Saturday, May 28, 2005

The "Toy Museum"

*warning* LONG POST *warning*
but worth reading if you ever played with a toy

We were punished today for not reading the papers about what apparently was a TWO TIME MALAYSIA BOOK OF RECORD...

We learned today of a place called the "Toy Museum" that just opened up not long ago at the Copthorne Hotel in Penang. Banners waving their record breaking displays. The record wasnt the only thing broken tho...

So Boon, Rons and myself decide that its worth a try...well, actually Boon n me decided to check it out and dragged Rons along, heh heh, but moving along...

We arrived with hopes of reliving our childhood with encounters of many things familiar to us then from hands-on playing with them, envying a friend for having them or even just plain seeing it on TV and wanting them...yes, the toys...i mean, what else could you expect from something like a "Toy Museum"...

When i think TOY MUSEUM, i think of going into a place where i get to see things that at least have something talking about whats in the displays, not the boxes they were previously packaged in displayed behind them.

I want to see displays showing what they were to the people that they thrilled for ours on end in their own times
NOT on shelves just posing them facing the crowd, with absolutely no label to what they are about.
I want to see many things that i would have had in my childhood, or wanted to have...
NOT recent 'collectibles' from movies and collectors editions still not even in their teens.
I want to see things that inspired imaginations to flare. Things i would have wanted to play with...
NOT display pieces that have no moving parts and meant just to be nice to look at.
I want to see things that we used to take for granted and are now rare items held by a few lucky people...
NOT things that carry no other meaning than to be a collectible a few years down because they were continued.

DOESNT ANYONE EVEN FUCKING KNOW WHAT TOYS ARE ANYMORE?????

Things i would have played with in my youth...things i would give anything to play with now!...Things i could have encountered in my youth, even things that my parents could have considered their "toys"!! These are all things that would be nice to have in a place calling itself a Museum. I found nothing to muse about.

Isnt the idea behind a museum that a museum is a place where people can see and admire things they would find hard to get, rare, or amazing? I found little of that. What i did find was a collection of toys from recent movies and collectible series that can still be obtained relatively easily from a mall or ebay. In other words, I felt like it was as though i payed money to enter a big Toys'R'Us showroom and was not allowed to buy anything....

Star Wars was everywhere. There were a few "big" displays like a couple of human height Gundam robots and a life size Alien centrepiece, but i think those were supposed to accentuate the displays, not be the center of them.

There was a display of Voltron, and im like "WOW! VOLTRON!!!", and when i get there, all i see are the cheap plastic second generation voltron toys. No sight of the diecast Voltron toys that were so popular in my generation's youth. Id like to add that THAT diecast Voltron is now a TRUE collectors item, and seeing that would have at least let me feel that the 10 bucks spent at the entrance wouldnt have been a waste. What we got was a plastic replica voltron, some smaller plastic Voltron crap and a plastic Voltron V as the centerpieces of that display :( that was a crappy let down...

Im not asking for ALL my childhood memories to be brought back to me, but at least a few...
I thought, maybe my expectation were too high, so i got some of my buddies together to list what were the popular things at the times of their youth...heres the list of stuff...i cannot rememeber seeing ANY these in that "Museum" :
-TRANSFORMERS
-MASK
-GI-JOE
-THUNDER CATS
-HE-MAN
-STARCOM
-GHOSTBUSTERS
-MOSPEDA
-MACROSS
-TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
-FAMOUS COMIC FIGURINES(Marvel, DC etc etc etc)
-CENTURIONS

-and every toy any kid would love to have ripped the wrapper off on his birthday...
The list goes on and on...and these are just what we got off the guys...im sure the ladies would like to add to it...I want to be reminded about what we used to have, not sit in a coffeeshop brainstorming what should be there...

What do all those have in common? They connected us. All of us that sat at the table to discuss the list did not even know of each others existance when we were enjoying these things, yet we can bring back these things from our childhood...and could talk on and on about the toys we had from those titles...and how RARE they all are now. We played with them, crashed them together, burned some, destroyed others when we were having fun with them and now those few hundred that are moving around the hands of collectors are worth something.

Those are what true museum pieces should be...those pieces were not meant to be collectors pieces but became that because of what they were to people, to us...a link to who we used to be.

Entities on their own like Lego, Hotwheels, franchise toys that McDonalds used to provide in Happy Meals that made a set after 4 weeks of bugging our parents to get them...yo-yos, classic Super Soaker, Lucky Trolls!!! OMFG!!! The list is endless...These things could make so many people stop at every other display and think back...or even slap a buddy on the shoulder and go "hey, remember those?!? god! we used to...." or "OH MY GOD! ITS A ....!!"...Why arent these things acknowledged?? even a small display would suffice...its as though they never were...

What we get instead is hundreds upon hundreds of Star Wars figurines(almost all from episodes I, II and III, and many of the rest from recently launched reprint sets), Displays of the Matrix boxed dioramas, Lilo n Stitch dolls and other things of that like. Many displays carried the many McFarlane Toys collectible series...Tortured Souls, 6 Faces, many spawn posing display statues and other stuff nice or cool to look at, but not before, or ever playable.

