Category Archives: Pictures

Blog Gatherings

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Saturday Morning

1200 hours, MPH Sunway Pyramid
No Xfresh bloggers around.

1220 hours, Osim Sunway Pyramid
The salesman amazes me with his knowledge. “You know women with high heels, their calves are more developed.” I actually consider buying one of their products as I sit, testing out the iSqueez.

1238 hours, MPH Sunway Pyramid
I meet Hannna. I drank her Coke. Will, Ed and Kristine soon came along, and we adjourned to Pizza Hut, where Suet Li and Ashraf appeared out of nowhere. Shaz deserves a plug too, for bringing his crowd to Pizza Hut anyway.

We walked about a bit, and I bumped into Hanna’s friend. “Remember me? You drank my coke at the Taylor’s Battle Of The Bands!” (Flashback! Ironically, I drank Hanna’s coke earlier that day.)

The guitar store had two shop assistants doing a very, very cool improvised rendition of Gary Moore – Still Got The Blues. I stood around, waiting for the chorus or solo bit, but no! Somebody who obviously didn’t pay them to jam all day came in. 🙁

Ed and I then headed to Elena‘s barbecue party.

2000 hours, Elena’s House

Good food, though the festivities were marred by some dumb ideas. Well at least I learnt what a body shot was and got CPR. 🙂 Two, I repeat, two, Rubik’s Cubes were totalled that night.

Sunday Morning

0900 hours, Elena’s House

For some reason I seem to like taking pictures of cats basking in the sun. A brand new day. A new tomorrow?

1100 hours, Starbucks New Wing, One Utama
Ed and I spread our unbathed malodor to Peter Tan‘s blog gathering. I shall not provide commentary, links (I’ll steal the full list later) and much less obligatory shots, but the more interesting Photoshop-enhanced ones were:


Ed made a good laptop advertisement model.



Chet brought this baby. Well maybe it wasn’t a baby. It was a kicking teenage rebel. Okay that’s not right either. The Dana Wireless could possibly be the last foray by Palm Computing – cheap notebooks are getting cheaper. Even the HP Ipaq 5450 is considered big, and PDAs have keyboard attachments! Add the proliferation of phones with color screens (when was the last time you heard a monophonic SMS ringtone on the LRT?) and you have something only a die-hard Palm user will buy. At least it has expansion slots, including two SD card slots! That would make a nice transferring device for your digital camera.


That is an awesome afro.

Fazri dropped Lionel and I off at the LRT station, and we headed to Taman Jaya.

1700 hours, some cybercafe in Amcorp Mall

Lionel lives up to his paedophile reputation. Shaky picture was intentionally picked. Itchy girl gives good scratch massage.

Links shall be updated soon, I hope.

This Is Not Geek Rock

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Self-explanatory. The New Paul’s Place (I’d rather it be called Paul’s New Place) was behind Asoka, a club opposite Pearl International Hotel (near Pearl Point) on the Puchong side of Old Klang Road. I came, finding out about the gig from the MENSA email newsletter. However, upon arriving I found otai Saiful collecting entry donations to this Tsunami charity gig. “Huh what MENSA gig? If there were smart people here, I wouldn’t be here…” I was intimidated by not knowing who I could hand an unsolved Rubik’s Cube to, in the crowd of unusually old people. (They could be Julian Mokthar’s friends!)


This would be the first time I’d see Ariff Akhir perform. Interesting voice and guitar.


Second time for second act Kohl.


Julian Mokhtar and Chris the fiddler on the roof. (Well the new Paul’s Place was way at the top, in a spacious attic…) They did wickedly cool covers of Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven, blues style, and Julian said, “I’m going to murder Metallica next.” (He did Enter Sandman, and Chris’ fiddling was inspiring Apocalyptica-ly.) Ask me for videos!


13-year old Eve sings about life in a Simple Plan kind of way.


Karen Nunis and the dudes were cool, despite Karen being sick. It wasn’t till a guitar string broke that Chris took over the stage with his tasteful fiddle shredding.


One of the dudes had a 3-piece-body Ibanez. Sweeet.


A guest dude would be the drummer – Paul himself!


This would be the first time I’d see the eccentric, zany, brooding 360 Degree Head Rotation as a band and not just one Rafil screaming his head off. The old people left, and I knew then that those were the smart bunch.


Special attention was paid to the lead guitarist Jack. He put the melody to the blaring fuzz of Rafil’s guitar.


Drunk Ben took to the stage, with an acoustic set featuring CK on distorted nylon guitar. Ben’s B***hes dissed, pissed, cursed in verse, and entertained.


