The album in a nutshell: It says a lot that despite being the only female, Hayley Williams sounds like she’s got the BIGGEST BALLS in the band. Step aside world, for Hayley is back. & she is unstoppable.

Let’s just get one thing out of the way: Brand New Eyes is not better than RIOT!, nor is it as good as RIOT!.

But it does not disappoint. Oh hell no.

Apparently title-written in all-lower-cased for a reason (‘brand new eyes’ as opposed to the shouting upper-cased ‘RIOT!’), Paramore’s 3rd album has been long-awaited by us fans, with ludicrously high expectations to meet after the monstrous success of their previous album, RIOT! & all the Twilight-huha over “Decode”. As a fan, I find writing a justified review a tough attempt. As much as I want to proudly declare it as “THIS IS DA SHIT!”, the honest fact is, it is not. But do not fret, all my fellow Paramore fans (& for those ignorant ones who have yet to receive the gift of appreciation of this band), for Brand New Eyes still is, at the end of the day, a must-have.

The moment the 1st track, “Careful”, hits you full in the face you will smile in relief – oh yea, Paramore has not lost any mojo all right. Downright catchy, melodious & aggressive, with some rather neat instrumental riffs, it kicks off the album nicely. The momentum is continued with the boundless energy of “Ignorance”. Though it follows the same aggressive punch formulae of previous hits “Emergency” & “Misery Business”, after a couple of listens, I have to admit the 3-part strong sequences used (also for other tracks in this album) of verse>pre-chorus>chorus become a little tiresome, especially without any particularly memorable melodies. Nevertheless, “Ignorance” has Hayley jumping out & kicking your ass off the floor to start head-banging. “Playing God”, the 3rd track, is pop-easy on the ears (but with some rather confrontational lyrics though!). Track 4, “Brick by Boring Brick” followed subsequently by “Turn It Off” are the most radio-ready tracks, seeing Paramore at its endearing pop-rock best.

The problem is, with the album starting off quite brilliantly (& safe, which is not entirely bad) with the first 5 tracks, things go downhill after that. Paramore slows things down with the odd-one-out acoustic “The Only Exception”, & I’ve never thought any Paramore song could put me to sleep & sound almost uninspired, but here it is. It does not get better when tracks 7 to 9 follow, because I felt I was listening to the same song over again for 3 times. It  does not help that these 3 tracks used the same tonic chord. Quite frankly, this resulting sequence of tracks 6-9 is the sort of thing all original-CD buyers (especially long before the illegal downloading era began) feared the most – purchasing a CD that is half-filled with awesome tracks, & the other half muddled with fillers.

Another acoustic track, “Misguided Ghosts” fills slot no.10, & though it did not lift my mood after the dreaded tracks 6-9, at first listen it sounded like Paramore was trying something different too hard. In fact, it doesn’t even sound Paramore-ish, more like something an under-rated indie artist would do. Given a few more listens, the sensitive poignancy of the song surprisingly grew on me, & the subdued guitar progressions that complemented each other were quite beautiful.

All is forgiven when the final track, “All I Wanted” arrives. I almost cried in relief! Paramore is back! “All I Wanted” is almost epic-like, closing the album in the most glorious of ways, not unlike what “My Heart” did for All We Know is Falling.

For me, Paramore stands out among the other bands for some particular reasons: They sound phenomenal live or acoustic, & Hayley Nichole Williams – unbelievable vocals & hotness. Well, you will be glad to know Hayley not only sounds spectacular in this album, miraculously, she seems to be getting even better! Which seems to be a rather unfortunate thing; the undeniable fact that this album showcases the unstoppable talent of Hayley, while her bandmates look set to continue playing the supporting role. Not necessarily such a bad thing, because Josh, Zac, Jeremy & Taylor are  really perfect behind Hayley. Notably, Zac tries really hard this time with more authoritative, almost individualistic drumming, but it’s really no fault of the guys that they get overwhelmed by Hayley’s vocal range & power. She is just that good.

You did not hear me wrong, she really does sound like she’s got the biggest balls in the band.

Yup, that one is on her way to being the ultimate frontwoman. She completely blows us away, singing her heart out track after track. I love the chilling brilliance of her vocals even during the low quiet parts of “Brick by Boring Brick” & the 1st chorus of “All I Wanted”, all the way to the climax of “All I Wanted”, when all the instruments die out for her to hit the final chorus in full glory. If you want a prime example of Hayley’s breathtaking vocal prowess, that 8-second ecstasy is the one for you. I bet the members of the Facebook group ‘When Hayley Williams sings those high notes, I cream… seriously’ would be bloody damn proud.

On another note, the sound recording for this album, just like RIOT!, is almost flawless, coming off as very polished, almost too much. One thing I did not enjoy however was the amount of vocal layering (or whatever you call it) used notably during choruses. Hayley has a standout voice & layering her vocals to 3-5 Hayleys at one go just mutes the full experience. The songwriting has glaringly matured. The tracks are filled with pretty aggressive, cynical & brutally personal lyrics, most of them blatantly relating to all the almost-broke-up drama the band was undergoing while undertaking this album.

Alas, Brand New Eyes is really a neat album, but not enough to substantiate the full potential of Paramore. It lacks the outstanding endearing melodies of “Misery Business” & “That’s What You Get“ & is halfway drowned by a couple of fillers, but significantly displays a more mature growth of Hayley & her bandmates. & all this while Hayley seems to be getting hotter than ever! Like I said, the album still manages not to disappoint. In fact, more importantly, this record not only justifies Paramore’s sky-rocketing rise, it shows that Paramore is certainly special (credit enormously to Hayley) & has an enormous load of potential & talent still waiting to be unleashed.

In other words, Brand New Eyes has Paramore saying “Hey, we are back!!! We are not just passing by, we are here to stay. & you know what? You have not bloody seen the best of us, yet.”

So while I struggle to construct words to conclude this latest Paramore effort, I came across this review on 411mania.com which had this to say: “Paramore is a band that realize they’ve a chance to make it and they’re looking to make the most of it with Brand New Eyes, & they’ve just a smidgen more ambition away from doing just that. Quite simply, it’s just a question of whether the boys have the balls to join Hayley on their inevitable ascent further up the pop rock ladder.”

Say what you like, but you can’t deny it really is all, ALL, about Hayley Williams. At this rate, only a sore throat could stop her.

Best tracks: “Brick by Boring Brick”, “Turn It Off”, “All I Wanted”, & “Careful”

Yasmin Ahmad, 1958 – 2009.

Local films & advertisements will never be the same again.

Sepet, 2004

Talentime, 2009

Param’s Bicycle, Merdeka 2003

Tan Hong Ming in Love, Merdeka 2007

“Our children are colour blind. Shouldn’t we keep them that way?”

KV would just like to reaffirm here that he is behind those who believe the whole Moon trip is a massive conspiracy!

We all knew from the beginning no Potter movie could ever, EVER, come close to matching the ultimate experience of the Potter books. I only hoped that any of the movies could at least make an enjoyable cinema spectacle, or do some justice to the awesome world & plot Rowling created by transferring a little magic to the people who had not the chance to experience the books.

When Sorcerer’s Stone was made into a film, people complained it was way too kiddish & long. I adored the wonderful  choices of Rupert Grint & Emma Watson, as well as most of the rest of the primary cast, but cringed at Radcliffe. (Of course, I didn’t know at that time Radcliffe would require more than 3 movies to finally learn how to act)

Next was Chamber of Secrets, to which everyone agreed was better than the 1st, but still, too tailored for kids.

Then aboard came Alfonso Cuaron to make what is my favourite Potter movie, Prisoner of Azkaban. Thrilling & faithful to what was probably the best plot twist of all the books, only the casting of Gambon as Dumbledore laid a sole sour note on otherwise pretty much the definitive Potter movie.

Goblet of Fire was proof that a brilliant plot from one of the best books does not necessarily translate into a good movie. It was quite the Bollywood-ish mess, with a completely destroyed Yule Ball depiction & an embarassingly worsening mis-potrayal of the very much beloved Dumbledore (not forgetting Cho Chang).

Order of the Phoenix took the best aspects of its respective book & turned out to be quite excellent, though not without flaws. Gary Oldman, Evanna Lynch, Helena Bonham Carter & Imelda Staunton were terrific in their roles, easily slotting Phoenix alongside Azkaban as the best Potter bigscreen adaptations to date.

Now, we arrive at Half-Blood Prince. Come to think of it, there’s really not much to complain from apart from the plot holes & drastic changes, so what made it such an unsatisfying experience? The whole movie was quite beautifully made on screen, along with stellar acting. It did have its engaging & chilling moments, so why did I left the hall feeling like it was the slowest unhappening movie ever?

Yes, every Potter fan is not going to stop grumbling about the many changes & left-outs of the book’s complicated plot, from the roles of Dobby & Kreacher to the Gaunts memory. I didn’t actually feel too bad about those, understanding that condensing the books to fit a film is required, but admittedly, this movie has strayed so far from the books it begs the big question of how the movies are going to bring a justified closure to the Potter journey in Deathly Hallows Part I & II. The humour was aplenty & quite brilliant, but over-switching between all those subplots & the more crucial main story of the Horcruxes, Voldemort’s past & Malfoy’s plan made it quite confusing, losing all sense of urgency & significance of the final build-up towards Deathly Hallows. Despite a handful of scenes that were brilliantly executed (such as Katie Bell being poisoned), addition of new scenes & the exclusion of the roles of Fleur, Bill & Scrimgeour were questionable, while Neville as well as Tonks were wasted (especially Tena’s Tonks, who made such an interesting presence in Order of the Phoenix). Yes, most of the crucial scenes were polished & beautifully done, but honestly, all sense of suspense & build-up were lost all the way towards the end, culminating in a non-climatic way. Dumbledore’s death felt hollow on screen, & Snape being revealed as the Half-blood Prince, & more importantly, as a pivotal ambiguous character, did not have its predicted impact.

Of course, despite all this, it’s still freaking way better than Twilight. Romance included.

But enough about that, if I were to continue debating about the plot I could construct a whole thesis out of it. There’s also not much to shout about Nicholas Hooper’s scores, notably since I felt the best moments of the film happened to have no background music. Quite frankly, the later Potter film scores have never been the same since John Williams left. Now I’m going to have to give it to the spectacular performance of the cast that made the movie a much more bearable experience. The main trio have outdone themselves yet again, bringing Harry, Ron & Hermione’s maturing lifes to screen amazingly. Radcliffe, I must admit, was quite awesome in that Felix Felicis scene. Watson & Grint were simply perfect during those romantic scenes, & Lynch continues her stellar quirkiness. Helena Bonham Carter was incredibly seductive, newcomer Jessie Cave was a perfect & hilarious Lavender, & Rickman gave an impeccable performance as Snape. Gambon does improve, but still does not channel Dumbledore’s aura in any way. Oh, don’t forget both the actors who played the young & teenage Tom Marvolo Riddle; those were chillingly engaging performances! I would especially like to remark upon the intensed captivating Tom Felton as Malfoy, which without doubt is the outstanding performance in the movie. Finally, he gets the screen time he deserves!

