From Bright To Night

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Here comes another random batch of pictures, with the theme of uh… dramatic light.


A solar panel and a windmill at KLPAC! A spiral windmill should be much more efficient, as it is able to take kinetic energy from the wind coming in any direction.


Metal rope for a swing. Yeah, the pictures will be from KLPAC until I say otherwise.


Skybox.


Factory-side.


And I thought this was an abandoned building. Turns out it was an art gallery.


Nearby, the Sentul Koi Centre attracts flying insects.


Mona Lisa smiles to us at Nagas, a high-class mamak opposite the Brickfields Police Station.


As I walked up the road to my home, I saw this creepy green glow.


Since I’ll probably forget to put the answer if I asked “where does the green light come from?” on the previous picture, I might as well put the answer here. Press the button and it changes to red!

Infra-structu-red

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I finally obtained enough exposed film negative to make my infrared lamp. Thanks smashpOp for the accidentally exposed film!


Left: All wrapped up. At least 6-7 layers of film, I think. This is what it looks like to the human eye when turned on. Right: What it looks like to the camera (with flash.)


What it looks like to the eye. No wait, what the eye looks like. Eye bag you.


The 40 Watt lamp allows me to get hotter, brighter infrared shots. This was at 0.6 seconds shutter speed.


At the same time, it’s fun to play with long exposure times. The bluish tinge is infrared.


And more, now in infrared only.


KL Performing Arts Centre, oh how I adore thee and adore taking pictures of thee.


Same goes for thee neighbor, Sentul Park. More coming up soon. Like real soon, because I’ve already post-processed the pictures.

I Heart Rock

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For once, I sat close enough to the stage in Jamasia, Hartamas, to get nice, bright shots at minimal optical zoom, allowing for big apertures, thus better exposure. The occasion? Heart Rock, a charity gig.


Broken Scar started the set with his Emily The Strange Epiphone SG.


Zack of Cosmic Funk Express rips out three thousand notes in a spacey, mind-bending frenzy. You can see the effect on Alex, the drummer.


As for Alda who was standing on the bass drum, well, he just loves beer. His bass had to be retuned halfway, and so Zack unveiled his touch-tapped version of the Doraemon theme song!

We were also treated to Alda’s vocal debut, singing Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ version of Jimi Hendrix – Fire.

Needless to say, we’ll request for Eric Johnson – Cliffs Of Dover next time.


Stonebay‘s grungy vocalist has a pretty guitar.


Naked Breed, featuring Melina of Tempered Mental. Interestingly, Tempered Mental would feature Jack The Shredder of Naked Breed.


Guitarists might recognize this neo-classical and blues shredder from Bentley Music, filling in, in Edge Of Fire. Shaun Ng was also the first ever webdesigner for Xfresh, but that was ages ago.


Daniel of Edge Of Fire, in my opinion, is the only handsome Korean-looking Chinese guy there is.

What’s with you not-exactly-prepubescent girls and your obsession with slanty eyes and long dragged faces? I knew a girl who had good taste (in looks anyway.) Then comes Korean-looking Chinese boy and she’s nuts about him and how he’s so cute. I do not consider a guy who has such a long stoned face and doesn’t smile or even smirk when camwhoring with girlfriend… cute. Do I have to slap some expression into you? Dammit, you got yourself a hot chick, don’t look so sad okayyy.

Note that I say Korean-looking Chinese guy, not Korean guy, because Zack is da shiznit, and is the sensation on YouTube.


Anyway, back to the story. Shaun broke a string. Oh no what do we do? Fear not! The band plays an acoustic cover of Mr. Big – To Be With You.


Polar Attraction, with Jaya Satriani. Even spacier than Cosmic Funk Express.


One Buck Short ends the set. How the heck do you play after a shredder band?

In unrelated news, I got the chance to play with a Canon EOS 350D at a later gig. Yes that’s right, a digital SLR camera! My friend had a Canon 17-85mm, F4-5.6 lens on. That combination was sweet, but the lens had a prohibitive price (and anything with a bigger aperture would cost at least 4 times more), and it wasn’t that bright either, so I kept to ISO1600 at all times. Manual focus was only fun when it was bright enough, plus the viewfinder could be so much bigger. It was only much later that he revealed the Speedlite 430EX he was carrying, but I was lazy to test it out. Besides, flashing isn’t my preferred style.

This is why I would not get a digital SLR – I would not be pleased with it. I already know the limits of what I can afford!

Eh, Do Be Acrobat!

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Forget lion dances for Chinese New Year parties, Chinese acrobats are the true dextrous… acrobats. And yes, these pictures were taken on the 11th of February 2006. 🙁


Left: Women wear many masks. Right: Men speak in tongues, specifically those that sound like birds chirping. Below: Men with many hats like to jump about and exchange dandruff.


Left to right, top to bottom: The boy is well-balanced; he then attempts an Acme-like seesaw launcher, launching metal bowls onto his head; he succeeds; a man saddled with too many footballs; he believes that the glass is upside down, and thus cannot hold water; he then tries to hold a few storeys of cups and a vase; the cleaner lady wants some limelight too, when the acrobat fails and drops the glass cups, smashing all over the floor.


