Category Archives: Pictures

Quarter Life Crisis

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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.

Trouble! Shoot!

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This is a post in optimism. Really. This was also meant to be posted before my last entry as the Thursday entry. The (Minus One Bummer) bits are where I am annoyingly optimistic.

So I was to fix Leech‘s computer. I took the KTM Komuter to Subang, and that was delayed by 15 minutes. (Bummer Number 1) No matter, as she lagged too. I called her, and I ended the call upon spotting her in Carrefour, but she proceeded to walk blurly. “I was looking for a place to have breakfast.” (Remember this, this is part of this online contest.) Breakfast, on her. (Minus One Bummer)

My sense of direction around Subang wasn’t great, and we got out on the New Pantai Expressway, a dashing RM3.20. (Bummer Number 2) Even better was how I forgot that I didn’t get to reload the Touch N Go the day before! (Bummer Number 3) Fortunately there weren’t any cars behind. 🙂 (Minus One Bummer)

So we finally reached my quaint little residential area, where the operation was to take place. Her Windows XP installation was unable to start, and there was data inside yet to be backed up. And so, I transplanted her hard drive in my computer and copied out the files. Meanwhile, I ripped CDs that I didn’t want on my other computer before passing them to my free-CD-loving friend.

She was done copying, and I looked over (my computers are side by side). “Heyyy are you lowering my Spider Solitaire average score? Lemme show you how it’s done.” And so, I did…

And after about two suites, the power went out. Yo. (Bummer Number 4) At least we were only playing Spider Solitaire and not doing anything important. (Minus One Bummer)

So we took a stroll down to the KFC nearby for lunch which she paid for (Minus One Bummer), where the rest of Taman Sri Sinar seemed to wait for the electricity to come back on! Later, my sister called, notifying me that the electricity was back on. (Minus One Bummer)

Technical part follows:

And so began the reinstallation of Windows… which failed at 50%. Tried again. 20%. Again. 3%. Tried two different CDs; neither went all the way. The CD writer was wonky, I thought, so I swapped my secondary computer’s CD writer. No help either, and much worse, the BIOS would not detect the CD writer and hard disk… until I swapped around the IDE cables, master/slave positions and drive jumpers. Many times. When it did work, I tried installing again, and failing that I rebooted and again the BIOS didn’t detect the drives till I shuffled everything around randomly again. (Big Bummer Number 5)

I managed to catch a glimpse of the blue screen, so I instinctively removed one stick of RAM to see if either was faulty.

5 different combinations of two sticks in two slots and we got an entrancing ASCII pattern. We could not even get into the BIOS. If we were lucky, we’d get the good ol’ DOS screen blinking cursor.

I tried installing Windows with the hard disk being in my computer, and it worked! (Minus One Bummer) Therefore something was up with the IDE controller or BIOS. The motherboard was struck by lightning before, so it would be odd that only the built-in Ethernet controller was busted (a previous technician installed a new network card).

Google said there was a chance in Response Number 7, but by then it was getting late, so we headed to Midvalley for dinner (plus she knew how to get home from there).

As what the great Lionel would say to me:
“You have failed me again.”

Yes, I failed. 🙁 And now, her blog readers will continue missing her because I didn’t manage to fix her computer. 🙁

We missed the turning to Bangsar and U-turned at Bukit Kiara. (Bummer Number 6) Contrary to what Leech has said in her blog, she is not a bad driver. She just should not honk in anger at vans who overtake her as men with knives may jump out. (Nevermind that my mom drives a van.)

Oh and ironically Friendster‘s Joint Horoscopes said we’d have a good day.

Now for the little online contest; winners will get a free mention in my blog and get a link. Yes, if you are linked from my main page you will get loadsa hits. If you walk into a club you will get loadsa hot-people-of-your-preferred-sex because I mentioned you. So anyway, I am happy because I:

1) B_ A C_ H_. She inadvertently met my whole family.
2) I had B_, L_ A_ D_ with the same chick.

Too Far Gone

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I will omit Thursday‘s long blog entry to make this following chunkalunk of a blog entry easier to read and remember.