Of course, getting more screen time is not always a good thing, as Bonnie Wright displayed. Throughout all the Potter movies, the castings have rarely been wrong, rather more astonishingly spot-on (think Ron, Hermione, Snape, McGonagall, Hagrid, Malfoy, Lupin, Sirius, Trelawney, Umbridge, Luna, the Weasley twins, etc), with the exception of Gambon’s Dumbledore & now more glaringly, Wright’s Ginny Weasley. Wright lacks so much of the feisy personality Ginny is known for, instead giving us a mundane & unflattering Ginny.

At this rate, they should really just do all of us a favour by making Harry go get it on with Hermione or even Luna, seeing that they are way more interesting & share much more chemistry together in the movies.

KV is finally beginning to bang his head to the tunes of Paramore’s “Ignorance”.

Read KV’s review on Order of the Phoenix here.

Hats off to Roddick, totally owned Fed. But I guess Fed is the ultimate player of the century for a reason, eh? Mad final match, I’m surprised Fed’s wife did not go into labour right there in center court.

Sorry Mr. Brown for taking this long, I am deeply ashamed & regret this very much. But more about that later.

I’m baaaacccck from Bali with me UTP bros & sistas. We fought valiantly against the swines & all the As & Hs & Ns & 1s, we wore sarongs, we discovered that anything that had land space qualifies as a road in Bali, we witnessed the overpopulation of motorcycles, & we discovered we were naturally talented in swallowing Kuta waves rather than surfing. Especially Suet Yeng, to whom I had to play Baywatch saviour to keep her from overdosing herself with salt water.

The closest we ever got to successfully standing on the board at Kuta beach

I would have loved to say Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was totally awesome but who am I kidding? It was one heck of an unbalanced movie, so thankfully I checked my brain at the cinema doors. I had no idea what the plot was all about frankly - something about Megatron working under The Fallen, a big gun that would shoot the sun or something hidden in the pyramids, & Megan Fox working in a bengkel – it was just plain ridiculous, but really who cares since we were there to see the robots & outrageous action-packed almost-pornographic shots of Megan Fox CGI spectacles. Minus the irritating twin Autobots (which the Devastator should have easily tapao’ed) & the many additional generic pointless Decepticons (& WHAT THE F**K WAS THAT DECEPTICON CHICK ALL ABOUT?! Tiba-tiba felt like Species pulak), Bay did not disappoint when it comes to cool robot action. The Optimus action scene in the mountains in the middle of the movie reigned supreme & was the spectacular moment of the film, it left me completely breathless. Bay really shouldn’t have attempted to do so much & draw out so many unnecessary scenes that just seemed to go on & on. Shia did a commendable job by the way, holding his own against the mighty presence of the robots.

Optimus giving some serious prime ass whooping in the mountains

With this holidays completing its first month, I have been catching up with the one favourite thing I last religiously did with the last Potter book – reading. I finally, finally, gave a chance to Dan Brown, & first started off with Da Vinci, & now I’ve also completed Angels & Demons followed subsequently by Deception Point. I must say, regardless whether factual or not, Dan Brown sure knows a whole load of shit & is exceptionally gifted in creating outrageously superb plots, though I was occasionally tired by the sudden flashbacks & some overdrawn descriptive points of Angels & Demons as well as Deception Point. The Brown books could not however match my feverish fetish for Potter, but it would be unfair to compare Potter against the Dan Brown novels, due to their different writing styles & plot structure. Let’s just put it this way; I enjoyed tremendously the intelligence & thrill of Dan Brown, but I skipped meals, sleep & toilet trips for Potter. Nevertheless, I would not hesitate at the least to give a two-thumbs-two-toes-up & rate The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons & Deception Point as must-reads.

Now, I am one of those who unashamedly watched the movie version of Angels & Demons before reading the book, so I did enjoy the movie, but now after reading the book, I realize why many of Dan Brown fans are unhappy with how Ron Howard tremendously simplified the plot (almost completely taking away the science aspect & role of the book) & only concentrating on the battle against the Vatican. The many layers & complexities of all of Dan Brown’s stories are one of the best things about the novels, & more notably for Angels & Demons, since this particular book is where Dan Brown first attempts at intertwining science with controversial religious plots. Keeping faithful with the book would have given the Camerlengo’s role much more crucial resonance & substance on the big screen. 

Speaking of which, guilty of the sin of watching both Ron Howard’s big screen adaptations before reading Dan Brown, I robbed myself of the powerful exhilaration I would have experienced facing Dan Brown’s plot twists in Da Vinci & Angels head-on first time, & I only have myself to blame for not giving a chance to Dan Brown up till now. Anyway, just like Sir Ian McKellen in Da Vinci (as Sir Leigh Teabing), I admired the inspired choice of the brilliant Ewan McGregor as Camerlengo Ventresca/McKenna. Tom Hanks is definitely not the Langdon I imagined from the books, but at least I enjoyed Audrey Tatou (as Sophie Neveu) much more than Ayelet Zurer’s disappointing role as Vittoria Vetra. The one thing I truly was fascinated from the Angels & Demons movie, however, was how the grand sequence of the Camerlengo saving Vatican from the antimatter explosion was visually depicted. It was quite breathtaking on screen.

Ewan McGregor was brilliant!

& again, because I watched both the movie versions of both Da Vinci & Angels before reading them, resulting in me imagining the respective movie characters in their roles when reading, I could not help but do the same for Deception Point. Of course there’s no Deception Point movie (yet, I guess?), but I couldn’t restrain myself from imagining particular actors/actresses playing the characters in the movie as I read. Interestingly though, from the moment Rachel Sexton (what an irresistable name!) appeared in the first few pages, the first actress that came into mind was relatively unknown Rachel Nichols, & I seriously do not know why! Call it male intuition? Anyway, you can see her in previous movies like Charlie Wilson’s War & P2 or in the coming G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, since you probably do not know who I’m talking about.

Which begs a rather intriguing but insignificant question, who would be suitable to play the roles of the characters in Deception Point should there be a big screen adaptation in the future? Now, I figure the probability of a Deception Point movie is much less compared to the likelihood of Dan Brown’s soon-to-be-released The Lost Symbol being made a movie first, keeping in mind how we love the controversial Vatican & religious scandals as opposed to the government conspiracies of Deception Point, but what the hell, it’s the holidays for me. Oh, I’m going to take Rachel Nichols out of my mind for a more realistic choice (even though she stubbornly stucked in my mind all throughout my reading). Here’s KV playing director, for pointless fun.

Rachel Nichols, Bryce Dallas Howard, Evangeline Lilly & Jennifer Garner

This all-star cast is nuts, but Deception Point would make quite a kick-ass movie. Besides, who could possibly resist such a movie of which its protagonist carries a name like Rachel SEXTON?

So, anyone wanna lend me a copy of Digital Fortress? & by September, The Lost Symbol?

Years back when I was still a teenager, there was this day when I was in my brother’s car, & my brother was listening to some Westlife CD during the drive. I was in the midst of the Evanescence-Linkin Park era of music preferences, so I remember sniggering at my big brother’s apparent “soft” choice of music.

“Gettting older lah, I’m mellowing down. When you reach my age, you will soften too.” So he said. “Nahh, no way!”, I bellowed. Never, I thought in my head, Avril Lavigne was the softest I could imagine ever reaching, but never wimpy-Westlife-fy-soft! N-E-V-E-R!

Now, I apparently should eat my words. Because I actually thought the Hannah Montana movie did not suck. WHAT?! I hear you.

Saving Miley/Hannah for later, let me see, the signs of me growing older characteristically were popping up as my years of university life reached its end. I discovered my machoism did have its rather sensitive side when I almost, I said ALMOST, ended up with tears welling up in my eye sockets when watching the heart-wrenching story of Grace is Gone. Then, worse, my so-called machoism totally gave way in Bridge To Terabithia, because when AnnaSophia Robb’s enchanting Leslie Burke died, there I was in a minimal yet existing amount of tears, clutching tightly my pillow. Shit. Damn you, AnnaSophia. Why did you have make Leslie so darn lovable?

I think a more obvious sign, quite a crowning moment of mellowness glory, is when I started to obliviously play, then replay afew couple of times more, a Westlife song, “Us Against the World”. I’ve never accepted any Westlife song in my playlist since the brilliant “Flying Without Wings”, let alone replay a HidupSelatan track quite a number of times. I remember that jackass Felix laughing his ass shit off when he hanged out in my room & heard my iTunes playing Westlife. So, with my bro’s words years back coming back to bite my ass, the thought of me apparently, finally, getting a little “softer” with age hit me.

Sure, my favourite is still the awesome punkness of Paramore, I still love Lifehouse (though they have mellowed down too) & Muse’s head-banging “A Map of Problematique” is at the top of my iTunes play count along with Coldplay’s “Lovers in Japan”, but the fact that I was listening to Westlife more than just a couple of times, almost instinctively & without realization, means something. Sure, I maintained some level of my machoism enjoying super-macho movies like 300 & the ka-boomness of Terminator Salvation. But I also very much loved the blissful romantic cheese that is The Notebook.

Since I have watched every other summer movie, & Monsters vs Aliens was full, she pulled me to watch The Hannah Montana Movie, featuring the girl with the shitty yucky vocals, Miley Cyrus.

To be frank, it was obviously a movie for Montana fans, & I was wa-a-ay too macho (so I thought) for Hannah-who?-Montana, but I was surprised, almost shocked, to find that my mellowness level has shot down so much that I actually thought the movie did not suck. The hip-hop “Hoedown Throwdown” moment was infectiously enjoyable, & “The Climb” finale scene was surprisingly quite fitting, though the execution of some snippets could have been better. I mean, did they really need to show Travis grinning at Miley like, a million times again & again? Yes, the acting chops of Billy Ray Cyrus were horrible to watch, & the plot is silly (about rediscovering her true Miley self, only to go back to being Hannah Montana, wtf?) but no one really cares since her fans will eat it up anyway. The fact is Miley Cyrus, as much as I dislike her, actually is quite endearing as a likeable Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana. This movie only cements my belief that she should really just stick to acting, since she sings like a constipated walrus on helium.

Not that the movie was not forgettable, it was, even with some cute cameos from Tyra Banks & Taylor Swift (& her even more beautiful Taylor Koa). But yeah, the Hannah Montana movie did not suck. Leslie Burke. Westlife. The Notebook. Hannah Montana.

