HOCC and Reebok - A Dana and Subaru?

I AM WHAT I AM
"Male or female, whom do I like? I won't go out of my way to explain.
It doesn't matter if you love me or not, I will still love myself." - hocc.

This totally reminds me of Dana's Subaru ad in The L Word. Hahaha. If this isn't a coming out ad, I don't know what it is.

Actually, there are lots of things that hint towards ah C being gay:
- her ambiguous replies each time she's asked a question about her sexuality. I mean, if you weren't gay, you'd just say you weren't gay, wouldn't you?
- rosemary
- goodbye rosemary
- one particular segment during her RoundUp interview as she was trying to explain about her previous love life - she used to go out with someone who then broke up with her because that someone fell for her friend instead. Thing is, her friend didn't like her ex, her friend liked her! Try working that out and you'll know what I mean.
- guest starring in Sammi Cheng's concert as a 'guy'
- rolls royce
- the way she dresses, the way she talks, the way she looks, the way she acts

I tell you, her fans who say she's not gay? They're all in total denial! Hahaha.

Creativity died another death on Friday

Sometimes I don't know why clients bother to hire advertising agencies. After all, they already have a preconceived notion as to how the ad should be and claim to know their consumers like the back of their hands.

"I don't know why you bother with all those irrelevant things. Just go straight into the product story. I want to see product, product, product!"

Right.

Forget consumer insights. Forget emotion. Forget entertainment value. Forget creativity.

No wonder I'm totally disillusioned by all this bullshit.

We're in the business of making your product attractive so that consumers will buy it. Attractiveness translates to an entertaining piece of commercial. But obviously the marketing world still lives in the stone ages.

Is this what happens when creativity and money try to mix?

It's not just the ad industry - it's every creative industry you can think of.

How many Cannes film winners are actually box office hits? How many non-mainstream musicians who insist on playing their own brand of music sell platinum albums? How many artists actually make money?

No wonder at some point in time, everybody sells out.

I REALLY HATE MONDAYS!

Fucking nothing has gone right the moment I woke up.

The stupid mushroom hides herself under my bed refusing to come out while I'm rushing off to work.

Fucking dirtied my shirt dunno-where.

The lunch caterer changes my lunch order to something I don't like.

Fucking studio uses a fucking Malay footer in the English ad and I'm to blame because I didn't see it.

FUCK!

Another 54 fucking working days before I can get out of this SHIT!

FUCK!

One more month til HK

17 Sept - waiting list on CX morning flight to HK
18 Sept - confirmed on CX morning flight to HK; 'Leung Jok' The Musical in the evening- Ah C, wait for me!
19 Sept - shopping, shopping, shopping
20 Sept - Disneyland!
21 Sept - last minute shopping; CX afternoon flight out of HK

Finally, everything's booked and bought. All would be perfect if my morning flight on 17 September gets confirmed. Keeping fingers crossed there. One day less in HK, means one day less shopping! I want all the days I can get!

Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!

What I see is not what the rest of cyberworld sees

Discovered this morning as I logged onto my PC at work that the text on my blog was virtually unreadable. Nevermind that it looked perfectly fine on my Mac at home.

After much tinkering about (not to mention the frustration, 'cos for the life of me I couldn't figure out which were the codes to modify), I finally managed to get rid of the awful text chrome filter. As well as that mirror flip mouseover.

And now, we're readable and user friendly once again.

Finally! A new skin...

Yes, I got sick of my previous layout.
Managed to find this new skin eventually.
And after numerous hours trying to figure out and modify the codes to customise it to how I wanted it to be, it's finally done.
I can go to sleep now.

Wow. I can see the building across from my office today.
Maybe my whinging worked.
Hahahaha.



Still can smell smoke though.

Well, the government has declared a haze emergency in Port Klang and Kuala Selangor where the Air Pollutant Index levels have hit more than 500 points. Apparently elsewhere it's still below 500 so an emergency is not necessary...

So...

I guess we could be at a level of 499 points and we're still considered below the emergency level of 500 points and thus are still required to go out there and breathe all those smoke particles.

I have absolutely no love for my Indonesian neighbours at this point in time. I doubt any of my fellow Malaysians do as well. Every year, Indonesia shrouds us in a blanket of smoke. What has our government done about the burning? What has the Indonesian government done about the burning? From the point-of-view of the general public, absolutely nothing. Fucking stop the talking and lets see some action!

Yea, I'm pissed off.

I'm pissed off that for the last week I have woken up to the smell of smoke, walked out to the smell of smoke, breathed the smell of smoke. Heck, I can't even do my laundry 'cos when I hang my clothes out to dry, they're going to smell of smoke!

Oh, and I'll probably get bladder infection from holding my pee in or die from smoke inhalation if I do decide I can't hold my pee anymore, 'cos our office toilet is also shrouded in smoke.

I also have my period. That could be another explanation for my crankiness.

Today's view:



It's worst today.
No thanks to our Indonesian neighbours, the winds and our dry spell.
Must someone die from breathing problems before the government decides to actually do something about this?

Kuala Lumpur shrouded in smoke!


The view, or rather, non-view from my office window.
Which has been like that for the past few days...
And that's haze (in other words, smog), not fog.
Even indoors, my eyes are watering and nose is itchy.

I could be...
I might be...
Then again, it could just be the sense of 'not having'...

Jealous...so very very very jealous...

If HK were to have its own 'the L word'...
playing Shane would be without a doubt, HOCC.

As for the other roles, i reckon
Bette: Karen Mok
Tina: Maggie Cheung HY
Jenny: Josie Ho
Dana: Anita Yuen
Alice: Candy Lo
Carmen: Sammi Cheng

Presenting the HK L Word cast:



Hahaha.

Yea, I really had nothing else better to do.

There's no point in it all. Seriously.

Why work my butt off for people who don't appreciate it and clients who insist their wrong grammar, wrong sentence structure headline is the best and that they won't approve the visual until we put it in?

Advertising isn't exactly a world-saving occupation, after all. Actually, come to think of it, it's really nothing much. What? A bunch of people sitting around conning another bunch of people out of their money to purchase stuff they don't need? A bunch of people telling another bunch of people that without this or that product, their lives would be totally inadequate? I think we rank right up there on the unethical list together with lawyers.

And advertising awards? What a total joke. Here are another bunch of people judging your creativity for work that has never seen the light of day or that any client in any right mind would buy. Creative work is for our peers - for people who don't give a shit about the product or its sales or whether or not the ad might be understood by normal consumers out there.

We're all in denial. The whole industry is in denial. Pathetic, isn't it?

Well, I've finally done it. I gave my resignation letter in this morning.

I need to get out totally. I really can't see myself turning 40 and doing the same shit. I don't want to be an old furniture (like how our 'lovely' CEO is) and hire older furniture (like our new boss). I don't want to have young ones snicker behind my back thinking I'm old-fashioned and should have retired eons ago. I don't want to dread going to work everyday. I don't want to see people I don't like yet have to pretend I like them.

Having a uni mate die of a heart attack last weekend sort of accelerated the decision making process too. This guy was about 2 years older than me and in a highly stressed job. Now he's no longer around. Was it worth it? Somehow I doubt it very much.

I haven't got anything lined up for the moment and I really don't have any plans. I just needed to get away from all this bullshit and hyprocrisy. Maybe I'll just be a yoga bum. Hahaha. Maybe the yoga centre I go to will give me a job. Hahahaha.

3 more days and counting...