31.8.06

Merdeka!

Selamat menyambut Hari Kebangsaan. Merdeka!

I don't get fireworks. I mean I don't get excited or go "Ooohh Ahhh..." whenever fireworks go off. Even during Merdeka night. Even last night. To me, a fireworks show is usually boring. It's always too long. Why can't they make one firework that'll cover the entire 10 minute show? That'll be fun, and quick.
But one thing I noticed is that children are extremely fascinated by fireworks. Even if its the same pattern(?). They'll always sound enthusiastic and point out "Tengok tu, cantiknya... " every single time.


29.8.06

News that's old (and might not be true)

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere in the papers a while back about this:
Blondie is coming to perform here in KL. But tickets are ridiculously fucking expensive.
And more excitingly, Slayer is heading down to Singapore for a show too. Yes, SLAYER!! Satan is so happy.
I'm not a huge fan of either but I am well educated enough (music wise) to know that these two acts are going to seriously kill it.




28.8.06

Wedding daze.

It's been wedding season all week long, folks. In fact for the past week alone I had 5 wedding reception/kenduri invitations, of which I attended only 2 out of the 5. I missed out on the rest due to various reasons (not excuses) which would sound a lot complicated if I even try to attempt to explain them. No, really.

By far, the best wedding reception I attended (and probably the best I've attended in my whole life) was last Saturday's ceremony in Concorde Shah Alam. I'd like to congratulate one of my close(r) friends, Maznee & her husband Azmi for their wedding. The reception itself was truly an awesome event but I won't go into details here. I think it's suffice to say that anything involving a live jazz band, (Datin) Normala Shamsudin & 5-storey cakes seems like a nice cocktail to me. Excellent.



24.8.06

Update!

Well, I’m back!

First off, I’d like to congratulate my friend Ayie for getting married a couple of weeks ago. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the kenduri, bro.

Recently, I found myself being addicted to the show Rockstar. It’s kinda like American Idol (or any of its reality show singing talent rip-offs) but for people with tattoos. And piercings. And studded belts.

Sure, its cheesy. It has a dude named Gilby on it. GILBY, dammit! That sounds like a Sesame Street puppet, don’t you think? And it has blur-ish Tommy Lee too. Lee looks like a tough guy, with tattoos and all but really he’s quite funny and to an extent, innocent even. And I can’t explain in words how offended I feel every time I see Navarro wearing a sleeveless shirt. That’s so fucking gay.

But occasionally there’ll be a performance (or song) that is so awesome I couldn’t help but feel stoked. And I guess that’s why I like the show, despite all its obvious flaws.

I particularly liked the song “Starman”. The performance was so good that it prompted me to search for the original version by David Bowie. I was never a Bowie fan although he’s probably cool in a transsexual alien freak way. However, thanks to the miracle that is Rockstar, I have managed to get myself to partially tolerate Bowie. And that’s quite a musical achievement for me.

I’m back from work now, and I feel good. It’s nice to have a holiday after a long working period. Although actually it wasn’t that long after all. I took a few days off to attend a training course (the same course that made me miss the kenduri) in Kuantan, where we stayed in this really nice hotel by the beach. And apparently at the same time there was this polo tournament going on somewhere nearby, and all these polo players were staying in the same hotel.

I think polo is a nice sport. If you’re bloody rich, of course. And probably you’ll need some sort of royalty links as well to really fit in. It feels very old English-y but yet its super classy. It’s very much a gentlemen’s game. And the ladies accompanying these polo playing gentlemen are not too bad looking at all. In fact, I’d probably say that they’re hot.


So if you have blue blood, play polo. That’ll score big points with your royalty friends and definitely impress the ladies. For common folk like me, we’ll just stick to golf.


15.8.06

You'd be surprised...

Kids nowadays are so damn Internet savvy, aren't they?

Last weekend, my neighbour had a joint birthday party for both of their children. And being good neighbours that we are, my family went next door to join in the celebrations. And to my surprise, I found the party to be quite extravagant, considering it was only to celebrate 8 & 11 year old's birthdays. They had a CLOWN to entertain the kids, made-to-order ais kacang, made-to-order char kuey teow, satay, spaghetti, cake, candy, sweets, lollies, balloons, party hats, bla bla bla (basically, there's lots of food). I remember the birthdays that I had as a child to be much much simpler. Just one bloody cake, some candles and that's it. No clowns doing magic tricks or dancing to Pussycat Dolls music.

