What do I need to forget about?

I need a whisk of this spray, to forget that, in the words of Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things, "We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joy never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough.”

How to make butter cookies, Adobe Photoshop-style!

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

Stop motion rocks! (this still does not convince me to start cooking) via the ever lovely swissmiss who just gave birth to beautiful Tilo Red Eisenberg!

An excuse to peek into your neighbour's windows

Here's your chance for a creative story-telling - London creative agency Brooklyn Brothers started The Neighbourhood Project. They are keen on stories about people's own neighbourhood, no matter in what media - a song, a short film, a written story, a website or whatever else someone can come up with.

Now excuse me while I go write an irreverent song about that psychotic neighbour of mine who never fails to crank up to Thai techno beat every other night or about that mysterious grey garbage truck who often arrives in the nighttime (we believe it gobbled up some of the stray dogs). I bet Azah has tons to tell about her neighbours. (via Wal's blog)

There is no escape

Thought of the day, an excerpt from "Wandering" by Hermann Hesse, translated by James Wright, via Keri Smith's wish jar.

It's crowded here in my mind because there are so many hearts to take care of

Sometimes it’s just so crazy – the length we do for other people. Azry and I have been contemplating over buying a house for quite sometime, and all the variations of show houses we have been visiting – none of them seem to match our preference. I’m sorry, to be exact, the preference of the people surrounding us. I love small houses, been influenced by the idea of minimalism & IKEA showrooms and the interior design of the apartments in the US sitcoms I grew up with. Azry loves small houses for there will be less space to clean, and also “because we could find each other from every other end of the house.”

Too big is too pricey, too small is too crowded – what if our families decide to stay for the month, what if the siblings decide to hold a family reunion at our place, what would the aunts and uncles say if our house is not as big as their children’s. Every notion leads back to what families & friends would think without taking into consideration of what we actually want.

OT: I had a conversation with a fellow designer while I was working in Penang – most parents lovingly & forcefully twist the arms of their children to live their dreams for them because when they were children themselves they were busy living the dreams of their own parents. We too in turn would become parents who would urge our children to live our unfulfilled dreams for us. It has sadly become a vicious cycle we have to live and endure for the lifetime.

P/s: I fell in love with a red LINNARP desk in the as-is section of IKEA – but it is still dearly priced at MYR350. Also I’ve been saving for quite sometime for Delhi, and turns out both my and Azry’s car’s timing belts need replacing. There goes our vacation money. Or maybe Heaven's trying to send a sign that we should take a vacation somewhere local instead. Sigh. (Photo from whatmakesyoubeautiful)

Hideout

Come closer - I’m going to let you in a little secret.

On almost daily basis, as soon as the day ends at work I sometimes disappear. I didn’t vanish in thin air or something like that if you must know, and the bosses and the colleagues thought I was gone for tea and I would often return after Maghrib adhan. The truth is I was actually quite nearby, I could hear their laughter and the squeaky sound the chairs make when they embark on another evening office chair race – for I carried my Macbook and retreated to one of the storerooms near the lounge to catch up on the overflowing emails, write stuffs and other activities would often be interrupted by phone calls and people passing by and whatnot.

Why the storeroom became my favorite was that there was one spot at the end of it that caught my eye the first time I walked into it. A small yellow light shines on that very spot forming a circle, much like the type of light you would see in an alien abduction scene in movies. The light acts like a giant study lamp overshadowing my subject – in my case it’s myself and the laptop or a book or a stack of articles to edit. I love the attention the light gives me.

I have never worried about hygiene in the area; the storeroom was well kept. The binding files are kept neatly arranged in their own shelves, properly & alphabetically indexed. I have never felt the need to lock myself in that room, nobody sane enough would think that hiding in the storeroom could help in getting your job done or acquiring a little privacy. I wanted to take pictures of the storeroom and post them up here, but that would defeat the whole purpose because you would get to see how awesome my hiding place is and you’d probably want it for yourself.

