Why Would I Write

  • Thirty K

    Thirty K

    How much does it cost to transplant hair from the back of your head to your face? Today, I learned the answer, it’s a lot of money. Thirty thousand ringgit to be exact. Well, that’s if your face is as sparse as mine and you have dreams of rocking a full beard like you front an easycore band.

    Beard Game Strong

    How did I find out? If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you would know my obsession to look like a pirate. On a side note, it’s unfair to call it an obsession since I didn’t try every single thing — exercising and diet are a thing. But I did try Minoxidil and if that didn’t work, nothing else will. I don’t have any more hair follicles on my face.

    A couple of weeks ago, I googled facial hair transplant and stumbled upon a website of DHI Malaysia. It was “the best hair transplant clinic” according to its listing on Google Maps. I dicked around the website, and there was no mention of pricing. Saw a form to fill up for a free consultation and I did.

    Earlier this week, I received a text from the company asking me when I was available for a meeting with them. I had completely forgotten about the clinic by then so I thought it was spam. I had to go back to the website to remind myself why I gave up my phone number.

    Curiosity got the better of me and I set a date for the meeting, which took place this morning. The consultation went well, with the doctor telling me that Chinese men usually weren’t there to get a beard (I laughed). It was straightforward and they explained the process thoroughly — if you’re curious you can read about it here.

    They extract hair follicles from another part of your body (the back of my head) and implant them where you’d like the hair to be (my face). The whole process takes a couple of days because it is done by hand. Imagine planting thousands of hairs by hand, I can’t.

    Then for a few weeks, you’ll need to take care of your scalp and face while you recover. If everything goes well, you’ll have a glorious beard for the rest of your life. They had a surgeon come in to draw lines on my face to estimate how many hair follicles were needed for the transplant.

    According to them, my ideal beard would require me to move 6,000 follicles. At RM7 per hair, the process would cost RM42,000. But they were willing to give me a big fat discount if I did the operation in June — from RM7 to RM5 per hair. 30,000 bones to look like a rock star with none of the talent.

    I thanked them for the free consultation and went on my merry way. Am I willing to spend the price of a car on my face? Not right now. Maybe one day I’ll hit the lottery I don’t play and secure enough dough for the procedure.

    Either way, it was an interesting morning I don’t regret. It’s always cool to learn new things. Thanks for reading my blog.

  • You Have A Lucky Face

    “You have a lucky face,” said the stranger who approached me as I was walking out of Suria KLCC.

    He was an Indian man, in his early thirties, dressed in a white shirt and jeans. I stared at him, puzzled.

    “As if,” I thought to myself, adjusting my face mask while checking to make sure it was still on.

    How would you know what my face looks like? You haven’t seen it before.

    “Huh?” I said, pretending I didn’t understand him.

    “Do you speak English?”

    Fuck, I could have pretended not to speak English, I guess I’ll use that next time.

    “Yeah”

    “You have a lucky face.” As if saying it twice made a difference.

    “It’s okay,” I waved him away before he could continue his next sentence. “I’m not interested.”

    The man walked away, defeated.

    I assumed it was a scam from the get-go and since learning my lesson, I’ve had no time for scammers. Nothing good ever comes from talking to strangers.

    I shared the weird exchange with my friends and promptly forgot about it – until today. Seng Yip said the same thing happened to him in Publika this afernoon. No fucking way it wasn’t a scam.

    I looked it up on the internet and found a bunch of results, including a blog post dating as far back as 2011, with a comment in 2017 about the same thing happening in KLCC. The biggest article I found was a news report from Australia about victims who fell for it.

    This is how the con works: they approach you with that opening line to get your attention. They then talk to you, ask you questions, and deduce your answers by using mentalist tricks.

    After using these theatrics to gain your trust, they pull out the big guns. They tell you that they need money for an orphanage back in India – preying on your sympathy. Or that you’ve got bad luck/health problems and if you give them money they’ll help you out (with their powers). If you refuse, you’ll die in a year. Sounds just as ridiculous as kickstarting a rap career, oh wait.

    Seeing how it’s been going on for so long and is still around today, it must be a pretty successful tactic. It’s an elaborate scheme and requires a decent actor or conversationalist to pull off. Doubt it would work for uncharismatic people. While it takes a lot more effort than begging, it is actually scummy.

    In this post-pandemic world where everyone has a face mask on, they’ll need to come up with better opening lines if they want to thrive. Perhaps something along the lines of, “Your hands are too big.”

    “Too big for what?” you’ll ask.

    “To hold deez nuts!” then they drop their trousers to show off their massive balls. While you stand there stunned, they grab your shit and run off. Not before pulling their pants up because they might trip otherwise.

  • “Leading the way to a cashless society.” / I should have said that we’d be happy now

    “Leading the way to a cashless society.” / I should have said that we’d be happy now

    I was thinking to myself how much it would suck to have my phone stolen from me now. It’s so much more important than my wallet. I can survive a day without my wallet on me (barring some strange scenario where I have to present my identity card). But if I didn’t have my phone with me, I would have no excuse but to drive back home to pick it up.

    Not having your phone today means not having cash, a way to contact people (or tweet), a GPS, and more. In fact, a few months ago you wouldn’t have been able to enter many places since you prove your vaccination/COVID status without the MySejahtera app.

    Touch ’n Go’s eWallet is pretty rad. I enjoy not having to count bills or keeping coins in my pocket. Not all places accept it yet, but they’re becoming less common. If they don’t accept digital cash, I have my watch which can function as a credit card. Then there are online bank transfers as the last step before I resort to using cash. I admire how agile the country has been in terms of adopting digital trends.

    Five years ago, I complained about the hassles of our parking system. I’m happy to say that this is no longer the case. It was a bit bumpy initially, with the various apps that we had to download for different areas, but it’s safe to say that paying for street parking is no longer a hassle. Thanks, Touch ’n Go!

    I have no more qualms about parking my car anywhere I go these days. Since it’s become available I’ve paid for parking more than ever before. Even when there were occasions that I didn’t feel like paying – I did anyway. Better to be down RM1 than to receive a lucky ticket.

    When you reduce the friction of a tedious procedure, it encourages people to utilize it more. At least that’s what I believe. It’s like how Steam conquered the gaming industry, Spotify for music, and Netflix for shows. They proved that when you make obtaining original content easier than piracy while being affordable at the same time, it shifts the scales.

    It hasn’t eliminated piracy – people are still going to pirate for various reasons, but it’s better to make some money off ex-pirates than none of it. Media licensing is still a shit show. How long will it take for all these publishers to realize that geoblocking content in this day and age is such a backward practice? Sure, restrict physical goods since distribution and logistics are a pain in the ass to handle globally. But for digital goods? It makes no sense at all. Get with the times, guys. 

    I’m annoyed because Welcome Home Armageddon isn’t on Spotify Malaysia despite it having a listing. Why is the acoustic/remix EP (See You All In Hell) available but not the original? It’s times like these, piracy is justified. Also, I can’t believe I haven’t done a music post on Funeral for a Friend yet. A lot of bands get the same treatment on Spotify, especially the Japanese ones (still waiting for chickenrace).

    I’m glad Elden Ring wasn’t geoblocked (finished it, by the way, game of the year 2022). Dance Gavin Dance has a new album coming out this year (RIP Tim Feerick), I’m sure it’s going to be a banger as well. What a great year 2022 is going to be. 

    I believe.

    (please don’t age like milk)