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Takeshi Talk, Part Three
We left our dear Masaki and Keigo at a revelation cliffhanger. What will Keigo do, now that Masaki has HIV? Let’s check in with the girl first.
The scene opens with her, sobbing in the doctor’s office. Man but I’m getting sick of this place. The doctor comes in and apologises. Whatever for? Well, they made a mistake! She’s actually HIV-negative! Hooray! She runs out and skips along the road, when she comes to a dead end. It’s a steep fall off the side of a building. And she leaps!
Back into her own body. Cheap “it was only a dream” shot! Masaki sits up in bed, picks up the magazine next to her and cuddles it to herself. Why? Because the magazine had Keigo’s face on it. Um, teenage girls can be quite silly la yeah? Flashback to the time she told him she is HIV-positive, and then we cut to a pool table scene.
Keigo pots the ball right into our faces, before some dumbass comes up to him and taunts him for not having written any new songs. Um, excuse me, but do men who listen to the romantic mush Keigo creates, actually hang out in these kinds of smoky, seedy bars? Maybe his girlfriend is a Keigo fan and she’s getting difficult to handle without any new releases.
Keigo’s response is to snort, pick up his whisky, and take a sip. Then throw it in the guy’s face. Eeee so girly. The guy grabs Keigo by the collar, and Keigo responds with a right hook to the guy’s face. He was conveniently still holding his whisky glass, so. Cheaterbug!
Other bar patrons pull the guy off Keigo (even though he deserved to get beaten up). He looks at his bloodied palm, with a piece of broken glass in it, and thinks back to Masaki’s confession. Cue bonus opening music video.
It’s morning, and Masaki bums around the house in her pajamas. Her father has just left to play golf, and her brother is busy mugging for tests and is not pleased by her pajama-wearing self. She refuses breakfast by saying she’s on a diet.
Keigo is having a party with his best friends Marlboro and Johnnie Walker, when Kaoru gatecrashes. She’s come to drag him off to the office, where they are awaiting his new song. He tells her to just give a young composer a chance and slap his name on it. Er no, Keigo, that’s called… well, it’s not plagiarism, but it sure isn’t honest! He says that life has become meaningless after his late girlfriend passed on. If you ask me, he seems to attract the dying types. Let’s project into the future. If he stays with Masaki until she dies, he will have had 2 girlfriends dying on him, which doesn’t seem to be the best cure for his “meaningless life” problem.
Kaoru plops herself down on the sofa next to Keigo, saying (essentially) “what about me, I helped you too!” Keigo suddenly pounces on her as if to kiss her, but his resolves weakens and he just stomps off, leaving Kaoru a sad, confused and rejected mess. (Can you tell that I’m not very sympathetic to her cause?)
Masaki has gone to visit her friend-with-benefit Hibino, to tell him the outcome of her test. He happens to be entertaining some bimbo, who overhears Masaki disclosing her condition. The bimbo, being a stupid and jealous sort, asks Hibino about it, and he tells her very sternly not to tell anyone. Oh great, the news will be all over town before you know it.
Hibino accompanies Masaki home, where he picks up a copy of the Kaoru Fan Club newsletter that fell out of her mailbox. He then promises to buy her the CD for her birthday the following week, which she had completely forgot. Yeah, when you’re staring death in the face, the day you started life can seem pretty insignificant.
Masaki walks up the steps to her house while looking at the newsletter, and it suddenly hits her: On the front page is a group photo of some trip somewhere, and loser-type is front row left! She frantically calls Hibino back, perhaps to call a hit on loser-type or something.
Keigo is taking a walk in the park, while wearing his ugly sunglasses. There’s a dude in the park playing Keigo’s songs on the saxophone. When he’s done, he spots Keigo and comes over to say what a big fanboy he is. This is the 3rd guy in the show to have the medium-long hairstyle Keigo is sporting. I’m starting to get bored of it, mostly because it’s my hairstyle too!
The sax player sticks out his hand to shake Keigo’s, but Keigo not-so-subtly ignores it. He looks at it, exhales smoke and walks away. It is beneath him to befriend mere struggling musicians!
Hibino and Masaki go on an adventure to the record company to find out the name of loser-type. Um, these fanclubs aren’t big on their clients’ privacy, huh? They track him down to his last known address, but he’s moved and left no forwarding address. He quit his job too, so he’s totally gone now! “Do you think he left this world?” Masaki asks, suddenly. Haha, good observation!
