious at the time. So before things get worse, I should take action. Asking for extra personnel to share the workload seems...I don't know how to put this...Malaysia would win World Cup first before I'd get another designer. The way things are now, the chances for it are getting slimmer each passing year.

So I decided to take a break. 1st to 4th of August...road trip to Penang with my buddy, Bob. We had been planning this for a long while...and the time is finally here. If time permitting, I'd love to stop by the Tiger Valley in Tambun, Perak - part of Sunway's Lost World of Tambun.

In the mean time, I'll be on hand to complete whatever stuff I can by Thursday. It will be a huge-ass tornado before the calm.