Friday


I got on a Metrobus, and they had this LCD screen that was supposed to play ads and music videos. Instead, it showed the Active Desktop error ala Microsoft Windows. Maybe they should invest in a DVD player instead; it’s cheaper and they don’t have to pay Bill Gates.


This party was definitely not for the aquaphobic… or chocolate-cake-on-face-phobic. Corinne, this is what you’re missing! (The crowd was mostly her ex-collegemates from IACT.)

I met Izal, bassist of One Buck Short there, where he just returned from a gig at the International College Of Music (ICOM). I hitched a ride with Corinne’s friend’s car who dropped me off at Hartamas. Thankful I am that I did not take a taxi straight back from Ikea, because I bumped into a Sunday-school-mate at Hartamas Square.

For Friday, I had:

Plan A: Check out Ben’s B***hes at ICOM.
Plan B: Instead of drunken rockers, I’d go see the CLEO Bachelor party at Zouk, where I could meet Davina and pass her a CD.
Plan C: Instead, I forsook being bachelor #51, and went for a pool party instead.

So it would be ironic then, that the not-so-pious-now-haha! friend of mine, and her hot friend, were at the CLEO bachelor thing! (Plan B) Apparently it started at midnight (instead of 9pm) and the bachelors made 2-second appearances. Even cooler, was that her friend was from IACT as well, and when I name-dropped the names of people at the party (Plan C), she knew them all well! (And was surprised to know that the person I hitched a ride on had a boyfriend.) Oh, and Izal was at aforementioned ICOM gig (Plan A) and told me that Ben and gang were asked to get off stage.

Am I eye-flutteringly complex now?


I then bumped into Zack (dude in the middle), super-mega-rock-star-guitar-player from Cosmic Funk Express! He was also super-mega-drunk. Funny indeed, Zack is part of One Buck Short when they need a second guitarist, but not this time; he was busy amassing groupies at Mont Kiara International School, where he strutted his guitar virtuoso-ness.

The last time Zack and I were here, he was struggling to finish his glass of beer (it didn’t help that strong drinkers were pressuring him). So uh, I liberated him of the alcohol.

Now, he was a strong Korean drinker. Cheers mate. You can now hold your own, and you can even do math and pour beer evenly while dancing along to Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction! Alda, have you seen him drunk?

Saturday


No, not keyboard; digital piano! Miss Kanako Kumanomido shows off Roland Digital Pianos, with voices much better-sounding than MIDI realizations. Ask me for the video! Interesting modulation effects on trumpet and backing ‘vocals’. I saw this at Pearl Point when rushing to grab a bite before the Soft Touch EP launch at Paul’s New Place.


Mr. Harooon from Rock The World fame! Well I’ll be. He’s still as clueless a commentator. Maybe he should work as a sports commentator. Oh wait, he works for AMP Radio’s Infozone. Oops.


Saerze sings Nirvana – Rape Me and Jamiroquai – Love Foolosophy. The bass was too punchy for the latter song (and maybe the other niggling factor was that it was a bit off tune…) I wonder how she got her name cards in the ASTRO office waiting lounge though.


Lied and their angry alternative rock. Angry indeed. The way rock was meant to be, anyway. Here, Adlin does the emo-chicken-pecking-at-microphone stance.


Cats In Love rocked. From classic rock to bluesy wanderings, the Malaysian Mark Knopfler wowed the crowd.


It wasn’t until they introduced the band members that I realized why the guitarist’s guitar (what, were you expecting the guitarist’s bass drum?) was so familiar. It was the Fender Telecaster that N. Rama Lohan reviewed in The Star. It was N. Rama Lohan! Turns out the bandmates are from The Star, too. No wonder they’ve got an excellent synthy-keyboard(s)-player (who also did a mouth organ bit.) And hey! Didn’t they review that SX bass too? Cheap bas…

(Edited 6th June 2014: This was Cats In Love’s first ever gig!)