She goes to wait at Keigo’s house until the white van drops him off. She’s pestering him to get tested, and scares him by telling him that loser-type is probably already wasting away from the disease. She doesn’t want him to die, but he gets all existential and retorts that when the time comes, he’ll die anyway. Then he literally and metaphorically pushes her away, because it’s none of her concern whether he lives or dies.
She yells back that she has discovered the beauty of life, and now she wants to live! Then she digs a little deeper and identifies his defensive reaction as one of fear. He wordlessly walks away to sulk in a corner, so she must have hit the nail on the head.
In a noisy club filled with silly girls, a bitchy silly girl with a secret spills it to 3 other sillies that Masaki has an illness, which they would do well to avoid. We’ll come back to this in a bit, because now we see that Masaki’s mother has told her husband that Masaki isn’t eating. Of course she’s not, she’s in love! She survives on fresh air and sunshine! Otosan blames Masaki’s non-eating on the fact that she has a bad relationship with her mother, since Okaasan is always busy. Dude: pot, kettle, black, you.
Okaasan actually puts her money where her mouth is, and goes in to chat with Masaki. She asks what gift her kid wants, and Masaki is touched that her own mother would remember the day she came into this world. Duh. So based on this scene, I predict that Masaki will soon confide in her mother, her only remaining ally in this world!
Keigo is standing on a building rooftop, but he’s too chicken to commit suicide. Just as well, the president of the record company wants to talk to him. Boring scene la.
Masaki retrieves her books from her locker, and they’ve all been defaced in black marker. Okay, can someone tell me what is the point of this? I know it’s meant to show how she’s been ostracised, but girls generally do social isolation and gossiping, not this juvenile graffiti-ing. She goes to the restroom, where one of her erstwhile friends is in need of a hanky. When Masaki offers her one, the girl asks for a tissue from someone else instead. Then they leave hurriedly, and Masaki enters a cubicle to see more graffiti implicating her with a disease. Oh boo hoo hoo!
We are then treated to a slideshow of Masaki’s childhood pictures, some of which are really charming.
After school, Masaki corners the most sympathetic (and left-out) girl of her former clique. Of all the betrayals, only this girl’s rejection mattered to Masaki. She goes to find Hibino at the “shop offering unimaginable goods” where he works. Stupid bimbo is there, and she takes the opportunity to drive a wedge between Masaki and HIbino by playing instigator.
Masaki goes home and reads a nice card written to her from her mother, so she goes in search of Okaasan at the shop. Okaasan has just had a visit from the traveling salesman, and Masaki stands outside watching her mother work, when the salesman leans in to kiss Okaasan! Oh no! She politely dodges and pushes him away, and Masaki decides this is a bad time. She walks away, but Okaasan catches a glimpse of her retreating reflection in a shop mirror across the street. Masaki stomps home in a rage, and her father notices that she’s making so much noise as to disturb his sports telecast. Masaki ignores her father’s query on what is wrong, but she makes a conflicted beeline for the safety of her room.
She is lying in a disturbed heap on her bed (no futons for these guys) when her phone rings. I’d make fun of her ringtone, but I didn’t even have a cellphone in 1998, so. She answers with a barely-audible “hai”, and gets the familiar “ore dayo”. He took the test! Several moments of suspense follow.
His result is… not out yet. *deflates* Oh well, not like I was expecting anything different. It took a few days for my blood test to come back too, and mine was only to find out my blood type. Apparently, Keigo “went to a hospital that will mail the results”. So, not the type of place to go to for emergency diagnoses, then.
“I’m scared,” he confesses. Then it’s her turn to shock him. “Keigo, I wish you would test positive.” For the humanly simple reason that she is all alone, so at least they’d have each other if they were both ill. She’s tired of fighting her battles alone. Our Keigo is at least perceptive enough to figure out that something happened to upset her. With a final gasp, she hangs up the phone and collapses onto her bed. Keigo, faced with the unrelenting beep-beep-beep of the line, has a few moments of camera time to himself, so he can work on his “looking sad and worried” face.
Despite the bleakness of the situation, morning comes again, as it invariably does. As Masaki leaves for school, her mother tells her to come back early, as it’s Masaki’s birthday. Again, Masaki takes several moments to digest this, then says only “bye”.
