Monthly Archives: April 2006

Aye, Queue For IQ

So you’ve always thought you were smarter than the rest. Come prove it, by taking the Malaysian Mensa IQ Test!

What: The Malaysian Mensa Scrabble Challenge 2006, where there would also be two rounds of testing.
When: 1:15pm and 5pm (testing sessions) or 8:30am (registration for Scrabble, if you’re interested)
Where: Avenue Food Mall, 10th floor, Berjaya Times Square
How much: RM35 admission test fees (as for Scrabble click here.)
Why: To be a certified smartass. Oh you meant Scrabble? To be a certified wordy smartass.

No, I won’t be there, I don’t play Scrabble, and I already took the test.

Dull Letters

Let’s justify why your good pal is sluggish to reply to chat at his house. The culprit is:

Yes that’s right kids, it’s too dark to see the letters to the right of C. Or rather, the letters were dulled with just two years of usage. I’d type out the word to later realize that I hit off-target keys!

Alas, I was shortly a whore to corporate goods, desperate; I just purchased the Logitech as I had acquired a fresh PC. It used a littler jack so I figured I’d replace, with the good ol’ classic 101-keyer quite likely to repeat L’s.

Guess what? I used to draw key layouts to whither away dull classes at school. Oh, woe!

I guess I could do without those letters; after all, I dodged their usage for this article.

In Spirit, Churn

I’ve been wanting to blog about this for almost a year already. Here comes Albert’s list of blogs who he looks up to for inspiration, wishing he could write like that.

Are there any rules to this list? No overrated, overlinked blogs. Blogs that only bloggers read, and not read by non-blogging people who don’t leave links when they comment. Blogs like they were in 2000, before the advent of digital cameras. Heck, what happened to the classic mysterious, alluring camwhores? They used to lead our imaginations wild on a 100×100 pixel picture alone!

I think some of the more famous bloggers will steal some of these links and propel them to a bastardly stardom. NNNOOO!!!

Circus Itch
A bunch of people with articles that speak the truth. Word. I don’t even know which of these pseudonyms has my Lord Of The Rings trilogy book.

Scherzquin
Her Seinfeld-esque introspections makes me wish I had time to rush from the toilet, when I have the most time to introspect, to blog. But all we ever do online is play MSN Solitaire Showdown.

Sykurlaus
I love her paragraphing, and laidback, casual delivery. And those occasional imaginative transdimensional realms she goes through.

Prosaicwhore
Now this, all you depressed-sounding self-pitying fakers, is real gothic. Vivaciously bombastic, arduously scientific and yet truly poetic.

May Yee
May Yee, I can’t believe you hid this from me so long. Have we been too preoccupied with MSN Minesweeper Flags for you to tell me of your hilarious blog?

Davina
She always had a most captivating, humorous way of telling stories. However, meet her in person and you’d get to hear her corny jokes and see her hyper bunny cartoony persona.

Cheesie
Sorrylah, you’re too famous already. Amusing and always a good light read, perfect for when you need a break and don’t want to strain your eyes reading. Okay, and then there are the pictures.

Grace
I haven’t seen such clear, sharp, vibrant colors in a while, with art and emotion in each picture. Olympus prosumer digicams (and their users) rock!

Lainie
I did not read her until we were properly introduced, and then it all made sense. We were in the scene. I saw a parallel in the way she wrote her disjointed long entries and mine (though I try to keep my blog entries to one topic these days). You know? Tell a story, then sidetrack a bit.

Jay
She has been funny from the days when I bumped into her Blogspot site. How do you make a punchline out of every story, huh? Huh?

And now, for the guys.

Joel
Dramatic sarcastic storytelling. He’s just as funny on MSN.

Rudy
Funny and introspective, a young man’s guide to getting some.

Bloodlet
When was the last time you laughed about repeated references to armpits and mantits? (No I do not have an obsession with them.)

Evening Drama
These bunch of funny guys who wrote articles and flamed each other were funnier when they were still on this blog site. Told you so.

The Silent Room
My camera geek buddy also writes some thought-provoking articles. The few pictures that he puts up… they tell stories.

DJ Phuturecybersonique
He was known as the walking talking DNS server back in Astro, for good reason – he was our ultimate technical reference. He also coded his own blog, and inspired me to do the same.

There was also Bazlitography, whose site died. I don’t know where he is anymore argh! Beautiful pictures, with superb composition and emotion.

Happy Birthday… Jamasia

Jamasia had its one year old celebration on the 25th of March, 2006. I think it was a wee bit older than that, though, because I first saw Frequency Cannon there, and I’d seen Frequency Cannon as early as 2004.

