What: Troubadours + Doppelganger
Where: La Bodega KL, Tengkat Tong Shin
When: 2nd July 2006, 8:30pm onwards
How much: RM5
Who: Lied, Sad Angry Babies, Sizlo and much more!

Better still, click on the flyer:
Lola, Lainie's stalkee! The picture is in infrared, which is why you can see who bleached their hair and then tried to dye it back to black.

I finally appear in one of their flyers, but I may or may not be going; my uncle is getting married! I am happy for him, and for me as well, what with the free hotel food, right?

As for the fifth instalment of Guess That Trashcan, the winner is Cheesie! Yes that's right, it is an IKEA trashcan. A magical trashcan indeed because it empties itself, is illuminated inside (lights sold separately) and you don't have to clean the floor under it because it's not on the floor! The only trash that would stay in the can would of course be chewing gum. So look for these lighted trashcans above you, as you walk towards Cineleisure.

Oh, I was supposed to pimp her?

Cheesie is funny, punny, dresses like a bunny, makes her mark on your breakfast schedule, storms the park with some cuppie noodle, lurks in the dark as a mutated poodle (or was it rabbit? Pass me a carrot!) Life is never a bore with a camwhore, so click her link for cute furry animals and more! What's this? Please, more cheese, more corn, more pr0n from long gone!

And now, for some random sky sunset shots to fill time while waiting for someone to answer my last Guess That Trashcan quiz correctly.

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Noise has been retained for effect.

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I wonder how much potential energy lies between two antennas that size.

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Perhaps, enough to change Ampang highways.

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Now's the chance for the power tower to feel the tower; when the twin towers are not in sight.

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Look ma, giant pylons!

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This is so lame it should start to rain.

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A new prosperous beginning! Gold will rain from the sky.

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You got that right; it's the fifth instalment. Guess That Trashcan!

As usual, first correct answer gets a free pimping.

Hmmph I thought only active bloggers would get tagged and tag people.

Four jobs I would stink at:
Garbage collector
Public toilet janitor
Septic tank cleaner
Fishmonger

Four pretend nicknames I?m making up for myself:
Glaring Notebook (after this I'll make them up on the spot)
Purveyor Of Realness
Goldchigga
Hair Guitarist

Four movies I have watched over and over:
School Of Rock
Transformers The Movie
Back To The Future
Shaun Of The Dead (I've seen this loads of times on ASTRO)

Four things I love to do on my weekends:
Date hot models
Watch free movies
Headbang to rock bands at gigs
Drink free orange juice (it's good for you!)

Four things I could NOT live without (besides oxygen, H20, and miscellaneous life-sustaining substances):
My Nokia N70
An Internet connection of some sorts like 3G/EDGE over my phone
My wallet because it's fat and keeps me warm
My pants. To quote Ron Burgundy from Anchorman, "Don't act like you're not impressed!"

Four TV shows I geek out to, or used to geek out to:
The Simpsons
Futurama
Mr. Bean
Transformers

Four of my favorite foods, partnered with people with whom I enjoy eating said foods:
Indomee, with William my mamak explorer
Cheese Naan, also with William my mamak explorer
Burger King's Triple Whopper, with Shaz the chomper
Burger King's French Chicken, also with Shaz the chomper

Four places I would rather be right now:
In her room
In the room where they have the keys to all the compartments of a Hasbro warehouse
In the room where they have the keys to all the compartments of a Canon warehouse
In the room where they have the keys to all the compartments of a Ford warehouse

Four people I?m mercilessly tagging:
Jude, my imaginary friend. He's always bored.
Brandon, one of the voices in my head. Maybe it will get him to shut up.
The unidentified figure in my photos. What's your nickname and why do you keep appearing in my pictures?
Nightcrawler of the X-Men. I mean, he could be anywhere, so where would he want to be?

And now, for the finale to the pictures from the KL International Motorshow 2006 at Putra World Trade Center.

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She was the most hardworking of the car models, continuously moving and shifting position for the cameras.

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I'm never bored of Ford. Make Every Day Exciting!

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Left: She's bored. Right: The most photographed Volvo girl.

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The Volvo 3-Seat Concept Car had the brightest lights.

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Bridgestone. No tires.

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You want my contacts?

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Nice ride.

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Spot the ghost glove!

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"So when do we get to eat?"

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"Psst. I smuggled some food in the glove compartment."

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Groovy baby, yeah!

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Naza Sutera Sports Concept.

