Word of the day: "badinage"

Traffic last night was horrible. From the windows of our office, we could see a river of steel traffic leading as far as the eye can see, choking every tributary of asphalt. In frustration, myself and several colleagues continued our descent into alcoholism by buying a couple of beers and heading over to a nearby deli for a drink. Ah, the joys of male bonding over Baron's Strong Brew.

Caught up with more happy nerd friends late at night for a few happy rounds of Warcraft III and Counter-Strike until midnight.

This morning, for some reason, fatigue overwhelmed me so completely that I actually took a half-day off. It may seem a bit of a waste to take the morning hours off, since you still have to come to work at 1pm and leave at the same horrible late time anyway, but the extra 3 hours of sleep really made a difference to my productivity this whole afternoon.

Idle comment a friend made today: "You know why gaming stocks have been doing so well these few weeks? Because of all the accidents on Hari Raya. All those cheenakia superstitious bastards buying 4D numbers of car license plates that kena accidents.....There's also a correlation between car sales and lottery sales. For instance, when I first got my car, ALL my relatives - aunties, uncles, cousins - spent at least a few hundred dollars in total buying up the various permutations of my car licence plate number."

Kairen spoke to me for a while, and he's also worried about you, Gabriel. At least, worried in a certain, detached manner.

I don't think your posts are factually inaccurate - at least most of them aren't - but you definitely have a decided bias; showing up all manner of irrationalities in Islam as a religion, while failing to paint the broader picture that ALL religions share these inherent absurdities to a certain extent. AND some of your research is based on the more sensationalistic type of news article used to paint fanatics as idiots (which they are). Put it this way; why pick on Islam alone?

And as for censorship, "sic hunt leones." I have no issues with government censorship; other than extreme irritation at the way movies tend to skip sex scenes or bits of dialogue. But frankly, freedom of speech is a luxury not everyone can afford; and besides, I believe that any intelligent human being should be able to obtain access to information one way or another. And besides again, there is no society on this planet that has a completely unimpeded free flow of information. It's a utopian dream to say that all information should be freely available to all the masses.

Back to your criticism of my motives; well, patent paranoia and an enjoyment of riding on any delusionary sense of mystique (which no one falls for, really:) are indeed pretty strong motivating factors. But it is to avoid situations like yours that I take care with my words and my identity; and even then, I'm not very discreet. It's perfectly possible to reconstruct a lot of things about me and my opinions and situations from my narratives on this blog. I certainly don't refrain from revealing my true name and details to anyone on the Net who asks politely. My only issue is with an unrestricted public broadcast of information; I'm quite comfortable with one-on-one tete-a-tetes in which information flows freely both ways. A virtuous mean between discretion and blabbering.

And seriously, you should take a stronger stand defending your right to write damn well what you please on this blog, but then again, that' s me arguing from the ideological point of view:) The cruel reality is that, the prospect of court-martial and having the army vindictively crack down on you for saying publicly what everyone feels is simply not worth anything as ephemeral as truth or justice. *shrugs* Face facts, once again. Of course, I'm perfectly safe in denouncing the sheer absurdity of the institution which has now pronounced judgement on you. I'd do exactly the same cowardly thing as you if the local Special Branch came a-knocking on my door.

Don't be a sucker for a lost cause such as "freedom of expression."