I think I’m going through quarter-life crisis. Where I’m buying stuff I would’ve wanted when I was half my age. But first, a gig! Pussy Rock 2005, last Friday, at Paul’s New Place. So Jenifer and I hitched a ride with Kevin, and we had wonderful fried pork rice.

Kevin ordered a honeydew drink. The waitress didn’t understand so he said, “tembikai susu” (literally translated as milk watermelon). She came back with watermelon juice. He clarified. She came back with watermelon with milk. “I’ll take it“, he said, and she came back with the real thing (on the left). Turns out the watermelon with milk was alright, if not a bit too funky for his stomach (as we found out later).

And now, for double-sized 400×300 pictures, because Jenifer asked.

Cosmic Funk Express! I was just kidding when I asked Zack to play Eric Johnson – Cliffs Of Dover. Alda announced a special request from me, and they kicked into the famous guitar shredder anthem. Major coolness.

Eugene of Groovetank joined for a few songs.

Superbar was next. Note the PRS Tremonti SE. Major droolness.

Y2K was funny as usual. Saiful (left) managed to crack jokes this time, too! No stage performer can beat Khai‘s stand up comedy though.

Dimebag Darrell is alive! Nah, that’s Rithan of Deja Voodoo (who has played with Steve Vai in Singapore), but doesn’t he look amazingly like the great Dime (Rest In Peace) here?

The real Dimebag Darrell.

Adam of Dragon Red was meant to be the Phil Anselmo of Malaysia, complete with his headbanging style. I have a video of them ripping out Pantera – Revolution Is My Name and Pantera – Cowboys From Hell! Finally, a tribute (someone could’ve covered them at Rock The World 5 dammit.) These songs, and Cliffs Of Dover, were moments we’d never capture in any other gig! (Except maybe that Tribute To Dimebag Darrell that I didn’t hear about till after the show…)

The show ended with Brainhead, a softer melodic rock band. And hey! Isn’t that Disagree‘s bassist?

Pictures were enhanced with this gem: NeatImage, a kickass noise-reduction software. It’s free so what are you doing not clicking and downloading it and using noisy ISO 400, knowing you can counter it with this?

Okay anyway, for my crazy spending spree like I said earlier (it also helped that my salary was in…)

Out of the Transformers Energon series, I got Grimlock & Swoop (merged on the middle) and completed a combiner set (merged on the right).

They are from left: Terradive and Treadshot (Aerialbots), Barricade and Kickback (Combaticons) and Sledge (Constructicon). I didn’t get complete sets of any gestalt/combiner as they were not available as a complete set for cheap, and because each hand had a corresponding leg which was a recolored version of the same mold. Plus, by collecting these, the merged gestalt would be matching in color!

Yeah so it’s a blue to green mix, but it’s a better color combination than the other combiners.

The rare dinobots. Not available in Malaysia. Sadly, the design isn’t that great and is very clumsy for a Transformer Energon release. Quite disappointing, but worth keeping for the novelty of it being dinobots! How much cooler can it get?

They even shamelessly transform the same way the originals did, and combining them felt rather loose.

Finally, for my photographic exploration, I bought an adjustable lamp to better light up my subjects with.

To counter the Black Album, I bought the white album. Nah it’s The White Stripes – White Blood Cells. That means I just lack their third album, De Stijl!

I bought the Jimi Hendrix Live At The Isle Of Wight – Blue Wild Angel CD/DVD pack, after buying this: The Jimi Hendrix JH-1 Jim Dunlop wah pedal. I had a minor scare after buying it half price second hand when I brought it in to the office, tested it with Kevin (who is a sound engineer at ASTRO) and found it either turned off the sound or didn’t affect the sound at all. It didn’t work plugged into speakers alone either; it only worked on the computer. Interestingly, when the guitar is not plugged in (or there is no signal) I can still make scratchy wah sounds. Call it a bug? The optimist says it is his own turntable scratching effect. DJ Hendrix, y’hear? It sounds even better on reverb.

Speaking of the Jimi Hendrix DVD, well it was a great buy for RM59.90 but it could be better if the cameramen were guitarists and knew not to take shots of the back of the guitar neck and Jimi’s expressions, especially during All Along The Watchtower! It also isn’t as sharp as a modern DVD but we must remember that such detail can’t be expected from a camera in 1970. He didn’t delve much into his familiar past hits, but when he did Red House it was just orgasmic.

Have you seen this in the center of KL? This is the real Isetan.

Tired rockers. Why should friends pose all buddy-like when they can pose like a rock band? It would be cooler and it avoids the awkwardness of knowing where to put your hands or how far to stand. From left: Happiness, tiredness and anger.