“Getting older lah, I’m mellowing down…”

Boom clap. Boom de clap de clap. Pop it, lock it, polka dot it. Countrify then hip-hop it. Put your hawk in the sky move side to side. Jump to the left, stick it, glide!

Okay, everyone should know by now that Star Trek currently still holds a rather healthy lead over the other “summer blockbusters”. A truly deserved one, it was pure fun, entertainment, wonderfully-paced action, & the perfect summer popcorn flick.

Terminator Salvation, I guess, pretty much scored in terms of being an edge-of-your-seats action-packed bazooka-ish-filled 2 hours extravaganza. & they left it there.

Me & Bryce, we gonna stick with this expression for the whole movie, yeah. Not like we’ve got much else to do anyway, eh?

Some pretty slick & fantastic action scenes that then were overwhelmed by the overboard noise decibels & number of big-ass explosions left me rather breathless & tired, but nevertheless midly entertained. Still, 2 of my favourites, Christian Bale & the supremely-talented Bryce Dallas Howard, were brutally underutilized, with zero character development, & McG deserves the death penalty for that, if not for the LOL-CGI-Arnold or the laughable ridiculous ending to the storyline. In a nutshell, it went from boom-boom-pow!!! to bleh.

Pushing blockbusters aside, I finally watched Memento afew weeks back, which was a storytelling masterpiece by the Nolan brothers yet again, while Emily Blunt shines in The Young Victoria. Another riveting political fest came in the form of Frost/Nixon, which had some of the most dramatically captivating acting performances from the cast.

& after more than a month of a constant weekly dosage of summer blockbuster releases, what has stayed in my mind the most?

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Something-ians-wtf-ever.

Me likes me women feisty!

I must reiterate that the only reason to watch this weaker sequel is the ever-delightful Amy Adams as an awesomely feisty Amelia Earhart with a sparkling screen presence & that distracting curvature of her bloody cute butt. But in that final scene, when the “modern” bespectacled-long-haired Amy Adams appeared in front of this wanker called Ben Stiller, with the wonderful surprise of Coldplay’s “Life in Technicolor” playing in the background, all combined to serve us quite possibly the most memorable scene of the summer, for me at least. The perfect song used perfectly in a perfect scene with the perfect sweetheart that is Amy Adams. With the perfect cute bum.

Should have called it the Amy Adams show, or even the Amy Adams Butt Show, rather than Battle of the Something-ians-wtf-ever.

Quick update: Amy Adams is irresistably endearing, totally lovable, absolutely adorable! She (& her cute butt) are the only reasons to watch Night at the Museum 2.

Who cares who won? It was not the huge upset everyone thinks it was, come on, Adam does not deserve to win any more than Kris. It was basically choosing between his over-the-top wailing or Kris Allen’s limited vocal abilities, & the quality of this season is nothing compared to the awesome Season 7. What matters is the final results episode being kick-ass, & boy it was, I have got to admit! Really a total reverse of the performance episode, & who do we have to thank for a memorable end to Season 8? David Cook & Kara DioGuardi, & not forgetting Carrie Underwood’s very-welcomed presence & appearances throughout the season. So here’s a quick recap of what I thought was some of the best, worst & just plain memorable from a riveting suspiciously-conspired “ding-dong” Season 8.

Best Idol Performances:

Best Guest Performances:

Best Duet Performances:

Most Shitty Performance:

Best Vocals, what AI is really supposed to be about:

Best Guest Mentor:

Cutest Idol:

Idols that should have gone home much earlier:

Idol that went home too early:

Best Idol Studio Recorded Version:

Best Season 8 Moment:

Most Excruciating Things you must try to forget from Season 8:

Now I’m off to rewatch David Cook’s heart-felt performance in the fantastic finale results episode again…no harm dropping by for a short sneak peek at DioGuardi’s bikini bod too…

Movie updates: Angels & Demons was an improved thrilling effort compared to Da Vinci, but at the moment the summer belongs to the pretty darn awesome Star Trek. Watching out for Terminator Salvation, Potter & Transformers 2, but I would like Night at the Museum 2’s nonsense fun first.

Ladies & fellow wankers, these are the few final weeks & days before my university life comes to an end, assuming everything goes according to plan of course. I have many things to be extremely pissed about, even more to reminisce of, & only a handful to be happy about.

Let me just get one thing out of my system. The last few weeks of academic education just before the finals hit us usually corresponds to the many deadlines of semester-long projects of our various courses, or in other words, stress time for me as I assume my normal additional role of chief editor of group project reports & presentations. If I were to express myself here just a couple of weeks back, I could safely argue that perhaps only 10 percent of that entry would consist of non-expletive vocabulary (perhaps only for transition & sentence structure purposes). The amount of exasperation, disappointment & lost of respect for particular team members in some particular group projects I suffered was mounting dangerously towards blatant fury levels. Some were downright lazy, some did not have any common sense, some I had always thought to be high-scoring hardworking ones but turned out to be unashamedly irresponsible, some were stupid, & some were stupid but think themselves to be someone of Einstein blood with Obama authority. Hey, I myself admit I am a lazy son of a bitch when it comes to studies but at least I am responsible & do not go near fucking up other people’s work. Thank God for the dependable excellent members. Well, fortunately perhaps, I never got to finish that entry, owing a thanks to the shitty speed (or lack of any connection whatsoever) of my TECHNOLOGY university’s internet.

So out with that, let’s move on.

The American Idol finale was a total let-down wasn’t it? The most disappointing top two among what was initially looking like a promising top 5, with the consistently annoying & self-indulgent Adam Lambert & mundane weak Kris Allen giving performances not fit for an AI finale. Which kinda only reinforced my belief that Gokey should have been on the stage that night to tapao all of them kao kao, with Iraheta deserving 2nd spot. Booo.

So, very much out with that!

When it comes to phones, this bloke over here always stuck with all-round functionality, practicality, price range & a simple but must-be-stylish looks. From my first Moto C350, I ventured into Sony Ericsson’s T630, going on to valiantly protect my loyalty with Sony through the K700 & the K750. During internship back in 2008, I finally got tired of all the functions offered in a phone that I rarely & sometimes never use anyway. I had my iPod for music, & I had her Canon for photographing, so it was back to the basics of phone calling & messaging. So what to spend on then? Why not the sleek refined killer looks of the Motorola RAZR2 V9 Black? Adding into the whole feel was that curious tiny sensation of flipping a phone to receive or end calls. So, out went half of my internship savings for the V9 (with the other half going to my LL16 guitar).

& out went half of my internship investment in barely 10 months when my V9 was stolen just a week ago from my hostel room. French. United. Connection. Kingdom. Oh the anguish. Blatant fury levels came barging through all over again.

To cut the story short, I have resorted back to my old preferences of functionality, & more importantly this time around, price limits considering I am not ready to approach another heartache of losing a 1.4k phone again. So I’ve settled with SE’s T700 with an insanely awesome price of 600 bucks, reconciliating with Sony. This is my first below-1k phone, & honestly I am so far very much enjoying myself with the all-round functions, awesome phone interface & more importantly the simple underrated but stylish executive slim design of the T700. SE have really came out with an impressive T-Series reboot model here; don’t forget its fantastic price tag too.

Comparing my new phone to the old stolen one, it is like losing Jessica Alba & getting a brand new Anne Hathaway. Sort of. & me really likes Hathaway.

So you see, just as I started, I indeed have many things to be extremely pissed about, even more to reminisce of, & only a handful to be happy about.

The happy things? Too personal to relate here, but trust me, they are worth it. =)

KV just found out 3 of his female uni friends purchased new laptops to replace their spoilt ones just very recently. Which kinda demonstrates that something is quite not right with our fairer sex, since we guys tax our laptops waa-a-a-y more than the other species, yet ours are still working fine. Go figure. Yes, I am gladly, & justifiably, stereotyping! Even met a girl who never thought of the basic need to install an antivirus program, teeheee.

PPPPPIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!

Frankly, I have no idea how to construct a Formula One car sound with roman letters, but it sure was mind-blowing!

It all started when Ed the Meche Nerd & I the Meche Stud formed a partnership to participate in UTP’s Formula One Innovative Design Contest. What we had to do was to come up with our own conceptual design of a Formula One car using a design engineering software (CATIA/AutoCAD) & justify our design innovations. So, deciding to go all-out in our creative flair (since Ed is a CATIA maestro, making it a software-design reality would be quite possible) while taking a heck load of liberties with FiA’s rules & regulations, we designed with implementation of some radical concepts such as a covered driver cockpit, lowered engine air intake, oval sidepods, extended rear side bodies that sweep above the rear wheels, a 3-blade 2008-inspired front wing, & we topped it all off with a split rear wing, all in the name of aerodynamics – minimizing drag, increasing downforce, reducing rear turbulence – & more importantly, innovation. Our Formula One concept car was given the name The Stingray.

What Mr. Nerd & Mr. Stud we weren’t prepared for was actually qualifying for the final top 3 teams. Or that we had to present a formal technical presentation in UTP’s Chancellor Hall in the final. Or, even more significant, that the judges who would be evaluating us in the final are Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsports Director), Peter Sauber (Sauber Team Principal), & (are you ready for this) the BMW Sauber F1 drivers themselves, Robert Kubica & Nick Heidfeld.

Robert Kubica & Nick Heidfeld during the autograph session at UTP Complex

Yup, in case you have not read it from the papers, the BMW Sauber F1 team dropped by UTP during the week leading up to Sepang for a Formula One-filled day of activities, coordinated by Petronas Motorsports & UTP. & one of the activities were the presentations by the finalists of the Innovative Design contest.

Introducing our concept design

Presenting at the Chancellor’s Hall in front of the crowd & the panel of judges

Explaining how we tackled the surface pressure analysis factor into our design

We ended up as 2nd place winners. I think we presented well that day (based on feedback, since we had reporters & students coming up to us personally telling how impressed they were with our design & presentation), & the judges were not too hard on us (questions came from Heidfeld & Theissen, who commented that we were being very adventurous, haha). It was an exceptionally humbling experience, being my first technical presentation in front of the mighty BMW Sauber F1 bosses & drivers; yet what an opportunity it was! & me having to orally present in the intimidating Chancellor’s Hall was daunting yet memorable, & surprisingly I was not exactly nervous, so it was a first sign of how beneficial the PCS course was!

All the winners with (from left) our Rector, Theissen, Sauber, Kubica & Heidfeld

Supporters, thank you very much!

Posing with UTP Rector, Datuk Dr. Zainal, & our mock ticket

Wait till you read what we won as prizes each. Sepang F1 Grandstand Diamond Corporate Platform tickets worth RM1950 each, a RM600 BMW Sauber F1 sling bag (ridiculously, & suspiciously, overpriced), & accomodation at Hotel Maya KL with certain meals provided from Thursday to Monday! Pretty awesome for what only started as a little creative afterthought eh?