Keigo is nattily dressed in a coat when he goes out to retrieve his mail. And in his mail is… his long-awaited result from the hospital! Stupid show keeps us in suspense by cutting to a gym scene. Masaki is being ostracised during a game of volleyball. I must say, their PE uniform is ridiculously cute. Floral-patterned t-shirts and pink shorts.
She looks so forlorn after school that her erstwhile friend decides to go talk to her and tell her what the rest of the school is saying about her. She doesn’t believe the rumour that Masaki has AIDS, she thinks it’s just malicious gossip spread by those who couldn’t stand Masaki’s independent character. “What if it’s true that I have AIDS?” Asami (her friend) is shocked, and scatters her armful of magazines that I think she was carrying especially for this dramatic purpose.
Asami doesn’t move to pick up her magazines, so Masaki picks them up for her. When Asami doesn’t reach out to take them, Masaki leaves them on the bench, and promises to sever her friendship with Asami so that she won’t be affected by Masaki’s status.
We return to Keigo, who finally gathers up the courage to open the mailer from the hospital. He gulps, steels himself to open it, then collapses to his knees as the camera cuts to show us the contents. He’s negative. So he has a cigarette.
Masaki returns to the one friend she has left, but stupid bimbo is now acting helpless and calls Hibino into the shop before Masaki can approach. Meanwhile, her family are waiting for her at home with a cake. Wow, they even have champagne on ice. I am so doing this for my birthday next.
The birthday girl returns home in time to see, through the curtains, her happy family popping open the champagne, so she decides not to bring gloom upon her own party. She goes to Keigo’s apartment building, and waits outside sans umbrella or raincoat, in the pouring rain. A stray puppy joins her, until a set of headlights reveal a black roadster coming for her. Specifically, Keigo’s black roadster.
We get the first real mushy romantic moment of this episode, as they stare at each other through the windscreen and the rain. They go back to his apartment, and Keigo hides his test result inside a coffee-table book. While he pours out a whiskey (I hope it’s for him), Masaki reveals that she’s being picked on at school. Keigo puts his glass on the table (oi! Use a coaster!) and delivers some advice about humans who can only feel good by putting down others.
“I wasn’t planning to come to you,” she says.
“If I’ll do, then come to me.” Oh yes you definitely do very well indeed, despite the anger management and unhealed wounds from the past. He continues smiling (smiling! Him!) as he reassures her that she’s not troublesome. And in a retro return to 1998, he says: “If you want to see me, just call me. Let me give you my number.” I recall SMS was still pretty new then, but no caller ID? Really?
He writes it down for her. What, don’t you have namecards? While his back is turned, she notices his test results sticking out from the book. He turns back to her in time to see that she’s picked up his mailer and is now opening it, and for some reason he seems conflicted. Like, “Oh no she shouldn’t be seeing that” and not for privacy reasons either.
“You didn’t have to hide it out of consideration for me.” Yeah, I know why he did that. It’s the same reason I feel a bit embarrassed to share my good grades when I know the asker didn’t do all that well. She exclaims that she’s happy he’ll live a long and healthy life (not with those ciggies he won’t), and then breaks into tears because it’s a life she won’t ever have, anymore.
And now it is Keigo’s turn to hold the little broken birdie to his chest and stroke her head. She continues, between sobs, that it is now the end between them. Hey, stop discriminating against the HIV-negative! His facial expression now tells us that he’s sad to hear this, which implies that he has feelings for her. Not like you didn’t see that coming.
She pulls away from him. His hair is ridiculously tousled. Why can’t I get that kind of volume on my hair? Before it’s too late, he speaks up. It’s hard to keep a straight face while watching this, because his hair is seriously insanely funny. She leaves anyway, because he didn’t ask her to stay.
She walks home, fighting back tears. Someone bumps into her and her trinket flies onto the road. While she’s squatting there, reminiscing, she sees loser-type in the human traffic on the pavement! He’s wearing a surgical face mask! Ta-da!
Masaki is now filled with renewed vigour and stops moping for a while, so she can track down this fella and give him a piece of her mind, as payment for the virus he gave her. The theme song started a while back, so this signals the end of yet another episode.
