Monthly Archives: May 2005

Dude, Sweet!

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A Lot Like Love is a romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet… except that things are not thrown in your face (except the many smooching scenes.)

Anyone would notice that on the plane, the lights on the two stars are brighter. Fewer would notice Ashton being the only guy dressed in light blue (when he gets the call) while everyone else in the office is drab dark grey.

Even more interesting is how the scenes and years cut to each other. You are suddenly thrown into a scene where a SUV is being towed next to a sea. Did they drive it into the sea? A dialogue later explains what happened. You think they merely kissed in the airplane toilet? Later dialogue makes you think otherwise.

Bloody heck, I think they ripped off the narration sequencing from my blog.

Notice how I go, “So I lost at pool. I paid for Joseph’s dinner.” instead of the usual, “Joseph and I went to play pool. I lost. I paid for his dinner.” (This is the simplest example; I unintentionally reverse the order.)

Yes, it was cool to have a movie not tell you everything and yet not be the Matrix Trilogy.

Jeanne, Pull!

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I was chilling out with two nice guys from Victoria Institution. For those not familiar with Kuala Lumpur, Victoria Institution is one of the more famous boys schools near the Bukit Bintang area.

Nice Guy A: Ever since Bukit Bintang Girls School moved out, the boys have had to hang out in shopping malls there more often. I miss those BBGS girls; they had some sophistication about them. Some educatedness.

Nice Guy B: Well they’ve relocated and become Seri Bintang Utara. And they have boys now.

Nice Guy A: Yeah, but they’re like really backwater guys from villages. (If you are such an educated male from the school formerly known as BBGS, please correct us!)

Me: Oh My God! So that must be God’s way of balancing the universe.

Nice Guy B: Yeah, an ironic way of maintaining variety in the gene pool.

After dinner the conversation turned to Nice Guy A’s luck with chicks. How was it that an English-educated chick who was so meant for him was now with a Chinese-educated dude that we both know? (No offense to either but ideologies and cultures will clash.) He wasn’t exactly great-looking or rich, you know. But he was a lucky dog. Somehow it came to this conclusion:

We’re educated intelligent men. No wonder we haven’t been getting the action. It’s God’s way of balancing the gene pool.

Nice Guy A: Haha, f*** you. (Of course, being nice guys we do not take profanities in this context to lead to tables flipping.)

Like Real Train Seat

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I was getting on the STAR LRT at Masjid Jamek when I heard a voice:

“Excuse me, er… ini tren ke Ampang ke?” (Translation: Is this train going to Ampang?)

I turned to the electronic signboard, saw that it was indeed going Ampang, so I turned around and said yes.

It was a Chinese chick!

Even weirder was that she then went to sit on the benches of the station instead of getting on the train.

Now I was not insulted despite my fairness that she thought I was Malay, or that I looked like a Chinese who could not speak Chinese. I’d prefer that Chinese people assume I can’t. (I can’t anyway.)

Dammit, why couldn’t it be like this case?

Another Swipe

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Oh my goodness more pictures!


Maybe I should get the Nissan Fairlady Z next.


Or the Honda NSX-R.


However, I cannot resist the Dodge Viper SRT-10. The Americans have a winner! It was nice for once, to have the wind blow my hair up and back. Don’t know why the windscreen couldn’t be taller though. Plus you might wanna wear a cap in the blistering sun, but that will be blown away!


Alright, so I am that predictable. It’s from the cheaper Transformer Alternator series, and it’s second-hand (a display unit) so I got it cheaper still. (It’s nearly impossible to find this Alternator-series Sideswipe.)

Hide Then Charge

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I just got my salary!


Happy mother’s day I say. I got her an SUV.


Of course, the flashy Mugen Honda S2000 is my new favorite. I’ve only seen one S2000 in Malaysia, plus Mazda RX-8s are too common.


Okay so it’s a two-seater and it’s a convertible, not exactly practical in Malaysia.


So I itched and made my RX-8 a convertible too.


Meet Decepticharge, a new release from the Transformers Alternators series. He’d jab you if only his fists weren’t swapped!


Well, nothing a positive head with a positive-head Philips screwdriver can’t fix.


He is a skinny-legged top-heavy warrior. You gotta dig how he folds the bonnet to his back, instead of him lugging his car shell with him.


