Category Archives: Music

The Accomplished

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I love the feeling of having went out and having accomplished many errands, like today:

I went for driving class. I was early so I walked to Taman Jaya LRT and hopped on the train back to Asia Jaya. GuesswhoIsaw it was Ching Wei, Joel’s girlfriend, also headed for lessons at the same time, same place. I was at my third hour out of ten. (My first hour was spent driving to KL, up to Jalan Duta and pulling back into PJ through Hartamas while the second hour was spent going down to Subang, to that huge roundabout, and back down the highway.) She complained that she didn’t get any of that action! I guess I was lucky to have a forgetful teacher then. He probably couldn’t remember that I did not learn slope parking, side parking or three-point-turning before that! Well it wasn’t all that grand, considering I was also the last to get a spot on his ever-changing timetable.

Today however was different! He asked me, “have you learnt slope parking and side-parking?” I said nope. At the junction to exit the school, he said to turn left, meaning we were going on the road! (So much for that question.) We went down the same Jalan Duta KL stretch, but pulled back into PJ at Jalan Damansara instead. With what was left of the hour, he taught side-parking. He then received a phone call, and went something like this:

“Aaa! Yes aaa! You buy the Magnum 4D Toto! 8603! 4451!”

Reassuringly enough, 8603 was the Kancil I was driving. Was I fated to die today?

He dropped by the office, since we weren’t sure if I had two hours of lessons today. “The other girl cancelled anyway.” And so began the extra (or rather, unexpected) leg-cramping clutch-action of the slope-parking, side-parking and tire-balding-three-pointer hour.

After that was over, I grinned at a poor Ching Wei, who’d already waited an hour for Joel. She certainly wasn’t wearing my “I went to town again!” smirk. We took the scenic route to Amcorp Mall, to look for a lurking Tech (yes I busted your secret hideout!) but found not him, but the lurky Dustyhawk instead. Once Joel came, I left for Bintang Walk, to collect my 512 Megabyte 400 Megahertz Kingston Value DDR RAM from Low Yat Plaza. I then found the elusive Robertson Audio MP3/VCD/CD player. “Wait ah I go ATM first…” I told the shopkeeper. I headed to the bottomest floor of Low Yat to find cables where the ATM machine used to be! Lucky me then, to have to go to Sungei Wang to find an ATM, because I found the MXJVC-branded variant.

After getting that for my mom (yes yes happy mother’s day in advance har har) I found a handphone-fixing shop outside of the Sungei Wang square that would fix my dad’s Siemens C30.

On the way home, I found that Pantera’s Reinventing Hell: Greatest Hits made for great music to nod off to. (I needed to test the CD player!) Yes that thrash metal greatest hits masterpiece. No I don’t find it boring. Hanna when are you going to buy it from me? I’m still carrying it in my bag yes I am.

As of time of writing I am listening to an old mix MP3 CD I made, wondering what the heck are the titles of the first 30 songs. Yep, it was probably a CD with one-hit-wonders (I had to Google the lyrics to find out what songs they were.) So much for skip protection; audio CDs didn’t work in the knee pocket. MP3 CDs were better off though, although sometimes it would have a mind of its own and skip and pop while sitting quietly on the table.

Thursday shall be even more interesting, as I sneak out of work early for a 5-6pm slot at driving school, and at 6:30pm, my first ever college class of the year!

Break The Nines

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I snapped the niner, will my sextet last?
This experimenter wound it down too fast
I changed my chord but resolved no tension
For time won’t afford me calculation
The law of scale says the tone I’m using
Is out of place and sounds disagreeing
Alas turning back makes for bald tires
I can’t hit the sack till the spark fires

Guitar Geek High

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I am on a guitar geek high.

I took home Anis’s Kapok-style guitar (classical shape with steel strings) and modified it. Since the strings had little rings for their ball ends, I tried putting my old thick E string through them in a flash of inspiration. A tremolo on a classical guitar bridge! I wound it through a few times. After all that, I played a chord and tugged on that little loop I made (around 12 centimeters in diameter) and it raised in pitch. A little. (Borrow someone’s digicam I will!) Ideally, I’d have two bars clamping on the rings, or at least one steel bar going through it. It would then pull all six strings, raising their pitch.