This one was draggier, all “woe is me” on Masaki’s side, but at least they got Keigo’s HIV status cleared up. If nothing of note happens in an episode, then it’s really rubbish.
Takeshi Talk, Part Two
This is episode 2 of God Please Give Me More Time, in which our heroine Masaki goes in search of the bastard who infected her with HIV. It’s a pretty annoying episode because she keeps having flashbacks to her experience in the doctor’s office when she’s being told about her condition. Cop-out!
She is in a train, returning from the doctor’s, when the reality of her life being cut short hits her and she collapses in a sobbing heap in the train. I like how the dude nearest to her just turns, looks, and goes back to his paper. That’s a very accurate portrayal!
After we’re treated to the bonus opening MV, the scene cuts to Masaki, sitting alone in her home’s dining hall as the clock ticks away the seconds of her life. Then her friend calls her out to go clubbing, and she goes! What a surprise, I’d have thought she would just hide under the covers. At the club, Masaki comes across a poster for a charity concert against AIDS, featuring our dear Keigo.
Meanwhile, where is Keigo at this point? He is backstage at the recording session, thinking of the girl who reached out to his poor lonesome self. Masaki passes by the building just as Keigo is coming out. There’s a stampede of crazed fangirls for the door, and Masaki falls down. Do Japanese schoolgirls not have to do homework? Why are they so free to chase after idols all the time?
Back in the white van (yes that one), Keigo’s lackey-cum-driver tells him that the girl from the rainy night was out there, along with the others. So of course he has to go back and pick her up from where she’s sitting on a parapet, holding a hanky to her bleeding elbow. Oh, my knight on a white horse van! Although frankly, I prefer his black roadster. Mmm.
They go back to his bachelor pad, but this time she just stands outside. He turns to her and sees her injured elbow. When he reaches out to take a better look at it, she rejects him and we cut to a shot of the hanky lying on the floor. As if we didn’t know she was bleeding already. Then Masaki goes on and on about how she really loved him and wanted to get to know him, and that she doesn’t regret sleeping with him at all. (Something tells me she was referring to the emotional investment and not the physical side of things.) The silly female then decides to walk home, and the ever-suave Keigo sits on his couch looking at her bloodied hanky. No, this is the RIGHT thing to do! Don’t chase after women! It’s just part of their game!
Masaki rolls out of bed, refuses breakfast, and only her mother seems to care. Her father cares more about his golf game, and her mugger brother runs off for his first-period test. Masaki decides to skip school to visit Hibino (Ah Beng) to tell him to take an STD test. Hibino’s female colleague mentions that Masaki hangs out at a club frequented by girls who do “sex for money”, though what is this supposed to indicate, I have no idea. Would the club be like a go-go bar?
There follows a PSA (public service announcement) in the form of scary words like “painful”, “death”, “sexual transmission” and the like jumping out at Masaki as she flips through a book on AIDS. Thanks for further stigmatizing people living with HIV and AIDS!
Enough of Masaki’s emo-tizing, what’s Keigo up to? He’s reminiscing about his late girlfriend, who died from some disease in hospital! Oh, how he held her cold dead body and lamented her passing! Boo hoo hoo! Then he decides to give Masaki a ring. To tell her that he doesn’t care if she drops dead. Because she has no idea what is means to live or die. “You don’t know what it means to die! Or to love someone!” And who made YOU the expert, Keigo-san? After she hangs up, her terribly unperceptive friends show up to drag her to the club. Again.
What follows is just a lot of Masaki being emo and pushing away the people who care, such as Hibino and her mother. So we go back to Keigo, who is sitting in on a rehearsal. On his own accord. Kaoru (the singer) remarks that this is unusual of him, because he doesn’t usually care about others. “Have you suddenly started taking an interest in others?” Again, cue flashback to Masaki saying… something. It’s not important what is it anymore, is it?
We get to watch some neighbourhood soccer before Hibino shows up to tell Masaki that he tested negative on the STD test. “What about the HIV test?” He digs out another piece of paper. “Negative means I don’t have it, right?” So Masaki lashes out at him, because it wasn’t negative for her, and isn’t this what she deserves for engaging in compensated dating? Hibino, being the stalwart man (and also a bit of a doormat) comforts her by telling her (essentially) that he will still be her friend.
Okay, so now we know that it wasn’t Hibino who infected her. That leaves 2 candidates! Although the way this story is going, you should have known from the start who was the culprit.