Left to right: Tracks, Decepticharge, Meister (who starred in Fazri’s Guessing Game)
Now, if you don’t have a Honda S2000, which one should you get? The spanking new dirty yellow Decepticharge, or the classic Autobot red Windcharger? Windcharger, I say; Decepticharge’s color tones are uneven from painted roof to door to floor. The sporty decals are fictitious and don’t look as appealing as Smokescreen’s. The bonnet (engine cover) is painted black, a retro scheme. I should have followed my instincts (humans have them, use it!) and bought a red Windcharger instead of the spanking new Decepticharge in the shop. Immediately you can see that the door and roof seams are nowhere as nice as Windcharger’s (maybe the color hides it). I couldn’t get it to align properly.


Transformers Energon Powerlinking Ironhide however was a pleasant surprise.


His legs can be extended to match the height of a gestalt (combiner).


Powerlink Optimus (Energon Hotshot below): Hey I think you got on backwards.
Yes it’s true; big Powerlink dudes can Powerlink with small Powerlink dudes. Though big guys shouldn’t be on top or you get Optimus Primal’s big-armed syndrome.


That’s more like it. Small arms but it looks much more massive.

Added 6 hours later: Ironhide’s turret head can be removed, so he looks like a proper SUV! Rejoice, YK!


The big family: Left to right: Tracks, my hybrid combiner, Ironhide, Powerlink Downshift (with Rodimus underneath).

I am not done. 😉

Gone Fishing

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“There are many more fish in the sea.”

Why do they call it fishing? As in, the act of a guy getting a girl? They make fishing sound like an active activity rather than a passive activity. (Passive activity, what an oxymoron!) You sit, you throw your rod, and you wait. What skill is there required to hold it? You’re not actively catching fish. Unless of course you bring a net or a bomb.

Making Music With Substance

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*names and identities have been hidden to hinder narcs

So I was hanging out at my friend’s friend’s house. Barney the purple abomination was playing on TV to his two toddlers (will kids remember this or the Teletubbies 10 years from now the same way we revere Sesame Street?) Nearby, a hot chick (who was not old enough to look like a mother) was fashioning something out of a mineral water bottle, presumably a contraption to feed babies with. Awww how motherly, I thought.

The father’s bandmate was showing off his latest Cakewalk 10/8 (or whatever odd timing) progressive-like industrial rock composition. We geeked out at his crunchy guitar tone.

They adjourned to the balcony. “Do you wanna join us and smoke up?” My answer can be found here.

I thought my friend and I were there solely for the purpose of babysitting the kids, but one of them followed her mother to the balcony.

They returned, red-eyed. Oh, so the bottle was a do-it-yourself bong similiar to that of a shisha. Ingenious. The kid walked into my friend. My friend went “ow“. The kid hobbled on, happy.

At least they did it in the balcony, so I didn’t have to come home smelling suspicious.

The father unveiled an electric guitar, and his friend broke his A string. Yes kids the thick hard 5th string. So we continued geeking out, me asking about something. He answered something totally different (but still related to music.) I asked something else. Again, he gave a somewhat coherent, but totally unrelated answer. Yes kids, woking smeed brucks your fain.

Perfourmance

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So I’m stuck between 4 possible plans for this Saturday 21st. So you’ve got no plans and finished your exams. So I’m being helpful by doing a community service announcement.

Event 1:
What: Rawg Dawg Music Fest Finale
Where: Paul’s New Place, Old Klang Road
When: 5pm 21st May 2005
How much: RM10 with free drink
Who: Lurks, Warve, Auburn, Moodbox, Stonebay, 11th Hour, Infiltrated, Inverted Coma, Beat The System, Roots In Boots, Ben’s B***hes, Furion Escalada, Love In Arson (from Terengganu)
Why: I have not seen Ben’s B***hes as a full band; their stage antics are hilarious

Event 2:
What: Tragic Lullaby II
Where: JamAsia, Crystalville Plaza, Desa Sri Hartamas
When: 5pm 21st May 2005
How much: Not sure but gigs never go past RM20
Who: Love Me Butch, John’s Mistress (unable to play due to unforseen circumstances) as far as I know
Why: JamAsia is convenient… for me.

Event 3:
What: Actorlympics: Stars War! Revenge of the colonic menaces
Where: The Actors Studio Bangsar
When: 8:30pm 21st May 2005
How much: RM40/45 (RM25 for students 15 years and above) – this is according to their official site but the flyer says RM47/42/32 (RM27 for students and senior citizens)
Who: Afdlin Shauki, Harith Iskander, Jason Lo, Gavin Yap, Ida Nerina, Nell Ng, Reza Zainal Abidin, Jit Murad, hosted by Patrick Teoh
Why: HILARIOUS. The Malaysian version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, unrehearsed comedy. Considering they don’t have a regular show like Drew Carey’s it’s a wonder they can pull off so many live jokes. Yes, I’ve seen it, it’s that good. DJCS goes whenever it shows.