Top left and right: What a flat-headed young lady she will turn out to be. Walking with pots on your head is never easy, much less spinning them, then tossing them so they land on your head and while continuously spinning. Middle: Catch the bricks in midair. He’d play a fine game of Tetris. Bottom: FREE FLOW OF (CRAB) SHARKSFIN SOUP! Too bad I was allergic to crab meat, so yeah, no refilling for me.


“Oompa! Loompa!” sings in my head.

Musician Fashion

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Argh, I forgot to write this paragraph in my last blog entry:

We could make musician fashion. Guitar capos as hairclips. Imagine playing a song, then pulling a capo out of your hair for the next song! Guitar picks strung on a necklace (in lack of a better word). A 440 Hertz tuning fork as an earring. So when you hum or hear a pitch-perfect A note, the tuning fork resonates, and you’d know it’s an A. How’s that for pretending to have perfect pitch?

Third Stone From Jalan Ipoh

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I live in a housing area in Segambut, near Kepong.

I use public transportation.

I am a guinea pig to the new RapidKL buses, that rolled out in North KL (Kepong, Sentul, Gombak etc.) I could say I was thrilled to be the first.

How does the new system work?

Take a bus from any one of the central stops (Maluri, Titiwangsa, KLCC, Medan Pasar (behind Central Market) or KL Sentral) to another central stop. In my case, Titiwangsa. I then hop on an intermediate shuttle bus that brings me to Metro Prima. Metro Prima is thus the bus hub for Kepong and Manjalara. From there, I take a bus to my housing area.

The buses that route the central stops are 5-10 minutes each. The intermediate shuttles come every 10-15 minutes, and the home-coming bus comes every 15-30 minutes. These are my observations, not something read from their leaflets.

On the downside, it is initially confusing, and you can’t sleep on the bus. I used to take one bus from Medan Pasar all the way to my housing area. I knew its exact times; it always left Medan Pasar at the 15th and 45th minute of every hour, except during peak times. I also knew that the last bus left at 11:15pm.

On the upside, it makes a whole lot of sense. Segmenting the bus routes will segment jams, too; a bus that used to go from A to B to C might get a jam at B. Now, jams delay only the B buses. People actually travel short distance, within a point in A to another point in A, so the jam in B doesn’t affect them. Shorter routes also let the buses be more frequent.

Oh, and the last bus is now 12:30am! Eat that, taxi drivers who charge midnight charge between 11pm and 12 midnight, instead of after midnight! (Oh, and midnight charge is 50% extra, not twice the amount on the meter, kids!)

Anyway, I got on the 2T3 bus from Titiwangsa to Batu Tiga, Jalan Ipoh, where I was waiting for the bus to my place. It was 9:55pm and I was not in any rush, and asked the conductor when the bus would leave. 10:20pm, he said. I took that chance to eat dinner at some roadside stalls nearby.


A chicken burger for RM1.80! Where else can you get that price? Decent sloppy burger.


Super old-school parking meters.

A busker stood in the mainly Chinese crowd and started playing. I went over, dropped a note and asked if he knew Bob Dylan. How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?

As I ate slowly, I saw THREE buses that were headed to my place, pass by. Not bad, not bad.


Inspired, I slung out my guitar. Notice that thing on my hair?


Yes that’s right – a guitar capo! I was shopping around for the spring-loaded one, but couldn’t find one cheap enough that I could afford to lose. Yeah, I tend to lose anything tying my hair, except plain rubberbands.


And this is for those who wonder what my sideburns look like after the 500th-day-haircut.

Anyway, if you don’t like using public transport, then go save up for your own car. Or convince your parents that you’re not traumatized by that road accident anymore. Or get a license. Or walk.

If you don’t have the money, come take the bus with me and I shall impart upon you my virtues of patience.

Green Eyed Monsters

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What’s up with female bloggers and their obsession with other pretty female bloggers? About every urbanite Malaysian female well versed with the Internet, blogger or not, reads Xiaxue (whether they hate her or not) and JoyceTheFairy (whether they drink alcohol or not). Some bloggers even post pictures of their aforementioned idols on their blog. Some hate them.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

I just don’t see guys doing it.

Yes, society sets such strong pressure on girls and their physical appearance. But then, you don’t ever see the most insecure of guys talking about how they wish they were as good-looking as… uh…

Name me one Malaysian blogger you read because the author is sex on a stick jaw-droppingly handsome.

Okay, maybe everyone reads Kenny Sia. But is it because he’s good-looking, or because he’s funny? (And he meets chicks, which falls back to previous statement.) If he was that good-looking, I’d turn gay. But no. Girls have admitted that Joyce is so hot they wish they were lesbian.

I guess the only male bloggers who bother to camwhore consistently are gay. And straight guys don’t admit to reading gay blogs.

