Category Archives: Pictures

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.

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.

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.

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?

From Bright To Night

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

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

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!

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.