Event 4:
What: Marty Friedman guitar clinic
Where: Orange Club, Jalan Kia Peng, KL
When: 6:30pm 21st May 2005
Who: Marty Friedman is the lead guitarist for thrash metal band Megadeth
Why: I love thrash metal

I promised Irene I’d go for Event 1 (plus I knew about it 3 months go) so yeah. Event 2? I can’t get Love Me Butch’s new stuff. Event 3? They’re also play-ing on Wednesday 18th May, 8:30pm and Sunday 22nd May, 3pm, of which I’m going on Wednesday. Event 4 well I found out a bit late and I’m not that familiar with Dave Mustaine and gang.

Oh, and on Sunday there’s also Huru Hara, a gig at Paul’s Place again, RM10 with free drink, 2pm, with Lied (angry alternative rock), Tempered Mental (progressive alternative rock), Y2K (funny punk covers), Furniture (spacey post-rock), Dragon Red (nu-metal) and Estranged (funky nu-metal). I’m going to forgo my Sunday sleep for that.

So you go, “Oh so that’s why you’re not online so often.”

Four Score

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7th May, a Saturday

I headed down to Plaza Mont Kiara for the Levi’s 501 party. Being one of the first 501 to line up, I found out just how generous they were:


There’s a noisemaker, Coca Cola vouchers, a Swatch catalogue, the latest issue of KLue, a KLue notepad, a Levi’s towel, a Levi’s 501 Day t-shirt and the coolest one – a Levi’s denim jacket organizer. People, be jealous!

So I was really there for the battle of the bands. Really.


Wow, what a pretty stage. So I met up Zack the funky cosmic expressionist at McDonalds, where his friend said I looked familiar.

“Yeahhh you had a sister who was my colleague right?”
“No I don’t have a sister…”
“Hmmm. Do you go to gigs then?”
“Nope…”
“Hmmm. Where have we met, then?”
“At the Fete De La Musique 2004? You bumped into me a few times and said I looked familiar.”
“Yeah but you did! You really do look like an ex-colleague of mine!”

How cool is that? I kept bumping into her thinking that she was familiar but she didn’t know me, to the point that I was familiar to her!


Passport in my books should not be let out of this country.


Three Flow featured Hunny of Admonition. But but isn’t Admonition also competing?


Sacred Highway, good old rocking hard rock. Prettier, bigger pictures are on Nadia‘s site. Yes I took all the pictures of their performance since she forgot to bring her camera.


The cherry-flavored colored Gibson SG on the left, an item of desire for many guitar geeks like myself.


For the non-rocker crowd they had hot dancers.


There’s a good reason why they arch their bodies like that;


They’d be pretty skinny otherwise.


I think they’re trying to prove that you can dance in a pair of 501’s. Sorry, I prefer to ogle at skirts.


Okay maybe they could sell this to acrobats. Yes they are all guys.


Urban Method didn’t quite stir the crowd. They lacked the energy of the two hip-hop/R&B bands before this.


Eternal Relief did pop punk but something was amiss. Tuning perhaps?


No that’s not Hunny in a cowboy hat for Admonition.


Media Puppets did their regular rock covers, with the band being happy that they had much more space to jump about.


Army Of Three featured Kevin‘s younger brother. Yeah the “your brother is so cute” one. Modern, heavy, riff-laden rock. I like.


They gave out sample Bugles (cone-shaped snacks) in cute cone-shaped holders. Yes I was bored. Of course I was also hungry before that.


Apparently, bored people in Starbucks play cards.

So yeah, Media Puppets won, Sacred Highway next, followed by Army Of Three.

11th May, a Wednesday

While waiting for the bus to Paul’s New Place, I found a wonderfully fast Ramli burger stall in KL Sentral, between the monorail station and the 7-Eleven. The flavor was close to the Universiti LRT burger stall, but prepared amazingly fast compared to normal burger stalls. I missed a bus while paying for the burger, but what the heck – I’ve got a burger. And two hours to burn. Eat burger. Enjoy burger. Buy another burger. Catch the same bus half an hour later. Sweet.


So I arrived at the Estranged – In Hating Memory EP launch to see One Buck Short doing some new pop punk songs. Too bad they didn’t play Led Zeppelin – D’yer Ma’ker; they only hinted at it during the soundcheck.


Tempered Mental pleasantly surprised me by playing their older stuff like Space In Time (with that riff everybody loved to sing), a regular song back when Estranged was hot in the scene (2002-2003).


Estranged had a new bassist, drummer and replacement lead guitarist. Despite 60% of the band being different, they managed to secure that vibe and sound they had when Alda played bass for them. Even the crowd was made of familiar faces which I had not seen since 2003. Of course, there was that short stint in Rock The World 4 that had a more dynamic (musically) and aggressive-sounding Estranged.