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"I think we missed a turn..."

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Why were people complaining that there wasn't a Subaru Impreza?

Also check out:
Motorshow Pictures Part 1
Motorshow Pictures Part 2

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.

And now, for number four. Guess That Trashcan!

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The first person to answer correctly will be pimped in my next blog entry, with at least one paragraph. It's practically a free and easy pimping.

Of course, if you want a more elaborate pimping, complete with custom-designed blog header and pimpage, you could always go join smashpOp's contest.

And now, in continuation to Motorshow Pictures Part 1, from the KL International Motorshow 2006 at Putra World Trade Center.

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This time around, old cars, like this Porsche-headlight-like Jaguar.

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Jaguar V12. Rawr.

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And for more Jaguars...

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...and Jaguars.

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Crank it up, Morris Garages!

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This MG might be missing a few parts.

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A car named Rover. Woof.

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Motorcycles. Go doggie chase them!

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Aston Martin from the front.

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Even the back is sexy.

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That is a Rolls Royce, boys.

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Mercedes Benz, super wide.

I was hoping to see a Thunderbird, or a retro pony car/muscle car at least. Ah well.

Today, I braved my fears.

I took the test.

I now knew for sure my fate.

I was once at high risk of getting diabetes. The doctor told me to drink plenty of water, ask for kurang manis (less sweetened) drinks, and to come back in a week to check my blood sugar levels again.

I did not come back.

I was scared.

However, I did resolve to reduce my sweet, sweet blood (kinda explains why I attract mosquitoes!)

Original Coca-Cola was my enemy.

Today, a Coca-Cola fan dragged me to a clinic. I did the test. One finger prick. 4.8. In the safe zone. Normal blood sugar levels on an empty stomach.

Normal blood sugar levels.

A prick for freedom!

I felt like a free man. I was normal, without any debilitating health problems!

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Ah, good old friend, the one who has accompanied me many mornings. Teh Tarik. Tea with condensed milk.

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I still think Coca-Cola is too sweet; it feels like drinking liquid sugar.

Anyone up for candy floss, chocolate fondue or lemon cheesecake?

It's that time of the year again, for the big, chaotic walkabout gig that is known as the Fete De La Musique!

As always, I'm going, to catch some musical acts while bumping into people from the scene. (It's not so much about the acts, really, because the Fete has always been chaotic, with timetables being shuffled around, performers coming to empty stages with no sound systems, etc.)

This year around, it's not around Bintang Walk.

What: Fete De La Musique 2006 (at Alliance Francaise)
Who: Heaps of bands; opera, heavy metal, jazz, acoustic, African reggae; Y2K, Xcited Screamers, Triple6Poser, Sei Hon, Broken Scar, Dragon Red, Imam, Peter Brown, 2 Sides Of The Story, Brainhead, Troubagangers, Ning Baizura, etc.
Where: The Alliance Francaise, 15, Jalan Gurney, left off Jalan Semarak which is left off Jalan Tun Razak (coming from the North)
How much: Free again; just stand around.
When: 11am to 11pm, 17th June 2006

I hear that there may be uh... samplings of liquified fermented fruits and plants of the fine variety, but don't get your hopes up.

Also:

What: Fete De La Musique 2006 (at Bangsar)
Who: Heaps of bands; Vespertine, Frequency Cannon, One Buck Short, Soft Touch
Where: Jalan Telawi, Bangsar and The Outback, Bangsar
How much: Free! Just stand around.
When: 5pm to midnight, 17th June 2006

I'll be at the Alliance Francaise first, and hitch a ride with whoever's up for hopping over to Bangsar.

I also blogged about the previous events:
Fete De La Musique 2005
Fete De La Musique 2004
(I don't think I blogged about Fete De La Musique 2003)

Portions of this blog entry have been shamelessly ripped off the Lemang newsletter.

Edit: Khai uploaded this very informative flyer.

So I went to the KL International Motorshow 2006 at Putra World Trade Center, and as usual I took loads of pictures.

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Clockwise from top-left:

• Big truck.
• Big truck, convertible edition.
• Where's the flux capacitor?
• Peter Tan would love this.
• A convertible with no doors.

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Clockwise from top-left:

• Perodua MyVi is psychedelicky.
• Toyota Supra Leopard.
• Chery QQ from China.
• Mahindra 4WDs from India.
• Smashed up Proton Savvy from Malaysia.
• Perodua Xx.