Anyways, my cousins (or to be exact: My mother's cousin's daughters) were also invited to the party. Apparently, the neighbour's child is their classmate or something.

After the party, these cousins (12 year old girl and her 11, 9, 6 year old sisters) then came over to my house. And the next thing you know, they were already playing with my sister's laptop. I was a bit curious as to what these girls were doing so I went to have a look.

Me
[Cousin A] buat apa tu?

Cousin A (12 y.o)
Kitorang tengah tengok MySpace page kawan.

Me
You know about MySpace?

Cousin C (9 y.o)
Ye lah....

Me (Looking at the screen)
Sapa ni?

Cousin C
Kawan sekolah. Darjah 5. Adik Sharifah Amani. Rumah dia kat belakang tu je
(while pointing to the direction towards the back of my house)

Me
Oh. Ok. You all ada MySpace profile sendiri jugak ke?

Cousin A
Ada lah. My classmates semua pun ada.

Cousin C (Talking to her sister)
Kakak, nanti taruk video party tadi kat YouTube okay??


Wow!! Bloody hell!!
MySpace and You-fucking-Tube???
Unbelievable. These kids are so advanced.
I didn't know about the Internet until I was about 15.
They'll probably have their own blog next.



12.8.06

The problem with...

I read somewhere over the weekend about the difficulties and trouble people have when dealing with ex-girlfriends (or ex-boyfriends for that matter). I felt that I could somewhat relate to these situations considering my few oh so uncomfortable experiences with those whose names shall not be mentioned, ever! (And for some of you who can guess, please keep your mouth shut. Haha). Ideally, we'd like to think that we can have some sort of relationship with our exes but in reality that rarely happens. Rarely.

And any efforts to even start a non-boyfriend/girlfriend type of relation is just hopeless. It starts off really awkward, then you start questioning why would you even bother, eventually you'll just say "Ah, fuck it. Its pointless" and there goes your noble act of reconciliation down the bloody drain. And it will happen that way. No happy endings, my friend. None.

So, with exes, never ever talk to them unless its absolutely necessary, and even then, with minimal words. And if you bump into them somewhere, say hi and go away. Any encounter more than 5 minutes will be extremely awkward and potentially embarrassing. But what's worse, there's always the small chance of feeling hurt. And why bother with all that when you can ignore this bullshit?
Well, at least that's what I do. I don't know about you. But it works for me.

On another note, I've been watching re-runs of House. I love it. And I'm getting more cynical the more I watch it.
On another another note, I'm slightly embarrassed to watch Stevie G's Celcom ad. Haha, come on, Stevie, you could do much better, mate.

10.8.06

First Win

Luckily, the Reds won last night against some pretty tricky opposition (Maccabi Haifa). I didn't wake up early enough to watch the first half and by the time I got my arse out of bed the game was already well into the 2nd period.
Anyways, Liverpool played a decent game but nowhere near the level I'd consider excellent. I'll cut them some slack since it's early days and players might be rusty still.

Didn't see much of Bellamy though he did score, while Pennant was busy down the right without actually getting his crosses accurate. Gerrard occasionally was played on the LEFT (what the..?) and Zenden was very average. Alonso didn't impose himself enough in midfield and I thought only Sissoko was playing well. But a win is a win. I'm glad we got the win, but am still worried about the 2nd leg.

Ahh... the ups and downs being a Red.
Bring it on, I've missed it for months.

Think About This

You get interesting thoughts from people you hang out with.

Last night, I was hanging out with my friend at our local mamak. It was just after dinner but was not late enough to be considered a proper supper. As usual, I ordered my teh tarik. And then we proceeded with our borak borak.
After a while the teh tarik arrived. It was in a nice huge glass and had a lot of froth on top, which I liked.
Unfortunately it was a bit too sweet for my liking. There's too much sugar, I reckoned.
But I drank the teh nonetheless, about quarter way down the glass and I didn't mind that it tasted sweeter than I would've liked it to be. I knew that too much sugar is not good, but what the hell. Belasah je la.
Now the glass is about 3/4 full. I then poured some air suam into the glass to "dilute" the sweetness so that it would more bearable for me to drink.
And at this point, my good 'ol friend asked "Why did you add more water to your teh?"
"It was too sweet. I wanted to dilute it lah" was my reply.
"But what's the point? You drinking the same amount of sugar, kan? Regardless of whether you add water or not, the amount of sugar still remains the same."