And in case you’re wondering why only Jamasia gets wished happy birthday, it is because there was free flow of alcohol for 1.5 hours!


I used slow shutter with flash/night scene for these pictures; we had free flow, and Alda, playing for Cosmic Funk Express, opened the show, so he could not enjoy such generosity. But here, I sorta feed him Carlsberg.


Zack Kim deftly avoids the lights…


But ends up inebriated anyway. Somehow I feel these picture effects work best to describe the music Cosmic Funk Express plays.


Stonebay. Don’t be jealous and turn green Mr. Bassist, I finally take a picture of someone other than the singer with his eye-catching guitar and rainbow-colored beanie.


Throne Away, with One Buck Short‘s drummer. Apparently, only Rudy the drummer can sing the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious part in Midnight In Madrid.


Beat The System, playing nu-metal and some old-school. Perhaps I should’ve spun the camera upwards to make fiery streaks instead.


Natalie of Dragon Red. They did a few covers, like sneaking in a verse of Estranged – Chocolate Syrup, and Amil playing the intro riff to Deja Voodoo Spells – I Am What I Am.


Adam and his little pocketable partner in crime, Mozzie. They do A Perfect Circle – Judith well.


He also has aspirations to be the gloved one.


Slyde, for a rabid fan.


Edge Of Fire was again short of members, so their falsetto-loving vocalist played guitar too. It was a treat to see him sing Guns & Roses – Welcome To The Jungle, at a key too high that we could see his eyes popping out.


Shirtless as usual, Ainol entertains with a drum solo. Deja Voodoo Spells pulled a clever one on the crowd – Rithan started with a Hendrix-ish intro, but played Nirvana‘s Breed and Lithium (and Green Day – Basket Case) note-by-note. This might be to celebrate his nomination for best vocal performance in the AIM, perhaps?


The crowd asked for Jimi Hendrix, and he obliged with Fire. When asked for more, he brought out a guest guitarist and drummer, who ripped out Stevie Ray Vaughn‘s version of Little Wing!


Adam joins to sing Strangely. Also, Mie becomes the official bassist of the band.


Vespertine found it very tough to follow Deja Voodoo Spells. The bassist looked like he was mourning (or was he the one being mourned for, being that stiff?)

Marching On Gigs

Here come some gig pictures, from March.

17th March 2006 – Accoustica, Jamasia


Zack of Deserters started a drone to play in the background to his atmospheric music. Which really, wasn’t very acoustic.


Neither was Khai, but acoustic basses are hard to come by, especially leftie ones. Okay, so Khai can play with a right-handed bass upside down without any restringing, as seen in the picture.


Saiful shreds on acoustic. The only difference between an electric Y2K and an acoustic one is the distortion.


Estranged was the most interesting acoustic act; they jazzed up Catch You Later, After All (complete with jazzy solo) and Chocolate Syrup.


For Kembali, KC, Hanafi and Azwin Andy sung harmony. For some reason I think this picture is cute.


Stonebay was next with grunge on acoustic, the heartfelt way it was meant to be.

22nd March 2006 – Olive Room Sessions


Reza was playing, and when he was mingling in the crowd, I asked him how he made those special effects on his blog. Night mode with flash and a very jerky hand was his answer. I suppose this would have been easier in a club where it’s dark enough.


Or maybe it was meant to be a camwhore effect.


Izzy the singer-songwriter.


Reza joins Isaac Entry the reggae-tinged blues guitarist (whoever said he uses the same three chords should be shot informed because three chords is the point of blues) and his harmonica player.

Travel-Laine

Here’s a nice, lengthy blog entry in the vein of travelling. Yeah, that’s why I have a blog category for that, for those stories that eventually become anecdotes, y’know?

Anyway. On Friday, the plan was to bring stim-girl and birthday-girl to the gay bars. Yeah. So I called at 6pm, and birthday-girl was about to head over to stim-girl’s house. In an unrelated daze, I wandered into Amcorp Mall, plunked some coins down for Daytona at the arcade, and released bummerness and frustration… in manual transmission.

See, even in moments of down-ness, I intend to do something that betters me. I’ve been good at automatic and a bit of braked drifting in intermediate, but I was shit at manual, and all that 1-3-4 in the last curve.