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Clockwise from top-left:

• Lotus with funky triangles.
• Android-looking, this convertible.
• Nissan (gotta love taking white cars; faster exposure means clearer pictures.)
• New Volkswagen Beetle is spoiled by a spoiler (yep, there were car show-worthy cars in the parking lot too.)
• A concept car, driven by a concept cyborg.
• The back of the Lotus.

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Clockwise from top-left:

• Want a light?
• A truck engine.
• OSIM chairs; when will they make a car-installable version?
• KJ the clown cowboy has his own wheels too.
• Spin the man!

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Clockwise from top-left:

• The Lotus Exige is the closest I could get to seeing anything that looked remotely like a Ford GT.
• Perodua in pink.
• Mazda MX-5 in black.
• A huge 4WD.
• A huge luxury executive car.

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And now, for the luxury cars.

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Man, if this came in white, I'd drive it while wearing a storm trooper suit.

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Lamborghini Gallardo.

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This looks like something Maskman or those Japanese masked superhero shows would ride.

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Dig the Ducati...

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...and the mini Modenas.

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Ford has seriously chunky SUVs...

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...that are still able to retain sexiness.

I was really looking forward to seeing a lot more variation; I hoped to see American muscle cars, like the Ford Mustang GT, but found none. :( Also, a Toyota Scion xB (a hugely popular modded pimping vehicle in the US) would be nice. They didn't have Subaru; how odd, since Imprezas were quite staple car show material. Or maybe I just wanted to see the Transformer Alternators that I had in real life.

Ah, who does not remember crossing the road from Berjaya Times Square to... the rest of Bintang Walk?

Sure, there's the monorail bridge, but who'd walk up there?

We'd cross the road, braving the speeding jammed up cars.

Then they built fences in the middle, under the monorail.

Of course, there was always a hole; in front of Imbi Plaza, there was a gap between a pillar and fence, where we'd see people professionally walk sideways through and continue their mad dash. A slightly bigger gap could be found down the road.

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All this changed, however, when I suppose, one day the big guys at Berjaya built another pedestrian bridge.

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Awesomeness. Perfect to attract the crowds were escalators, and it led right into Berjaya Times Square where the elevators were. It was even air-conditioned! There were iron curtains, to signify shoplots. Smart business decision, this.

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Now this is for people who have been tormented by York ceiling-mounted air-conditioning units. If you've ever froze in an office, you'd look up and see a York. In fact, you'd only see York as far as ceiling air-cond units went. Heck, you could probably smell York. So when I saw this, a different brand, I was overjoyed. It also smelt different, and very nice. Very nice and fresh.

Did anything happen on ₀6-₀6-₀6? Y'know, 6th June 2006?

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Yes, the devil stole the soul of my unknown brand 17" CRT monitor.

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Before this, it was either a normal screen, frequently shrinking to the bottom half (in this picture, it shrinks to the top half). I had to rock the monitor upwards and apply pressure to get the power cable to be tilted correctly.

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Violence is not recommended.

Don't worry, I still have an extra monitor, my good old Samsung Syncmaster 750s. Screw LCDs, for the price and gamer satisfaction, I'd need to pay to get above 1280x1024 resolution, I could get a new 19" CRT or 4 refurbished 21" CRTs arranged in a square, totalling 42" in size. :O

And now, for pictures from the Moonshine gig, 1st of June 2006.

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A fountain in between The Curve and the newly opened Cineleisure.

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The inside of Cineleisure goes on and on in vivid colors.

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The cinema floor!

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I imagine a senator from Star Wars addressing the Senate here.

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Damansara Cineleisure. The only occupant at the moment being Cathay Cinemas, sadly.

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Fazri, Yi Jian and I ended up meeting Paul and stim-girl at Thai Express, where I had yellow curry rice. Or was it rice with yellow curry?

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Fast-forward to the huge Laundry Bar, with rock and roll band Qings & Kueens starting the set. Left to right: girl thinking, "ooo cute geeky guitarist", cute geeky guitarist, expressionful vocalist and bass player bowing.

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The sound console.

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Mia Palencia (usually of jazz/blues/soul acoustic duo Double Take), plays guitar! I'd never seen her play guitar, and she was good on it, playing the blues, accompanied by Zalila Lee on guitar and Hardesh Singh on percussion.

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I don't like the colored lighting near the fountain; it makes it look less like a mafia family house (right-side picture).

