Monthly Archives: May 2006

Everything But The Kitchen Linked

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To celebrate the new links I am adding, I shall also try to throw in a paragraph.

Raymond was just a Gundam modeller before he bought a Canon Powershot A610, and suddenly he found his true calling in life – he was the macro man. That’s right, macro man. Man, you gotta see what macro man can do with macro. I sure as heck didn’t think of those, and my camera’s 5 cm macro range stops me from being anywhere close to macro man. And hey, he’s not shooting flowers flowers flowers!

Lainie is the coolest lesbian ever. Makes you wanna be one just because she’s cool. She’s got her eye on events that are revelant to making you sound relevant. No idea what to blog about? Just hop over, go to one of the many gigs she promotes, take some pictures and viola! You are credibly cultured. And uh, don’t believe her disclaimers that her information is inaccurate – has anybody came a day early or late due to her site?

While Cheng Sim switches colors every two paragraphs, she manages to do so without hurting my eyes. Yes, Jolene, I didn’t read your blog for years because of your chameleon-like text syndrome. Thank goodness somebody knocked you on your head with… I don’t know what, but it sure as heck worked, and I’d like to buy one so I can knock some bloggers on the head with it too.

Jasiminne is a good return to camwhoring, similiar to the way it was in 1999. Remember envy.nu? All the mysterious webcam shots of yore, with bra in frame? The emo poetry when Glassjaw was emocore? The Paint Shop Pro users? Livejournal usernames like xxredvixenxx (you gotta have xx on both sides.) Girls invented some 1337speak too. <3 Fast-forward to now, and we have a endangered species. Bodicea is sharp and slays philosophers. She had allure and mysteriousness in those pictures (you ain’t fooling me, I met you in real life first!)

Matthew comments enough on my blog. And look at his picture! He has a face mask! Isn’t that like Counter-Strike? Man, oh man! Counter-Strike was like, 2000 man! Yes, I am a sucker for all things nostalgic.

Slinky is uh… slinky. Tan Yee Hou blogs with a touch of scientific geekiness, which I miss reading, in this mainstream age where everyone is trying to be the next Kenny Sia. Hell, I read my archives to be reminded of how much more geekier I used to write!

Fird has an interesting layout and good solid geek-styleposts. While he does have an interestingly-placed spot for ads, his site does not have the horrid clutter of ads and links and comment lists that befall eager beavers on WordPress.

Bernard sat next to me for one whole year in Secondary School, and I’d like to thank him for further cultivating the geek in me. We made a website called Certified Maniacs, and called it our geeky way of geeking chicks. I mean, uh, getting chicks. 6 years later, we meet again, him still the skinny fart, me still the skinny fart, and we geeked out about cameras.

Asyraf Lee is a professional photographer, with some reckoning on the dark side, and some knowledge beyond the visible light spectrum. 😉 Peek in his archives for an interesting wordy read.

Finally, uh… Steph has amazing skills and trashes everyone at spotting trashcans.

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

Tong Shin Walk

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Once, I walked with smashpOp to Tong Shin Hospital, from Central Market, so we uh… took pictures.


Guess where, or what, this is.


Stairway!


Metering.


Palm of the hill?


Gone fishing.


The plant tries to reach out.


For some reason, I imagine The Four Horsemen. (Used crossed polarizers for this effect.)


The hum of aircon matches the chatter of the dramas.


Windows.


One could stand at a junction all day and take panning shots, in the evening that is.


Walking along the fence.

Oh, and Flyz wins the Guess That Trashcan part 3, guessing Subang Parade before everyone else. I can’t really say much about someone I don’t know but he’s cool because he supports the local singer-songwriter scene.

Trashed Three

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And now, for the answer to the second instalment of the Guess That Trashcan series.

The trashed trashcan was on the island between Lot 10 Plaza and Sungei Wang Plaza. You’d see it if you crossed the road on Bukit Bintang Road.

Stephanie Foo answered “Bintang Walk” correctly, again. Since I can’t think of anything else to pimp you about I’ll just buy you Teh O the next time okay? 😀 (Or the equivalent in whichever place we happen to meet.)

I’m beginning to wonder if you have an affixation with trashcans, but hey it’s good to be observant.

cyber-red gets a close second place for guessing one half of it, “Lot 10“. Titoki gets 1/10th for guessing the other half – “Sg wang“, but she also threw in 4 other guesses, so we divide that half-right guess by five, and 1/10th accuracy gets you no pimpin’ link. Sorry.