I didn't have a reply. It made me think. And I have to agree, what he said was absolutely true. I'm just wondering why I didn't think of it that way before. All the while, I was under the impression that less sweet means less sugar, but obviously this isn't quite true.

What do YOU think?

7.8.06

Weekend

My uneventful and boring weekend was saved (barely) by the surprisingly good Hungarian F1 race, which I enjoyed very much. I'm an F1 fan and I do watch every race whenever I can, but usually I don't stay and watch until the end. I like the starts 'cause a lot of incidents happen then but when the race develops a "steady" rhythm or whenever the gap between each driver is so huge, it gets boring very quickly.

But not in Hungary yesterday. It was by far the best F1 race I've watched this season, and I even stayed on until the end, right up to the trophy presentation ceremony! There was so much happening, and it rained; which makes it even more chaotic, with cars spinning on nearly every lap. Highlights: Alonso & Micheal's duel, the numerous overtaking manouvers, Raikkonen's amazing bump into Monteiro's rear, Renault not finishing, dilemma over full wet, intermediates or slicks, Jenson's (and Honda's) first win. Plus a few more I've probably forgot.

And while I do not have a specific "team" that I follow, I found myself quietly pleased and proud of BMW-Sauber's (my default team, I suppose) performance yesterday. Heidfeld finished on the podium (a first for BMW?) while debutant Kubica did ever so well despite 2 spins and a nose-cone change to finish 7th. Good job lads. Well done. The BMW ads were also quite fun, it came with a completely retro 70's soundtrack to boot! But what's the connection between Jacques and Newtown?? That baffled me.

Anyhow, the race was so good that I didn't even mind the obvious bias-ness of the commentators who clearly were backing Button, which came as no surprise considering one of them was Honda's test driver and Button's team mate.

Last night's race was excellent, and hopefully the next one would be just as good.

2.8.06

Random

Firstly, let's start off with something funny I just heard on TV. A scene from a Malay drama series.

Mak (sounding suspicious) :
Mak rasa ade sesuatu yang tak kena ni. Ayah kau tu selalunya sihat sihat je, tapi semalam tiba tiba je kena stroke. Mak rasa ada orang yang nak menganiaya keluarga kita Man.

Man (or maybe Wan, tak ingat nama, the son - sounding pissed off) :
Ala mak.. mana ada orang yang aniaya kita mak.
Stroke; memang la tiba tiba!

Haha, I don't know about you, but I sure thought it sounded funny.

Okay.

I've finished reading Nick Hornby's latest novel, A Long Way Down and I must say that it is an interesting and hilarious read. But I had the feeling that the story was kinda tergantung. I was disappointed with the ending, only because the rest of the book was excellent. I still would recommend it though, Hornby once again excels in building up colourful and "real" characters - the story is told ala About a Boy i.e from each main character's point of view.
I'm sure someone would make a movie out of this novel later on.

Okay.

I've seen too many teen flicks, romantic comedies, those confused teenage life TV shows (O.C et. al), and seen a few good examples in real life and probably have my own experience to say that falling for your friend is a bad bad idea. So when this mate of mine expressed to me and a couple other blokes that he fancies a mutual friend of ours, I begin to think "Hmm, well... this can become uncomfortable later on, dude. Are you sure?". But of course, I didn't tell him that. What I (and the rest of us) said was "Well, go for it dude."
And I wish him well. Really.
But I just can't help but feel that this could possibly go downhill somewhere along the line. Not that I didn't want my mate to be happy with his girl, it's just in my nature to be skeptical of things. I feel that the transition from friend to "special friend" is something that is really awkward, weird, confusing and possibly uncomfortable. And it is definitely different for the group since the dynamics of the whole "group relationship" has changed. Plus, I find it difficult to believe that you can be friends and lovers at the same time. You can only be either one.
Anyways, those two lovebirds have already "hooked up" - as the MTV generation would say and I wish them well. We all do.