Tsunami and big waves

People say that big waves and tsunami will come and deliver us to the brink of extinction, according to the Mayans' prophecies. Well, i'm already being swept away with these big waves. Big waves of financial, family and personal problems.

A bad start. Looks like 2012 is not friendly after all.

Countdown

2 more days before we step into the uncertain future. What kind of surprises 2012 has in store for us? What about individual resolutions? What about new goals and ambition? For all I know, i'm still stuck in the same place. Procrastination still rules my life. I pray to God Almighty He will give me the strength to change.

cameras, cameras, cameras!

I still remember the overwhelming joy and excitement when I got my first SLR camera a few years back. It was a Yashica, but I couldn’t recall whether it was from the FX series or the FR. All I could remember is that it had a layer of purple rubber over its body. Unfortunately, it was fairly short-lived. I was in my second semester in a local university, struggling for my art and design diploma and not many who owns an analogue camera. I was one of the few. As a concerned friend, I tend to finish all my assignments early, so that my close friends could borrow my camera. Of course I didn’t want people to think me as a stingy bastard. My big mistake was letting my camera being passed around among friends without my knowledge. I even joked once that my camera was a whore. Finally, it vanished without a trace. And the worst part of it was everyone didn’t have any clue who’s the last person using it, the usual scenario. Strange as it was, I wasn’t that mad. I kind of, just let it go.

Then after a few years, I was on board with the analogue craziness, which seems to take on the local photography culture by storm. It’s the rebirth of analogue photography they said. Out of nowhere, I started to enjoy and appreciate the analogue photography, more than ever. That is when regret and frustration kicked in, to think of my neglecting behavior over my old analogue camera. The market was aware of the uprising, thus, to find an analogue camera with a reasonable price was almost impossible, even the used ones at the flea market. Then after a quite number of persuasions and sweet talks from my friends, I bought a Lomo camera, which was cheaper. So I was on board with Lomo hype. It was a HOLGA 135BC, the “BC” stands for black corners, which the corners of the image will be darkened creating vignettes.

It was fairly easy to use, despite the lens was not aligned with the viewfinder, which I had difficulty to adapt. The first few rolls of films were a bunch of shot that were poorly composed. Then one day, God answered my prayers, I knew He did. I was just accompanying my friend to the second hand store, with no intention to purchase anything, just looking. Both of us were just looking. It was a new store. Destiny put me there; it was the historic day of my life. My eyes caught something in the camera section. On top of the shelves, a Nikon FM10 analogue camera sat there by itself, gazing at me, begging to be picked up. There was another surprise, the price tag showed “RM128” (USD40), way too cheap. Not to mention the favorite model for most of the analogue enthusiasts.

The shop assistant told me it was broken. I almost screamed in frustration. But my heart didn’t give up. I picked it off the shelf. She panicked when popped open the back of the camera to inspect the film chamber. Then she was puzzled and asked me, “owh, is that how you open it?” At that moment I knew she and her colleagues had no knowledge whatsoever about analogue cameras. I tested every shutter speed, aperture, played around the film rewind knob and crank, even took off the lens and replaced it back. I looked at her and said “Yup. She’s broken. But I’ll buy it anyway. I like to collect antiques.” I walked out of the store smiling like a kid walking out of a toy store. There was a quite outcry from my friends who were already visited the store but walked away as soon as the shop assistant told them it was broken. Lucky for me they didn’t check the camera. Like I said, destiny wanted me to find that camera.

From that point, my passion for analogue photography grew stronger as ever. I started to visit the local flea markets if I ever had the chance. After that, I bought two more analogue cameras. They were compact 35mm film cameras. One is manual and the other motorized. Looking forward to get more cameras, and experiment with more films.

Things I miss #1

1. I miss watching movies on VCR player. That funny moment watching my favorite scene backwards when I pushed the rewind button.

2. I miss rewinding the cassette using a pencil or a pen.

3. I miss the adrenaline rush while I'm having fun at the video game arcade...illegally.

4. I miss the 90s cheesy TV commercials.

5. I miss my long hair.

6. I miss the fear of getting caught while smoking in the school toilet.

7. I miss singing the national anthem during school assemblies.

I want to do everything, but has done nothing.

Have you ever caught yourself in situations where your brain is overwhelmed with ideas but too lazy to jot them down? Or too busy visualizing the outcomes of these ideas that you’re actually procrastinating without realizing it? Hours after hours, days after days your mind keeps on lingering around the same ideas, thinking how great and brilliant they are if you would succeed on executing them but still, it’s all just in your mind.

At the same time, you developed yourself with new obsessions; new areas that you want to explore, try different genres in writing, pick up new hobbies and the urge to get involved in every fields of art available, as many as possible.

Despite the development of various enthusiasms, you sometimes got yourself trapped into the most dangerous situation any creative person could get into, a writers’ block, a situation where your mind becomes numb and devoid of almost everything. No matter how hard you try to squeeze that big brain of yours, struggling hard to get that avant-garde ideas you’re hoping for, it all seems pointless.

corruption is immortal

corruption is immortal. take down a regime, a new one rises. it's all the same. power cannot survive without money and corruption. it's the way of the world, no matter how hard you try to fix it.

sorry, i had to say something.

it's all in vain.

at some point you will realize that you have done too much for someone, that the only next possible step to do is to stop. Leave them alone, walk away. it's not like you're giving up, and shouldn't try. It's just that you have to draw the line of determination from desperation. What is truly yours would eventually be yours, and what is not, no matter how hard you try, will never be.

Finally

In life, we have our ups and downs. I’ve tasted my fair share of cries, laughs, successes, failures, heart breaks, falling in love and all the little details that make our life meaningful. It’ll be a waste not to document our story. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time now, but never had the ample time I need, and also I was too lazy. Recently, I came across a blog, which was written by one of my good friends, Sarah. I have to say, after reading it I was kind of inspired, or if you like, “reinspired”, to start writing my own blog. (It’s about damn time, too)

For those who already know me, guys, finally! What I’ve planned and talked about all this time, it’s finally here! For those of you who don’t know me, yet, my name is Mohd Rizal. By the end of this July, I’ll be 29 years old. Yes, I’m leaving my 20s and approaching the “middle age men” zone, or am I already a middle aged man? I’m not sure. Anyway, I’m the oldest son in my family with 2 younger brothers behind me. Now that I have finished my degree in Graphic Design, I would probably have more time to write. By the way, did I mention I’m unemployed?

I LOVE to write, and having a blog would be a very good idea for me to reach out and perhaps share all the moments and thoughts with the rest of the world. (Duh!) Before this, I had an account in Storywrite where I keep all of my fictions and horror fantasies, really appreciate it if you take a peek at those. But this time I don’t want to write fictions, I want to tell realities, true stories of my journey in life, depends on how you perceive life.

Well maybe not just the details of my life but I’ll write reviews too, anything from books, art, movies, food, videogames, places, activities, anything I can think of. Or maybe I’ll just rant some nonsense, who knows. Anything I can write about. Well, I think that’s enough for a brief introduction. Hope this blog will last, and I won’t lose interest in writing in the future. There’s so much I want to tell but let’s save them for later. Stay tuned folks!