Australia Fires

So this is gonna have to be real quick.

Right now, there are raging infernos all over Australia.

We're talking people dead, homes destroyed, suffocating smoke.

And yea, I'm quite concerned about my friends there but so far, so good.

Everyone appears to be safe.

Here's the thing, though.

Apparently this is just the beginning,

and it's forecast to get worse. 

Now there's a part of me that really feels

for those forced to flee their homes,

leaving their property,

livelihoods behind them.

Having to rely on the kindness of the state 

and strangers.

But there's also the part of me that's

vengeful and petty and goes

"Hey you motherfuckers, you

either stay put and take in all that smoke and fight those fires yourselves,

or guess what? There's fine accommodation waiting for you assholes

on Nauru and Papua New Guinea!"

I wonder how it's probably lost to so many of them,

the similarities of their situation 

with that of the refugees whose detainment (and torture)

they wholeheartedly support. 

This includes fucking children

I still remember many years ago,

reading about little kids who were displaying signs of PTSD

from being detained on the mainland.

Can't even imagine what it's like for them on those godforsaken islands. 

You wanna know what's both depressing and infuriating?

During and after this crisis,

these same assholes 

would likely (shamelessly) continue supporting that practice.

Oh hell, don't be surprised if most of them 

began blaming the refugees themselves for siphoning off

government resources.

Be prepared for all kinds doublethink,

flimsy justifications,

all of which boil down to: I deserve it, not them. 

After all, they've shown their brazen hypocrisy regarding citizenship

(let's not forget most Australian citizens today are the descendants of immigrants).

Fuck those people. 

Now, I'm quite certain there's also many decent Australians (including activists)

who are on the side of those refugees,

who despise this despicable government policy. 

That's the thing about crises, isn't it?

Everybody's affected.

Well enough of that. 

So Many Things

Yes, this is where I come to bitch and moan.
If you don't like it,
please feel free to take a spiky dildo and stick it up your ass
(I was originally going to say "nice, spiky cactus" but the cactus is innocent in all of this,
unlike you).

It's been so long since I've last written,
and my brain is in a fog again.

To make matters worse,
I haven't even been working
out regularly and my stamina has gone to shit.

Can barely lift up
the Littlest Dictator for more than
a few minutes at a time.

I'm fucking anxious.
Between the GrabHitch fuck-up (the app still doesn't work for me),
and Uber (with Grab soon to follow, more likely than not)
rating passengers now,
not to mention the low opportunities for next year,
I really need to not only launch my own small side business and write comics again,
but also begin fundraising for my major project, Momo Ride.

Somebody needs to stand up to these large motherfuckers.

I mean, rating passengers?
THEY ARE NOT YOUR FUCKING EMPLOYEES.

What this looks like to me,
is another step towards policing behaviour
by large corporations directly,
instead of via manipulating governments.

Nobody disputes denying service
to passengers who behave poorly,
but these sorts of behaviour are well-established.
From racist verbal abuse to actual violence.

But a ranking system basically
is basically telling passengers (who may not have an alternative)
to behave according to their own narrow set of rules.

And these can be arbitrary as well.
Do you need to be super friendly?
Smile all the time?
Never get annoyed?
Is there way to respond to questions from the fucking driver
that is acceptable and non-acceptable?
Do you always need to say "please" and "thank you"
or risk a low rating?

I mean, what the fuck is this?
Who the fuck are you to tell passengers, customers what to do?

You are providing a motherfucking service,
but because you've become so large due to government corruption,
that you feel emboldened to fucking police your customers' behaviour?

No.
Go fuck yourselves.

Even if I do fail,
at the very least I know I tried.

Well enough of that.

Breakneck Speed

There are so many things I'd like to write about,
but I'm being bombarded for attention by my daughter,
and HR at work,
whilst trying to finish a goddamn proposal.

I'll have to keep this quick.
First of all, this motherfucking case in Singapore:
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/man-fined-for-pushing-colleague-in-self-defence-causing-victim-to-fracture

Man is convicted of...  basically defending himself, from what I can see.
But hey, HEY, don't take my work for it!
Read the article.

His colleague fucking ATTACKS him...
was throwing goddamn punches...
and all he did was push back.

That guy fell,
fractured his skull
and passed away.

And THIS guy gets convicted?
FUCKING WHY.