Still in denial, Masaki calls up the hospital late at night to ask if there could have been a mistake. The doctor stalls by telling her to come to the hospital, and Masaki eventually gets it. There wasn’t any mistake (because that would be a really cheap copout).
While she lies in a miserable heap on the bed, her phone rings. It’s Keigo, surprise surprise. What is this, a booty call? You tell her off and then call her up like nothing happened? Although, I don’t think I’ve heard anything sexier to come out of a cellphone than Keigo’s “ore dayo” (it’s me). The unlimited arrogance! I like.
She’s still puzzling over this magic of someone’s voice coming out of her phone, when a *beep beep* sounds from outside her window. Okay, so it’s more like *honk honk*, but it’s still kinda a cute sound, not *pooon poooon* like the lorries do in Malaysia. Girl apparently has enough brains to put two and two together, and opens her window to look down into Keigo’s convertible, which so conveniently has its top down. And of course her bedroom window is conveniently above wherever he decided to stop his car, otherwise Masaki’s dad might have been the one throwing golf clubs at Keigo for making noise late at night.
In an expositional move, Masaki asks how he got her address. I mean, dude may be a superstar, but he’s not psychic nor does he have access to central government databases… I hope. Answer: She is a member of Kaoru’s fan club, so he got her address from there. Quite a good move, not terribly slick but it got the job done. It’s something I would have done, with my data-mining capabilities. He gives her back her biohazardous hanky, and follows this up with… a cigarette. Man! Totally gratuitous smoking.
The hanky reminds her that Keigo is doing some AIDS charity concert, so she asks if he ever got tested. Keigo replies that his agency made him get tested, as part of the campaign. A lorry rumbles by as he reveals that he tested… positive. OH NO!
He keeps a straight face for about 7.5 seconds before breaking into his first grin of the series. PSYCH! So he’s not going to die from AIDS. Because at the rate he’s puffing, lung cancer will get him first. “So it wasn’t you,” Masaki mumbles, to which Keigo gives the most adorable “huh?” I have ever seen in a grown man. [Updated: Keigo is KIDDING! He doesn't have HIV, so he's not the culprit. Anyway, this is a run-of-the-mill romance. Your hero cannot be the cause of the heroine's disease!]
They drive up to some hill overlooking the city, and Takeshi basically stops acting for this part. He is essentially telling his own life story as Keigo tells Masaki how he spent time in LA and feels neither here nor there, with no sense of belonging. “Alone and yet wanting help.” He turns back to Masaki. “Isn’t that how you feel?”
She gathers up her courage to reply. “Keigo, I…” and her grip tightens on the musical-note-patterned paper cups they’re drinking out of. Such a cute and kitschy design! You wouldn’t have thought that a serious musician like Keigo would use such things! The romantic music builds up as Keigo leans in for a kiss, then cuts off abruptly as Masaki pulls back and tells him not to be kind to her.
Having now distanced herself from him (and also because we’re coming to the end of the episode), Masaki finally does the big reveal. “I slept with a man for 50,000 yen!” Keigo: “Sou ka (I see).” Then she gets on with it. I have HIV! I’m gonna get AIDS! And I didn’t want to tell you, but I have to: I may have passed it to you!
HAVE YOU PEOPLE NEVER HEARD OF CONDOMS?! Seriously, even if there wasn’t any HIV, do the words “unwanted teenage pregnancy” mean anything? And you, Keigo, you’re supposed to be the adult! You should know better, because she could slap you with a child-support suit anytime, dude. Sheesh!
Keigo’s expression of shell-shocked horror is probably a PSA in itself. I wish it also meant that he was regretting his promiscuous past, but that’s probably too much to ask. Frankly, just vicariously absorbing his shock, fear and horror is enough to make me celibate. Too many evil germs out there.
What pisses me off is that it took her so long to get around to telling Keigo, when he was the one at most risk of getting infected by her. I mean, when he brought her to his apartment after she fell down, she had plenty of chances to tell him, but instead she just went beating round the bush about how she doesn’t hate him. Yeah, you don’t regret sleeping with him, but if you passed it to him, he’s going to have a lifetime of regrets for sleeping with you! And how come we’re never told how he feels about sleeping with her? Are we supposed to assume that it was just another one-night stand for him? But it’s obviously not, so how come Keigo isn’t allowed to contribute to this romantic fantasy? He just stands as a blank screen for females to project their own romantic fantasies. Takeshi’s great in this role, but I think the actress had more chance to show off her acting skills.
