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. 🙂

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.