Someone said
that Singapore's law around self-defence
basically indicates that if you have a chance to run away,
and don't,
and choose to defend yourself,
then you'll be on the hook as well.

WHAT.

I mean, is he supposed to
hightail it out of there
and abandon his vehicle?
Would he get fired for it?
Should he have run?
Could he have stepped back and run without getting injured?

It's really fucking easy on hindsight,
but this guy had to process all that shit
WHILE BEING ASSAULTED.

And as the case shows,
something as simple as a shove
can result in a severe,
even fatal injury.

So what,
was he supposed to LET the guy hit him?
Would the government have covered his medical costs?
If he'd lost his job over it,
would it have covered his loss of earnings?
Helped him land a new job?
What if he needed therapy?
What if the assault results in a lifelong disability?

The answer to all of the above is a big fat fucking NO.
In case you were wondering, that is.

And how is this in the public interest?
How does this serve to keep us safer?

This guy lost his job,
and has to pay what is surely to him, a hefty fine.

And for what, exactly?

Well enough of that.

Still Exhausted

The past few weeks have been like a roller coaster,
with deals lost,
emerging new deals,
a ton of proposals,
a trip to Hong Kong.

My mind is exhausted,
and I'm trying to get through to November,
where hopefully things will die down,
and I'll be able to take a breather.

And with my being tired
and not having written anything in a while,
my conversational skills have once again deteriorated.
Goddammit.

It also looks like
I probably won't be able to get my license
in time for Korea in December,
let alone a motherfucking car.

And I haven't been able to work out
due to an old back injury which had probably been aggravated
due to my brilliant idea to trek to the summit of Victoria Peak (from the tram station, not the base, so calm your tits).

Time to power through and close a few deals before I tap out.

Well enough of that.

Tired

I'm so exhausted all the time nowadays.
Missed another gym session,
and had a minor argument with the wife,
so the entire night ended up being unproductive.

And the worst part?
I'll need to hit the gym tonight,
which she'll be upset about.

Goddammit.
There's just so little time for everything.
So little time.

And I still find myself
drifting over to Youtube,
and getting lost in stupid, motherfucking videos until it's time to head back home.

We have a strong chance now to establish
other businesses,
as backups in case something happens to my current role.

But I don't think she actually feels the urgency.
If I were to be let go for whatever reason today,
we'd be pretty much screwed.
And likely, so would her mom.
And possibly my parents further down the road.

I mean holy crap,
I only have around $140 in my savings account right now.
How that doesn't raise alarm bells for her,
I have no idea.

A question from Ragina during lunch
in the meeting room kind of jolted me.
What did I do for leisure?
The first thing that came to mind was...
trying to find ways to make more money.
And the occasional movie when I get the chance...
which is extremely rare.
And the wife doesn't want to watch with me anyway,
preferring her e-books.

Sounds lame,
but I do miss the early days
when we'd watch shows together
and talk about them afterwards.

We couldn't do that
when The Littlest Dictator first arrived, sure.
But we can do that now,
yet, she prefers those books.

Sometimes it feels like she's basically glued to her phone.
Hell, she even ignores my messages sometimes,
preferring to continue reading.

It's like I'm in a maze,
unable to find my way out,
with the Minotaur constantly looking for my ass.

Guess the only thing I can do now
is to restart working out,
and stick with the plan of saving $4K each month until January,
whilst trying out other things on the side to see what sticks.

Well enough of that.

Errors

Barely got any sleep the night before,
and the night before that.

In fact, I haven't been sleeping well for
some time now,
but these past two days have been
worse than usual.

It's definitely affecting me.
I'm looking at recent posts and
other stuff I've written
and can see basic grammatical errors
that annoy the hell out of me.

I mean goddammit,
there's probably a strong chance
there'll be a few in this post as well.

News these days tends to be more negative than usual (or maybe I wasn't paying attention),
and I'm trying to find other sources of income,
having read the headline about a guy who made around a million bucks
in a few years (or less, I don't know).

I can barely motivate myself
to finish a comic,
or complete a design,
let alone do actual work.

It's exhausting.

But I have to keep going.
Time's running out and I have to power through.

Well enough of that.

Love

I've got an important meeting

in four minutes, so this is going to be very short.

This is in fact, more important than any meeting I'll ever have.

I once asked malishka

about what love means to her.

And this adorable 4 year-old,

surprised me with:

"Love is when I play with you".