Takeshi Talk, Part One
I recently changed my usual bus route to work, because I kept missing the bus to Toa Payoh. Now I take a bus to Orchard and then the MRT to Novena. Along the way, I face mortal danger from the escalators - and it’s Takeshi’s fault.
At the underpass from Tangs to the MRT station, there’s a giant ad for Red Cliff, and you can look at the different actors as you go up or down the escalator. Tony Leung and Takeshi get the prime spot at eye level, as well as another Takeshi picture right at the bottom of the escalator. So I have to mind that I’m not too busy staring, otherwise I’ll fall headlong down the very sharp and serrated steps. Also, I keep having to resist the temptation to pose in front of the Takeshi picture and take an “act cute” photo.
And I have to run this gauntlet every day!
On another note, I am now catching up with my neglected TV series, Kamisama Mou Sukoshi Dake (God Please Give Me More Time), which catapulted Takeshi to fame in Japan. Frankly, it’s a pretty rubbish story - it reads like fanfiction, which I suppose it is - how very meta. But I never claimed to watch it for the story, eh?
So I’m going to do a blow-by-blow commentary a la Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and snark my way through the series.
Part One begins after the jump.
Scenes from a Wedding
I went back to KL recently to attend my cousin’s wedding. It’s a big deal, because he’s the only male on that side of the family, and he’s the first to get married. Oh, and the actual event ran over 2 weekends: one for the tea ceremony and one for the wedding dinner itself.
Personally I think the “games” that the bridal party puts the groom’s party through are rather childish, but to each their own. I’ve seen enough of those in the course of my 4 years in hall, so I thought adults about to get married (or rather, their friends) would be more mature. On the other hand, don’t listen to me. Such “games” are a part of our overseas Chinese cultural experience, and I’m an iconoclast who would rather elope than give in to such conformist ideals.
So instead of doing the proper thing and being all polite while staffing the wedding reception desk, I decided to camwhore. Yeah, so I got to sit there and stuff fat red envelopes into a Louis Vuitton bag. But since neither the bag nor the money was mine, I only got a ‘free’ dinner out of the whole endeavour. Chinese people are the best people in the world to tell you that there’s no such thing as a free meal.
1 hour spent on applying makeup. End result: still looks like no makeup. To sigh for my wasted time, or to rejoice because I have such a deft hand at the “natural” look?
My aunt and sister.
My uncle’s piggy tie! It’s how cute la.
I have a wrist corsage! Pretty pretty! *officially takes leave of sanity*
I have a few more shots, but I don’t want to give free publicity to a certain hotel. Hehehe.
Cockblocked!
Last night I put Tim into Darcy’s cage so they could have a playdate. They both live alone, so I didn’t want them to turn into mouse recluses.
Everything went well for about 20 minutes, they each ran around doing their own thing, then settled down for a grooming session. It was so cute seeing Tim’s little hand-like paws pressing down Darcy’s fur as he groomed her head.
I left them for a little while, until I heard very loud squeaking. “Very loud” is a relative term, since mice, being very small, can only be so loud. But considering that they’re also silent most of the time, squeaking of any sort is very loud for them. The cause of the noise: Tim had mounted Darcy and she was not receptive of his amorous advances.
I leapt up from the bed, opened the tank cover and shooed Tim off, then tried to capture him with his favourite Brand’s box. This manoeuvre failed, because he had chewed a big hole in the bottom of the box. I didn’t want to hand-capture him because he has a history of biting me (usually after provocation) and he had just been interrupted, so he had a brilliant reason to bite me. Eventually I picked up the ceramic cube with him inside, and sent him back to his bachelor pad. Playdate over!
Poor Darcy. Her guest tried to date-rape her. And poor Tim. After I returned him to his cage, he went to his food bowl and started stuffing his face. Perhaps he figured that since he’s not going to get laid, he might as well eat all he wants and never mind weight-watching.
I never thought I’d have to say this, but: I cockblocked a mouse!