So I called birthday-girl at 7pm, and she wasn’t there yet! So I headed to Midvalley out of nothing-to-do-ness. Took the LRT to Bangsar, and hopped onto a free bus. Why’d I go there, despite having been there many times that week? To check out one phone price, in one shop. I have also been checking out digital SLR lenses of late, because really, that matters more than the dSLR body itself. Evil temptation. The Sigma 28-200mm F3.5/6.3 was small and cute, and relatively cheap, though not too far in price from a Canon. Yeah, all the talk about Canon 350Ds has been getting to my head.

I bumped into Jenifur, also walking aimlessly in a I-don’t-go-home-that-early-on-Fridays daze, and we took a bus to Pasar Seni, where I hobbled on to KL Sentral to meet stim-girl and birthday-girl. We took the monorail to Bukit Bintang, and took the scenic walk to Little Havana, place of wonderful hawaiian pizza with extra stretchy cheese and pineapples.

I planned that we’d get a foot massage between then, and the gay bar we were going to. Yes, birthday-girl was a newfound lesbian, and I’d jibe her repeatedly, saying she was gonna get some tonight. Because well, it’s just fun, saying what you’d normally say to a cowardly guy, to a lesbian. Yeah. So I get cheap thrills from different situations.

We didn’t have time for the foot message (oh well, there goes the first ever time I’d pay for a foot massage, since I’ve always been freeloading off OSIM chairs) so we walked past Frangipani, and we reckon it was guy night. Uh, right, pass.

We then got on the newfangled RapidKL buses, quite funky those. Got us to Medan Pasar, right smack in front of Liquid. I was initially apprehensive, thinking it was mostly a gay but not lesbian hangout. However, all apprehensions flew out the window, and I stopped guarding my butt with my hands when I saw how empty it was! (And entry was free, and I’m a sucker for free things y’know.)

Inside, there was a private party in The Studio; there was a big congregation of girls in one corner, and the gays were sitting outside looking cool. The girls got up to dance, and again, I suggested that birthday-lesbian dance with them, since she was checking them out. But she was chicken shit. So we danced together in a sad circle and later lay flat like starfishes, absorbing techno beats from the cushions.

Another friend finally experienced the electro-clash dance rock goodness that is Twilight Action Girl, and so we headed to Zouk in a cab. Oh no, Zouk got smart and started charging RM20 for entry to The Loft on Fridays! Us being broke, we were hesitant about entering, as we would not be able to get a cab back after that.

I then saw DJ Bunga at the entrance (who has the funniest blog ever), and he said, “hey, you went inside justnow, right?

Uh… no? How ah?

I then realized that I was supposed to say YES! and bring me and friends in! We waited another round before getting in for free.

Different types of alcohol do well to give me a good rest on Saturday.

Anyway, Sunday morning; I went to Midvalley to catch V For Vendetta (and catch up) with Leech. She wanted to eat Japanese food, and uh… well, I shall clarify this, as much as I’d hate to have to, knowing how many hot chicks like Japanese food.

I think some Japanese food is a rip-off. Such small units of food! (No wonder Japanese are small.) I don’t fancy seaweed, and Japanese crackers are just a weiiird kind of salty. I’m alright with wasabi though, but I’m allergic to a lot of sea creatures. And hot green tea is served in a tiny cup! (Okay, so I didn’t know it could be refilled.)

Teppanyaki Sungei Wang rocks though. I love the flavor and the whole oily fried meat thing with crispy crunchy things on them. Too bad some people hate taugeh, eh.

Anyhoo, back to V For Vendetta. Cool movie. Too bad they didn’t really explain why people feel the need for control. Control versus freedom will never be a stable seesaw. In a sense, it seemed like an infantile rebel-call. We are just sheep, waiting for someone to lead us.

At least the army is trained, and it knows and understands why it has to move as one unit.


So yeah, we had Bento. With what little knowledge I had learned from some diagrams online, I attempted to eat my large Bento meal using chopsticks. I had to say, that chopsticks allowed me to appreciate food slowly, and bit-by-bit. Whereas if I used a fork and spoon, I’d mix up rice and morsel, and not be able to savor it as intimately as I did with chopsticks, alternating between sauced meat and plain rice.


I hopped on a bus to Central Market, and found these buskers with amplifiers! They even have a mike.


There was also an inebriated man, enjoying the music.


Terima kasih! Yeah brader, you rock too!

The buskers then apologized and said how they meet people from all walks of life.

I then headed to Pertama Complex and finally found a shop that sold the elusive Metallica – Some Kind Of Monster rockumentary DVD. Had to order, though. The only Chinese in the place were the handphone salespeople.

I then met up with Gabra superstar to watch Gubra. He brought some friends, and then some surprises (which you’d see on his blog soon enough).