Tempered Mental had to be the odd one out with their progressive rock.

So how?

I didn’t meet up with any MENSA people. Yellow bellied I became.

Break The Silence

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On January 4th 2005, the Songwriters Avenue 2 broke the tsunami’s no-gig silence. Like its first instalment, it was at Le Bernardin. This round, Shelley Leong, Az Samad and Reza Sallehuddin played. Shelley’s guitar playing had noticeably improved since last year in songs like Crime (yes, I’m still not over the last-year jokes). Az however had a fever and did a lot more ‘haram‘ notes than before, but managed to take jazz-ic license by improvising.


Reza deserves a paragraph to himself. I saw Tracy‘s heart melting, mesmerized by his voice. Plus he had excellent guitar sounds too, ranging from rock to hearty jazz to ballad.


The sound monitor (not TV mind you) made an excellent tripod.


This is what happens when you mistakenly use a yellow cloth as your custom white balance reference. Pictures with flash turn blue!

Photoshop saves the day.

If you want videos I recorded, ask me! I quickly exhausted my 16MB SD card and the 32MB SD card Jenifer lended me, so they aren’t that long, but at least they have sound.


From top-left, clockwise: Sui Lin of Her Reverie, Yyan (with weirder tunings than Az), Alda (on bass, covering Az’s Latah Setinggan, accompanied by Az himself), Izzy (the reason why I wanna dye my hair white), Lisa, and Yee Meng who did a killer tribute to Az and Shelley (with a very Az-influenced song).


After that was Rafique Rashid from former gig-place No Black Tie and a guy from Cameroon.


The most notable star, however, was the guy who wrote and sang the Malay equivalent of acoustic singalong More Than Words (by Extreme). Manbai sang Kau Ilhamku.

Oh, and I’ve updated my Quotes page with:
“There are unisex toilets in every home.”

I felt like a genius when I came up with that.

That was so last year, man.

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Last year, for New Year’s Eve, my original plans were to go to Shelley‘s gig at One Utama, but that was cancelled because it was decided everybody should be in mourning. So we have another gig-less season (most recently, Ramadhan). Hey, life must go on for those who are still (cursed?) with mortality. I can’t go around with a frown all day.

And so, I went with Shaz to a barbecue party (everyone was celebrating at home). I had my fair dosage of carbon, with this:

With Shaz portions (10 pieces or so) I thought that with a full stomach, I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by my first whiff of:

Needless to say, the first 3 breaths of coke shisha were dizzying in a welcome way. I soon got used to it, timing a 37 second slow intake.

Not everyone was used to it. After refilling however, it was too strong for me, and the icky flavor stayed inside me. Maybe that’s where all the missing smoke went. Maybe it’s the carbon dioxide in coke. I felt regretfully bloated, but that feeling quickly cleared when I touched and played a beautiful acoustic guitar. Maybe that’s what Jimi Hendrix felt. He must’ve been going “dang, that is nasty“. And then he picked up his Stratocaster and made magic.

Fortunately, the new year morning had no jams this side of the road.

Oh and the above trippy pictures were taken with this new baby:


I bought her from William.

I won’t be taking high-resolution shots just yet, since it’s only got 16 Megabytes on an SD card. I am however looking forward to getting a 512 Megabyte Reduced Size Multi Media Card (512MB RS-MMC) card for it. Why? So I can swap it with such lovelies like this:


The Nokia 7710.

I could transfer pictures to its internal memory, and then transfer it to its own RS-MMC card. Yes, RS-MMC cards are smaller, and the Nokia 7710 (as well as my Canon Powershot A400 digital camera) still use regular full-sized MMC cards, but I’d get RS-MMC because it can fit in an MMC slot with a clip-on extension. Do you not see the potential? Transferring from a digicam straight to phone without going through a computer would be awesome.

Edit: The 7710 is not mine; my friend works with Nokia.

Hor Hor Hor

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I read on MusicCanteen about a Christmas Eve gig in Plaza Mont Kiara at the office. Too bad then, that I had to meet up with family for church.

They picked me up at an LRT station, and we headed to the crowded roads near the church to park. My sister was sick, so the following conversation ensued:

Mom: Are you sure you’re up to going to church?
Sis: Yeah, I can still go…
Mom: (Looking at normally empty roads full of parked cars) Are you sure? You can’t be sick for Christmas!
Sis: Yeah, still can go…

We didn’t go in the end. Deep down, I knew my sister wanted to go for some innate reason. I didn’t say anything to influence the decision, so I was glad when my mom so happened to take the Hartamas route back home. I asked to be dropped off, and I strolled into McDonalds.

