Author Archives: 2konbla

Gunned. Damn!

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you, and instead of putting loads of pictures of happy people at parties over the last 3 days, I decided to be different and put pictures of one of my birthday presents.


Guess which plane isn’t so plain.


Space-age carrier versus unidentified aircraft.


But wait, it’s a robot in disguise!


Meet Saviour Gundam, ZGMF-X23S, 1/144 scale model High Grade Gundam Seed-24.


If you’re not convinced that he’s a handsome bastard, here’s a closeup.


Ah, my other birthday presents are getting jealous. Meet (the belated) Bionicle Toa Hordika Vakama! (Don’t ask me who comes up with these names.)


Size does matter, and the Japanese warrior is no match for the German giant.


Transformers Alternators Silverstreak takes revenge for the Japanese (yeah the Alternators are American, but he transforms into a Japanese car.)


Saviour Gundam takes his position in the hall of heroes with the tiny, Gundam-feel Transformers Robot Masters Star Saber.

Do I like it? Majorly so! He’s even red for the occasion, ho ho ho. He even transforms, yo! I never knew how much detail went into a Gundam, or how many pieces were needed to ensure articulation and prevent it from being hollow. My only gripes were the fists, that needed to be disassembled to remove the gun.

Tag Lag

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In the spirit of killing procrastination, I shall do the damn blog memes I was tagged ages ago. One, from Alda:

10 years ago I was:
I was 12 years and 4 days old. I think we still started our school semester in December, so it was one of those rare birthdays on a schoolday.

5 years ago I was:
I was 17, and was on my 5th day of working at Xfresh. Yes, we worked Saturdays then.

1 year ago I was:
I was 21 and getting over the Rock The World neckaches.

Yesterday I was:
Passing the flu to everyone in the office who wanted an MC. Eventually made an exit in the afternoon with the intention of sleeping.

5 snacks I enjoy:
1) Mamee Monster Snack (20 sen joy!)
2) Lays Salt & Vinegar chips (they’re so strong, you simply cannot finish them in one go, which makes it a lot more worth it.)
3) Ear Biscuits (a Chinese delicacy)
3) Ear Biscuits filled with brown paste (I am not sure how to differentiate them, but it’s also a Chinese delicacy)
5) Twisties Chickadees (it seems less salty than other snacks)

5 songs I know all the words to:
Oh, what the heck, I don’t know the lyrics to most of my 24 GB of songs. I mean, I could sing along to it, but out of nothing, and in sequence, I probably could not.

5 things I would do with a 100 Million:
1) Invent a time machine, buy loads of tin and raw materials that cost a lot more back then, and sell it.
2) Make Africa a self-contained ecosystem with food for everyone.
3) Make the only sexually transmitted disease left infertility/impotence. Hence, we could all screw around but we’d never have kids. Want kids? Adopt an African.
4) Buy Bill Gates’ garage.
5) Buy the RIAA and make people aware of different types of music.

5 bad habits:
1) Freeloading!
2) Mining of the nasal and auditory passages
3) Not looking into the eyes of the person who is talking to me, especially if that person has big, engaging pupils
4) Making socially inept first impressions
5) Procrastinating

5 biggest joys:
1) Getting my full scholarship (oh wait, did I even sound joyed?)
2) Making my computers work, by some fluke
3) Uh… getting recognized from my blog, or from the scene
4) Paying all my dues and buying all that is needed to buy for the month
5) Finishing a collection of whatever it is I was collecting, be it computers, toys, guitars, cameras

5 favourite toys:
1) Transformers!
2) Zoids
3) Lego
4) Rubik’s Cubes and other puzzles
5) Well, basically any toy that can take on a few forms, or be assembled.

5 things I would never wear:
1) Eyeliner. It’s all real, you emo punk wannabes!
2) Foundation. I am but too fair!
3) Brown contact lenses. My eyes are already brown.
4) A tongue ring. I like spicy food!
5) A nose ring. I have a sensitive nose!

5 favorite TV shows: (I don’t watch much TV.)
1) The Simpsons
2) Futurama
3) Seinfeld
4) Frasier
5) Whose Line Is It Anyway?