Oh, and here’s Part 3.

P.S. I hope this series will subconsciously make Malaysians remember to throw their trash in trashcans.

That Rock Chic Gig

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And now, for pictures from the Rock Chic’s Night Out, ‘A Celebration of Rock Ladies’, a rock gig featuring female performers, on the 12th of May 2006 (see I updated within this month!)


Rhapsody was first, with their non-rock inclinations leading to samba and jazz stuff. Nicole’s powerful voice and stage presence is indeed captivating.


Dipha on guitars isn’t part of their usual lineup. Sadly, I think the guitar amplifier was too loud, and his classical guitar plucking was honking in my ears.


(Irrelevant pictures might get downsized, like Lainie‘s chicken chop. Yeah, she’s the man, she orders chicken chop during a rock gig.)


Plush was next. Credits to Jasiminne for this shot of Melina and a Flying V.


The bassist looks awfully like one of my friends. (I shall start abusing Hue/Saturation/Lightness effects from this point on.)


So does the drummer Stephanie. Well, maybe.


Izwin sings alternative rock songs.


(Beer and women. Happiness.)


Jack the shredder is given a few bars per song to solo! This was the first time I’d seen Tempered Mental do that.


Melina plays bass and sings over complex time changes in what else but progressive rock. Funky thin neck effect was accomplished with slow shutter speed and flash.


Applecreed was next. Check out the lyrics!


If you run out of space, write them on the other hand.


Nah, she wasn’t referring to her arms at all. I see a place where she could write a whole song on. 😉


Blunt does No Doubt covers and ska anthems.


Yes, you can be fashionable in black and white.


Candy is a band that has been around and has had a hit single Akan Ku Tunggu.


They’re serious, with serious, non-girly guitars like this Paul Gilbert Model Ibanez.


Spot the POD! No, not an iPod.

They did some hard rock, and sadly relegated to covers, e.g. Marion Raven – End Of Me, Cranberries – Zombie and Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit. However, they rocked harder than any other male-membered band who ever tried to cover those songs!

I wonder if this is what becomes of bands that don’t retire – they probably play in pubs and hotel lounges. Paul thinks they’re MILFs. 😀


The sweet (Candy) bits were when they did Guns & Roses – Sweet Child Of Mine, wailing solos and all, and riffed together to heavy metal instrumental, Iron Maiden – Transylvania! Jangan tak rock.

The emcee was Juliana of Fly FM, and she was telling lame jokes. Yeah, your jokes don’t fly!

More reading material is at Lainie’s, like lyrics and pictures and videos!

Can Guess Trashcan

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Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner for the inaugural Guess That Trashcan competition!

I present to you Stephanie Foo, regular reader (and first time commenter) and shisha-stoning buddy! She is cool, she knows people I know, she doesn’t know the difference between Chinese Tea and Teh O but I know some cool people who don’t, either.

To achieve the effect, I adjusted the levels on an infrared picture so the shadows were cyan and the highlights were still purple. I then used Hue/Saturation/Lightness to further break the face into more regions of saturated color.

P.S. If it wasn’t this Stephanie Foo who commented… uh, identify yourself more distinctively next time. 😛

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.

Stadium Arcadium In A Box

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My favorite ever band is back after four years!


This was RM99.90 at Victoria Music, on special offer.


The limited edition boxset has two audio CDs, one all-regions DVD, a 3D ‘layered’ cover, a bigger lyrics booklet, a notepad, a small wooden top with cardboard planets which can be put on it, artwork by each member, and…


The most interesting memento that came with it was… marbles! Unfortunately, the yellow one was already cracked.


This was probably the artsiest I could bother making the marbles look.

Of course, some of you might just go for the DVD, which is worth the price alone; it has the making of the Dani California video, the Dani California video itself, and a commentary of 25 songs. Interestingly, there is no interviewer during the commentary; Anthony and Flea are sitting on a sofa talking to each other about the songs, and Anthony tells Flea what each song is about, and Flea goes, “hmmm yeah that was what I was feeling, even before reading the lyrics“. They also talk about which songs they didn’t like at first. In the hall (I presume, the house they recorded Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Stadium Arcadium in) John and Chad talk about beats, grooves, and John occasionally picks up a guitar to show a riff. I wish they’d put a little sound clip for each song commentary, as I’d have to refer to the lyrics to see which song it was.

