Category Archives: Rants

Well, More Like Sunset At That Time

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And now, for pictures from the first week of Sunrise Mont Kiara Jazz & Rhythm Fest, 28th July 2006 and 29th July 2006.


Dan Nizam is one fifth of…


…the Rachel Guerzo Quartet, which…


..features her father, Salvador Guerzo…


…and her uncle Louis Soliano.


Vincent Ong included makes five, so it should be a quintet, yes?


Ivan, Shaz and Jasiminne get up on stage with kids to win prizes!


Next up was Lewis Prasagam, hard-hitting drummer, with…


…Chris Wright, who got all the girls’ attention…


…and Wan Asfarezal on bass.


Bruno Leflanchec looks like Paul McCartney.


He also plays a mean flute.


Elvira Arul came on for guest vocals.


Into the void.


Keeran from the Malaysian Dhol Federation.


Jimmy the “Prince of Sax”…


…the photogenic…


…snake charmer.


Funky hair, yo.


And on to Saturday the 29th!


Steve Thornton…


…and his percussion unit.


Jamie Wilson on silent guitar.


Amir Yussof.

And now, for a technical rant. The lighting was bright enough, so don’t use flash! (This goes especially to those digital SLR users, who could afford ISO1600. One Nikon D70s user was afraid to go above ISO200. What the heck?) I’d underexpose by one or two steps (or else the motion blur will cause a white blurry mess). Never mind that the background was dark, as long as the details on white shirts can be seen. ‘sides it would be better to have a dark, broody sharp (due to fast shutter speed) contrasting image than a bright, colorful, but blurry image. Also, the colored lights are funky.

Most shots were in the 1/80th of a second range, ISO 200, F5.6 aperture (on those zoomed all the way).

My next Jazz Fest entry should include a musical rant then. 😀

Ironies

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We don’t talk a lot, but everyone talks about us.

We talk a lot, but noone talks about us.

I hate it when I’m online in the wee hours of the night morning, and I find it hard to keep my eyes open (even without MSN Messenger open) and I’m struggling to finish just that last bit of whatever it is I’m doing…

…and I pull through. The energy reserves kick in. I finish my stuff. Except of course, that I’m no longer sleepy.

In 367 days, the live action Transformers movie will be launched. The official website says 7.4.7. Damn Americans! Turns out it wasn’t 7th of April 2007 but 88 days later, on the 4th of July 2007.

On a side note, Superman Returns was disappointing. I’d expect action from Bryan Singer, who did X-Men 1 and 2; instead we got loads of majestic shots of Superman hovering slowly, taking a cue from Cartoon Network’s Captain Linger. At least Captain Linger is funny!

I remember Superman 1 and 2 being epic, with Superman doing amazing feats. Now, he does amazingly ridiculous feats and spouts corny lines. Thankfully, they retained that warm technicolor 1970’s color tone. The Superman movies also probably invented product placement, (he throws the villian into a Coke billboard) and the tradition is retained in Superman Returns. At over 2 and a half hours, it is best you find a comfy seat if you were a fan. GSC 1 Utama’s headrests hurt!

P.S. Look out for one of Lex Luthor’s henchmen, who seems like he’s just tagging along because Lex promised him some White Castle. 😀

Passion.

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A recent meeting made me wake up and realize what was missing.

You want something done, you do it yourself. There’s passion because you know exactly how you want it. Paying someone to do it won’t work. An elderly mechanic can be paid to install a turbocharger in your car, but he won’t feel the passion to calibrate your car to maximize its performance. It’s not his car; it’s not him who wants that boost.

I have a vision, but I don’t want to have an MBA or be in a leadership position to see such changes take place.

I have it, I still do. And I look at it wistfully while following the path away from it.

If your mother (God forbid) was hit by a drunk driver, would you continue working for Heineken? What do people at British American Tobacco do? I imagine a bunch of people smoking in suits, thinking of evil ways to sell more cigarettes using psychological mindplay.

Of course, BAT has some amount of social consciousness. They provided a full scholarship for one of my deserving friends, who isn’t a Bumiputera. (I do not want redundant comments about how Malaysia is screwed. People do nothing but whine, and whining isn’t changing anything unless it is to the right people.)