I bumped into the marketing dude of a big, big company. DJCS knows him. He asked what I was there for; I told him about MusicCanteen, gesturing to the soundcheck. He typed out an email on his laptop to various people, asking them to check out the site.

What a flukeful stroke of luck, if I should next see their logo there among the list of sponsors for an event. It would be somewhat thanks to me!

So there was Frequency Cannon, Edge Of Fire, Nitrus, TragicComedy (with cool Hendrix licks), One Buck Short (featuring Zack of Cosmic Funk Express), Flatline, Naked Breed, and…

Estranged.

Featuring Alda (the original bassist) on bass and Mooky (of One Buck Short) on vocals.

As if that wasn’t enough, Adam (of Dragon Red) took to vocals after that, for a furious Velocity.

Another surprise was Dragon Red; during Fade Away, Adam guided Amil down the stairs of the stage, where he did his solo in the moshpit.

It was then that Debbie and I realized he was a bit too far from his amplifier!

Righto. Wireless. The way it was revealed (with Amil walking far out) was major coolness.

As for those who worried about the rock quotient, well most bands didn’t even play Christmas songs, unless they were featured in MusicCanteen’s Christmas compilation.

And now, for something outside depressing chronological order.

I finally have something new for my Quotes page:
“If you’re the only one left, you’re always right!”

I went to The Curve in Mutiara Damansara. Scenic indeed it was, as this was a scene out of a mafia crimelord’s mansion:

Oh and Merry (belated) Christmas! Note the merged cube (an article describing how to do it yourself will come).

Seasons Greetings

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance. In response to people who say “I didn’t know you celebrate Christmas“, I say yes, I do sleep in church as any born Catholic would. At least I won’t be stealing tires.

Today’s format will be pictures and text. There might be a hint of chronological order.


What could be more limited edition than SyefriTM in a box?


I was in Ampang Park LRT when I saw this; a most fun way of donating. Coins would slowly spiral down the cone. What size coin will roll down the fastest?


How does a bus get towed? With an bigger tow truck, of course!

Saturday, December 18th, 2004


Shaz came, bearing gifts one week before Christmas. It was Bobby‘s Xfresh bloggers gathering.


Retro! I greatly prefer this to a scan radio (those where you have to press to scan upwards, and it has no indication what frequency you’re on…)


From left: Kirk, Jamie, Will and Suet Li.

Caught In The Flash


Once again, I managed to catch the flash off another camera, hence the weird lighting. From left: Shair Ein, Vi-Vien and Suet Li again.

Frus, Jamie and I took the bus from Midvalley to Central Market, then to Hang Tuah via the STAR LRT, and to Maharajalela via the monorail.


Drinks were not allowed in at Rock The World 5 at Stadium Merdeka, but thanks to my new bag (again, thanks to Shaz Claus), my 1 liter bottle hid calmly inside. I bumped into Karen. Her hair was a victim of smuggled alcohol.


The set list. Surprisingly, not too many changes.


During Rock The World 3 and 4, Mandarin Oriental hotel could be seen; this round, it was Mandarin Court hotel.


That Bentley blues meister shreds metal with The Hidden!

I didn’t take much pictures in the media area since my camera wasn’t up to it. Better pictures were taken with Nora‘s camera. Jenifer’s picture gallery also has some pretty ones.

It’s a bit sad, though, how Rock The World 5 ended with Disagree. Not that I disagree with them being there, but they just don’t have the cult status that Butterfingers (staple Rock The World show-enders) have.

But hey, Jason Lo said there were 20 thousand people, twice the amount of previous Rock The World concerts. Definitely better off than the Too Phat and Friends concert (or rather, One Phat!) which supposedly had a meagre turnout. For once, the rockers seem to have engulfed ebonic music (probably ten-fold).

In other unrelated developments, Ed and Bobby are now official proteges of mine… in solving the Rubik’s Cube. Ed even silicon-sprayed one of my rough un-original cubes (they lack springy feel.) When I first tried it, it was like changing from an SUV to a Mazda RX-8. (In Need For Speed: Underground 2, that is.) So smooth, with a tendency to oversteer.

I like Mozilla Firefox when coupled with the Mouse Gestures plugin. If only it didn’t crash so often.

I also like these Philips SBC HP200 headphones Will got me for my birthday/Christmas present. When maxed out in the Sound Blaster control panel, its bass distortion (if any) is actually pleasant! Yes, nobody in the office will be spared from its volume.

What would be a cool Christmas gift? A drumset.