This picture does not do justice to prove exactly how cute and charismatic D-Va’s lead vocalist is. (…oh yeah she also sings, plays guitar and keyboards well.) She dances and prances like it was her bathroom, except she’s got clothes on and she’s not soaking wet. Dammit.


Double-sized picture for Soft Touch, because it’s their EP’s launch event. And because Peter Hassan Brown (the old-looking dude) finally rocks out or “fools around” (in his own words) to the hard rocking riff of Listen 2 What U C. Yes he was actually headbanging to this one, and he even walked over to his guitarist and made like a guitar duel.


Jamie Woon from the UK! With his DADGAD-tuned guitar, he crooned and melted hearts. He also played with soft-loud dynamics and tapped harmonics ala acoustic guitar heroes like Az. Except that Az doesn’t sing.


Lunarin from Singapore with some pretty progressive rock. The biting bass tone of the female vocalist complimented the hard-hitting drummer. Add a guitarist, and you have Singapore’s answer to Tempered Mental, just not as diverse and tempo-manic.

A funny scene was Saiful, the first gig otai (slang for old-timer, usually commands great respect) I met, paying cover charge to Ahmad, the first gig-regular-who-wasn’t-in-a-band buddy I met. Ironically, the situation would have been reverse every other time. I hitched a ride with Saiful, and he dropped me off at KLCC, where I took a cab, and it was ironic too that I’d meet a former mat rock taxi driver. He asked what college I was, and for some instinctive reason he asked where he could do sound engineering! I told him about SAE and ICOM. He told me how he was going to be signed to a label in 1987, but his parents disapproved. Heck, if he did, he would have been famous for a good decade. “Bila XPDC baru nak belajar double-pedal, aku lama dah buat lah…” I then told him where to pick up gig-goers and meet Md. Nor Hendrix. Rock on, mat-rock taxi driver!

Blistering Blues

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The past mornings have been extra bright. This shot was taken at 8 am, when it wasn’t too hot yet, but everybody in the bus stop was facing away from it.


White and silver cars literally glow.


This shot was taken at night. Screw my camera’s night mode; ISO 400 and +2 exposure values, pointed out the highway got this shot. No, my Canon Powershot A400 does not support manual shutter speeds, so it’s a wonder I got this shot.


I took a walk to Midvalley from the Bangsar PUTRA LRT station.


Looking over the highway, I saw this; do Malaysians have an equivalent of Smokey Bear? What would Sang Kancil say?


Along the same stretch I took this picture. Now that’s what I call a passionate fisherman! He’s not doing it for the fish.


The Guitar Collection opens at Midvalley, near the cinemaplex.


While waiting for Frus to join me at The Loft, Zouk for our fix of Twilight Action Girl, I went to Berjaya Times Square Hotel’s lounge on the 14th floor and saw this man tuning his guitar. Could it be…


Hendrix lives!!! I saw Md. Nor Hendrix in an issue of ROTTW which said he played in Berjaya Hotel. Sadly, he played Eric Clapton and Gary Moore’s Still Got The Blues, songs you would hear on the radio. I summoned the courage to go up to him and ask, “hey Joe, could you play some Hendrix?”

He fiddled around with his laptop (I suspect the drum machine was there or at the keyboards). Frus and I cheered as he said, “and now, for a blues number, on special request…”

“There’s a red house over yonder, that’s where my baby stays.”

He was feeling it, all much much more than when he was playing Eric Clapton’s licks or the famous, searing Gary Moore A-minor solo. Before this, he was a weathered lounge performer. Now, his face scrunched up, the same way Jimi did.

“Now if my baby don’t love me no more, I know her sister will.”

He then played Hey Joe, sadly interrupted by annoying waiter. I missed the solo and the chance to take a picture of him playing with his teeth at the end of the song! He also made like a double-locking bridge and abused his whammy bar to no end.


He came over and shook our hands. We went into guitar geek mode and he let us touch his Fender Stratocaster 1969! It was very, very different from a modern day Strat. For one, he put 5 springs in the back, and his frets were low and action looked high but it felt smooth and easy!