5 fictional characters I would date:
1) Lana Lang, Smallville
2) The Pevensie sisters when they grew older, Chronicles Of Narnia (I couldn’t make out who was who but they were hot!)
3) Invisible Girl from Fantastic Four the movie
4) Orked from Sepet
5) Ruby of ATI Technologies

5 people I tag:
Refer to question above.

How much cash do you have on you today?
RM300, but I owe some people, so I gotta be paying up.

What word rhymes with “test?”
Rest. Zzzzz.

Favourite plant?
Wallflowers

Who is the fourth person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
My father (I was testing his phone.)

What is the main ringtone on your cell phone?
Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven, the most overplayed song at a guitar shop, ever.

What shirt are you wearing?
The Incubus – A Crow Left Of The Murder T-shirt that I bought from Syefri because he found that it could not fit him.

Do you label yourself?
Whenever I get my hands on a labeller! 😀

Brand of shoes you’re currently wearing?
My free Nikes. 🙂

Bright or dark room?
I like somewhere in between, nearer to dark.

What were you doing at midnight last night?
Blogging.

What was the last text message you received on your cell phone?
Stim-girl telling me some not-very-stim news.

Do you ever click on “pop ups” or banners?
Only when I�m looking for pages with lots of pop-ups. 😉

What’s a saying that you say a lot?
“Ooo, what�s that?”

Who told you they love you last?
I can�t remember who last asked me for a favor.

Last furry thing you touched?
The fluff on my Santa hat.

How many drugs have you done in the past three days?
5 different types, for sore throat, fever, cold, antibiotics and good old cough drops. 😀

How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
I�m digital, baby. I�d wanna buy a new roll, expose and develop for my project; an infrared lamp.

Favorite age you have been so far?
21!

Your worst enemy?
Procrastination.

What is your current desktop picture?
This!

What was the last thing you said to someone?
“Okay we swap positions now?”

If you have to choose between 1

Heads Up

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Sometimes, drowsiness from medication can be inspiring. Here goes, more pictures of varying public approval!


“I’m spinning around, move out of my way…”


Don’t focus on the lights!


Turn off the orientation sensor on your camera for a new gravity.


This one-of-a-kind retractable Christmas tree was found in the avant-garde Avenue K.


Next to it was a stairway.


I left the buildings in the picture to show you that this was not taken from an aeroplane.


Now they, they were born to fly.


A moon at 8 am!


Of course, the obligatory infrared picture, taken at the same time. Yes, that is the moon.


While at it, I might as well clear off my old infrared gems. Flares look funky.


Paramount Gardens.


Sunway Pyramid again. Nope, the sun wasn’t falling; note the direction of light on the dome.


Trouble abrewing.


Yep, clouds and trees reflect on lakes in infrared! What cute clouds, too.


This was done using the same CPL/red/LPL trick. Infrared is distinctively tinted blue.


Alright, enough trippiness. Time to sit down and have iced lemon tea.

Tooting Two Too

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I am going to blog, in girly form, what I got over Sunday and on my birthday (which was not Sunday).

Coolermaster 430W power supply: To replace my old one, where my GeForce 6600GT was complaining of lack of juice.
Pleomax 1600dpi laser mouse: To replace my trusty A4Tech wireless optical mouse. Higher dots per inch means higher sensitivity. Five mouse buttons baby! Interestingly, the 4th and 5th were automatically Forward and Back in Internet Explorer. Configured correctly, I could play racing games with just the mouse! Sadly, it has the same problem as cheap optical mice – lifting it up until 2cm from the table/mousepad will cause the cursor to run wildly. This means you can’t lift your mouse to turn rapidly!
Maxtor 300GB PATA hard disk with 16MB cache: One of those rarities. No more struggling with compressing pictures and videos, and uninstalling games!
LG 16xDVD, 52x32x52 combo drive: Now my siblings can watch DVDs on the other computer (which we affectionately name “the left-side computer“.)

All plugged in, the formerly unstable computer, affectionately named “the right-side computer” gave noisy interference, and ran a memory test up till about 128MB (the number varied every time) and hung. Switching memory banks quickly rectified this.