I prefer the prequel, Sepet, though. Gubra was more life-documentation than Sepet, which was love-progression. And it didn’t help that we came in a bit late, and only saw the other characters much later. They didn’t get much screentime, and only seemed to serve the purpose of rehashing old Petronas ads. Still, that will touch hearts and make us laugh at the irony.

I preferred Gubra’s film quality to V For Vendetta’s. In V For Vendetta, there were a few scenes where there is a conversation between V and Evey, and the film quality changes; for example, when it points to Evey, she has an apparent lo-fi digital motion blur, as if she was being viewed from V, in cyborg-vision. She was also often slightly off-focus. Gubra, however, had no such problems, with well-done focus transitions, and excellent color rendition (though there was a green cast in the outdoor night scenes.)

I think it’s quite scary how I’ve become a Director Of Photography by accident.

I also think it’s quite scary how I’m writing this blog entry; I think I’ve been reading too much Lainie.

The Five Factor Personality Test


Your Five Factor Personality Profile


Extroversion:

You have medium extroversion.
You’re not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party.
Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences.
But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your “down time.”

Conscientiousness:

You have medium conscientiousness.
You’re generally good at balancing work and play.
When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done.
But you’ve been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it.

Agreeableness:

You have high agreeableness.
You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly.
Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone.
You give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t mind giving someone a second chance.

Neuroticism:

You have medium neuroticism.
You’re generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic.
Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy.
Your life is pretty smooth, but there’s a few emotional bumps you’d like to get rid of.

Openness to experience:

Your openness to new experiences is high.
In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas.
You’ll try almost anything interesting, and you’re constantly pushing your own limits.
A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

Troubadours Open Doors

Here comes the last batch of Troubadours pictures – this time, from the Troubadours/Open Doors gig on the 19th of March 2006, at the Indicine, KL Performing Arts Centre.

I don’t remember much of the first short film, other than a lot of clouds.


Khai starts the musical set on an upside-down-restrung-leftie guitar, with classic singalongs from his Khaimano days, including the ever-so-relevant This Is Black Metal.


Rhapsody the jazzy duo.


The projector was interfering with the photos, yes indeed, even from the side.


Taking a picture with flash was not enough to get rid of the projected light, so I had to change to manual mode, 1/500th of a second to darken the effect of the projector.

Then came a short film. Liew Seng Tat’s Flowers was a most vivid, disturbing short film about what I reckon is an old lady reminiscing about her affair with a Japanese soldier during the Japanese occupation. Except, of course, that the flashback is in color, and the old lady doesn’t look any younger. Kudos to the director for also being the star, the Japanese soldier (just like how Khai was the star of Ciplak). Yeah, there were scenes. Like Fazri said, “My eyes! Argh my eyes!


Jerome Kugan the Morrisey-isque, amazing falsettoed singer. He sings over techno beats he programs himself!


His laptop plays his beats.


To equalize the exposure from the screen and him, I used flash at 1/80th of a second shutter speed.


He dances, feels the music, and his expressions are truly in tune with the space and time vortex conjured by his dreamy soundscapes.

Best Friends We Are

I wrote a song.

Many, many years, I tried
I got smashed up, and I cried
I’ve never met someone
Who says you don’t need that to have fun

You’ll be better than an object
You’ll be my main subject
Because you are who you are
You can ride in my car

You’re my best friend
You’re my start and my end
You call people from my phone
You set friends up so we can meet alone

You know how I feel
You’ve got such appeal
But I ain’t ever letting you
Meet a friend or two

You know, we could relate
Your earnestness I appreciate
There ain’t a kinder soul
In this big, scary world

Sensitive to my sensitivity
Positive to my negativity
With you I am truly happy
Best friends we are, you and me

Shut Yer Speed

And now, for pictures at slower shutter speeds than normal.


Ching on a swing.


Shoes for the blues. (I’ll blog about my unique shoelace tying sometime.)


Longer exposure at Endah Parade.


Somewhere in between, and…


Fast shutter to catch the splutter.


We now teleport to Dataran Merdeka.


I used a polarizer to shoot through glass; this was in the aquarium at the entrance to the National Science Center.


I used the optical viewfinder, pointing the crosshair at the fish’s head, to trace its motion.


Looking… not so sharp.


Gyroscopes are fun.


The engine was actually rotating inside a display case. I walked around the engine to get the rotating motion blur in the background. Great fun for photographer geeks wanting to burn time. Besides, who’d recognize you at a science center but other geeks?