Heck, even the nut looked tiny. The back plate on the neck joint was V-shield-shaped instead of the regular rectangles we see. The pickups had cracks on them, but they were not changed.


The coolest thing about the neck was how thin it was. This picture does not show the scale; its super narrow neck looked like an Angus Young Gibson SG! And yet, it felt different at different points of the neck; it wasn’t flat, and it was chunky and yet felt small. No wonder Jimi loved thumbing basslines. It felt more like a C shape than a D shape to me.


Someday, I shall bring Syefri and Alda here. Sure they’re both bassists but hey Syefri has an afro (plus he’s the guy who lent me a Hendrix CD…) Yes, Md. Nor even looks like Jimi. If you can’t squint, the text says it’s every night except Monday, 8:30 pm to 12:45 am (ending at 1:45 am on Public Holidays.) No wonder he was bored. Imagine playing the same tunes day in day out! (He doesn’t play Hendrix unless requested.) I figured I did both of us a favor; for me, I could relive rock moments when I wasn’t born yet, and for him, he could go wild on the guitar!

Frus and I left for Zouk, using the monorail. While queueing up there was this group of lost ticket-buyers. The cashier was flustered, and I tried to explain that they can buy and enter on any side, and then use the bridge to cross over to the other side.

Frus and I then crossed over, thinking that was the way to Bukit Nanas monorail; alas, it was not! So we came over and told the lost ticket-buyers that we’ll be joining them on the train. They were from Bangladesh and were heading back to Corus Hotel (which was opposite Ampang Park.) They looked formal, like they were here for a business trip. They also looked very naive. Frus said one of them looked very n00bish, LOL.

We got off and I pointed leftwards in the direction of Dang Wangi PUTRA LRT, where they could take the LRT to Ampang Park. They could also take a cab rightwards to KLCC. Thank you and goodbyes were exchanged. They decided to walk. Eeep. This, at 11 pm. Of course, we were heading in the same direction, so it was awkward. On the way to Zouk, we passed a construction site, when a disturbing thought came:

What if they were here to find a desk job, only to be set up and eventually coerced into becoming construction workers?

They looked built enough for menial labor. Imagine, the evil employers could set them up to go between a hotel and a public place like Bintang Walk, knowing that on the way there would be construction sites. Imagine if they were lost, and they saw a Evil Recruiting Agent who was a fellow Bangladeshi:

Lost Bangladeshis: Hey how do we get to Hotel Corus?
Evil Recruiting Agent: Oh now it is not safe and the train will be out of service. I’m going there tomorrow, you can come in my van. In the meantime you can come chill with us and stay the night.
(Fast forward to morning…)
Evil Recruiting Agent: Hey my van is busted. Could you help me roll this trolley of bricks over there? And see that cement over there? Could you help me build this wall? I gotta send my van for repairs.
Lost Bangladeshis: Ah no problem mate, we’re strong. Besides, you let us stay the night.

I felt bad for letting them walk, instead of taking them to Corus Hotel. Their families would never hear of them again!

On the way to Zouk we saw this Chinese-indie-scene dude carrying two guitars both smashed at the neck joint! He was carrying two Strat-shape guitar bodies and two guitar necks. What the heck had just happened?

We reached Zouk to see loads of people standing outside. The Loft was very empty, strangely. Even the friends we were supposed to meet weren’t there. And so, we walked the wrong way down Jalan Sultan Ismail! Must’ve gotten the blurness from the lost Bangladeshis.


We finally met up with the friends who were stuck in Bar Savanh, Asian Heritage Row. At least I saw my dream white Mazda RX-8; same color as my Transformer Alternator, Meister. I also saw dark blue and black RX-8s. For once my attention was drawn away from the hot chicks. :O


Guess what this is.


The next day Fazri and I were in Avenue K, and we took interesting shots with our cameras, like the picture above. Here, Fazri was sitting. You’d sit too, if you were on an escalator that spanned 3 floors.