I haven’t blogged about computers and guitars so long, people seem to have forgot that yes, I can play the guitar.

Check out Laynie‘s hilarious account of what happened when we met for lunch, with her not knowing I was older that day.

Presents, in no order, and anonymously done to protect the identities of those who gave weird presents, and to prevent all of you from mooching up to those who gave good presents:
A Tower Records CD case, Lords Of Dogtown movie soundtrack CD, Christmas tree star (huh?), 1/144 HG Grade Gundam, 25th Anniversary Rubik’s Cube, a blinking phone accessory, nice-smelling candles (when blackouts occur at least our home will smell the nicest!), a Casio digital watch with auto-reset countdown timer, five alarms, moon position, tides, compass, etcetera (much more sophisticated than my previous one, yay), company to Rock The World 6 and a ride home.

Did I forget something?

Did you forget something?

Beer Dance

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What’s up with bragging about being able to drink more?

I consider it a curse.

I am proud of my low alcohol tolerance high alcohol efficiency. One beer is enough to get a buzz, and if I drink it fast enough, I’ll get a minimal high. I’ve only had three beers maximum, and I don’t intend to discover what my limit is by me being reminded what dinner looks like after it has taken a tour of my stomach.

I can get drunk faster and cheaper!

So boohoo if you can guzzle ten beers and not feel a thing. What is there to prove? Three beers or ten beers still register on the breathalyzer. If you want to drink to pretend to be drunk so you can molest people and get away with it, why waste money getting wasted?

Then there are the alcohol elitists who think beer tastes bad. Water doesn’t taste that great either. The point is not to savor it, but to drink it like water, to get the high. (On a different tangent, smoking to look cool is not cool; please justify yourselves with better reasons, like saying it relieves your stress or something.)

Also, what’s with clubbing and dancing, but only with alcohol? Are people unable to dance without alcohol? (I find this incredibly lame.) Are people only able to dance to songs they’ve seen before on MTV, and thus know the dance steps for? (I find this incredibly lame.) Do people even get the idea of dance?

I dance because I can feel the music and enjoy it, not because I want to show people that I know my dance steps.

Knows Block

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“Albyyy darling can you do me a favor?”
“Er, yes, since you did write me a testimonial…”
“Hey can you add this person on MSN?”
“Er, why?”
“Just add him, to see if he’s online.”
“I’m not going to add him just to see if he blocked you…”
“Aiyah, just add him, then block him…”
“I don’t block people. Besides, he might Google me and since I am easily Googled, it will ruin my reputation. You know I’m famous, riiight? Just make a new email address and add him!”

It’s true, I have noone on my block list. However people have added me with unfamiliar email addresses. I have never seen them online. Does this mean that someone suspected me of blocking them, and then asked their friend to add me?

Plastic And Stretched

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(Montage of three different pictures.)

Are you feeling plasticky and stretched?

This would be the only good use for an LCD screen – the light is polarized. Transparent stretched plastic then turns it about, causing funky rainbows… but you need a polarizer in front of your camera to capture this. (The LCD screen was white, with the polarizer turned so the white background became as dark as possible.)

Here’s something for the photographically adventurous – articles from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. Check out his flatbed scanner-turned digital camera, high speed photography, strip photography, infra… oh wait, that sounds normal already.

The scanner idea would be awesome if implemented correctly, because with an A4-size 1200 dots-per-inch scanner, you could get a 14031×9921 size scan, or a 139 megapixel camera.

After Rocktoberfest

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November 2005 was a month full of gigs, so I’ll cram as many pictures as possible in under 600 KB, baby.

11th November: The Low Enders, or the bassists’ gig, part two (part one was the guitar shredders’.)


Clockwise from top-left: Daphne and Alda look merry; Alda doesn’t know how to turn off the video camera’s demo mode; Adam of Dragon Red enters a air-guitar competition and does a parody of Amil, his bandmate, complete with his expressions; he also shredded and threw in the Dimebag Darrell spider walk.