Illustration 1: (Pardon the crude Photoshopping.)
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Roll Call

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Alrightey mates, I’ve had some updating to do in my links in my About Me! page. Yes, this is the only time you barnacles shall get front page grande. Here, in no particular order, are updated or added links: Chibimelody, Redphayze, Joeybear, Hyrza, Leech, EC, and LIONEL.blogs.

I went for the Tempered Mental single launch (yes a single with um, 7 tracks). It was at The Jazz Bar, notably so as Syefri pointed out a bass amp bigger than the guitar amps. Flatline was one of the opening bands, and even with their 3 guitars, the bassist still overpowered them, leaving only a little wah through.

Their show rocked, with new stuff we had yet to hear. I shall spare you here and squeeze creative juices on the article.

Anyhoo, the taxi driver I hailed had the windows partly down. Halfway on the journey some conversation like this happened (in Malay though):

He: Do you want to smoke?
Me: No thanks.
He: Why? Quitted or you just never smoked before?
Me: Never smoked before (hesitating to translate…) I’m allergic to the smoke. My uncle used to fog the hall even though his room door was closed. I got this weird coating in my tongue.
He: Ah okay.

That would’ve been a blatant lie of course, since I did just step out of The Jazz Bar in O*range. 😛 Even after a bath and change of clothes the smell still lingered!

I could see the cabbie flinching as a cigarette-deprived addict. Nyahaha. He was easing his throat, with symptoms of a cold. He was rubbing his nose and reaching into his pocket.

I could’ve just told him it was fine with me, but I wanted to see how bad it could get. 🙂

My personal take on smokers? People who smoke are really one of us, but I don’t equate smoking with coolness. They’re not any evil-er than us. Well you can stand in one corner puffing away, but flinching from cigarette withdrawal is not cool. Haha.

Then there’s that thing about it relieving stress. Sure it works, but there are other stress-relievers that don’t give you bloody coughing in the morning. Computer games. Onanism. Making noise on a guitar/drumset/wall/table. Sure, these activities merely distract you from the worries, and you’d still go, “how now?” afterwards, but it’s not like cigarettes help you totally forget either. That, my friends, requires more potent mind-state-inducting chemicals. 😉

Oh, and I finally fixed the filler comments!

Sleeping Child

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Oh my sleeping child
The world’s so wild
But you’ve built your own paradise

– from Sleeping Child, performed by Michael Learns To Rock, that horribly stick-in-your-head pop rock band

Somehow these lyrics came to mind when Michael Jackson was on the news. (Of course, in his context, Michael owns the paradise…)

Bummerati

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Today I was on the LRT to KLCC when a distraught friend called.
She: Are you near KLCC?
Me: I’m heading there, why?
She: I need somebody to talk to. (Insert crying sniffs.)

I was supposed to be at KLCC at 1pm, but I told them 2pm since I’d be coming after work, to which I got off and decided to come at 1pm. Of course, there was due consolation at DOME (where my friend borrowed Pete Teo‘s lighter) and we both played pharmacist (giving advice we’d never take.)

My distraught friend followed to the gathering. She makes the world seem so small! She knew somebody and somebody else’s friend.

I finally met my picture-taking-linker. Someone who had my link and took a picture of it. Of course, I wouldn’t reveal her link, since there I have some hesitation about linking LiveJournal users.

I met an Avril-Lavigne lookalike (but loads cuter-looking) who totally rocked except for the part where she asked, “are you a Trekkie?” I mean, it’s not really a compliment to be told or asked. (To my relief she took out a Klingon Dictionary.) For the record, I used to record Star Trek: Voyager for my aunt without the ads, and I enjoyed The Next Generation, though Deep Space Nine was a boring journey-less show.

Bah weep granah weep nini bong? (Taken from Transformers: The Movie, as the universal greeting.)

I also met a Chai-fan. Yessir that Coffee Bean drink that is tea with cinammon, at RM7 (without tax). All I could drink from the takeaway cup cover was the steam! I removed it for the full frontal whiff. It was, really, Teh Tarik with cinammon. I suggested Maju Curry House, that also had Teh Tarik with slight cinammon even if you didn’t ask for it. (It was then itself that I knew the smell was cinammon!) It was near the Masjid Jamek LRT interchange station, to the left coming out of the long PUTRA LRT escalators. It was then I found out that Lionel Goh also knew about that place!