Paragraphs Went

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Went to catch Twilight Action Girl again on a Friday night, this time featuring the deejay I knew. Too bad I didn’t bring my bag and thus lost my chance at making them rockers hear the seminal rock band, Spinal Tap. Made like a moshpit with Justin Guber. I preferred this week’s more American selections, what with them ending with Rage Against The Machine – Sleep Now In The Fire! (Or rather we left after that.)

Went home to find this:

Went in and jakuned. Joy! The days of adjusting the indoor RF cable’s connection to the surge protector are gone. Yay to clear NTV7 and 8tv! And yay to free ASTRO!

Went online, and found this gem. If you’ve got Winamp5, you will appreciate this plugin. Yes, it updates MSN Messenger 7.0 as well! (It’s not a beta version anymore!) Click on my MSN to see what’s playing on Winamp. Before this, only Windows Media Player could update MSN Messenger; I prefer Winamp though, for its Global Hotkeys (which means pressing Ctrl-Shift-Home pauses the song among other shortcuts.) Yep, I don’t need to Alt-Tab to Winamp anymore!

Went to change my links in my About Me! page to add Reta (who uh, has linked me as the Xfresh dude.)

April Updates

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Thousand and two apologies for the lack of updates; things happen, like:


Albert rediscovers the Dvorak layout.

I did that to a spare keyboard lying in the office. I noticed that my productivity decreased greatly and I was even more less (more less?) likely to load MSN or reply emails in standard Albert-ic bombastic English. Hic.

I am somewhat glad that when I type on my home’s QWERTY keyboard, I type D instead of E. A sign that I’m getting used to Dvorak! Interestingly, I type words that start with S with O instead, and mash up E and O often. I still have not gotten used to locating the rarer keys.

Then when I get home I’ve a project to work on so yeah, no blog updates. 😛

Beatallica

That’s right kids; this is the band that does Beatles songs Metallica style. They play Metallica excellently; they’ve got the guitar tone, the And Justice For All era James Hetfield growl, everything… but throw in what The Beatles do (unconventional harmonies and chord progressions) and a rock and roll beat, and you get an entertaining (and funny) result. Yes there are places you can download the songs.

Sepet

I borrowed Jason‘s original Sepet VCD. My mom the usual tearjerker-movie-sucker… didn’t cry. Neither did I. I thought it was alright though; the sound was alright despite reading complaints about that. I know someone so much like Orked in mannerism (and she’s even cute like her) and yet, I did not know if I could place her character in Ipoh. Then again, I don’t know Ipoh. Her family is urban in thought but it seems the rest of town isn’t. Some people criticize the movie for being inconsistent in the potrayal of the community, but we forget that there are urbanite bigots.

And now, on to time-based narration:

On Friday I met up with YK to buy more and more Transformers.


Treadshot seriously has style.


Planes in scale. Yes, this was Photoshopped and the planes are swapped. Standing from left: Skydive (Generation 2 recolor Aerialbot), Strafe (Generation 2 Cyberjet) and Treadshot (Transformers Energon Aerialbot).

We then headed to Bintang Walk to meet Syefri and Frus. Frus and I headed to The Loft, Zouk again to catch Twilight Action Girl. This time, we stayed for the dance floor.


It’s a bad thing when you don’t think that beer tastes bad anymore.

Perhaps I missed the chance to ask them to play something from the black album before they changed to early industrial and then something which was more techno than rock. “Is it too late to play any song from the Spinal Tap album?” “Oh chill lah, we’re changing back to rock now.”


When they played Gimme Some Money, a herd of rockers left. 🙁 How can they not know Spinal Tap?!? At least there were some who appreciated the song’s poke at The Beatles’ enlightenment era. 🙂


I also bumped into Iszie, who bugged me to come the gig she was emceeing the next day. Yes you will notice that I am now talking about the next day. Yes I am using present tense which is so grammatically wrong.


Amantle The Sea. Yes! For this blog entry I shall have a theme for all gig-related pictures; they will all be taken without flash, preferably in red, and without any levels or color correction, to celebrate the beauty of a ISO400, EV -1 manual setting.



Lucy In The Loo rocked. No that’s not Lucy, and yes, I cheated by sticking on the stickers from a picture taken with flash.