Guess what this is and where you can find it. The winner will get a mention in my blog and again, he/she will get the attention of loads of hot members of the opposite sex.


Those lights look like glowing soap. That said, glow-in-the-dark soap sounds cool. No electricity at night? You can still be soaped! It could prove to be erotic too.

Friday The 13th

I went for the Guinness Black Party, to further my study into the modern yuppie lifestyle. I bumped into Khai (who, oddly, I’d usually meet at The Loft, Zouk at that very same time every week.)


Get a steady shot on your digital camera by turning down your EV to say -2 and your ISO up to 400.


Fight fire with fire! (This is with default settings.)


Looking at this makes me want to drink stout. No wait. Looking at this makes me want to be a Duff Man myself.

I had 5 free tickets for bottles but I only needed one bottle to know that stout was like bitter chocolate, except not chocolatey. It wasn’t until the horrible aftertaste went away that the 8% alcohol kicked in, telling my brain:

*DUK* Dance to *DUK* Jungle *DUK* Jerry *DUK*

Fortunately, his mix of house music was easy to dance to; it was heavy and repetitive. (Az moment: What do you listen to when you’re at home, then?)


I met this Japanese chick on the dance floor and I asked her if she could speak English. She saw my camera and asked me if I was from Japan. No matter, we took a picture. 🙂

The crowd soon disappeared, and I walked to The Loft, Zouk, for Twilight Action Girl, those rock deejays, you know, where I bumped into Jess.

“You just came?”
“Yeah… I came from this, where I found out that stout sucks!” (I hold up my hand to show a wristband as proof I was at the event.)
“Oh.” (Jess sheepishly raises her wristbanded hand.)


I still think I prefer my good old beer lager. It still tastes bad, but not as bad as stout.

14th May, a Saturday

I woke up in the morning with Jungle Jerry in da house head. DUK DUK DUK.

I then met up with Syefri and Aznin at Bentley for Tempered Mental’s drum clinic. Okay so they performed Space In Time again, and there was an sponsor break. Then more songs. Then an explanation of the new Tama drumset. Was this a clinic? People asked. The emcee said, “oh this one is more of an introduction to the product… however, when Marty Friedman and Omar Hakim come down, they will definitely have time to teach you their tricks.”

Syefri and I shared Jimmy-the-drummer’s shocked expression.

So, in the interests of public, they had a drum geekout session after that.


I took a cab to Plaza Damas and found this shop, Carismen Dolce, selling guitars, basses and all sorts of string instruments, including a silent electric bass guitar and silent electric double bass!


So I was there to support Maximillan Lim for his “This is Acoustic! Part 1” gig. From left: Maximillan, Emmanuel (his guitar solo work is amazing and he’s Maximillan’s brother!) and Ian Chow (a guy with such an amazing booming voice he didn’t really need a microphone). Not so noticeable is that the guitars are, from left to right, red yellow and green.


Ian also plays mean harmonica.


Tracy does her thing, a bleak melancholic epic melody. Do not be fooled by her seemingly demure entries; she was describing Jackass stunts in vivid detail later at dinner.


Annette, Patrick‘s sister sings and shakes a shaker thing.


The performers that evening, from left to right: Alia, Maximillan, Emmanuel, Joachim, Annette, Ian, Tracy

Again, as usual, you could always ask me for videos, and I could tell you if I recorded one and if so how to pass it to you if you are a nice person.

And now, for the random picture unrelated to everything, to finish this blog entry:


Those damn termites have been stealing our parquet tiles. Those are expensive! What, do they think that wood grows on trees?

Hair Matter

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I just realized why guys keep long hair long.

The transition from schoolboy cut to “owww hair irritates my eyes” to “ewww hair irritates my nose” is memorable but hardly worth doing again.

“Woi when are you going to cut you hair?”

I don’t know, maybe when I know what to do with it. When it gets this long you’d think it’s not worth wasting all that effort for comfort.

So if it gets any longer I’d dye it some rare color (because I’m a cool conforming individualist) and get dreadlocks. If I could only choose one, I’d probably choose dreadlocks.

I haven’t had a proper trip to the Indian barber since June 2004.

Men keep long hair because they can’t stand anything in between short and something they can tuck behind their ears. I’m getting there, though pictures don’t really show it.

Headbanging is totally different when you can feel entire flaps of hair fly up, ventilating your scalp. Apparently, it looks cool too.

ON a side note, why do people spell the consumer electronics brand as Cannon and the local underground band as Frequency Canon?