Comments Round-Up

In response to my post on getting fat in Malaysia, CW comments that Malaysians are obsessed with food and for him, everything revolves around food, planning the next meal before finishing the one they are eating.

Xeus, author of Malaysian-published Dark City, paid Fusion View a visit and assures me that the next collection of sinister short stories around the same theme will have more Malaysianness with contributors like Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim. She has also asked for a blurb from me for the next book - I’m suggesting to her that she uses my review of her first collection on Fusion View: “well-written and very readable.

Kenny is addicted to LonelyGirl15 even though he knows it’s a fiction. It’s like watching a soap opera, he explains. He asks how we can harness this magical power of the internet to create such an enticing story. As writers, I think that we can learn from LonelyGirl 15 - it’s about creating characters that the audience cares about and storylines that keep you wanting to find out what happens next. Whether it’s fiction, fact or “faction” doesn’t matter as much as having those two elements.

David gives us a quick history of why cats are considered evil - encompassing witchcraft and the plague, no less. Gruesome stuff. Tunku Halim isn’t fond of cats and Pey says she likes cats but not to live with. Personally, I’m not a great cat fan either - something to do with their silent movement and slinkiness and their jumping up to sit in your lap: a dumb slobbery dog seems more charmingly dopey.

As for the pic of the hunky Oz farmer in my post about Beaut Blokes, a friend said to me on the phone she couldn’t concentrate on anything if she had that page up on her PC! The post also attracted some laughter and appreciation. Pey adds that Graham Norton (a UK talk show) picked up on the milk-carton love-ads for farmers - a week or so after I featured them on Fusion View.

In response to the item on Indian students falling into depression due to too much technology, Kenny says that being alone offline can be depressing. So true. Personally, I like feeling connected (albeit electronically to a bunch of interesting people). A new visitor Mike D agrees with my remarks about how Twitter may be a cry against existential loneliness. Andrew adds to this view with his comment that Twitter doesn’t really connect us at all - it’s just a place where we fire off individual messages into the internet, never to return.

My malt loaf post keeps getting new fans. Vini posts very energetically about how malt loaf should be eaten with butter. And Janice shares that she’s just eaten a whole loaf, mistaking the calorie count - oh dear, I can feel for her on that! Janice - you may have to go running and cycling for weeks to make up for that mistake!

Photo of sheep round-up: thanks to ~Prescott on flickr.com