On another note, I wonder how animals know the mechanics of copulation. Tim has lived with me since he was 3 weeks old - that makes him a child when he was separated from his mother and sisters. Presumably no one has ever shown any p0rn or instructed him, yet he knows what to do. I didn’t know instinct was so strong - I mean, how do you know WHAT to insert WHERE? Plus, this sheds light on why the panda p0rn initiative didn’t work all that well. They either know, or they don’t.
CSS - Comic Strip Spotlight 2
First, a seasonal one to my Christ-following readers, as they celebrate what used to be a pagan springtime festival.
Comic strip “The New Adventures of Queen Victoria” courtesy of Gocomics.com.
Next, “Pearls Before Swine” gets an honourable mention again, with their take on corporate culture - crocodile-style.
Comic “Pearls Before Swine” courtesy of Comics.com.
How to make an IKEA table
I went to IKEA to buy a cheap side table to put the mouse tanks on, so that they wouldn’t take up so much space on my floor and Tim wouldn’t go over for sleep-overs at Darcy’s place any longer.
I purchased a LACK coffee table, it cost $19.90 and was light and easy to carry. So far so good. Assembly promised to be easy - except that I’m impaired at understanding visual images. Pictorial sequence of my travails follows.
The screws refused to obey my commands to go in straight. Plus their pointy ends and rather sharp threads were not finger-friendly, and I couldn’t get a grip.
Nope, no good. It won’t straighten out.
This is what I eventually figured out (and which is pictured on the assembly sticker, had I taken a more careful look at it):
Put the screw in the hole on the underside of the table part!
Once the screw can stay upright for a bit, plonk the leg part on top and turn. See, no touching of pointy ends or sharp threads involved.
Ta-daaa! Repeat on the rest of the legs. Upturn table. Put in location of choice. Done!
Spider-Mouse!
15th February 2008
Tim, my 5-week-old boy mouse, is apparently quite the acrobat.
I got both mice new “outside boxes” - open boxes where they can run about and watch me watch them - as well as a new cage setup for Tim. The boxes are practically escape-proof because they’re plastic, smooth, and the toys in the cage aren’t high enough to serve as platforms to the edge of the box.
Or so I thought.
A visitor put one of Tim’s toys in an upright position, allowing the little mousie a higher platform from which to survey the world. It appears that this increased height allowed Tim to somehow escape from his box and get into Darcy’s cage, because I heard squeaking from them last night and was utterly astounded to see both mice in the same cage. I removed Tim and went back to work.
30 minutes later, he was back in. Again I removed him, and retired for the night.
Guess who went for a sleep-over at Darcy’s place during the night.
I turned the toy back into a horizontal position. I left it as it is in the hopes of catching Tim in the act, but since I can’t be watching them all the time, I decided to play it safe and end his escapades. Looking at the toy and the height of the box, you’d think he couldn’t have jumped that high. And I doubt that he climbed up the outside of the tubes, because they’re way too smooth and slippery and he’s no gecko.
But as I learned last night, underestimate Tim at your own peril.
Update: 22nd February 2008
I awoke this morning to pick up on some motion in the corner of my eye. I turned to my right, where my guitar bag is, and saw a mouse running down the black fabric.
To say I was shocked may be a bit of an underestimation. So the first thing I did this morning was chase a tiny 6-week-old mousie around the room. Eventually he went into his little box, and I returned him to his cage. He immediately went to his water bottle and drank for a good long while.
I don’t know how long he was outside, but I hope he learned a lesson. There’s nothing out there for him to eat or drink, so he’s much better off inside the cage. Certainly he didn’t try escaping again for the rest of the day, but maybe he was just way too tired.
Just to make sure, though, I covered his open box so he can’t jump out any more. What shall he do next? I have no idea.
The Kip and Darcy Comedy Troupe
moar funny pictures
A link if you want to share this with others, here.
A haiku from the Dreaming
If your faith is based on a belief in the Endless, and your prophet is Neil Gaiman, then you will know what I mean when I say I brought back a little poem from the Dreaming, realm where those things-that-are-not are.
If you don’t believe in the Endless, no matter. They are not gods, and do not live or die by your unbelief. Now for a little context on the matter:
If you imagine the ghost of a knight, rising from his grave to have a look at his new resting place, only to be disappointed at the lack of care it receives, you might hear this:
“Ah, me! The trollop
Never waters the dead grass.
What a bother, eh?”
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