| Rant : Milestone Mark Quite often, you reach one of those designated milestones in your life where you�re almost forced to assess and take stock of what has gone by. Your 21st birthday, the first time you lost someone dear, when you fall horribly sick and stay in bed all day thinking about death, the New Year, when your mum forces you to remember the time when you dressed up as a swan in your school musical, Christmas, your first sip of alcohol, the first time you get into an R-rated movie (legally, of course), all the �first times� in our lives, and the little markers that we build around them. Indeed, the time has come for myself to take stock, and to do a little review of the year just past. I mean, it�s not like I�ve won the Pulitzer Prize or anything like that. But I do have cause to celebrate. Yes, this website was �born� (as the �Regarding R.D.� section would say) on a particularly warm night, 1 Dec 2001. And here we are, one year on, and what, about 30-odd pieces of work later. Bet you didn�t think I�d come this year. Well, one thing I know, was that I never thought it�d come this far, and if you�re still around, and still reading, I thank you. I would of course lurve for you to send me an e-mail or to sign my guestbook. Something, anything to let me know you�re reading (and hopefully loving) this endeavour of mine. But it doesn�t matter. Thank you nonetheless for sticking by, and for supporting this website even though exams and (in retrospect) other less important things led me away for pretty long periods of time. Anyway, I think one of the best cures against saccharine sentimentality is to just talk at length about myself. Because it�s always easy to be sentimental about things, and about other people, but you gotta be quite a wuss to take yourself so seriously. So I just thought I�d take the opportunity then to rant (at length) about how this website has changed my life for the past year, and the good times I�ve had updating it, and how much I�m looking forward to this next year, and hopefully, the years after that. Why I started this. A year ago, I was coming off this strange exploratory adventure known as �surfing the Net and checking out people�s homepages�. I began to realise that there are lots and lots of people out there, voicing out their frustrations, celebrating their victories, heralding their successes, sharing their stories. Some, of course, wrote better than others, and some are of course, funnier than others. This was also the point in my life when I was quite a fan of comedy writing, the kind of stuff you get when you pontificate and exaggerate about the insignificant experiences in your life, or the anecdotes that might just somehow lead to a life lesson. Anyway, long story short, I thus decided to embark upon this little project so that I could practise how to go about writing pieces in a hopefully funny manner, so that other people would laugh along with me, and so that people would just stop laughing at me. Yeah, seriously. I was also keen to capture and hone a distinctive voice, a voice that was mine, a style that speaks my name, yada yada blah blah bling. The problem I had was that I was completely and utterly hopeless at computers and HTML. I would sooner master Greek and Latin than the complexities of HTML and code. Thankfully, some people at Yahoo! knew of the existence of imbeciles like me, and went about creating such a user-friendly software so that I could put up my own website. True, it might not have the fancy graphics, there are only a few basic fonts, clowns don�t pop out of nowhere and sing Jennifer Lopez�s �Ain�t It Funny� everytime your cursor moves over a certain punchline in the piece. But I guess, sometimes simple things will suffice. There are no photos (most certainly not of myself), and there won�t be for as long as I can help it (you gotta send me more fanmail in order for me to put up a photo, people! I�m just saying �), and all you�ve really got here are words. Sure, some days I just wonder what brings people back, especially people I don�t know, people who just accidentally stumble upon this while they are, say, hunting for an article that screams �That boyband Blue is just the most talented group since The Beatles�. (Of course, something like that would never happen, since most people who listen to and love The Beatles probably don�t give two shakes about Blue.) This has never been an ego-stoking thing for me. If it were, I would have put up sexy photos of me a long time ago (hey, I got you there now, haven�t I? Aren�t you gonna send me the fanmail now � it�s getting mighty close to Christmas too � just kidding). There are just way too many homepages out there that are nothing more than glorified photo albums. I have nothing against people who choose to share their lives and pictures of their lives with the whole world, but that�s just not me. I�m sharing my thoughts, sure, and from there, maybe you the reader will get a better understanding of the person who typed this. Or maybe not. It doesn�t matter. What does matter is that a part of me gets out there, and one year on, I can look back and read, and go �what was I thinking?� I�ve never been patient enough to keep a diary, and I�ve never been much good at detailing portions of my boring life (some people out there should know). But I like writing reviews, I like picking at details, I like taking the small stuff in life and going on and on and on and on and on about it. So hopefully, my pieces are, and continue to be, the windows to my soul. Yeah, that sounds cliched and all. Shut up. How this website has changed me. I would like to think that I�ve improved my writing over the past year. Probably not, but I can convince myself otherwise I suppose. All it takes is a few beers. But I�ve become a lot more critical (especially with my often-savage reviews), and I�ve always become more observant about the little things. And most importantly, by turning it all (mostly) into a joke, I�ve become a bit less serious about life and been able to see the comedy in things. I�ve also been able to write something about what is often nothing. I mean, my running gag on �Rants� is still going strong (see RAQ if you�re not sure what I�m talking about), and I thought I�d have to give up halfway on that one. The good times. Nothing pleases me more when I come up with a good joke, or something that people find funny. Some have asked me how much time I spend writing an average-length piece. The answer is �not much�. I don�t get inspired to write everytime I watch a movie or listen to a song, or everytime I find some small thing to make some noise about. It takes quite a lot to get motivated to write. But once I do, it flows quite quickly. Sure, there have been pieces which I have just abandoned for good (my review of �My Big Fat Greek Wedding�, plus a rant on terrorism � glad I didn�t go there). Sometimes the jokes come, sometimes they don�t, sometimes they�re just plain inappropriate. But when I somehow manage to crack a joke from thin air, it puts a smile on my face � well, at least one life smiled as a result of that, eh? I do enjoy hearing from people who read the pieces, and I think I�ve laboured this point long enough. I mean, you can search for this website on Yahoo! and Google, so I�m not afraid that people will stop reading, so it�ll be here to stay for sure. But it would sure be nice to hear from � oh okay, enough already. From here on. Well, like I mentioned elsewhere on this website, I�m now working full-time. Hence, the only time available for me to update this will be the weekends, and I do want to have a life outside of staring at the computer and waiting for inspiration to hit me. But I will still be updating this regularly, and I�m still looking forward to it very much. I hope you�ll continue to stay tuned, and do feel free to e-mail me as and when you have comments, or just to chat. I reply to all e-mail, although it might sometimes take me quite a while to do so, but I shall reply at some point. So, until the next milestone (who knows when or what that would be � I don�t plan to be writing a piece like this whenever my website celebrates its �birthday�), I�m off to get some chocolate cake and a cold glass of milk. Because quite often, that�s all we need to make us happy. |