So on Thursday, off the top 5 winners went on a fully-sponsored KL/Sepang tour trip that was jointly sponsored by ESPN & Petronas. We the UTP design winners were joined in the group by other contest winners from Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan & Indonesia, though their contest was not a design competition, rather a guess-the-champion kinda contest. But just like them, I was taking this trip as a welcomed honeymoon break from UTP life.

Yawning before departure. Mak cik cleaner not coming along for the ride

First thing upon reaching KL, check into a 5-star hotel

With the most bubbly, fantastic, open-minded chaperone you can ever get, Miss Suhana

This was taken during the 1st night buffet welcome dinner at the hotel, which was impeccable – huge oysters, sushis, sirloin steaks, marshmallows & berries dipped in chocolate fountain, topped off with Haagen-Dasz

More sponsored goodies!

With Jacinth & Juliana, our tour group coordinators from Leo Burnett, at the KLCC sky bridge

At Menara KL with Pearl & Kiddick from Thailand

The whole group – big hearty thanks to ESPN & Petronas from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia & Taiwan!

Marching towards Sepang, Qualifying Day

A wet Race Day: BMW Sauber supporters for the day. Petronas, please ignore the red bags

Would have very much preferred to join these guys: the prancing horse of Scuderia Ferrari has always been in my heart since I was a kid

Couldn’t resist a Ferrari polo tee, RM300 hangus. Ed also puchased one though he wasn’t a Ferrari fan at all, damn potong stim for loyal fans like I

Having corporate platform ticks allows you a free Golf GTi ride from the gate to the grandstands

With my old Mercedes-Benz Malaysia colleagues, Anida & Liz, at the Mercedes-Benz booth. How I miss them, such delightful colleagues they were during my internship there

Anida: “Tahun nih got your McLaren SLR kat display!”

Pictures like these make me feel tall & huge.

Juliana & Jacinth showing who’s behind all this

The F1 drivers performing their publicity duties. Apologies to Petronas, Kubica & Heidfeld, for I was cheering for Raikkonen

The gorgeous M-Benz AMG safety & medic cars. I was drooling at the SL63 AMG, that babe purred like no other

If cars are not your thing, there are always the local women to oggle at

But if local women are not your cup of tea, salivate at imported babes then

The teams setting up at the grid for the formation lap. Thank you Kimi for qualifying P7, for you were directly in front of us! Watching the extremely thorough Ferrari engineers & crew working was an inspirational moment

1 of the main reasons I was looking forward to, seeing my idol – Michael Schumacher, the only driver who was as mean as the machine he drove. He waved back at us when I joined the crowd in hollering his name. The sore throat was worth it, could have died a happy man that day.

It’s Kimi Raikkonen! Looking as oblivious-to-the-crowd as ever

He didn’t even look remotely interested in shaking Najib’s hand, it was quite obvious Kimi did not give a shit

When the race started, let’s just say…thank God for those ear plugs

20 V8 engines rumbling together waiting for the red lights to go off, & screaming away towards the first corner…the sound was so unbelievable I could have shat, or shitted…whatever, in my pants. The sound itself was worth the admission price. You have got to hear it LIVE

Button in his overperforming Brawn GP

A lying arrogant wanker called Hamilton in his underperforming McLaren

You would have known by now that the race was later red-flagged because of the rain & looming darkness

Which led to rather bizarre scenes

A picture-perfect moment of the BMW Sauber crew packing up in the pits after the race

1 of the disadvantages of watching an actual Grand Prix live is that we totally had no idea what the hell was happening, & amongst the confusion, the rather horrible commentary (or rather, mumbling) over the grandstand speakers did not help. However, putting aside the red flag & the wait & all, the race was a sublime strategic face-off coupled with spellbinding tactical brilliance, with half of the racing done in the pits. Absolutely insane stuff, & it would have been perfect if the race was eventually restarted, but well, we can’t have it all.

After the race, we had free admission to the Jamiroquai after-race concert held at the helipad area just beside the race track. Corporate hospitality was again being blessed upon us as we had a special viewing stage for corporate ticket holders, along with free food & flow of drinks, beer & wine included. Incredibly, not even the constant downpour could dampen the crowd’s spirits, & Jamiroquai was pretty much in their element. Even though their songs sounded pretty much the same,  they certainly brought the funk to Sepang. The muddy grounds were not very kind to my Porsches though.

View from the corporate stage, Jamiroquai strutting their stuff onstage

Eventually, all good things come to an end, & we discovered that the end of our honeymoon break arrived only too soon on Monday.

Miss Suhana doing her last jig (hangover from Jamiroquai the night before) before returning to her daily executive responsibilities in UTP

Departure back to Tronoh. Rats.

& after 5 days of 5-star treatment, I have to start getting used to the idea of not waking up in the morning to a hot shower & buffet breakfast.

Thanks all for the gorgeous pictures, especially to the DSLRs of Cem & Saf!

I…

…think Danny Gokey should win American Idol. Matt’s cool & soulful, Adam’s vocals are as impressive as they are irritating, Megan is quirky, & Allison has a mature rock voice that’s way beyond her actual age. Mr. “Jamal Malik” – Anoop – is really really likeable, but without an ounce of star quality. Scott & Kris? Their vocals are just too bland & frankly, boring. Gokey’s spectacular performance during the Hollywood group stage, where his group sang “Somebody To Love”, remains unforgettable.

…think I really am in love with AnnaSophia Robb! Race to Witch Mountain was okay, it was a Disney kids kinda movie anyway, & Dwayne Johnson was pretty lovable, but boy, was AnnaSophia a sight to behold. Sure, she didn’t get to spread her acting wings much as compared to her iconic potrayal of Leslie Burke in that delightful Bridge To Terabithia, but she was undeniably as talented as she is utterly gorgeous. Oh, she was really sweet in her “Keep Your Mind Wide Open” music video!

…think the musical arrangement of Coldplay’s “Lovers In Japan” is genius. That middle “goreng” instrumental section is just insane stuff.

…think I need to give Watchmen another chance. However, I am never going near Dragonball Evolution, am afraid of the butchering they gave to my childhood comics.

…think cockroaches will really take over the world one day. (Yesss, I can’t stand them!)

So I was looking for a new pair of shoes for casual walking purposes. Something essentially white in colour, simple & clean with a classic touch, because I needed them to match anything I put on, & I wasn’t going to splash for this new pair, so it had to be reasonably priced. Being a Nike fan since I was born, & getting bored with Adidas who seemingly look like they just recycle the same old designs (as opposed to Nike, which comes out with innovative & fresh designs, even though some may be agreeable or not), I sort of made up my mind to get a pair of Nike Sweet Classics.

As if God had a hand in this, the Nike Classic outlet in 1U was closed for renovation on this fateful shopping day. A quick look at the other Nike outlet produced no fruit as they only had the newer colour combinations, while I was stubbornly refusing to look at anything that was not white in general. As I trudged around in gloom & disappointment, apparently giving up on the search, (again, as if fate intervened) I noticed the Nike Sweet Classic pair I was looking for being displayed at the THREEPOINTsix outlet. Tunggu apa lagi, pecut masuklah I to check out the pair.

As usual, I made it a point to just browse the displayed shoes anyway, regardless whether I have set my mind on a particular model or not. It just sort of gives me a more relieved feeling, kinda like ensuring I really am choosing the best they have to offer. That was when she spotted a particular shoe that caught her eye, held it up to me…& the rest, is history.

Like I said, I am a Nike fan for the longest time I could remember, & the only thing that stopped me from having a whole collection of Nike snickers was my sensible rational mind (& that other thing called money, or lack of it rather). So it would take A LOT, if not impossibly a lot, to swing my choice of shoes to another brand.

In this case, it would take a Porsche.

So after purchasing & currently using 6 pairs of Nikes, my latest 7th pair going into my stable of shoes are a pair of Adidas Porsche Design S2.

This pair fulfilled all of my requirements. Casual, simple, clean, yet understatedly smooth. It was all-white, with the typical 3 Adidas stripes barely noticeable since they only used thin blue outlines rather than solid colours for the stripes, & they were motorsport driving shoes, which is a first for me. That metal plate at the lower side sole with the “Porsche Design” etching muscled in a healthy dose of sporty stylish feel to the whole shoe. The Nike Sweet Classics lay forgotten.

But wait for the real punch-in-the-nuts fact…

The Porsches were going at 40% off its original price of RM379.90! You do the math, & since I don’t mind getting an older model (hey, the older they are, the more classic they are right? They are Adidas Classic anyway), how could I resist such an opportunity? The quirky thing was the sales chick there was apparently trying to dissuade me from purchasing that pair:

“You shouldn’t buy a size 8.5 when you are actually 9, later you will get blisters! You can try the Adidas outlets, they might have the right sizes, & they have wide range of models & colours too.”

That was before she added: “But you wouldn’t get the discount you would get here lah.”

Okay, before I ramble further & sound dangerously close to a bimbo chick in shopping heaven, I would like to state that the fact remains; it would be quite outrageous to sway a Nike fan like me to purchase pure Adidas shoes, so kudos to Porsche for boosting Adidas with design steroids. In any case, I have a sneaky feeling Porsche (okay okay, Adidas too) was meant to be my fateful 7th pair & the deserving one to break my Nike streak. Because, if the Nike Classic outlet was not fortunately closed for renovation works, I would not have arrived at my Porsches. If I hadn’t decided on the Nike Sweet Classics, I would never have spotted them thus ever entered THREEPOINTsix. Of course, if she didn’t have a stroke of genius in noticing the Porsches before me…you get the idea.

I…

…think me likes Porsche! Okaaayyyy, Adidas Porsche Design~.

Ain’t converted, but sure am satisfied!

KV recommends Kanye West’s VH1 Storytellers!

Quicknote: Anne Hathaway was very, very impressive during the 81st Oscars. Heart-stopping beauty, & astonishing vocals in that opening performance.

“& the Oscar goes to…”

So all the main award shows for movies (& music too) for the year 2008 have been carried out, all results revealed, with the latest during the Academy Awards a few days ago. As usual, I take the opportunities from the nominees’ lists from these shows (notably the Golden Globes & the Oscars) to be exposed to the movies that, either never reached our shores (or in Juno’s case, reached our cinemas a whole bloody year later), or simply I have not heard of before. In other words, without the best picture nomination, I would never have watched (or even be aware of) No Country for Old Men.

This year was no different. During the Golden Globes there was so much hoo-haa about Slumdog Millionaire, while I was staring blankly at the screen with the words “What are these wankers talking about? What slumdog?”.