Citizens Of Ice-cream was cool. Heavy soundscapes and no vocals can only come from a combination of two Chinese indie bands. They even get different colored lighting for their Floyd-ish escapes! On the right was what seemed to be a tape loop.


The Times brought their scene with them; Roots And Boots members were seen moshing frantically. The vocalist had this Britrock stance which was cool.


Telebury finished the gig. Yes again I cheated on the right-side picture, using flash to bring out the nice blue Gibson Les Paul. I mean, have you ever seen one of those in Metallic Blue?


Longdrawn 3 was the name of the gig, with the biggest turnout I had ever seen in The New Paul’s Place.


Okay I’m hungry. Let’s take a break and stare at the new KFC curry chicken. It has the zing of their Tom Yam experiment, but without the Tom Yam flavor. May this gimmick last longer.


Now teleport back to Paul’s Place, this time on a Wednesday, for Troubadours, the biggest singer-songwriter bigshot gig I’d ever seen. Pictured is a floating magnetic toy; a little invention by Paul (who used to design exhibits for the National Science Center!)


Ronnie Khoo was first, with some mellow-dy.


Izzy and guitarist Jeremy.


Warren Chan and Abigail. He had some interesting chords over more mellow stuff. Who from KLue doesn’t sing in falsetto all the time?


Ariff Akhir and Shahril the bassist. Now Ariff’s got the voice and the chords, but Shahril marginally draws more attention with his extremely fluid walking (and perhaps playing a game of Twister) basslines.


Peter Hassan Brown and Shahril the bassist.


Opie from Indonesia. She had soul, yo. It manifested in her diva-like vocals. And hey, that guitar is way too familiar.


Meor from Central Market. His aggressively-strummed blues were fun to watch.


Kartini which I suspect is also from Indonesia.


Kelvin from Singapore. Superb stuff; he shredded the blues to the intermission music. (Other bands would play the tuning song.) He then made a song on the spot about this here country. I have never seen a guy sing with more conviction; he strains, beats and dries the words that he sings.


Reza Salleh the heart-melter crooned over jazz guitar.

Sadly, I did not get to see Ben of Ben’s B***hes or Azmyl Yunor play as I had to leave. They would have been interesting.

In other news, Ed has lost it again; this time he has a 48-hour blogathon. So? 49 48 51 45, I say to him. 🙂

Metal Matters

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William and I caught Latte@8 at Sunway Pyramid’s Starbucks last Thursday.


We were pleasantly surprised to find one of the guests as Sharifah Amani, co-star of the acclaimed-by-everybody except-me-because nobody-is-able to-watch-it-with-me Sepet.


Frequency Cannon. (That’s who I was here to see.) You don’t see it, but Yuri seems to have contracted Siva’s detaching-guitar-strap syndrome!

So I may have bumped into Becky, a famous blogger, and not had the guts to say hi and make the world a better place by letting a famous blogger know that yes, a famous blogger can be recognized just like any other form of celebrity should.


I honestly like the Proton Gen 2 design (and most of the colors!) I think it’s sleek. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, someone adds to it!


I bought this second-hand from DJCS. On the left, a Sparkle GeForce 6600 GT (500/900) 128MB AGP card; on the right, my old Powercolor Radeon 9600 Pro (200/400) 128MB AGP card. The Radeon 9600 Pro would replace the GeForce 2 MX I bought from Syefri on the Athlon XP 1800+ machine; the GeForce 6600 GT would sit in my Barton XP 2600+ baby. Rates? Here goes techie numbers quick: UT2004 Flyby, 165 fps; botmatch 57 fps; Doom 3 High Quality 67.6 fps; Quake 3 Max Quality 228 fps; 3D Mark 2005 3185 marks; 3D Mark 2003 7089 marks; 3D Mark 2001 13043 marks. Quick go out and buy lottery numbers. Yeah 3D Mark 2001 was disappointing; 13043 marks was something a Radeon 9700 could do! However, its performance in 3D Mark 2003 was leaps better than my Radeon’s 2589 marks.


