meet the superstar

A nobody tourist apparently is a much more interesting phenomenon than one of the greatest temples in the world

Love Candy

It’s a love story gone horribly wrong. Just like any other love stories. Nothing so special about a heart gets broken. Except when it happens to a girl who loves candy.

She loves him more than love itself. He is her universe, the sole reason of her existence. Like a box of her favorite candy, once she starts she only craves for more. The sugar rush feels so good that she loses all self control and she indulges on the sickeningly sweet sensation, deeply and intensely, until she feels the first bout of nausea, and feels her stomach turns and vomit reaches up to her throat with a burning sensation and her eyes turn bloodshot, tears stream down her face as she throws up her extravagance, sugar mixes with bile, creating such bittersweet, highly addictive pain.

And one day he leaves.

And she finds herself wondering how numbness can be so painful. The days and nights repeat themselves until the day she resolves on creating the Love Candy.

Candy making is a very simple process. Deciding on the flavoring is the hardest part because she is not quite sure on how to capture the flavor of the love of her life. Each of his body parts has its own taste and often they contradict each other. His blood tastes like iron, his sweat tastes like salt. His heart is a little gamey, his liver is bitter like poison. She wonders if soul has a taste and whether she could bottle it and add it into her mixture.

But soul is neither a matter nor a substance and therefore she could not make a candy out of it. She has to settle for the physicality of him.

She chops a little piece off his organs and puts them together in a blender. She dips her finger into the blend and tastes it. It tastes like bloody raw meat. It is not the taste of love.

When the day is over she is badly spent. She falls asleep in the kitchen in the midst of blood and gore.

When she wakes up, she notices that he starts to rot, for she forgets to put him in the freezer. Now there is no way she could continue the experiment. She gathers every piece of him in a plastic bag and throws it into the river and watches as a single fish feasts on him, nibble by nibble.

She shakes her head sadly as the fish reminds her on how she used to feast on him. Until he takes himself away from her, refuses to give her anything, not even a single substance for her to make a love candy.

How To Make A Hard Candy

• 3 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
• 1 cup water
• 2 drams flavoring
• coloring as desired
• powdered sugar

Mix the first 3 ingredients in a large saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves.
Boil, without stirring until temperature reaches 310 degrees, then remove from heat.
After boiling has ceased, stir in flavoring and coloring.
For basic hard candy, pour onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Cool and sprinkle on powdered sugar. Break into pieces.

The Amazing Race Double Six

New Year's Eve. The task is easy: go to Double Six club and dance the night away.

Two couples decide to go before midnight.
One couple stays back, deciding that the countdown should be somewhere quieter.

Half an hour before midnight, Mother Nature decides it should be raining.
It begins to drizzle.

The couple who stays back decide it's high time they ditch the restaurant and walk to the club now, before the rain stops them.

Not two feet away, the drizzle turns to storm.
Hard, unforgiving storm.

The couple who stays back has to run for the nearest building, which happens to be a car park of a newly-built apartment. And they wait. And they wait. The other couples send them short messages: get over here quick the crowd is crazy.

And they wait. And the clock strikes twelve. And it's new year. And it's still raining cats and dogs. And they are in a car park. And they wait. And they feel like the last team to arrive at The Amazing Race.

One simple decision decides all.
One simple change in nature changes all.

A good reminder for us mortals: nobody controls anything.

So take it easy. Do everything. Expect nothing.
And remember, there's always antidotes for almost everything.
A magnificent first sunset of 2008, at Kudeta, more than makes it up for the car park countdown.

Cheers for another big year.