Thus, with freezing winds inviting themselves into my room through my half-opened windows, a blaring karaoke session from the nearby surau trying in vain to compete with my iTunes to be my accompanying soundtrack during the scripting of this post, & my frequent bowel liquid movements leaving me severely weakened & unable to move around much (accept the regular bullet-speed dashes to the loo), I would like to summarize my reviews on the only 2 movies I am interested in from the best picture nominees’ list of the Academy Awards 2009 (the reviews which I have been postponing intentionally till after the Oscars’ results were revealed).

For the first hour, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was inclining towards an epic story on the verge of becoming a complete fantasy masterpiece. Poignant & melancholic with touches of delight, I was truly engaged. Pitt’s Benjamin Button could not have been more enigmatic.

Then, at a weary 2 hours & 45 minutes long, what was so beautiful ended with a feeling of “it could have been so so so much greater”. A story about a peculiar little person that ages backwards could have had a journey of so much more fantastic tales in his life (Forrest Gump comes into mind), yet he led a pretty much mundane & pointless life. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the whole movie was still stunning & mesmerizing, but the craving for what it could have been is quite overwhelming. Brad Pitt was very much perfect (& looked perfect too!) for the role, while Cate Blanchett was marvelous wasn’t she? Unfortunately, Benjamin Button lacked a little inspiration & ended up as a movie with beautiful & intimate storytelling that ultimately failed to reach a destination of any significance, when it could have been the greatest epic tale of recent times.

Slumdog Millionaire on the other hand was an extraordinary story of the life of Jamal Malik. This is one rollercoaster ride that will flabbergast you face-on with an euphoric rush of uproarious joy, despair, shock, disbelief & a certain amount of far-fetched awesomeness that delights anyway. Visually dazzling, excellent directing from Boyle, polished camera work execution, an incredible soundtrack by A.R. Rahman, & most importantly outstanding performances by the young unknown cast, all seal this as not only a brilliant masterpiece, but a very refreshing & exhilarating cinematic experience that captures that rare balance of being extremely entertaining yet emotionally resonant. I don’t think I need to say much more about this movie, it left me quite breathless, & it did sweep 8 freaking Oscars.  & that dance scene during the credits is a charming nod to Bollywood. Freida Pinto however looks much more captivating in person…hmmmm.

So there were people asking how Sean Penn could have snagged the Oscar for Best Actor from Mickey Rourke (or even Brad Pitt, for that matter). I thought they should have just bloody gave the award to Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, the cute kid who played the youngest Jamal Malik. That unforgettable scene of him jumping into that enormous pile of shit holding up Amitabh Bachchan’s picture gloriously should have single-handedly gave him the Best Actor award hands-down.

Frankly, at first look I would have expected the old blokes from the Academy to give the Oscar to Benjamin Button, given their fetish for deep thought-provoking drama, rather than the rich joyride feast that was Slumdog.

But I am still convinced they should have given the award to The Dark Knight =).

KV thinks “Thinking of You” is almost as beautiful as Katy Perry’s face…or her pair of weapons of mass ‘distraction’.

How could anyone possibly resist those pair of eyes?

Those gorgeous eyes that sparkle ever so seductively in the day, & shine in their full glory at night, ensnaring us dangerously with every of those sexy glitters forming the curves & straight stretches that underline the borders of the whole eye features…

Those elegant eyes that leave you with an orgasmic moan of awe day or night, hopelessly smitten when you glance upon them as they (seemingly) flirt outrageously with you as they pass by…

Today, as I drove along the highways & roads that formed my route from my university to my hometown for the Chinese New Year holidays, there were a fair number of mamahotchicas on the road to wash my eyes upon. Like many, such road drives are often opportunities for me to enjoy salivating at those freaking hot automobiles as they fly pass my own automobile on the highways, looking longingly at them (mostly only their butts by the time I noticed them or their models), dreaming in envy knowing I very well could not possibly own one myself. Following swiftly after the automobile look-over would be the quick & extremely judgmental glance on the vehicle occupants, special attention given to the driver. If the person behind the wheel was a young man, I would go “lucky arse”. A fat old balding man - “rich bastard”. A young teenager - “ahbeng with rich parents”. Hot young chick with oversized shades – “Fuuuyo. Damn I would like a ride on that…uh, car”. & the most stereotyped judgmental glance? Aunty behind the wheel – “Cheh. Sure got rich husband. Or perempuan simpanan of rich fat old balding man”.

Today was an eye-opening experience, & it does not involve Ferraris or Lamborghinis. But before I get into the main star of today, let me speak first of the other supporting casts that were outshone. Spotted, halfway through my journey, was the Mitsubishi Lancer GT. Not one, but two passed me by today. Adding salt to the wound would be the fact that they were both hot blazing red in colour, which was frankly & appropriately, the only paint the Lancer deserves. Now it’s no secret I’m a big admirer of the Lancer’s strong physical designs, where it is one of few cars that boasts equally awesome looks in both its front & rear features, & its fantastic & worthy price considering the segment it is in. Look at those headlamps. The front lamps sort of barks out “Fark you!”, & the rear lamps glare menacingly at you with the same “Fark you!” feeling. But lately there were incidents that really potong-stim‘ed my enthusiasm for the Lancer. First was the fact that the other paints offered aside from the blazing red – silver & black – seriously & significantly reduced the ooomph factor of the Lancer’s garang look. Then I found out a lecturer in my university owned one (not going to elaborate on the WTF feeling of this). The final nail hammered down upon me when our tuan-tuan polis ordered 25 units of the Lancer Evos to be utilized as patrolling units. That one seriously WTF-potong-stim.

But who the hell cares about the Lancer when there were those pair of eyes…

Today was also the first time I saw the new Autobot-ish Honda City on the road. Depan macam transformers celup, belakang macam BMW 3 Series celup.

But who the hell cares about the City when there were those pair of eyes…

Everything was shoved violently aside when, spotted, upon an innocent glance at my rearview mirror,  with a swooping sensation electrifying through my spine, the aforementioned 2 jaw-dropping eyes flirting back at me through the mirror, in the form of the LED daylight running lights of the Audi A4.

Instead of the “Fark you!” feeling of the Lancer headlamps, the Audi A4 LEDs were purring “Hey baby~ I’m gonna make sweeeet lo~oo~ve to you reaaal goooood~ all day~ & all night long~” in the most ridiculously exotic & seductive way, I’m telling you. That A4, gleaming stylishly in stunning white, stayed for a few seconds tagging behind me, before scorching past me on the right. & then it was gone.

I didn’t even bother looking at who was behind the wheel. & you can ask her how expressive my orgasmic moaning was.

Boy those Audi LED daylight running lights are really kicking BMW’s eagle eye lights’ asses.

The visuals included here which I took from the net do no justice whatsoever compared to seeing them on the road for real. I don’t care how many car magazines & reviews have discussed how the 3 Series & C-Class totally outperforms the A4, because this baby A4 is by far one of the most awesome (albeit in an understated way) looking eye-catching 4-door saloon in the market at the moment.

Maybe when I see more & more of them on the road my current craze would dissipate slightly, but I guess sometimes, Ferraris, Lambos, SLRs & Audi R8s are not the only hot babes on the road that can snatch my heart away.

Quickie: Paramore is featured in CSI Las Vegas, Episode 9 of Season 9!

It’s that time of the year again! The time to reflect on the ups & downs & rights & lefts of the past 12 months, while looking forward to, & taking advantage of, the start of an incoming new year to make inconcrete resolutions in the hope of prematurely reducing our hopeless guilt. Well, this bloke here is immersed in a current mood to come up with completely biased lists to summon up the best of what the year has offered from the entertainment scene. Of course I’m no insider when it comes to the La-la Land industry, so do kindly receive this as something coming from an average everyday dude that just happens to enjoy indulging in movies, music, idiot-box-offerings, & of course (just like any other hot-blooded male species) mighty hot women. Let us not deprive ourselves further of this pleasure, let’s roll out my list of heavily-biased favourite picks from whatever I have seen, listened, enjoyed & been repulsed by for the year 2008.

FILM

Movies of the Year: The Dark Knight, Juno & Iron Man

These 3 (in a particular order) sprang into mind without even the slightest of hesitation. The Dark Knight boasted a great cast performance & an even impossibly greater plot, Juno was the surprise of the year with its cleverly witty take on teenage pregnancy, & Iron Man was supremely satisfying.

Edge-of-your-seat Action Movie: Cloverfield

Love it, or hate it. I don’t care how many people across the globe puked while watching this, because my 2 times in the cinema in the shaky hands of Hud were easily the most mind-blowing, cardiac-arrest-inducing, ball-busting sessions I had this year.

Romance Movie: Definitely, Maybe

With supremely hot gorgeous leading ladies & a darling Abigail Breslin, not even a wimpy Ryan Reynolds could dampen this sweet warm tale narrated with a clever twist.

Comedic Movies: Charlie Wilson’s War, Tropic Thunder & Be Kind Rewind

Since I’ve already mentioned Juno in an earlier category, these 3 stood out most. Charlie Wilson’s War delighted in its light-heart political storyline enthused by hilarious dialogues, it was fun to see the stars making a fool of themselves in Tropic Thunder, & Be Kind Rewind was an amusingly heart-warming ride all the way.

Saddest Cry-your-heart-out Movie: Grace Is Gone

The performance of his life from John Cusack along with an impressive Shélan O’Keefe. This movie’s poignant beauty will stay with you for a long, long time.

Animation Movie: WALL-E

Unique, richly entertaining, touching & big-hearted, along with glorious detailed animations, WALL-E rises above the rest to end up as an animation masterpiece. Everybody together now, Eeevvveee-aaaahh.

Musical Movie: Once

I quote: “Captures the rare chemistry & unforced artistry of two people finding music as well as personal harmony together & we are lucky enough to be there to watch it.” Couldn’t have summed this untraditional musical up better.

Most Over-hyped Movie: Twilight

So-so movie with sizzling chemistry from the leads but horribly laughable special effects.

Most Under-rated Movie: Traitor

A well-paced & extremely complex thriller that leaves viewers with a subjective but realistic afterthought.

Biggest Disappointment Movie: The X-Files: I Want To Believe

The only positive thing about this anti-climatic pancit-ter is seeing Mulder & Scully together onscreen again, making us believe that their legacy (& only that) lives on.

Most Impressive Performance in a Movie: Amy Adams

Adams was the perfect choice for Giselle in Enchanted, & gave her trademark cheerful, sunny, all-round performance that probably saved the entire movie. No easy feat to make a real-life Disney princess convincing!