Can you live with yourself? All you people want is more money. A bigger car and bigger exhaust and more pollution. You earn more but you spend more, continuously comparing yourself to a richer person. Get… real. Come sit with me at a mamak.

Do you remember as a kid, wanting to be a doctor, teacher or engineer? Coming out clueless, taking a Mass. Comm. degree while still being clueless, and being clueless, going into say Public Relations or copywriting and promoting one sugary drink over another.

If you’re clueless what to do (and thus, would do anything) could you at least do something that is beneficial for humanity?

(I know some PR people who aren’t in such brainwashing schemes so this is not intended for any of my friends. Really. And kudos to those who keep it real.)

P.S. The winner for the fourth Guess That Trashcan is Steph again! Yes, it was at The Curve. I thought it was one of the easier, more distinct ones anyway.

Patchy

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Congratulations, hey!
Just when I expected this cabbage to grow grey
It was green just like everyone else’s
Hydroponic but sprayed with peppers

You are bland, you are damned
You are packaged, you are in demand
You still taste like your flavoring
You only taste like your flavoring

Grow and blossom, you say you did
But you’re still tasteless, you came from the same seed
You’d be better chewed up, you aid shit
Better laying as soil on a back street

Raid I

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Since you guys enjoy looking at various parts of my body, I shall enthrall you with another shrunken picture.


If you can’t read the text on the image, it says, “My camera’s red eye reduction is not working.”

I’m being emo, with the realization of it all, but find no time to blog about it, rambling otherwise over random chords which will be forgotten. Electrical energy from the brain triggers chemical energy translated into kinetic energy, and then to heat energy and sound energy on guitar strings, and…

Whoa, where does the sound go? Does it heat the walls?

Oh, speaking of questions, I watched the fictional Da Vinci Code movie. I quite forgot who was who and who worked for who and who was whoever’s master on the Opus Dei or Priory Of Scion. However, I did Google The Last Supper, and hey… that’s not supposed to be Mary Magdalene; it’s supposedly John. If Mary was there, wouldn’t there be 14 people in total, instead of 13? (Jesus, 12 disciples including Judas, and Mary.) Quite annoying was the super big apertures used, like in the scene where Professor Langdon gets in the elevator, and the camera is rolling its manual focus in and out all over the place. It was as if the scene was created just to show that effect!

I reckon they might’ve gotten some F1.2 lenses to play with. 😮 The extreme macro effect was apparent when Sophie was about to be ambushed by the baddie lurking in the background, even more blurred out than in any other movie. Understandably, the moviemakers probably were not allowed to install lamps all over, so they had to use extra big apertures to shoot in natural light. (I’m just guessing here.) Despite that, the faces were rarely completely, sharply focused.

Which runs back to me being emo. Do you want to know the truth, or continue living the happy lie?

But enough of that! I hereby announce the all-new Guess The Trashcan series. Guess where this trashcan was from! The first person to answer correctly will be pimped in my next blog entry. I promise at least one paragraph.


Here’s an easy one.

An Ode To Indomee

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So William brought me to this mamak near Taman Bahagia LRT station, where he reckoned that they’d serve food to fix my craving.

Yes, I am a boring mamak person (in terms of food, not conversation, I think…); I go to mamaks and order the same thing. Back then it was nasi lemak (until the allergy to peanuts returned). Then I tried cheese naan and blogged many blog posts about it. Then there was Uncle Lim’s roti bakar.

However, I have found a new food item to benchmark mamaks by:

Indomee.

Indomee, Indomee.

A celebration of mee.

In this day and age where mee goreng is saturated with oil and parsley and onions and prawns and cucumbers and garlic and carrots and other weird things, Indomee is a return to the basics.

Indomee is not about the brand. When you order Indomee at a mamak, you’re not paying for the brand of IndoMie Mi Goreng; you’re paying for them to keep all that junk out. Indomee isn’t the brand; Indomee is the preparation. Indomee is to Maggi Mee as Chinese Fried Rice is to Kampung Fried Rice.

What makes an Indomee?