Now that I have told you my little secret, will you promise not to tell anyone about it? (Photo from Ross Evertson)

The poster I should be having in my office

Created by Kate of for me, for you via design is mine. We all need a little bit of magical dust in our lives, don't we all?

Words of wisdom

(via design is mine)

Things my mother said that made me think I am still 5 in her eyes

"Have you eaten?" after an epic dinner she cooked for us.

"Do you need to go to the loo?" (loudly) at a wedding party we went together.

"Is that all you're eating? Put on some more gravy. And stop drinking so much water in between your meals." at the very same wedding party.

"Did you ever iron your clothes? Take them off, let me iron them again." This is 15 minutes before leaving to the mall.

"I'm going to have to hide that shirt." After seeing I've been wearing my favorite shirt over and over again.

"This blouse looks good on you." and she threw me a hideous neon pink blouse with bright red linings.

And finally, one remark that tops everything...

"I'm cutting your toenails. Go run your feet over the tap in the bathroom and come back here. That way the toenails will be softer and I can cut 'em." MAAAA ! (Photo from disconnecta)

Redesigning (and redefining) Valentine's Day

Well lovebirds, how did your Valentine's Day go? Over here it coincides with the first day of Chinese New Year so we spent ours munching mandarin oranges, attending wedding parties and fanning ourselves due to a super hot weather in our hometown (and managed to keep my panties on), nothing much really. No flowers or heart-shaped pillows or fancy pink (yuck!) fluffy teddy bears or anything of that sort. That got me thinking, why pink? Why flowers? Why teddy bears? Why is Valentine's Day indirectly related to girls' preferences instead of the male community? Why not Tamiya racing cars? Wrestling in the mud? Why not hold a public burping contest? What if we were to redefine Valentine's Day , just like Studio 360 was challenged to do? Wow, that's a whole loads of thinking over some long holidays.

Red beauty anti-machine machine

Dear handsome, graceful, ever gracious Santa, I know it's only February but I've been a good girl so far this year and I've stopped stealing cucumber pickle from Azry's cheeseburger so can I have this Olivetti Valentine typewriter? Please please purdy please!

Highfliers

... is a series of photo essay of 2010 Winter Olympics by Ryan McGinley. Simply breathtaking. (via Kitsune Noir)

Red lanterns, mandarin oranges & family dinner

... and not to forget heavy traffic along the stretch of North-South Highway. Nevertheless, have a prosperous Chinese New Year! (Photo from Andrea)

How long is your commute?

I read in Joanna's blog about a woman who spends a whopping six-and-a-half hours commuting to work every day! And I thought I have it bad - I woke up at 6 am, leave for work at 6.30 so I can arrive safely before 8.30 am. Any later than that, I'd probably arrive the earliest 9 am at work (and receive suspicious glance from the coworkers)! Yes, the traffic around our area is really bad but hey, what's new? (Photo from Stephane Massa-Bidal)

Euphoria

He inched his face slowly towards mine, his cheeks all puffed up. When his rosy lips touched the nape of my exposed neck he intentionally let out the air from his cheeks fast enough to produce a loud farting sound, and we both giggled like a couple of pre-pubescent children oblivious to the dangers lurking around our world. (Photo via Le Love)

In a bit of a rut

I had to agree with what Alex from ISO50 had to say about writer's block - sometimes it stands there erect for days and I've been looking for ways to get around it. Instead, I end up finishing up the entire two seasons of The Flight of the Conchords, managed to flip two beef patties & walked to the store nearby. So let's hear what Nicolas Felton (of Feltron.com), Audrey Kawasaki, Khoi Vinh, Erik Spiekermann (omg!) and many others did when they find themselves in a bit of a rut.