Heavy metal guy would consider this torture. Heavy metal runs in my veins, baby! It makes for my magnetic personality!


Presenting the new Calzone, from Pizza Hut – pizza on the go. A regular-sized pizza folded into a handy taco shape. Pizza Hut is under the same stingy company that hold Ayamas Roasters and KFC, but they do not suffer from food miniaturization! Shown is a AA battery in scale. No I do not eat batteries. I am not a robot. Do not eat batteries, even if you think you are a robot. Batteries will corrode your tin can soul.


Speaking of robots, here the Autobots gang up on a Decepticon I couldn’t resist getting as it was fresh on the shelves.


Barricade, the center piece of the Transformers Energon series combiner Bruticus Maximus poses, terrified.


He is an excellent, well-articulated tribute to Onslaught (that Transformers Generation 2 yellow dude), original center piece of Bruticus.


I misplaced Onslaught’s original cannon accessory.


No, Barricade isn’t that short when his cannons are folded out.


He is also the same size as the powerlinking Transformer Energon series. Spot the Decepticon!


“Here is the armless, legless wonder of the 20th century!”
As center pieces, Onslaught and Barricade are vital. You just can’t buy the arms and legs and superglue them together.


Barricade makes a pretty totem pole.


Barricade is really my new favorite Transformer Energon figure. He’s not limited in articulation in any way compared to other Energon figures which had niggling features like legs that can’t bend at the waist, or shoulders that can’t extend… Barricade also has a solid look and feel, and every joint and flap locks into place. RAWR.

Gore Ring

6 Replies

I bumped into my cousin at this gig, where he asked if I was playing. “Nah I don’t even have an electric guitar!” Fate would be that his old one was lying in a cupboard, so I borrowed his.


This is not a floating bridge. I had trouble with the 2nd string, where the ball end of the string was stuck in the back of the bridge, “a common problem with Yamaha electric guitars.”


Smokin’ pot. The volume was a tad crackly around 6-9. It works nice at 10, but we know it was meant to be turned up to 11.


Make a selection with the pickup selector. I found it best at positions two and four, in between any two pickups.


Not outback jack, output jack. Grime is not a crime.


Let’s get behind her neck. Her head was dyed purple.


Look ma, no strings attached! Of course, I got the 8-38 gauge ones. Beautiful. One-finger full-tone bends. However, the .008 string was too light and you could barely hear it when shredding with distortion, or tapping for that matter.


Fear of the dark… Fear of the dark! I like this picture because of the sticker there, and the darkness behind it.


Fret not.


I didn’t know that an electric guitar had a longer scale length than an acoustic. A cool trick to getting an acoustic tone, or at least to amplify the electric guitar without electricity, is to play the electric guitar while having its body touch the acoustic guitar’s body. Ooo how perverse. For best results, place them back to back, with the acoustic guitar facing your body. You will feel the music.

For a demo of me playing the same bad music, but amplified, invite me to a MSN Messenger audio chat. Okay so it isn’t any louder since the distortion effects on the SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 soundcard don’t come out on audio chat, but it gets higher pitched since I have no cutaway and more frets to play with.

You All Like Pictures

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A cat takes a nap near a dinky drain. Its very carpetness was hard not to picture. I mean, hard not to put in a picture.


A window of inspiration. What do you see behind your window?


Frus and I were walking to KLCC, when we saw this.


Look I’m a Force Of Nature too! (I didn’t go to many on-off complications; why do people buy tickets in odd numbers?)


We headed to The Loft in Zouk, to catch Twilight Action Girl in action. Turns out only three of the four rock deejays were there, and the one guy who was missing was the guy I could greet and thus look cool. Being attached to a record label, he would have been at the Force Of Nature concert at the exact time we were there.

They played much more British, New Age and much more alternative rock, such that I felt a bit alienated since my taste is mostly American-style rock. Still, their selection was pretty lounge-chillout and very dance-able.