Hottest Movie Chicks: Anne Hathaway (Agent 99, Get Smart), Camila Belle (Evolet, 10,000 BC) & Mila Kunis (Rachel Jansen, Forgetting Sarah Marshall)

A super-hot super-agent, blue eyes to kill, & a very sexy raspy voice.

Film Soundtrack: The Dark Knight, Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard

Simply stunning, gloriously dark & really, quite spectacular.

Song from a Movie: “Falling Slowly” from Once, Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová

It was beautiful from the moment they sang in the movie first time, & for its simple melody with powerful raw emotion, it sure deserved the Oscar it won.

TELEVISION

Series of the Year: Bones

Very enjoyable, & a great relief sometimes when you don’t have to strain your brain too much while watching a series. The strength lies in the chemistry & performance of the 2 leads, Booth & Brennan, as well as a very entertaining supporting cast.

Most Disappointing Series: Heroes Season 3

The story is going down the jamban, & almost every character (especially Suresh, Hiro & Claire) are getting seriously annoying.

Hottest TV Characters: Lily van der Woodsen (Gossip Girl) & Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Bones)

1 hot mama who is hotter than her hot daughter, & 1 hot female  forensic anthropologist who is obsessed with skeletal remains. Whoa.

MUSIC

Single of the Year: “That’s What You Get”, Paramore

I can’t stop playing this song! Lo-o-ove it!

Album of the Year: Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay

Some fresh & more muscular musical arrangements but still with a little of the old Coldplay shine soaring through those anthemic stadium-rock rhythms make this album an undisputed winner.

Video of the Year: “Hallelujah”, Paramore

I told you this list was biased, *grin*. But seriously, this is the perfect Paramore video, furiously interweaving various live & behind-the-scenes clips of the band doing what they do best, performing live.

Surprising Hey-that’s-pretty-darn-good Songs: “Stay”, Estrella & “Gravity”, Sara Bareilles

Estrella deserves their radio success, “Stay” is catchy & simply brilliant (a big hurrah for local music!), & Bareilles’ vocals & musical astuteness shine through in that last track of her album.

Favourite Live Concerts on DVD: Hillsong Live – Saviour King, Avril Lavigne – Live from the Roxy Theatre, &  freaking anything from Paramore live

Brooke Fraser is spectacular in Saviour King Live, Avril was surprisingly good in her subtle Roxy Theatre acoustic concert, & all I want for Christmas is The Final Riot! DVD from Paramore.

Favourite New Artists: Katy Perry & Kate Nash

Katy Perry’s flair & confidence blazes through her sassy & feisty songs, while Kate Nash deserves her skyrocketing success for her exuberant & refreshing beats, charming melodies & that cockney accent.

Over-rated Artists: The Jonas Brothers

I can’t stand their vocals. Enough! I give up.

Most Played Songs on My iTunes: A tie between “Live Your Life”, T.I. feat. Rihanna & “Decode”, Paramore

The official count recorded on iTunes is 48 each. Rihanna’s vocals give that extra oomph to “Live Your Life”, & Paramore, with incredibly outstanding vocals from Hayley, has written a soundtrack song that Twilight is unworthy of.

Most Annoying Replays on Radio: “Soulja Boy”, Crank Dat & “Bubbly”, Colbie Caillat

All those damned “Ohhhhhh!”s from “Soulja Boy” just make me wanna crash my car, & frankly, anything from the ridiculously sugary Caillat is getting on my nerves.

& FINALLY…

Women of the Year: Hayley Nichole Williams & Zooey Claire Deschanel

Yes, I made up this last category for pointless fun. Let’s face it, it is Hayley’s awesome vocals & her bubbly & energetic personality (oh, her flaming hair too) that give Paramore that extra edge, making her an awesome lead vocalist without completely overshadowing her band-mates, instead sharing with them excellent musical & onstage chemistry. Zooey, whom I love for her endearing deadpan onscreen acting & slightly eccentric fashion sense, continues to display her soaring talent through the debut album of She & Him, lending her distinctively charming voice as one half of the duo, that same voice some of us fell in love with in the movie Elf. & really, could you resist those pair of eyes?

Thus come to an end this list, that really serves to please the author himself only, & the year 2008, which began with our former Health Minister ejaculating in humping in a DVD & ending with our Prime Minister announcing his  scheduled premature ejection retirement from the government of this country in 2009. Cheery new year everyone!

Pak polis dah beli Lancer Evo so they can catch up with criminals. Now they can be bribed faster than you can say “Settle berape?”!

What the heck, I’m responding to a tag! Courtesy of Emo. Actually, I did not plan to publish this, but then this sucker who calls himself Joshua dared to me do it, so here it is. Breaking the habit indeed. People, this is a temporary departure from what is normally expected of KV’s standards, so I hope you’d all forgive me. Bullshit ahead; you have been warned.

1. How old are you?
Agak-agak around 22 years, 10 months & 20 days old.

2. Are you single?
Nay, am plural.

3. In what age do you think you’ll get married?
Hm. Before my billions of Michael Phelps’es start reducing I hope.

4. Do you think you’ll be marrying the person you are with now?
When I was a kid, I was with Beauty from Beauty & the Beast. 10 years ago I was with Liv Tyler. 5 years back I was with Jessica Alba, while juggling affairs with Avril Lavigne & Kristin Kreuk. A year ago I was with Hayley Williams, until I met & had a fling with Mila Kunis. I’m back with Hayley, but does it look like I’m gonna marry the person I am with now when I don’t even know who I will be with tomorrow?

5. If not, who do you want to marry?
Hayley Williams. Just to see the look on Joshua’s face.

6. Do you want a garden/beach or traditional wedding?
Bitch wed…I mean beach wedding. Wait a sec. The beaches here stink. Garden. Definitely garden!

7. Your ideal motive?
To make love. No wait, just the love. Big difference eh?

8. Where do you plan to go on a honeymoon?
Paris…Switz…& anywhere else she wants to go.

9. How many guests do you think you will invite?
Jessica, Jessica, Avril, Liv, Mila, Jennifer, Jennifer, Keira…a couple more perhaps.

10. Do you want an extravagant or simple wedding?
A wedding is never simple, even when it’s meant to be one.

11. Do you want the traditional vows or something you’d make up on your own?
Of course something I’d crap on my own!

12. How many layers of cake do you want?
There’s cake? Can’t I have a big-ass Cinnabon or Roti Boy instead…

13. Do you prefer having your reception at a hotel or simple place?
The hotel is going to be for what’s gonna happen after the wedding…at night.

14. When do you want to get married, morning or evening?
The eve to the ning.

15. You’d rather have your reception outdoors or indoors?
Tengoklah forecast hujan ke tak…

16. Do you like a grand entrance for your groom?
Uh, I’d be more concerned about the fact that I’m marrying a groom.

17. Name the song/tune you’d want to play in your wedding.
The entire soundtrack of “Pride & Prejudice” by Dario Marianelli. & special vocal performances by Hayley herself, & guest appearances by Mindy Smith, Brooke Fraser & Lisa Hannigan.

18. Are u a morning person or a night person?
I am Kevin by day & Wong Loug Sung by night!

19. Do you want a solemn ceremony or a light one?
Light & sweet.

20. Describe your ideal husband/wife.
Her last name should be Williams & her first name should be Hayley.

21. Do you prefer fine dining or just the normal fork&spoon/knife?
Fine dining also requires fork, spoon & knife.

22. Champagne or red wine?
Everything. On the rocks.

23. Honeymoon right after the wedding or days after the wedding?
Up to her loh…

24. Money or household items?
Depends. If anyone wants to get me a 70-inch plasma flatscreen & a Bose sound system, feel free to do so.

25. Who will pay for the bills?
Hah! This one ah, you ask the chicks, they sure say share share la, but everyone knows what will really happen!

26. Are you ready for a married life?
I’m afraid of that disease Russell Peters mentioned; Onegina.

27. Do you think you will still be a virgin until you get married?
Hey, someone told me no one is a virgin coz life f**ks us up!

28. Will you always be true to your wife/husband?
Wife slash husband? A wife can’t be a husband at the same time, especially in bed.

29. How many kids would you like to have?
Wait I ask. Angelina, how many more kids would you want?

30. A new house for a newly wed or an old one?
An old…Victorian mansion in Europe…

31. What kind of cuisine would you like for your wedding?
When it comes to food, she da boss.

32. Will you record your honeymoon in a CD or DVD?
Have you not learned anything from the Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee episode? Oh wait, you’re not talking about that kinda honeymoon…

33. Whose wedding plan would you like to know next?
Joshua, now that I’ve taken Hayley. What’s your plan B? Wahahahhaa, sucker.

This is what happens when I’ve stayed too long in Mentakab during holidays…

Heyo, it has been some time since I actually reviewed anything in particular. Anyway, I was just watching the latest episode of Bones on my laptop, & during this particular tender moment between the 2 leads the thought of writing about “Chemistry!” blazed through my ears into my brain. By chemistry, I mean that invisible but sizzling spark & connection (be it love or hate) between characters in any ways on the big screen or the idiot box that we just love to watch & tune into week by week, that unmistakable but inexplainable force that just seems to be ever present between 2 or more characters in a show (or any other similar presentation) that blows off light bulbs, sends tingling sensations down your spine, warms your heart to bits & at times, will “menaikkan your bulu roma”, sometimes becoming the only reason to watch the show. So, armed with plenty of time back at home during these holidays, here is a round-up of my favourites for on-screen chemistry from the top of my head, coming from whatever that I have watched & come across so far, in any random aspects & categories (not just romantically or sexually-lah).

:: Noah Calhoun & Allie Hamilton from The Notebook ::

Ryan Gosling & Rachel McAdams

The 2nd couple that flew into mind (after the X-Files leads), Gosling & McAdams (who became real lovebirds later, then broke-up) brought Noah & Allie’s magnificent story to life in the most moving of ways. McAdams in particular gave Allie that extra burst of enigmatic energy & spunk, & together with Noah’s average-Joe-with-a-big-heart, became the leads of easily 1 of the most heartwarming, gushy, cheesy & beautiful romance story ever brought to the big screen. Tissues, please.

:: Tony Stark & Pepper Potts from Iron Man ::

Robert Downey Jr. & Gwyneth Paltrow

This was the only thing Iron Man had that was missing from all other superhero movies – serious sexual tension & chemistry between the hero & the female lead. Everyone knows how well Downey Jr. fitted into Stark’s shoes, & boy did Paltrow look mighty fine as Stark’s most trusted aide. Every scene having these 2 together gave me serious goose bumps, from Pepper welcoming Stark back at the air base, to the ever endearing “heart”-replacement scene.