I didn’t talk much with the rest of the crowd though, since I was engrossed in musical conversation with the Chai-fan and the Avril-lookalike. Topics ranged from the “have I seen you at Urbanscapes?” to the neckaches from the Incubus concert.

It was time to beckon and I met xen0s at the KLCC LRT station, to take the LRT to Bangsar and then a cab to Su Ling’s birthday party. We reached there somewhat early and walked about, to find Ironwood, a guitar shop. I went in and jakuned over the BC Rich guitars. We stood around for quite a bit before I nudged xen0s, asking him to test the guitars out. It was neat. He did some old-school Metallica, especially the songs I never got round to getting the tabs to. There was this other cool dude with emo glasses who showed us how a Flying V was meant to be held. He also recognized Tenacious D – Tribute when I played the intro riff, and sang the lines!

We then went over to the birthday party an hour late. I met Annie my old pool-virgin-mate there. I had a practice round, with total anti-kai-ness, where I’d just look like I hit something in but miss or send the white ball in. After that, I took whatever was left of the buffet table. I then played with the ever-humble now-sharpshooter. I was still a lucky shooter.

The dancefloor was open, and the lack of density and the deejay’s bad transitional skills (and maybe a few not-so-popular track choices) decreased the buttshaking activities of the young and nubile chicks there. One dude shouted that the DJ sucked, and he was in for a reprimanding. “I’ve been a DJ for 8 years.”

I didn’t overhear the entire conversation. Of course, while as a deejay I’d love to allow people to discover not-so-overplayed tracks, the crowd wasn’t legal, and they had yet to reach somewhat musical maturity. They’d only dance to songs they knew and saw on MTV! Unfamiliar songs were booed.

Whatever happened to finding the groove of the song? I mean, I wasn’t an R&B or hip hop fan, but I could just find the beat and follow it. Sure, some songs pride itself on its unique, irritating samples, but eventually you find some similiar concepts. Same goes for rock music – find the beat and headbang. Sure, some songs were more fun, but his selection wasn’t all that underground. However, his transitions were awkward and jerky, from one song to another. That, perhaps, should warrant him some needed training.

I took a cab home past midnight, and the taxi driver didn’t turn on the meter, but I didn’t say anything. It would usually cost RM7, or RM14 for midnight charge, but I was glad that upon reaching home, he only asked for RM10.

Are you a techie?

Here goes a paragraph: I’m on my first hard disk now. The second one rebooted right after its Scandisk. Total bummer. I’m on a barebones Windows XP installation. The lack of programs installed makes me feel like I’m using a cybercafe computer, except for the games installed. I managed to backup what I thought should be backed up on 9 DVD-Rs. Yes, 9 DVD-Rs at around 4.4 GB per DVD average, or 40.6 GB! (And that’s not even counting pr0n.)

Incubus Full Stop

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Pardon my bombast this time around; I was inspired.

Hoopla with the PUTRA LRT where I got to Kelana Jaya three times trying to get a seat.

Interstellar galactica with the Incubus press conference. They’re not much taller than the average Malaysian! Brandon Boyd the legendary hot one looked skinny and stoned, like his SCIENCE days, with snowcap and hair that promised to burst into dreadlocks soon. Mike was the wit, while Brandon was doing his usual dodgy answer like “Megalomaniac was just about somebody I had something strong against. While it became interpreted as an anti-Bush song, we like how it has taken a life of its own.” He was also asked about songs they hated to play again! “Oh you’ve heard this 5 million times over so let’s play it again!”

We went back to check on the chick queue at the Xfresh TV second season audition. As we were about to leave, Syefri and I found out the hard way that our office digicam had the sucky stamina of its predecessor. (No brand shall be named.) And so, he left, and I waited around for the restaminizing of a branded digicam that was so shamelessly unable to show its battery life until it was dying.

On the bus there, I wrote a list of people I expected to see there. I saw all except Brian and one of my colleagues, Marlina. As I paid a cab handsomely, running down with prizes in hand for contest winners (what a bulk!) I got stopped by the many likes of a pitiful friend-supposed-to-sell-tickets-not-here Jay, the midriff-baring aunty Ledwina, the funky Priya, the clingy Cara (and Xfresh TV host) and many more faces that arouse familiarity. Then came the sardine simulation session! We were already sweaty then.