We went our separate ways, and I walked along the Jalan Ampang district, when I saw two very horse-faced hookers soliciting a white guy. “Sir we give you orgy!” I saw more horse-faced hookers along the road. Scary. I wonder which was worse – horse-faced hookers or trannies. But then you know Caucasians, their women have stronger facial features.


Jerry was right – the Perodua Kenari can look nice when modified.


A&W’s Double Deluxe Burger. Check out the cheese; I had to scrape it off the cardboard box. Dudes at Amburgers & Wootbeer, the cheese goes between the buns somewhere.

I also bumped into Az‘s parents; I seem to have bumped into them as often as I bumped into their son when he was still in this country. It was like he inherited the flow from them.

On Saturday I went to Paul’s New Place to catch the final instalment of the Rock Dawg Music Fest.


Seven was their usual funky self.


The Blumps stood out as the only punk rock band in today’s lineup.


Polaris, now that was interesting; heavy progressive rock. Add organ for that Floyd-ian coolness.


I finally got to see ex-colleague Azmir in action, from his grunge days in Shoot Goat to this mathematical fretboard dance in Polaris.


Ground Xero, the all-girl band from ICOM that rocked.


SDC, hard rock all the way. Sadly I felt their set was a bit too long as it lacked dynamics – it was a hard fast song one after the other.


Outfigured; picture features an excellent screamer. (Not like death metal continuous growling, but one-off rage.) Figured out who? It’s not the dreadlocked headbanger. Sadly her vocals were drowned out.


I expected something with Seemphony, with their expensive-looking guitars. They merely did two big-hit-single covers from Incubus, but redeemed themselves with some interesting covers. The drummer was cool though; my friend said he looked stiff but I thought his hard hits looked cool. Plus the guitarist can do a House Of Pain.


It is quite scary to see Jack of Naked Breed shred with all his hair falling into the guitar. He had to keep flipping it back. Alex, the drummer tied his long hair back. Meanwhile, Justin and the bassist were bald.


Soft Touch, to me, seemed harder than their usual reggae/folk rock.

I am going to rudely end this entry… like so.

Eat Eat Eat

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The sunlamp probably made this duck’s hair expand upwards.

Frus and I met up in Low Yat to look for hard disk-based MP3 players. Since I had 19 Gigabytes of MP3s and 4 Gigabytes of pictures, I’d love to have a 40 GB MP3 player/picture viewer (and perhaps hackable to view videos). The perfect one would be the iRiver H340, but that was nowhere to be found. Its smaller 20 GB brother, the H320, was around though.

Other options?

The RM1650-costing Wealper Multimedia Viewer II (in shops it was sold under the brand Pendrive). It could view pictures and videos, plus it functioned as a card reader too! My only gripe with this was that it was 20 GB! I could transplant a 40 GB hard disk in it, but it would have to fit in a 1.8″ case. Otherwise, I’d be loading from my camera straight to this and watching re-encoded Transformers episodes.

There was also the Pendrive X’s Drive Pro; that used a 2.5″ hard disk (not included) and if I was to add a 40 GB hard disk, it would total less than RM700. Sadly, it was bulkier and did not have a color screen.

Still, all these had more features than an iPod of the same price, so eat that, brand fashionistas!


Speaking of eating, we then went to Steak & Goreng for dinner where my Teh O Ais Limau (Iced Lemon Tea) had an interesting deformation at the straw. I then realized that this was intentional! Such geniuses. Ever drank your Teh O Ais Limau slowly because you were afraid to suck up seeds? This straw crease prevents it!


We also found the black album – the soundtrack to This Is Spinal Tap! I didn’t even know it existed. Now I’ve gotta get speakers that go to 11. Unlike Metallica’s black album, which had a snake, this was really black. How much more black can it get? None more black.

I’m going on a search to locate the other albums (in the bottom-right inlay). Sadly, no lyrics were included.

If you are a rocker and do not know of this legendary rock band and their rockumentary, you should swap your leather pants for baggy jeans.

Side trivia: I didn’t know that double-bass-playing (it’s a double-neck bass with the exact same neck… geddit?) Derek Smalls also did many voices in The Simpsons!