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When I came back from the search for the loo, Couple was playing, with Hana of Lucy In The Loo on guitar.

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Look ma, I can play my guitar upside-down!

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More distractions! Like these lights.

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Reza Salleh faces the crowd.

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I seriously wonder where all these people came from. I could not imagine all these people fitting in No Black Tie or La Bodega KL! And these aren't strangers either; I recognized a lot of them! Maybe this gig was coincidentally when they would all come.

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Stephanie drums the beat to Reza's songs.

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Hanafi of Estranged and Melina of Tempered Mental play guitar and bass respectively, and Reza now has a rock band!

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Ywenna of Rhapsody is too famous. See? She's overexposed.

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Rhapsody gets funkier in this lineup. Left to right: Ywenna, Nicole and featuring Kevin the bass player of Qings & Kueens. Jimmy of Tempered Mental is further to the right, beyond the picture, playing drums.

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Xfresh TV Season 4 hosts are first up on open mike, singing a cover of Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive. It's the finale so they aren't going to be voted out.

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Broken Scar appears solo after a long time. There is something about his acoustic guitar and him that just sounds more like the way I'm used to hearing the songs played back in my head.

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Some dude; I did not catch his name.

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Lezel (Khai-Lee's friend) sings well, with haunting melodies.

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Sad Angry Babies with ballads.

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Plush Velvet. At this point I managed to secure a ride so uh yeah, no pictures of the next band, Estrella, or whoever came after that.

Happy (belated) birthday Nazrul! On the road leading to Hartamas we saw this:

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Right-click and choose Save Target As... to download; it's only 85 KB. Sorry for the skipping, my camera was lagging (gotta reformat the RS-MMC card again.)

And now, for random reviews:

The Fastest Clock In The Universe

Gavin Yap stars as a shirtless, brooding, smoking drinking 30-year old who celebrates each birthday as if he was 19. Paedophilia, homosexuality, all the roles you girls wanted to see him in, including shirtless, are in! No holds barred, none of the self-censorship you'd expect.

...for the guys, it has an interesting storyline, too, especially the second half. Loads of fun; the last time I saw Ari Ratos was in Julius Caesar, and everyone was dead serious (and eventually dead) but he played comic relief here. A lot more straightforward than The Homecoming, too, and perhaps more appealing for those who don't wish to read too deeply into the play.

I wish I took a sneak picture of Gavin's worked-out-abs-and-pectorals (as opposed to my I'm-skinny-that's-how-I-got-abs) to further encourage ticket sales to the show. In the meantime Jasiminne has an artist's impression of him.

The show runs until the 11th of June 2006. Details here.

Walk The Line

Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny Cash in this love story. I was hoping to geek out more, musically (and guitar-geekly, though the only cringes are when they spin double-basses like they're cheap) but I found myself attracted to the cinematography. I especially dig how, when they shift manual focus from one character to another, the lens moves slightly too (quite like an SLR's, making it seem like I was watching the movie through one). Asyraf what do you call that effect? Also, every scene is brightly lit; every face is always lit, sometimes artificially bright to produce clean, sharp faces.

...so I was expecting a rock show but got a love story instead. A rather draggy one, like Brokeback Mountain.

Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster (the documentary)

...so I expected the making of the album, but I got emotional drama, with the interesting psychological play between funnyman Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield. At least they had enough bits to geek out at, and the second DVD with extra scenes have hilarious scenes, like when Swiss Beatz come in with Ja Rule to steal some Metallica riffs.

Very fun, very confrontational, engaging, and makes you want to communicate.

Sin City

It's always more fun to watch a movie without getting a clue what it's about. Fantastic colorization or lack thereof. Four stories melded together.

Kevin (played by Elijah Wood) was the stuff of nightmares. Yeah, the stuff of my nightmares. A bespectacled geek with glowing glasses, a preppy sweater, and lightning reflexes.

...kinda explains why I am not a fan of Harry Potter.

Failure To Launch

Whoa, this was way back, so all I remember was that Sarah Jessica Parker is horribly botox-ed. She looks a lot like Jennifer Aniston, except Jennifer doesn't have those fake sculpted cheeks.

And now, for some randomness!

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I met Paul Tan at the Moonshine gig at Laundry Bar, The Curve, and he was sporting a kickass goatee which ran all the way thickly up to his ears. I regret not taking a picture of it then, but I stole a picture from Sherve anyway. :D This is a rare picture indeed for he rarely smiles, even with bottled objects of his affection.