Thank goodness for media passes. I got a free Hulk ice-cream of questionable flavor. Oh, the view! Urbanite rock-educated chicks! A (mid)riff for a riff!

The place was huge. It was, after all, the Bukit Kiara Equestrian Club. It had high roofs, enough to ventilate without any traces of horse manure. The floor had hollow wooden panels; I didn’t know if it was a platform. The sides were giant cement stairs with plastic bucket seats stuck on.

Pop Shuvit started as the first act, and somebody (face not seen) was being carried out, probably a victim of air or lack thereof. Wow. At least I knew, from above, meeting Aznin, that the platform was sturdy enough to avoid bringing a footstomping crowd to their premanure death.

OAG was next, pronouncing “you all want to see Inchoobers?” to Dide‘s amusement. I stepped out for dinner. At 9:00pm, OAG was done. A bald dude stepped on stage. Was that Ben Kenney? Apparently not; it was a sound engineer.

The time from 9:30pm to 11:30pm shall be spared from this blog and saved for an article later! (I was very impressed by some things I didn’t know the band could do, and their flow from song to song was excellent!) Aye, they did not play Drive. (Scroll up for quote.)

Of course, I’d note the things I wouldn’t write there, like how I was tired of being a headbanging lamppost to Syefri and Aznin and decided to walk about to find people I knew. I found Jayaram (another Xfresh TV host), but he vanished during the ambient drawn-out jazzy solo of Sick Sad Little World (that was technically the last song).

Oh and I finally met up with a flat-footed MW after a day of “are you there yet?” and “meet me at the Bukit Kiara logo side!” MW provided the much needed water from a conveniently thought-out bag. It would be more than coincidental that MW’s friend fainted during Pop Shuvit!

As my mom wanted to avoid the jam at the venue, she asked that I get somewhere else first, and so Syefri offered a ride to Bangsar LRT. Dide also did, and I took the latter since he had to send off Aznin first.

Needless to say, upon getting home, I was happy to have my feet feel the cold marble floor! Oh, how my knees could fold onto the chair. Alas, I wasn’t sleepy, and it was the cause of this enthusiastic get-home-and-blog-about-it blog. (Once again I am stuck for a proper ending.)

Lopsided Observations

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Female colleague, writing testimonial, asks: How come your testimonials all by girls one?
Me: Simple. Don’t approve testimonials by guys!

Of course, it’s not true – guys just don’t write me testimonials for no particular reason.

I wonder, too, if the nosey people walking in my hall (yes, I am related to them and inherit their nosey traits) wonder why whenever I’m on MSN, it’s always in a conversation with somebody with a female MSN display picture.

I calculated the ratio and found that females are more likely to put their real pictures. Yessir, statistical proof on my side that girls are vain! Of course, many things factor in to this, like:

– guys who are anime freaks and put irritating Japanese characters
– guys who are into Korean/Japanese chicks
– guys who put guitars as their pictures
– photography-loving guys

Surprisingly, the factors against girls putting pictures didn’t stop them from winning the vanity contest, like:

– not having the technical knowledge to getting their picture in the computer
– being into anime and putting irritating Japanese characters
– putting cutesy bears, flowers and other horridly adorable imagery
– putting a picture of a handsome footballer

I may not have that many MSN contacts, but let it be assured that I had an almost equal amount of males and females in my contact list when I counted.

Oh yes! Last Saturday I went for Meesh‘s blog meet and hadn’t a clue who was who and what their URLs were. Heck anyway, I still wanted to blog in the category of “teenager” and not “matured adult political musing“. One memorable dude was the owner of not just any major tech enthusiast community. If you’re reading this dude, my dual channel DDR RAM is working after moving the sticks around!

And now for the guitar geek side. I have a cheap Dunlop capo. I cut it using a sharp pair of pliers 25% through, making it a Drop D capo! Since the tubing was now in two parts, the long one could be applied to the 2nd fret (but not covering the low E string). Strumming the 6th, 5th and 4th strings would get a E5 chord. Forming a movable barre G chord on the 6th string would also work!