For the record, lest he’d never send me games for my future handphone, smashpOp doesn’t take enough pictures of himself to show off how cute he is, and he’s not gay. I don’t post pictures of myself which don’t prove a point, be it modelling a hair clip for rockers, infrared eyes or showing off which hot female bloggers I met.

Homecoming, Bloghopping

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So Asian Hottest Blogger nominee, Agent Ching and I went to KL Performing Arts Centre one Sunday to watch The Homecoming, a twisted play about a man who brings his wife to meet his dysfunctional family. There’s real actual kissing on stage, so if you’ve never seen it in a play, this would be the chance. Plus, Loo Jia-Wei is hot.

We then adjourned to the swings in Sentul Park for some camwhoring but uploading that, I leave for later. We found out too late that Kenny Sia was in the vicinity too! By then, he was already in The Curve, so out of lack of dinner plans we decided to steal his. Dinner plans I mean, not dinner.

We also knew that he was with Jasiminne, so we rushed over to see how hot she was. Neither of us had commented on her blog nor linked to her, so we could still pretend to not know who she is.

But the truth is, we bloggers are also professional stalkers researchers. I recently discovered that non-bloggers are getting just as skilled in research, so HELLO THERE! Here’s a cookie for you!

Upon meeting them amidst borders made of bookshelves in Borders, Kenny said, “Hello Cheesie!” and they hugged. He then said, “Hello Albert.” While it may be presumptuous to assume that nobody reads my blog, I did feel a pang of pride being… recognized by a big man with big coconuts.

Then, Jasiminne said “Hello Cheesie!” and they hugged. She then turned to me and said “Hello peacock!” Damn shy I tell you. She’d only know that nickname if she researched, and she said she preferred the original color, when it was freshly metallic blue, which would mean further research into my archives. *gasp*

I know my statistics! Most of you don’t read my archives, and don’t bother clicking when I link to older posts!

However, to reveal such technical tracerouting is monologuing of sorts already, and I shall attempt to stop revealing my methods, lest bloggers around assume that I have done my research when I haven’t. Being acknowledged by a famous blogger gives you a sense of accomplishment, because it means you have become famous in your own right. And damn, I’ve become old and grandfatherly. I’ve already started telling people how I met Minishorts before she even had a domain, or how Paul Tan and I used to sleep stay overnight at the office singing Californication.

I also know six CLEO Bachelors this year, of which I have two phone numbers.

I think I’ve been reading too much Lainie (who is now linked), hence the jumpy paragraphing style.

Anyway, how do I jump back to the original intended mood of my post, which was based on these pictures?


“I should win the Asian Hottest Blogger award!”
“But you’re not even in it!”


Me with that rare pimp smile.

Troubadours International Womens’ Day

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Yes, people will berate me for this, but at least I posted this in the same month. Here comes pictures from the Troubadours International Women’s Day gig, on the 5th of March 2006 at La Bodega KL.

Again, I was lazy, so I’ll chuck them all in one picture (to save bandwidth) and list them, left to right, top to bottom:

  • Ida Lisa Zahran, or whatever you call this acoustic singer-songwriter.
  • Jasemaine Gan sounding confident in this cosy setup, with a small crowd.
  • Rhapsody, bestest ever undiscovered jazzy duo.
  • Zalila Lee and Jerral Khor (yes he is male, and he did a fantastic cover of Dave Matthews Band – Ants Marching. Plus he sounds like him.)
  • Khai Lee (also male) explaining what Project Bazooka is about.
  • Jaclyn Kee reading a story about a little red riding… clitoris. Gotta dig her shirt though, it says, “I like my boobs“. She was also at the last Paul’s Place Press Conference about the raid.
  • Melina of Tempered Mental on acoustic. A must-see! She plays all the memorable riffs from her progressive rock band while singing effortlessly! Her voice is confident, clear and defined when distorted guitar and drums have been cut away. The only other band I can think of that sounds just as great on just acoustic guitar is Duan of Seven Collar T-Shirt.
  • Finally, Jaz reads us some moving poetry.

There are also videos at Lainie‘s and pictures at Cheneille‘s blog.

V For Victory

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Why, in general, do English-educated bloggers frown upon, and make fun of girls (and boys, especially boys) who act cute and flash the peace victory sign in pictures?

Is it because we are predisposed against overly cute things?

No.

It is because, of all the poses overused when taking pictures, it symbolizes that the person using the gesture is harmless. If we make fun of you, we can get away with it, because you will not come and kick my ass. (Unless you can claw someone to death.)

If you are male, all the more we will make fun of you. “Oh look a pansy, let’s make fun of him!”

Yeah, we could make fun of the kids who make the Devil’s Horns gesture, but they’ll kick your ass. They’ll smash a beer bottle and shove it up you. It is not wise to assume that they learnt it only from Avril Lavigne.

We could insult angsty people with their middle fingers in the air, but they’d come back and flame us.

So what are kawaii cute girls going to do? Make you claw your eyes out with their cuteness? What if they’re not that cute to begin with?