Yesterday morning, right before driving like a demon to mum's house for a quick morning tea and skim through the newspapers, and of course, shoes, and then church for service, I came across the featured band of the day on a livejournal site which I frequent (it regularly hosts megaupload downloads but it's more of a reference point for me than anything else I swear) and found them to be none other than one of the upcoming bands which was slowly rising up, (especially) in the dream pop genre, and wrote to them about it. Well, just because they were from Malaysia and were good in their craft and I own(ed*) their first release (which a friend misplaced and only God knows where it is now*), gave me that sense of urgency to inform them, and so, even with thirty minutes left on the clock for me to reach the church via mum's house from where I was, I did.
*related.
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A runaway kid, fourteen years of age, finds employment within two days of hunting, to repay his debt of three hundred ringgit to his classmate: the price of his gaming addiction, one which was presumably picked up from a cybercafe nearby his school. And I'm marveling at the future of part-time jobs, available here, in Malaysia. I mean, I could have peddled vcds (it was still VCDs then...), though without a basic salary, but earn my one hundred ringgit daily with my twenty percent commission. Or whatever rate it was back then. Instead of sales promoting, waitering et al. It opened my eyes to just how much these people are making. And this was just a boy, one with no working experience: a drudge of the easiest available kind. Poor kid will never want to work as anything else ever again. I'm sure I wouldn't: if I who write to you am he.
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One fine day (this was some months ago), while mall-ratting (well, maybe not so) and watching whole movies off screens which actually served to provide a sample of the latest available illegal dvd releases (I'm pretty sure someone there forgot to switch discs or something, and left entire movies playing. Or I just might be wrong), someone shouted something and immediately thereafter, almost every customer was stampeding towards the entrance, towards me so to speak, as I was hanging out at the front; the many lights switched off in demon-domino effect; the metal entrance shutters pulled down to their shutdown with lightning efficiency, even I think, even with some customers who had no idea whatsoever still inside. These were the deer in headlights. Those who were out were the seasoned ones. This I'm sure: they had preparedness; and strong legs.
As I walked towards a clearer view of the rest of the floors, many many many other shops were doing the same. The shop I was at got the leak first it seems. And the people who were doing the raid weren't even at the scene yet. I wonder how much a really really really good snitch gets.
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I was greeted with this, this morning:
"hey.. thanks for the message.. well, nothing much we can do, I think everybody downloads copyrighted music anyway. we would be hypocritical if we went after this guy.. oh well, it's free promotion. cheers!"
I wonder how they would have reacted; if it would been any different, had they been from another country. Ah, well. They speak the truth which I can find neither fault nor regret in.
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On June seventeen, pirate-kid was arrested by a policeman for having fourty pirated dvds. Apparently due to his age (or something that the newspapers didn't disclose; for fear of it being used as an advantage by piraters who were so shrewd, that they read their newspapers daily for anything they could use to further their domination), he was not charged. His employer even went as far as showing up at the police station to settle the case. The fourty dvds however weren't as lucky; they were seized.
His mum, who was worried sick (for days; poor woman) fetched him from the station (a few hundred kilometers from their home) after being notified by the authorities; our paparazzi had a field day; and well, if only I knew then, what I know now.
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