:: Danny Ocean & Rusty Ryan from Ocean’s 11, 12 & 13 ::

George Clooney & Brad Pitt

Clooney has great charisma, Pitt is smooth all the way. They finish each other’s lines, know each other’s thoughts & moves, & their banters were extremely smart & witty. But what’s best is both did not try to hog all the glory; resulting in both being very slick leads without taking away the entire “Ocean’s” ensemble feel of the movie. Suffice to say these 2 are the coolest duo in the list. Man that laughing scene in Ocean’s Twelve still leaves me in stitches.

:: Bella Swan & Edward Cullen from Twilight ::

Kristen Stewart & Robert Pattinson

I probably added this because I just watched the movie recently, which was so-so & rather bland (but with some excruciatingly horrible special effects & camera work), but seriously I could not deny the burning blaze Bella & Edward had for each other. Nothing better but to pair an awkward quiet teen (played perfectly by the most expressionless actress ever, Kristen Stewart) & a very beautiful male “vegetarian” vampire (Pattinson was brilliant by the way) together for a little romancing, eh?

:: Kale & Ronnie from Disturbia ::

Shia LaBeouf & Aaron Yoo

I do not know why these 2 dudes came to mind, but when I recalled why Disturbia was such an entertaining thriller, 1 of the main factors I reasoned out was the hilarious antics & friendship of Kale & Ronnie (what a great comedic turn from Yoo!). Pop in a hot chick in between & tadaaa~, the movie went on to become a surprise hit.

:: Michael Clayton & Karen Crowder from Michael Clayton ::

George Clooney & Tilda Swinton

Damn was this Oscar-winning film a thriller. Clooney is excellent as a “fixer” & Swinton gave an intensely edgy performance as a desperate corporate attorney, & it was satisfyingly stunning to watch how Clooney verbally walloped Swinton’s ass in that final climatic scene.

:: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley & Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter movies ::

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint & Emma Watson

Say whatever you want about the Potter movies, it does not change the fact that the 3 leads have done an amazing job in bringing Harry, Ron & Hermione to life. We love to see them together, & we’ve seen them grow from kiddie cuties to mature blokes & a hottie (& a much more convincing & improving Radcliffe). Comparing especially to the irritating Narnia kids, this trio certainly are a joy to watch.

:: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully from The X-Files ::

David Duchovny & Gillian Anderson

Do I even need to elaborate? We all knew this was going to be included in every “on-screen chemistry” list, & deservingly, Mulder & Scully is the mother of all couples in a TV series, ever & ever & ever & ever after, & a perfect example of a believer against a skeptic. Romantic or platonic? We all know, but I guess the truth is still out there. & yeah, seeing Mulder & Scully together again was the only positive thing out of the dull latest movie, The X-Files: I Want To Believe.

:: Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan & Seeley Booth from Bones ::

Emily Deschanel & David Boreanaz

The best since Mulder-Scully & my favourite duo at the moment, this is another classic example of 2 clashing egos having a ridiculously strong sexual tension & electrifying chemistry. Deschanel is extremely convincing as the lonely & cynical anthropologist, & pairing her with the comedic & charming Booth made this otherwise-quite-generic crime series 1 of my most loved series. & the 2 certainly are getting more & more comfortable with each other…more please! Oh, the rest of the cast are not too bad either, especially the brilliant & quirky squints in Zack & Hodgins.

:: Blair Waldorf & Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl ::

Leighton Meester & Ed Westwick

For many of the women (& men too), Chuck Bass is the only reason why Gossip Girl is worth watching. & really, could we ever get enough of the slick & manipulative games Blair & Chuck play, whether on others or on each other? We know they love each other, & the sexual attraction between them is scorching hot. Oh yes, we know we love them too.

:: Lorelai & Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls ::

Lauren Graham & Alexis Bledel

They are the perfect mother-daughter team, the mother the lively bubbly one & the daughter the more mature & often rational one. These 2 were inseparable, Bledel & Graham even looked dazzlingly alike! So what if this was a chick film, I’m still having a hard time getting over the anguish felt over the ending of this series. No more bullet-speed interchanges of dialogues, witty & sarcastic banter, no more Friday night dinners…

:: Clark Kent & Lana Lang from Smallville Season 1-3 ::

Tom Welling & Kristin Kreuk

I’ve stopped regularly watching Smallville at Season 4 (despite a refreshing introduction of a voluptuous Erica Durance as Lois Lane). Frankly Smallville always had ridiculous plots, but who could resist the intense love & chemistry of Clark & the gorgeous Lana in the first few seasons? Disappointingly Lana has morphed into a horrible character in the later seasons, & though now Clark & Lois have some real spark going on, the glowing & unspoken love Clark & Lana had in Season 1 & 2 remained most memorable.

:: Jack Shepard & Kate Austen from Lost ::

Matthew Fox & Evangeline Lilly

Though these 2 started off really well, this is another case of “will they bloody ever get together?”. It is however saddening to see Kate turning from the hottest criminal fugitive ever to a rather confused slut, but still, these two look really good together, & still sends sparks flying whenever they gaze into each other’s eyes.

:: Ephram Brown & Amy Abbott from Everwood ::

Gregory Smith & Emily VanCamp

The intense drama between Ephram & his dad aside, we watched in agony as Ephram & Amy dwelled through all the ups & downs before finally ending up together in the season finale. The odd but beguilingly sweet connection that Ephram & Amy shared made this series even more poignant & beautiful than it already was. Everybody together now – aawwwwwww~.

:: Liz Parker & Max Evans from Roswell ::

Shiri Appleby & Jason Behr

Liz Parker was by far 1 of the sweetest & most endearing female characters ever in any TV series back then, & Jason Behr put his expressionless & monotonous personality to full use to play a lovesick alien stranded on Earth. Don’t worry, despite the human-alien circumstances, there was a happy ending after all.

:: Hayley Williams & Josh Farro from Paramore ::

Okay okay I just slipped this in at the very end because I’m experiencing a Paramore-mania at the moment, but damn, this two write good music together, sound really good together, & if that’s not enough, they even look good together on stage leading the rest of the band! Josh’s quiet demeanor & silent focus on his guitars is really quite the perfect match to Hayley’s bursting energy & edgy personality. Definitely my favourite musical pair-up since the now-separated Avril Lavigne-Evan Taubenfeld & Amy Lee-Ben Moody. The fans love to see them get together too, check out the many fantasy-love sites about them online.

KV is listening to Paramore’s “Decode” from the Twilight soundtrack on iTunes.

The July 04 Unity initiative continued, this time in the splendor of UTP’s mother nature, images from under the sun…

Well, sometimes it is best to just let the pictures do the talking… =)

When I first stepped into this university, I thought I was in for hell.

The dudes & dudettes in my July 2004 (0704) batch proved me wrong.

Nobody told me there were chicks in an engineering university!

The food in UTP is crap, & the only time you can find us all in this café is when they are not serving flies…sorry, food.

& the cellphone reception in some areas here sucks balls, so we make do with what we have.

In UTP, the splendor of nature is always close to us.

So we always give back to Mother Nature, whether individually…

…or in a collaborative effort.

Close proximity between male & female is widely prohibited here…

But really, why the hell should we care?

While men learn to jump ahead of the curve…

The women strive with pose…uh, I mean poise.

But no matter how absurd some of the things we do…

Or the different engineering courses we are in, we still bond with one another in some ways…

& at the end of the day, we blend in together, naturally.

We love to check out asses…

& we are damn proud of our own asses.

Some of us never seem to gain weight…

While the rest of us, including yours truly, never seemed more prosperous.

Everyday we ascend the stairs towards lecture halls in hope of gaining a step closer to preparing ourselves for working life…

…pointing ourselves in the right direction…

…hoping to find our place in this big world.

We learn to work together as a team in pursuit of excellence…

& sometimes, it comes down to our very own selves.

It matters not our different levels of background, for there is a place for everyone.

& it’s often each one of us, the people, that make everything a little more unforgettable, memorable…

You may hate the place, but hey, you gotta love the people.

~.~.~.~.~.~

KV gives full credit to the pioneers of the entire July 04 Unity concept & movement, the photographers & the candid/skodeng photographers during the walkabout, & of course, all you July 04 UTPians, for giving KV something not only to pour words upon, but to cherish for decades to come.

My happy ending arrived after all.

After the absurd occurrences leading up to this event that included some of Malaysia’s most idiotic circumsized dickheads (forgive the pun) & a dead-undead car, 29th August could not have come soon enough. Finally, the day I’ve been waiting, since the delightful tunes of “Complicated” first knocked on my ears 6 years back, is here. The Avril awesomeness has landed.

Yea, & that other thing, Merdeka.

Part I: The Wait & the Shit Before…

It was a wonderful feeling, going to Stadium Merdeka on a Merdeka weekend, but not to celebrate the country’s backwards growth in 51 years of independence. Joshua, Chris, Chee Fai & I arrived at the stadium at approximately 4.45pm, before cramming in the queue for the RM338 Red Zone entrance under the intense heat & sun light. Hotlink & Maxis were having massive promotions & advertisements, while Belinda C with the 8TV crew were going around acting cute & interviewing people with pink ties or pink shirts. Oh, despite the reported protests, we spotted nothing of that nature, only the armies of FRU personnel & vehicles as well as the police patrolling the area.

Observing the “no camera or recording devices” warning, we stuffed our digi cams in our crotch zone, the waistline of our jeans being the fastener & of course our own trusted P as base support. The doors of the stadium opened at 7.30pm, & with us already sweating & exhausted from the lining-up-under-sun, added with digicams securely positioned in such a way that they gave the impression that we each had a massive erection, it was no easy task to run towards the stage to get a strategic location. In the end, we all got ourselves the best spot possible, center & a row away from the gates that separated our Red Zone & the VIP box.

Wait a minute, the VIP box? To our horror, we discovered that the RM338 Red Zone wasn’t as close to the stage as we hoped, thanks to the enormous space nearest to the stage dedicated to undeserving VIPs. The VIP box, situated in what usually was the mosh pit area for standard rock concerts, not only took over the entire area directly in front of the stage, it was filled with chairs! What the fark are chairs doing right in front of an Avril Lavigne stage?! Galaxy, you moron organizers. To make matters worse for us, as the VIPs slowly arrived & landed their colossal butts in assigned seats, we, the die-hard fans who forked out for the most expensive ticket we could get our hands on, observed in complete agony that some of the VIPs consisted of apek uncles, uninterested Datuks & Datins, & overdressed Ah Lians & Ah Bengs who didn’t even seem to know who Avril was.