Clockwise from top-left: Serious business with AJ of Pop Shuvit, playing alone with his loop effect, major coolness as he builds a drum beat, adds basslines, then solos over it; Nakim and his secret weapon (the band); his bandmate, also on bass; Alda, representing Cosmic Funk Express. A joke: How do we get Cosmic Funk Express’ basslines to overpower Zack‘s guitar shredding? Hand Zack the bass.


After all that, the three bassists (and Jimmy of Tempered Mental) come together, to play… Come Together. The audience sings along, but they never got to the chorus. AJ and Nakim stole the limelight, with AJ doing jazzy lines as well as the melody, while Alda tried cutting in with his bass overdrive but failed.


12th November: Tracy‘s This Is Acoustics! Part II gig was at the same place as Part I, with about the same people, and about the same songs. Sorry! They did sound familiar despite only hearing them once. Well, at least they were memorable!


Clockwise from top-left: Christie King; Tony Leo the soulful church boy; Max Lim the guy who wrote a song about a broken guitar; Tracy Wong the piano player who turned Alicia Keys in half a year; Ian Chow the guy with the booming voice who doesn’t need a mike, Suk Yin.


17th November: Tempered Mental (featuring Zack on guitar) played at Backyard Pub, Sri Hartamas. I don’t quite fancy my camera’s night mode, but it does give cool effects when used appropriately, like these ghosts. 😀


Left: Before them was a macho tattooed man… on a Yamaha EZ-AG! Yup, the stringless beginner’s guitar, which lights up to show you where to fret. Middle: Zack on Cosmic Funk Express plays so fast he traverses time. Right: Zack shows us how to tap.


20th November, La Bodega KL: Top: Rhapsody, a jazzy R&B band, uh… jazzes the place. Powerful vocals with a strangely familiar but not overused tonal quality. Middle: Lucy In The Loo, on stage. Bottom: The Sofa Sessions; you gotta love the bassist’s lines. Plus they played a cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers – Soul To Squeeze, which in my opinion was the ultimate RHCP bassline song. Ariff nailed the solo (minus guitar slide) and the vocals.


Left: Billy Corgan meets Kurt Cobain, in this dude’s Nirvana cover. Right: Kevin strums to a happy acoustic-loving audience.


23rd November: KLue Upfront at Zouk promised free flow for VIPs. No free flow. No VIP area either. Noone stopped me from going upstairs, where I took a picture of Architecture In Helsinki, described by many as an avant garde rock band with 8 members and countless instruments.


The closest I could liken it to anything I knew was probably an emo-voiced Mr. Bungle. They had catchy, dancy hooks, but they changed it too often for us to enjoy it. So boohoo, to you progressive wannabes. Only when they turned the tables over to Twilight Action Girl did I feel the party started.

A privileged few would have ever seen me dance, but this one dude took the cake.

“Dude, are you on pills? You gotta stop that shit man.”
“Dude, I’m clean. I don’t smoke or pop pills… heck, I’ve never smoked weed!”
“WHAAA? DUDE! You are missing out on some good sheeet man!”

No, I do not look like a druggie when I dance. I look like a druggie all the time, dammit. 🙁 His friend calls me the crazy dancing dude.


25th November: The Stickman’s Blitz ends the artistic series, which had the guitar shredders and bass players before. Here, John Thomas is called up from the audience for a drum solo.


Drinking games! Jimmy: “I’ll just have my beer while waiting for you guys to start, okay?”


Left to right: Alex Ang of Velvet Tones; Ainol of Deja Voodoo Spells; Jimmy of Tempered Mental. All three bands played before this, but Ainol couldn’t help but burst into drum solo when Deja Voodoo Spells played Jimi Hendrix – Fire. A bit too early.


They jumped about in their seats and danced, swapping drum thrones on the way. Jimmy rapped. Ainol did a tribal beat ala Safri Duo, reggae and lion dance, among other things – it was clear he was the uber-entertainer.


26th November: I don’t even know the name of this gig, but Khai was in it, and he heard that girls dig faceless guys, so he went on stage blind for Y2K.


Clockwise from top-left: Warve gets a rapper; Dragon Red featuring Roshan of K-Town Clan (before that, they did a cover of One Buck Short, with Adam making a parody of Mooky, hilarious!); Throne Away, superb emo band with new Jagger-swagger vocalist and tapping-solo, chord-playing bass player; Milla, some kind of emo metal.