1) mee
2) the brown sauce, somewhat salty and savoury but does not leave an icky coating on your tongue like Hokkien Mee, and
3) the half-boiled egg “sunny-side-up” egg, or telur mata kerbau (thanks to the well-eatery-travelled KY for the correction.)

Anything else is junk.

You take the jiggling yellow egg yolk, you poke a hole on its surface, and you dribble it all over the mee. The egg yolk mixes with the brown sauce, unleashing the hidden flavor.

You then twirl some strands of mee, slice a bit of floppy egg white and stab it with your fork. Place food in mouth and enjoy!

William wondered what it would be like, with chicken.

I say no!

The essence of Indomee is the principle. Simple, with just three items. No chicken. Chicken distracts. It’s supposed to be a celebration of mee; not mee complementing the chicken. (Similiarly, I believe that Chinese Fried Rice should not have any item bigger than a prawn, like an awkward vegetable stalk.)

The other essence of Indomee is its ease to eat. No parsley, no carrot, no peas, no onions, nothing for any fussy eater. The sauce is not soupy, so there’s no dribble.

The last essence? The softness/floppiness. The mee is soft and springy. So is the egg white. Adding chicken, bacon, sausages, onions makes the meal not as soft and fast to digest.

Options

The waiter will often ask if you want single or double packet, as a single packet is never filling. However, be wise! Having double packet will mean twice the mee, but with only one egg; the ratio of egg yolk to brown sauce will not be optimal.

Hence, you should instead order two Indomee plates, so you get enough egg to go around.

I’m gonna pick up my guitar and write a song.

(P.S. Picture not included because I don’t want to crave Indomee each time I visit my own blog.)

Random Emo Post To Paint Nails Black To

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I have all these voices in my head telling me to do this, to do that. So many things to accomplish, but they contradict each other. Going uphill slow, then crashing and tumbling downhill.

Depressing.

The last thing I need is another book, another opinion because that’s rarely what I want to read.

(Edited add-on): So I was Googling Transformers Cybertron Downshift to find out which muscle car he most looked like, when I stumbled upon the coolest mother, ever. She played bass, listened to proto-punk and drove muscle cars. And her son got a Fender for his birthday!

Com-Plain Roti None

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Some ex-colleagues rave about the food in my office cafeteria, finding excuses to come over for the classic Chinese Fried Rice. Some current colleagues can’t stand the food here and complain that it never changes.

Till one fine day when we got a memo via email about the new Tandoori Chicken with Roti Naan. Being the Cheese Naan and Tandoori Chicken lover I was, I had to check it out. Besides, where else would you get it during lunch hour? Normal naan-providing eateries only open in the evening. (However, they only served it on Mondays and Thursdays.)


I eagerly awaited Thursday for the debut of the meal set. Sure, the plate isn’t appealing, but which is more important: The tea you drink, or the cup you drink the tea in?

The chicken was excellent, juicy with the right amount of exaggerated crisp. Satay isn’t satay without burnt carcinogens, yes? The mint sauce looked like peppermint with chocolate ice-cream but was good anyway.

However, that was no roti naan – that was a chappati! It sure looked and tasted like the flat, dry bread.

And so, I did something Malaysians would not do.

Complain to the right people.

From: (me)
To: (the sender)
Subject: RE: Cafeteria Special

Hi

Long Hair Can Do

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And now, for something different. Albert talks about shampoo!

Ever since I dyed my hair blue, I was not to ever use regular shampoo; I was supposed to use color-lock shampoo.

And so, I bought Sunsilk’s color-lock shampoo, a red bottle of shampoo. What a sham. It wears your dye out faster than you can say ‘senile peacock‘.

It wasn’t until I was wandering around aimlessly in Jaya Jusco Kepong that I called Leech to ask what color-locking shampoo she used to keep her then wonderful purple streaks. She said Loreal. (The voice in my head said, “Because you’re worth it.“)

And so I went home, and upon opening it, I immediately smelled the difference – it was citrus-ish, and yet, strangely appetizing. I applied it to my hair. It seemed to just… absorb into my hair!