BISI-DiGi-KLCC

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Friday


Jenifer and I went to the Young KL Singers’ Beat It Sing It, and Tracy got us the best seats. Yes she did. Right behind her, so close we could see her sheet music and read who the composer was. 🙂

Saturday

I went for the DiGi Youth Forum in the morning; Jason invited me. There, we spotted Instant Cafe Theatre celebrities. Funny thing is, one of the people I couldn’t recognize was my facilitator.

They gave us free DiGi SIM packs! Thanks to them, my sister can live a normal urbanite teenage life with her newly acquired number. (I already have a number, remember?)


Then there was this posh, free lunch at Senja. Sweet.

Still, I only had half as much fun as I should have; I left halfway through to head to KLCC for an unofficial Xfresh gathering. I am but too lazy to annotate details, and so, I leave your attention spans to gorge on these pictures:


They say a boy with gadgets will attract attention. I say this picture is cute.


She has a secret identity: Elastigirl.


For once, I managed to take a picture, without flash, but using the flash of some other camera! Such tricks require the best of skill… or luck. Notice that the other cameraman’s hand is dark, so it couldn’t be my flash.

Dated Updates

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I’ve been putting off a picture gallery blog posting for ages because of my lousy 9.6kbps-like Streamyx connection. The days will have dates:

Wednesday, 17th November 2004

I headed to Block E, HELP College again, for the Motley Fest. While having a teh tarik at a mamak in Bangsar, I called Jamie to ask if she was going. “Oh it’s in Block E? (Opens door.) Whoa! What is this?”

I was there for the rock gig, as well as the HELP chicks. Yeah.

I wasn’t holding a digicam as professional as Joy‘s so I had to shoot from the top of my head. Literally. We sat too close to get a wide view, and by then, the auditorium was filled. Kevin of John’s Mistress said it was funny playing to a seated audience.


From above: John’s Mistress, Naked Breed and Prana. Prana sounded weird without the vocalist and deejay. 🙁


Check it out, the didgeridoo is miked (and plugged into an amp!)


As far as HELP celebrities go, there is the obligatory crazy off-center shot with Ayunami, the Linda Onn lookalike.

Saturday, 20th November 2004

Fazri and I took our time getting lost getting from Bandar Tun Razak STAR LRT to Aznin’s open house to One Utama and back to the LRT. I then headed to Le Bernardin for Shelley Leong‘s Songwriters Avenue.


From left: Kevin, Zal and Khai (Justin Guber?) Here, Kevin was Broken Scar. I had never seen Zal alone on guitar; her voice was, well, excellent and was one of the reasons Cosmic Funk Express was deserving of that spot in Rock The World 5. Khai sang his Ballad Of Justin Guber, and it explained just who Justin was. Zal finished with an invitation to jam in the key of E. Khai’s rock solo on an acoustic was cool.

The songwriters played in round-robin fashion, meaning they took turns to play one song each.


From left, going downwards: Max and some dude, some dude, some dude, some dude, some dude, Ahmad the dude, Jerral the Shelley guitarist dude, the dude who I bump into often and the organizer herself, and Shelley with the beautiful guitar one could win from buying her CD. Imagine! The fretboard could extend till the bridge since there was no soundhole below the strings!

Meanwhile, in the office, some of us broke the 4-year-old chairs:

Once you’ve sat down, you wouldn’t want to get up.

Due to the lack of chairs, we had to pack off some stuff staff.

Saturday, 27th November 2004

YK, Tech and I went to Bintang Walk in search of Transformers. He ended up getting the Dead End Alternator (the Japanese Binaltech equivalent wasn’t worth it, even though it was die-cast, as the car didn’t have a shiny finish.)

We then headed to Great Eastern Mall. So much for greatness; I hadn’t seen such a small shopping mall in a long time. It was even smaller than say Ampang Park, supposedly one of the first shopping malls to have been built in Malaysia. At Alexis Bar, Tracy was already sitting in her reserved table, and most tables were reserved so YK and I went up to Chicken Rice Shop to have dinner. We knew 9pm was late, as the lights were off already!

“Are you guys still open?”
“Oh sorry lah blackout.”

As we walked away from the counter, the electricity came back on.

By the time we got back to Alexis for Pete Teo‘s songwriter’s round, Alda and Debbie had to sit on bar stools! For most of us rockers, it was awkward to be in such a classy place.

How unlikely it was that Warmpaw would come as well, so I could follow her back. 🙂


From left: Az, Melina (of Tempered Mental), Eugene Ng (a Chinese singer), Roslan “jaga pitching” Aziz and Mukhlis (the songwriter for Zainal Abidin’s Hijau – no wonder he sounded like him!)