What, you’ve got broadband and expect December pictures as well?

Of Skies And Stars And Hidden Badges

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Tonight was going to be a night like no other.


The sun set most dramatically.


The stars called out to me.


I reached divine enlightenment. Her voices spoke to me.


Many moons I passed; once, at dusk; the other two, each an hour away from midnight.

Anyway, to cut the drama short, I was stopped by the police! (Again.)

I lay my camera (with its lens pointing up) on the ground, on a junction platform, for a 15 second exposure. (The sky was so clear, you could actually see stars in my ‘hood!) Three motorcyclists came out of nowhere, circling me like vultures.

I ran towards a nearby coffee shop.

They intercepted me before I got there. “Tunjuk IC.” (Show identity card.)

“Kau dari mana?” (Where are you from?)

I said, from around here, but my IC had my PJ address. Fortunately my driver’s license had the KL address so I showed them that yes, I did live nearby.

“Kenapa kau lari?” (Why did you run?)

Dudes, you guys are such excellent undercover bikers, I was scared! “Saya ingat korang ni mat motor nak…” (I thought you guys were going to…)

One of them then unzipped his jacket to reveal his uniform. Phew. A very strange sense of security indeed.

It even got to where I work, and I showed them my tag. I also showed them my moon and star pictures.

“Ohhh… kau ingat kita mat motor nak samun you kah?” (Oh, you thought we were bikers intending to rob you?)

Well, thank God they weren’t. If you were a suspicious looking person up to some suspicious activity, and you saw a bunch of bikers circle you, you’d run, whether or not they covered up their uniforms! If you were innocent, you’d run too, so what’s the point of policemen being undercover?

I don’t even want to think of what would happen if they weren’t police. I should have reached the coffee shop anyway, as there were witnesses there.

October Best

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Rewind to October 1st 2005, Berjaya Times Square, for hitz.tv’s second anniversary.


Jason Lo says, “call me“.


Left to right: Deja Voodoo Spells, Edge Of Fire, Admonition‘s hothothot vocalist.

There were also a bunch of veteran-looking musicians doing a cover of Search – Isabella. Or maybe they were Search. I don’t know.

October 14th, I headed to Jamasia to rock out with Reta. (No, no pills are required to headbang, just a good appreciation for rock.)


Qings & Kueens with some good old rock and roll. (I cheated and used black and white because I couldn’t fix the color.)


Edge Of Fire having a reunion with the original singer and writer of their hit power ballad, Whole Again.


Be Jaya has the Joe Satriani of Malaysia.


Left: His son says hi to his bassist’s leg; right: every shredder has to do some left-handed tapping.


Naked Breed, the only band I knew was playing before coming. Haha.


Jack seems stunned by the sudden white lighting. Jamasia lights often alternate too fast, frustrating flash-less photographers.

Forward to October 26th, HELP prom band auditions. How cool is that? Instead of paying bands to come play for the prom, they come and compete for free entry to the prom.


So you wanna be a hot dancer? (They alternated between bands and dance performances earlier.)


Insulyna, grunge band.


Do not be fooled by menacing-looking BC Rich guitars. Have the laugh of your life when the vocalist comes on stage and sings off-key, Ah Beng style.


This band was better. I chose this picture for stim-girl, who I dragged, promising hot bass players she could fancy. We also camwhored during boring bands, but the pictures won’t be uploaded as I can’t link to her. 😛


A band from Indonesia proceeds to steal our thunder.


The ultimate recycled band.


Function-Z, a church band that keeps getting better.


Some dude who did a medley of James Blunt, John Mayer and heavier things.


It seemed like these people just got on stage unannounced. Ah well, such organization is expected in HELP events. At least the chick was cute.


Finally, the reason I was here – to finally see Syefri play bass (and Seng Yip play drums) for Dreaming To Sleep, an emo band. Well the emoness is most identifiable in George‘s voice, which is spot on emo like he was imported from the States and dyed his hair black.

There you go, all you demanding people, the gig pictures for October 2005. I’m going to spend the rest of the day I took leave for, to sleep.