These things were made to be "Collectibles" and did not earn the title by themselves or what they meant to people.

Dictionary.com describes :-
- mu·se·um(n.)-A building, place, or institution devoted to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, or artistic value.

This place was fair in saying it had over a hundred thousand toys. It would have made a fine "Toy Showroom" or something to that extent. BUT for the Malaysia Book of Records to give it the title of FIRST TOY MUSEUM is a total and absolute disgrace...

I am not attacking the owner of these toys and saying its not impressive, but calling it a "Museum" is really really not fair to anyone who happened upon it with no idea whats inside.

The expectations offered only to be faced with tremendous let-down is something no-one has to bare, especially if it has to do with ones childhood...would any of you that had one disagree?

-a sad ed

Monday, May 23, 2005

Mamakjuana

Its the question anyone who enjoys a good nasi kandar will ask when he/she is about to fall asleep against their will after a good session at these dubious cuisine corners.

I woke lastnite thinking that i would need no sleep since work today is in the wee mornin hours.

Ive done this countless times and have had no problems before.

The only diff this time is the addition of a mamak session in town. Beeeeg mistake....

ETA to work: 2 hours 30 minutes
-Makan mamak food.

ETA to work: 2 hours 00 minutes
-Sent Capes n Tats back to Nets, go home.

ETA to work: 1 hour 40 minutes
-Smoke, Shit & Shower (the essential 3S)
-Mamakjuana takes effect...drowsy.

ETA to work: 1 hour 00 minutes
-Decide to relax on couch and gather self before dressing up for work.

ETA to work: 0 hour 58 minutes
*snooOOOOOOooorrre....*

ETA to work: negative 2 hours and then some
-Realised that was a bad idea


>.<

The wacky name sheet #01

Welcome to the wacky name sheet #01.
This list will be updated should i encounter more of these interesting folks.

Surnames removed, cos a few of them were nice folks. That aside, ill admit that most of the ppl on this list were seriously major annoying and self centered. Must be a prerequisite before legally changing the name ur parents gave you to such godawful ones.

The number in brackets show if ive met more than one of that name to see how popular it is.

Acemond - Singapore(1)
Apples - Singapore(2)
Buffy - Singapore(1), Malaysia(1)
Koolio - Singapore(1)
Lancelot - Singapore(1)
Lobo - Malaysia(1)
Omega - Singapore(1), Malaysia(1)
Seasons - Singapore(3), Malaysia(1) *Popular*
Superman - Hong Kong(1)

I have a few more on paper somewhere...will add on.
FOLKS!! u got any such encounters? send them in, ill gladly update them into this list.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

I shot Mr Joseph

*warning*
Rant post
*warning*

Somewhere along the line in 2002, when i joined the company where i am today, something happened. Ill call that phenomenon the Joseph Jobe Juxtapose (JJJ) where i had suddenly lost my surname and firstname because some schmuck keying in my name did not know how the format of a non-chink name works. I should slap your mother for bringing you up stupid.

After JJJ, i was "Mr Joseph" in all my emails. "Edgar" got digitally screwed.

At first i figured, well, ill try getting that fixed in the database, 3 years down and im still trying, so fuck that...red tapes too much of a bitch.

Then i thought, when u salutate using "Mr.", it usually follows with a Surname, so in the mixup, my first name was now my surname, so i thought maybe i could play on it to get people to know me as Mr. Edgar...technically not right, but more acceptable than Mr. Joseph... I then learn that asian culture has no respect for grammar. All i wanted was more ppl replying "Dear Edgar", or "Hi Edgar" or "Edgar" or even the incorrect "Dear Mr Edgar" would have bloody sufficed!!! but NooOOoooo..."Mr Joseph" kept coming back!

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???!

Are you people so fucking disensitized these days? i mean, i even SIGN off my emails using my full name, or end with the standard "regards, Edgar" bullocks and still, 9 out of fucking 10 still come back as "Dear Mr Joseph"... Dont people look anywhere else except for the email address these days to see whos bloody talking?

You fucking robots.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Whos ur god-daddy??!

Marlon Brando, eat your heart out man.

God i hate the flu...

Yesterday what started out as a minor throat inflammation and annoyingly stuffy head has now given way to a full-blown "give him and his momma some cement shoes" voice and an annoying need to chew out anyone who comes even close to annoying me.

You know whats the worst part? not being able to taste ur food and ciggies :(
I mean, why dont you just fucking neuter me and be done with it right? jeez...

To top it up, works been an even bigger bitch than me today so i think im gonna go down to our dear folks in sales and torture some poor unfortunate bastard who decided to say something stupid in the emails this morning...

I mean come on, u women get to do this once a month, and what do we guys get? the right to yell when we stub our toes? papercut prissiness?? FUCK NO!
Im gonna squeeze this one dry, and goddamit, someones gonna get burned today...

RAWR!!! *sniffle*

-the e-