Okay, that’s not anywhere near layman terms, so I’ll use a diagram.

   X Y Z
d|-2-2-0
A|-2-2-2
F|-2-2-2
C|-2-2-2
G|-2-2-0
D|-0-2-0

The Drop D capo would effectively fret the X form. The regular capo would fret the Y form. Of course, I could remove the tubing and slide the metal rod through the tubing, so the capo could be 3 different combinations. The shorter tube could be used to fret 3 strings, like the Z form. With this, I could be free to chug a G major chord and do something with my left hand! Of course, I could also fret to the left of the capo where the capo did not press the strings.

Credits go to Johann Pachelbel’s Canon In D, that made me learn the X form. Nifty indeed, being able to play regular tuning forms and yet reach down to the low D!

I’m still looking for the tab for the alleged funktified aggro-palm-muted Michael Hedges version of that song.

Oh yes, what better way to end a blog entry by updating the links in my About Me! page.

So You’all Want A Single

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Well hello. I didn’t expect so much attention for being Featured Blog, so hello! Yes so I submitted my site so yeah. “Poet and a prophet” is a line from Red Hot Chili Peppers – Give It Away. No man I’m no Bob Marley but I like telling people to woke smeed. Go figure.

I’d love to write something really long, but hey, I’m just filling up to cover my last posting. I shall attempt a mainstream blog post for now.

The SPM results was a bummer. Most people I know got 6-7 A’s! During my time (SPM 2000) my friends and I got 4-5 A’s. People who took it the next year got 1-2 A’s. Perhaps it’s an unjust observation, but I found it ironic. Maybe I just knew some very unacademic people from SPM 2001. Maybe I just knew some very academic people from SPM 2003.

Does it really matter how many A’s you have when you’re applying for a job?

Would it make a difference whether you get 4A’s or 6A’s? I’d think you’d only make some impact if you waltzed in an interview with 12A’s. Of course, the more A’s, the better the chances of you getting a scholarship, but that’s a very subjective political issue.

Really, I can’t stand the thought that grades are all that matter. I know very successful people who have positions of power not because of grades but because of their excellent people skills. Their ability to convince. Remember Dewey Finn of School Of Rock? He sweet-talked his way into getting his way somewhat. Having that skill will get you… loads of free stuff, and a few contacts that matter. (I even wrote a poem about a very unorthodox method of convincing a reluctant date!)

Oh yeah, what do I think of School Of Rock? I liked it! Rock on! Stick it to the man! I walked in, being a classic rock fan and all, expecting to know every musical reference, but alas! That was not the case. I hadn’t listened to The Doors, The Velvet Underground, The Pixies, The Ramones (though I’ve heard of all of them!) A bit contradictory was how Dewey could like punk and heavy metal at the same time. (Well I only liked British classic heavy metal so yeah.)

Still, I could go around telling people how I know the first song Dewey played to Zack was Black Sabbath – Iron Man and not Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water. Right after watching it I walked with a guitar geek all over town to every guitar store, admiring the lickable Gibson SG. Yes, I have an obsession with butterscotch-colored guitars.

Speaking of food, I wanna go try cheese naan because of all that hype. However I always go eat Indian food with friends so they know what to order. My friend who suggested it however didn’t know what it tasted like though so we’d go jakun together over its flavor! However, nobody really knew (or agreed upon) which way to fold a Banana Leaf Rice banana leaf…

Disjointed Paragraphs

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I went to the Xgames and bought myself a Pantera – Reinventing Hell: The Best Of Pantera CD for RM10. Yes, an original CD, from Warner Music’s booth. Syefri and I put RM10 each on Dream Theater – Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence. Neat!

Syefri and I rode to Alda‘s birthday party. Ah! Joy was to be found in regular seats that do not paralyse the thighs.

Being alone can be good or bad… sure you won’t have anybody to listen to you, but you don’t need to listen to anybody!

I then bunked at his place and played his housemate’s electric guitar. Maxed compressor and gain on a British classic amp setting rocks!

Life has a funny way of throwing things at you when you have an uncomfortable amount of money in your wallet.

Disjointed unrelated paragraphs help to add to the flashbacked dramaticness associated with thriller movies. I blame the Gollum-lookalike for this style. It makes any “I brushed my teeth” entry look good!