Even when washing it off, I could feel the difference. It was silky! It was smooth! It was coated… unlike the Sunsilk one, which just seemed to wash off hair oils, leaving my hair frizzy and unable to hold any position (e.g. tucked.) Plus, after washing off the Sunsilk shampoo, I could see the suds on the bathroom floor stealing my hair color. 🙁

And oh, the smell! As long as they make shampoo smell this good, I will never get to have dreadlocks. (My original plan was to dye my hair, then grow it long and make a mess out of it, getting natural dreadlocks, then going bald.)

The best thing about the shampoo, however, is its fragrance – I just came back from drenching my hair in cigarette smoke at the-now-paying Twilight Action Girl at Zouk, and it managed to get rid of the smell! I usually take two washes to stop smelling like an ashtray.

If you think I’ve gotten a newfound girly fetish with hair, well it is not the shampoo models I covet. My inspiration for my style, long and straight comes from these macho rock bands:

Left: A screen capture of Extreme – More Than Words, featuring vocalist Gary Cherone and guitarist Nuno Bettencourt in a tender ballad, an escape from their funk metal tendencies. Don’t listen to Frankie J‘s version; he made it too much of a vocal showoff, losing the tender acoustic vulnerability of the original. Plus his vocal histrionics made it sound damn gh3y.

Right: A screen capture of Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under The Bridge, featuring vocalist Anthony Kiedis in this confessional ballad about losing a guitarist to hard drugs, an escape from funk rap rock. All Saints did a good cover of it; they didn’t overdo the vocal histrionics.

Yeah, I think you can see what I’m getting at – strong features with past-shoulder-length hair. I knew my hair was long when I could tuck it under my shoulders.

Yeah yeah so Anthony didn’t dye his hair then; he left the hair-coloring to Flea, who probably never had the same hair color in consecutive music videos! But Flea is blonde, and bleaching his hair would turn it white, so he could have proper blue (like in the By The Way video.)

Snatch A Smell

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This morning, I heard an attempted snatch theft. Yeah, heard, not saw, as I was walking out the passageway of the house. A scream, and a loud motorbike screech was heard. (And my uncle, still sitting, who was reminding us to look for the license plate number.) By the time my mom and I rushed to the door, all we saw was a distraught girl with a handbag, and keys. At least she was alright.

My mom then urged my father to walk her to the bus stop, where she was headed. Perhaps it’s a good thing that my dad looks scruffy and suspicious somewhat, because while he isn’t a criminal, a thief would pick on much more innocent-looking prey.

Which explains somewhat, why I want to look badass, with my messy long hair and goatee. Better to be scary than to be scared, yes? I can blend in with Central Market without weirdos coming up to me, saying, “No, I’m not a gang member.” anymore.

Sure, I get stopped by the police once in a while, but I just show them my IC and tell them of my good intentions. I actually sigh in relief, knowing someone who looks as scraggy as me gets stopped, because there are less messy-looking criminals out there.

This attempt happened right in front of my grandma’s house, about the same place where my sister was robbed. Now all we need is my grandpa (on the other side… of the family) to sit in the porch with a shotgun.

Anyway, I have to agree that Handbags are like virginity.

Why do girls carry handbags?

In a way, to me, it helps objectify women as objects, where a bulging purse would spoil the curves.

I have major respect to Fireangel, who I’ve never seen with a handbag, and appreciates cargo pants.

Of course, it could just be that their purses are huge and double the length… of mens’ wallets. Maybe we should give girls name card holders to use as wallets, as a practice in minimalism.

I don’t see why ladies want smaller and slimmer phones, and small cameras, when their handbags can fit digital SLRs, a few lenses and a corded phone.

What else is in there? Make up, for touchups.

We should have powdering rooms in Malaysia. That way, women need not carry make up kits around. Make sure it is well furnished with all tones. This could be a business, with disposable brushes sold in vending machines. A coin-operated perfume spraying machine could also do wonders! Instead of having perfume sold in expensive bottles, have perfume companies sell vending machines to shopping malls. Best part about it is, any other woman can get a preview of the smell, being in the proximity, and if she likes it she can spray herself too.

I swear I get the best ideas while on the porcelain throne.