Head, mind and brain

Hmm.

I woke up this morning with a definite task in mind to accomplish: clean up and re-string my Fender Telecaster which has been in need of a long-overdue maintenance spree.

So this is what I did:

1. Polished the frets, tuning knobs and stamp-steel bridge assembly including the saddles.
2. Lemon-oiled and scrubbed the fretboard to a nice dark lustre.
3. Buffed away any scratches or scuffs in the finish.
4. Polished the finish as a whole.

After I had completed the job, I was completely satisfied, particularly in the areas which I had polished the metal portions to an incredible shine. However, there was a spot of trouble with the bridge pickup; apparently when I had removed some bits of foam, I had disturbed the pickup, and it was not supposed to touch the brass plate beneath.

Being the curious individual that I am, I sourced the root of the problem and solved it by folding a cardboard namecard and slotted it underneath the pickup. Then it was back to business: the full-blown telecaster twang!

Right.

Just in case I didn't fill you guys in, I went to KL on Sunday morning and came back on Tuesday evening. Sunday evening I had this incredibly huge dinner, after which I effectively lost control of my digestive system, crapped out several times and culminated in a 10-min merlion session.

Only thing was that the merlion effect involved somewhat solid particles.

I spent the whole of Monday delirious with fever and nausea, and I spent the most of Tuesday feeling somewhat better after visiting a local clinic at about 11:30 on Monday evening and receiving some medicine to relieve myself of the nausea and dizzyness.

I tell you one thing: my 2nd uncle's home in KL is seriously one heck of a horrible place to be even if you're not sick. Here's why:

1. It is the living area of 8 adults and 2 small children under the age of 4. My granddad, my 2nd uncle and aunt, and my 3 cousins. Add that figure to my folks, my brother and myself, my 1st aunt and uncle, my 2nd cousin and his wife and you have 16 people.

2. Now, 16 people co-existing within the same house means one thing: noise. And lots of it.

So while I was delirious with fever and trying to get some sleep, I was severely distracted by the noise of all 15 individuals making some kind of noise at the same time. There was the baby screaming, my nephew crying and the older folks chatting, scolding or pacifying the kids and basically making a whole lotta fucking noise.

I couldn't stand it. Half the time I was wishing I would just die there lying with my churning innards and my brain making weird dreams as I lay there hugging the pillow and hoping the noise would go away.

Somehow or another I had pretty much slept almost 30 hours by the time Tuesday rolled along, but I guess it was making up for the lack of sleep I had on Monday evening due to a bad feeling in the gut. Only after the merlion session did I feel any better.

So now I'm still feeling the after-effects of my trip to Malaysia. It seems that 1 out of 5 times I go back north I would return with some sort of ailment. It sucks big time but that's the reality of not existing with a cast-iron stomach and a mental capacity to withstand the noise of 12 people all making some kind of noise at the same time.

I seriously wanted to tell them to shut the fuck up.


Cheers,

Crawldaddy