Today is the day of stupid

So here we are, two girls with a burning passion to purchase a condo in a newly developed area and was told to make our way to Menara PKNS. So off we sped in my friend's 4-wheel drive, yakking about which houses made us drool, whether the traffic is going to be horrendous, what color we are going to paint our walls, what sort of concept we are going to implement - minimalism, post-modernism, "screw everything I just want it to look like IKEA showroom" all those shit until we safely arrived to a half-rusty, aged business center of some sort in the middle of Shah Alam and asked around and found out that MENARA PKNS & KOMPLEKS PKNS ARE TWO DIFFERENT, SEPARATE ENTITIES ALTOGETHER! To add up to the damage, we nearly scolded an uncle for asking for a supik gelenya from us, thinking he was asking for something indecent from us. (supik gelenya means 'plastic bag' in Kelantanese dialect)

Can I have one of these typographic mobile in FML please?

The music, the road & the camera

... are undoubtedly among the things I love the most. I'm thanking Ahmad Faris, who (the following excerpt is from KLue blog) left his desk job to do his own thing & initiated IkanPaos Collective - a platform for better TV content in Malaysia and TAPAU: The Music, The Road, A Camera is their first project.

Featuring local indie acts, Faris explains, “The show is about TAPAU-ing or capturing the true essence of the artist, their music and the story behind the song.” In each 30-minute episode, the audience is taken on a road trip with the artist or band to their chosen settings. Whether it’s ten-piece indie outfit Khottal playing on a rooftop during sunset or Liyana Fizi pouring her heart out in a friend’s garden, these featured acts will share the feelings and the stories behind the music and lyrics. To date, TAPAU has shot David Knight, Myo of Oh Chentaku amongst others, and it also hopes to rope in Hujan, Seven Collar T-Shirt, Love Me Butch and more in the future. No word on a release date but here's TAPAU’s awesome trailer is up for viewing:

TAPAU: The Music, The Road & A Camera (teaser/trailer) from ikanpaoscollective on Vimeo.

These photos made me cry

...because they are oh-so-lovely! Azry, let's have our wedding photos taken all over again in this sort of surrounding shall we?

Happy birthday Azry!

Just like many other years, we scraped the idea of birthday cake, birthday parties, family gathering (despite many harassing I've been receiving to hold a birthday party and they'll bring the cake but I have to cook and let's have everyone singing and blowing candles and let's have the whole village together but fuhgedaboutit) so I took him to a steamboat epic lunch, and coffee. Just the two of you of us, just the way we like it. Happy birthday love.

New home, cool posters and yes Warhol does own pop yo

Suddenly it struck me: all these posters that will going to look good in our new home (wonder when that will be). So for a while I've been making a mental note to get these posters or to print them myself one day, put them in a frame and have them all over our walls. Posters like this one found in Design Milk:

The one in my last post looks awesome too, so do a few others, like any of these, any of these, any of these, the one in this post or any in this Flickr set. I'm having a hard time deciding which ones to choose (as if I'm moving to a new home tomorrow).

Dear Azry, do you know that

...despite how I am much darker than you, or how you love to fart under the blankets and I have an uncanny ability to spill everything while I'm sleeping, or how we can finish up the whole chicken in one go...

Dylan Fareed's artwork on 20x200 (via swissmiss)

Malaysian design archive, mutated cockroaches & the possibility of getting sunburn on one side of your face

I'm so happy to finally find a Malaysian equivalent of Design Observer on the Internet - here's Malaysia Design Archive, and here's its Twitter @designarkib. This project is an attempt to trace, map and document the development of graphic design in Malaysia as well as to highlight the importance of archiving as a way to protect and preserve our own visual history.

On another note, since I've been coming home late these past few weeks, just last weekend I noticed that we seem to have been infested with mutated cockroaches - with protruding small thorns out of the edge of their bodies and a horn-like hook at their backs (you can scream your lungs out, it's fine since I am still getting nightmares). Also today I found out the hard way that it was possible to get a sunburn on only one side of my face after a long drive (due to a murderous traffic jam) to work and the sun was shining its freaking happy beam only from the driver side. The right side of my face is practically burning now.

Well, what's new with you?

The best revenge

Ain't that the truth (from protectnewyork.com via swissmiss)