If you’re a fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ later stuff, get the double CD album; a true fan would get the box set.

Funny how Incubus followed a similiar path; start heavy with funk rap metal, make a sober mainstream album (Californication or Make Yourself), make a melancholic sleeper (By The Way or Morning View) and hit everybody back with the best of their styles (Stadium Arcadium or A Crow Left Of The Murder). The boys have a new winner, with a double CD the price of one CD.

Click here for the review of the two CDs, on freshly fresh-looking Xfresh.

On a side note, check out what I found on Rick Rubin, producer extraordinaire! He is going to produce:

  • Untitled – Justin Timberlake (2006), produced by Timbaland, Will.i.am and Rick Rubin (The Neptunes are not on the list, sadly… but Rick Rubin knows his rock and hip hop, so I’d expect something rather interesting from this tattoo-collecting bad-boy-becoming… boy.)
  • Untitled – Linkin Park(2006) (Another very interesting prospect; he might steer them into credible nu-metal. I didn’t care for them much other than Hybrid Theory and Meteora.)
  • Untitled – Slayer (supposed to launch 6–6–2006)
  • Untitled – Metallica (2006/2007) (Goodbye bass-playing Bob Rock. I reckon he’d let Kirk Hammett solo again.)
  • Untitled – Kid Rock (2006/2007)
  • Untitled – The Faint (2006/2007)
  • American VI – Johnny Cash (possibly 2007)

Man oh man, am I excited.

Sucker For Massage

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So I was bored, after getting a 1 Gigabyte Dual-Voltage Reduced-Size Multi-Media Card for my Nokia N70, and so I went to get the foot massage I intended to get sometime back. Yeah, no more freeloading off OSIM chairs; I wanted to try the real thing!

I walked down the famous Bukit Bintang Road, with all the foot massage parlors. Old ladies with laminated sheets called out. “Want foot massage? RM20 half hour.” they said. Some also said, “Young lady massage. Very nice wan.” I didn’t want any of that. The pictures also showed vacuum tubes and candles. No thanks.

I walked around, and none of the shops looked less seedy than the last.

And so, at the end of the block, I went to the other side, facing BB Plaza. Same rates, same look.

Up the curve, near The Chicken Rice Shop, however, was a Malay foot massage stall! It was open air, so no seedy business. I didn’t see any candles or needles or vacuum tubes, so I sat down on one of those vinyl-strung beach chairs.

A friendly-looking, slightly built looking Malay man attended to me. “Pertama kali?” (First time?) I said yes.

He convinced me to take the one-hour package because apparently, the half-hour one was only on the foot and didn’t get rid of the wind in my legs. Okay, whatever that meant.

He unrolled my trousers up to my knees, poured lotion all over, and started his work. I only cringed when he kneaded the bones with his knuckles.

Halfway through, he brought out a few bamboo-made cups (the size of a coffee mug) with Chinese insignia on them. Eh? He took out a fire torch, dipped it in a bottle of kerosene and lit it with a lighter!

Holding the cup upside down, he put the flaming torch inside the cup (presumably to create a vacuum) and swiftly cupped the cup on my knees, calves and base of my foot. He placed about 10! The torch was a bit too close, so I said, “errr jangan bakar bulu ya…” (don’t burn my leg hair okay?)

Apparently the longer the cups stay, the more wind I have in my feet. Some dropped off sooner than others, presumably it had finished draining the wind? I don’t know.

He timed it just nicely to finish by one hour. He eventually popped off the leftover cups, and the ‘windy‘ spots were red and sore. Massaging them stung a bit.

When I thought it was over, he then reclined my chair all the way. “Releks sikit“, he said.

He then put his legs around mine, as if to ride me like a horse! I instinctively covered my groin.

(And this is where one of my MSN nicknames came in…)

And then he got on top of me and said, “control pisang“.

He then massaged my thighs. I controlled my pisang alright. He then inclined my chair and finished with a short back massage. He also told me not to bathe for that night to keep the warm effect of the massage.

Me, being polite Albert, did not take any pictures of the process, or how cool the cups looked sticking onto my feet. However, I took one after, at home.

I shall hereby give you ample warning for a horrible picture involving my legs and sore bumps.


(See I even shrunk the picture to reduce the traumatizing effect on you readers.)