Again, it was in round-robin fashion. Az added comic effort in songs like “Lagu Royalti Belum Datang“, ending his song with “oh there’s the postman!” I bought his Acoustic Gestures album that night. Look for me in the credits!

Melina was excellent, and her voice projected clearly and strongly that night. She played Tempered Mental compositions on solo guitar, complete with all the progressive fills! Sure, the bass and guitar solos weren’t there, but it was cool to hear the song in your head, expect the riff, and see her play it! (Khoo, the guitarist, was for my first time ever seen with an acoustic guitar, but he didn’t play.)

Eugene Ng reminded me of John Mayer somewhat as the girls fell for him. Mukhlis crooned and played lead fills on guitar, with Roslan as merely a rhythm guitarist.

That’s all, folks. May your connection be fast and consistent.

Live Performances

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Last Saturday

It was the HELP Battle Of The Bands. It was a while back, so pardon my bad recollection. I waited at Bangsar PUTRA LRT for the bus to Pusat Bandar Damansara. Apparently, so was this other girl, as I ran out to the main road to see if that Triton bus was the right one. She ran out too. The correct bus came, and we both got on. She received a phone call and went, “What? It started already?” I got off when she did, and we both ran about, lost. I wanted to ask if she knew where it was, but she was on the phone, trying to get directions. We found Block E after a while.



Pretty, pretty lights. Too bad the sound wasn’t anywhere as good.

Few bands knew how to sound good; this 3rd place winner sang in tune.


Married To Guns was fun to watch, with the vocalist/guitarist doing his dancy The Darkness – I Believe In A Thing Called Love cover as well as Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger. They even ended with the solo bit of Metallica – Nothing Else Matters!

Alda of Cosmic Funk Express looked superbly funky that night.

We then went to Hartamas Square, where we had free beer on the winners, Cosmic Funk Express.

Wednesday

Shaz, JJM and I were supposed to break fast at Kelana Jaya, where Shaz would pick up his ride. Problem was, his ride wasn’t ready for him to shoot off to Cyberjaya to hand in his assignment, and so JJM became chaffeur. He introduced me to the mechanic, and I was to collect his Mercedes Benz when it was done.

I didn’t want to sit around Syed’s any longer, being bloated, so I called Dustyhawk, knowing he lived nearby. I got instructions to his house, and called again.

“Dude! Is your road SS5A/18?”
“No it’s not, you ASS. You overshot, you ASS. ‘FOO.”

I turned around and spotted him waiting outside his road, where he continued with his verbal assault.

It wasn’t till I got in that his momma showed him who was boss. She was.

She continuously expressed her love and concern (“aiyo I tell you this Lionel useless host one!“). I shall not go into details, but his room is sparkling clean for a guy. I got online on Lionel’s monitor (which read AS5S hence his continuous tribute to it). Shaz called, asking me to get back there to wait for the car with Maman. Lionel’s mom made him drive me there.

When we got there, Maman was there, and he lit a cigarette. Lionel borrowed one, as well as the lighter. We got the drift that his mom didn’t know that her son was smoking.

Shaz and JJM returned a bit too soon, so I didn’t get to test his new seats. Lionel, Shaz and I sat at Syed’s again, thinking of the original plan – to go watch Latte at 8 at Sunway Pyramid’s Starbucks at midnight. We went to visit Lionel’s mom again to get her permission.

“I hope she doesn’t give me more bags of starfruits, man.” – Shaz

She went on about his underwear and how angry she was walking from Pudu STAR LRT station to Bintang Walk due to her son’s misdirection. She went all out to humiliate Lionel in the most funny way possible.

“Aunty, can we take your son to see Latte at 8 at midnight at Sunway Pyramid?”
“Sure, can! As long as he doesn’t hisap rokok then can.”

I laughed my loudest then.

We went, and got major prime position seats. It wasn’t too close to the stage, and yet, we could see everything.


Close up.


Adam Carruthers and Marion Caunter of 8TV Quickie with some girl who should’ve won the Nokia 3200 at the HELP Battle Of The Bands. Yes, this was the first time I’d ever seen Marion after hearing so much about her cuteness.


Zahid of Disagree sports a new glittery Gibson Les Paul, with Hamka on percussion


In one of the secret tunnels out, we found the Bus Channel (Lionel poses)

Oh, and I was at a guitar shop in Sunway Pyramid. There was a guy testing a guitar and I was happy for once, because usually when someone tests a guitar, they probably know what to play. He was just playing very sloppily, very average – like me. 🙂

P.S. Welcome Evening Drama to the links in my About Me! page.