The situation worsened when, after soaking ourselves under the intense sun for so long, rain started to fall just after we entered into the stadium. Then the organizers started handing out colourful garbage plastic bags that were designed as rain coats for all of us to wear. Great, we were already going through two contrastingly extreme weathers, & we found ourselves barricaded behind a box full of very important asses, now we looked like multi-coloured thrash. After playing a set of annoyingly repetitive Avril clips & advertisements, the lights finally dimmed at 9pm, but not for Avril. Instead a Michael-Jackson-wannabe dude hopped out & performed Maroon 5’s “This Love”, complete with some photostated MJ moves. I had no idea why he was the opening act, nor did I know or care who the hell he actually was, but it felt something like Colbie Caillat opening for Metallica. I was the first to shout “WE WANT AVRIL!” after the dude finished the last lines of “This Love”. Thankfully, the dude relieved us of our misery as he left after that one song.

Part II: The Awesomeness Arrives…

I’m telling you, the wait was pure anguish. Legs were sore, & it did not help that Joshua kept complaining like a girl about his back pain. But everything was forgotten (& almost forgiven) when the band finally stepped out & churned out a warming up session, before finally kicking off the tunes of “Girlfriend”. At 9.15pm, with the crowd completely exploding in joy, Avril Lavigne Whibley emerged & skipped out onto the stage.

Right at that moment, I was almost shocked in disbelief, overwhelmed with a strange concoction of confused feelings that included me wanting to shout in joy, cry & die at the same time, very much unable to grasp the fact that I am actually watching the petite Avril, the Avril Joshua & I worshipped in high school, in person. But just as she hit the first chorus, I finally regained awareness & before long, supported by my poorly weakening knees & ankles, I was jumping like a 5-year-old starstruck maniac along to the “Hey hey you you!”s.

Part III: Anything But Ordinary…

Okay, I will try to push aside my over-biased opinions & the complete euphoria of seeing my highschool idol live, while trying to rationalize the performance. TOO SHORT would be the first two words that come into mind, as she rocked 17 songs in total in 1 hour & 15 minutes. The good thing is we felt it was too quick simply because we were having the time of our lives. Avril’s singing was flawless, & the band was excellent but knew their place well, which was to back & support Avril. Musically however, the overall sound came out as imbalanced, with the bass drum swallowing everything up & the lead guitar barely noticeable. I probably expected too much, since this was after all a big-ass open-air concert. I was most excited to see Jim McGorman who was on rhythm guitar; he was most popular for being part of the house band for Rock Star: Supernova, while Steve Fekete was the latest lead guitarist, replacing Devin Bronson (& before that, Evan Taubenfeld). There was no doubt who the real star was that night, & the crowd lapped up every one of Avril’s antics. Avril looked as hot as ever, even with curly hair (though deep down, I might have preferred to see the classic straight-hair), but what I did not expect was how bloody adorable she actually was! With the cheekiest grins & smiles flashed all the time, she pranced & skipped around like the happiest being in the world. Gone are the emo-days of “Let Go” & “Under My Skin”. As she performed most of the songs from her latest album (which I do not quite approve of, because it made the concert too pop-ish), I was quite dissatisfied with the meager number of tracks chosen from the 1st two albums. We sang our hearts out to favourites like “My Happy Ending”, “I’m With You”, “Complicated”, & “When You’re Gone”, but songs that she skipped like “Tomorrow”, “Nobody’s Home”, “Nobody’s Fool” & “Mobile” were sorely missed. One thing about singing along to Avril’s songs is that her pitch certainly doesn’t suit the male normal pitch range; we either had to scream really high (& completely off tune) or really low (with reduced volume).

Part IV: The Best Damn Moments, & Some Not-So…

Here comes my favourite part, the most memorable moments of the concert. I think I’ve already mentioned how incredibly hot she was that night. But my favourite moment (something all 4 of us agreed on) has to be when a pink baby grand piano was brought out, & Avril played & sang her heart out to a stripped-down version of “When You’re Gone” on it. With the spotlight focusing only on her & the piano, it was the single most beautiful moment of the night. The momentum was continued when right after that, she launched into the melancholic “Innocence”, & then performed the next few songs (“Losing Grip” &“Hot”) with her pink sparkling acoustic guitar, backed by 2 other acoustic guitars. That chain of stripped-down acoustic performances was by far the best agenda of the night. Following in a close second was how she sent us all to the point of complete orgasm when she playfully conducted the crowd to a scream-silent-scream sequence. When she raised her arms, we all screamed madly, & when she lowered her arms, we had to keep silent. Of course remaining silent at some points was impossible, to which she mischievously put her knuckles on the sides of her waist in mock displeasure. The whole sequence finally ended when she raised her arms high up, shaking her hands, soaking in the complete glory of our ecstasy. The smile on her face at the moment – priceless; she was so damn cute I could have died a happy man right there right then. Finally, Avril playing the drums while singing “Runaway”, that was a real gem.

Despite that, her interaction with the audience was kept to a minimum, which I largely suspect is due to the unresponsive VIPs sitting their fat asses down right in front of the stage. She also skipped all the swear & bad words in her songs, but WE sure as hell didn’t. I remember how loud the crowd barked “SHIT” during the “All the SHIT that you do” line in “My Happy Ending”. I swear I saw Avril almost grinning in glee. I also got a strange feeling that Avril gave a very controlled performance. She minimized the screams & energetic jumps, resorting to mostly skipping & prancing around the stage instead. The same pair of jeans (with the skull on her right knee) was worn throughout the night, only changing her tops (the last red hooded sweater was kick-ass!), & at one point we noticed how she sort of tugged down her top. Go figure. The flow of the arrangement was not the best at times; I especially found the break-dance routine by her back-up dancers (twice!) to be awkwardly irksome, & I feel the Lil’ Mama remix of “Girlfriend” has to be axed from her track list.

“Sk8er Boi” was appropriately selected as her last encore song, & I jumped like the ground was on fire to the tune. Agonizingly, she did not stay long for goodbyes, only giving us a quick wave & a thank you before disappearing backstage, concluding the first stop of her The Best Damn Asian Tour at 10.30pm. Josh & I stared in disbelief, that just like that, our Avril came & left. We screamed our lungs out for her to come back, but she never reappeared.

Part V: The Shit that Happened…

Avril was awesome; there is no doubt about that. There were however some really bad bits that night (that had nothing to do with her). Between organizers Galaxy & Hotlink, I damn whoever who structured the crowd zone arrangement to hell for what was possibly the worse standing & seating arrangement in recent eons. The seated VIP box is a complete embarrassment & fiasco, & it prevented us, the die-hard fans, from fully soaking in the experience. As if that wasn’t enough, the VIPs didn’t even seem enthusiastic, & were already standing up to leave even before “Sk8er Boi” ended! Fark all of you man. Joshua was observing the apek tua who was sitting at the left side in the VIP area, & noticed how the stupid apek tua was so unresponsive & just sat crossed-arms throughout the entire concert! Unbelievable shit, we were so angry at this particular apek tua that the only way we could ever forgive him is if he actually died of heart attack, thus explaining why he was so impassive. I do pity those who bought the free-standing RM268 & RM168 ticks, since we in the RM338 zone were already feeling disappointed with our location.

Another thing we 4 guys experienced that night was this creature thingy called BWBs, or Bitch With Boobs. Now before you girls get all angry about this, I’m not referring to women, I’m referring a specific breed that night who, from behind, tried their very best in “boobing” their way through the crowd to get as front as possible. As the 4 of us were among those nearest to the front, Joshua, who was nearest to me, was among the first to experience “boobing”. Let me try to explain to you how “boobing” works. A BWB would first try to force one boob in between the people in front of her by thrusting forward her chest. Being the gentlemen we usually were, we would of course try to avoid the poking boob, & just as we did that, before we even realized it, a second boob will appear, following swiftly the first boob. & just as the pair of boobs have gained access to the next level, the entire body of the BWB would of course follow. The procedure would then be repeated from row to row until finally the BWB reaches the front. Of course, a particular BWB failed in her quest as Chee Fai, who was a being a complete non-gentleman at the RIGHT time, elbowed her boobs backwards.

Part VI: The Aftermath…

Oh…guess who I finally met after the concert?

Angel, now our Miss Malaysia Tourism Metropolitan 2008, haha, it’s been a long time, as always. Gel was actually still contemplating whether to come to the concert till the day itself, apalah; until I had to bug her to come. But it came not as a surprise that Avril indeed does reunite some of us that were ardent friends during our teenage years, which was another wonder to marvel at that night. Also, it was an endearing sight to see some kids who came dressed in self-drawn Avril t-shirts.

After all, on that night, Avril came & gave me something to remember & cherish for the rest of my life. Though not musically her best (as compared to her awesome acoustic performance in the Roxy Theatre), & despite the lingering thought of how it could have been better, her fantastic performance still left us all with a rapturous sense of exhilaration, a dream fulfilled, & of course, incredibly sore knees & ankles.

Heck, I’m already missing her.

]]> http://kvwong.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/the-avril-awesomeness-live-in-kl/feed/ 8 KV http://kvwong.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/the-car-that-diedthen-wouldnt-die/ http://kvwong.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/the-car-that-diedthen-wouldnt-die/#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:20:00 +0000 KV http://kvwong.wordpress.com/?p=264 ]]>

We’ve all heard of cars that failed to start. But have you heard of a car that could not turn off?

This is the 11-year-old “Hero” that has served my family faithfully & well. It has been through some turbulent times (but never critical), & has always came up on top, thanks to the intensive care my family, & now myself, always showered generously (& appropriately) upon it. Its ownership was partially handed over to yours truly only late last year, mainly to ferry himself around during his internship stint (working in Mercedes-Benz doesn’t mean a company car comes along with the package!), & now, to accompany the youngest Wong son when back in university.

Despite being extremely attentive to its condition, needs, & always keeping it as clean as possible, today was the first time my Proton Hero failed on me. The signs were there days before, when the alarm rang out from nowhere. Then, the car battery died. My roommate (Edwin) & I decided to purchase a new one & changed it ourselves. Since both of us did our internship with German companies, we were too big-headed or egoistic to let some mechanic change the battery for us.

The next sequence of events proved we were merely idiotic assholes.

Upon fasting on the new battery & respective terminals under a heavy downpour of rain, I savoured the sound of the engine rev as I turned the key in the ignition. Easy, job done. Or so we thought. As I turned off the ignition…the engine kept running. I was flabbergasted in disbelief, while the more idiotic Edwin didn’t believe that I had already turned the key to off. I pulled out the key…& remarkably the engine remained humming, almost mockingly. Wow, I mean, wtf?!. Ed & I stared at each other, pondering how completely idiotic we looked. Waliao, blazing knickers…now I can actually just drive the car around without the key in the ignition. What a bloody awesome accomplishment. Now I can stop the car in the most unceremoniously un-macho-est of ways, by keeping in 1st gear & releasing the clutch, thus leaving the car to jerk forward & die off like it just got humped in the ass by a certain someone who won the Permatang Pauh seat.

It wasn’t long before we ended back at the mechanic shop, my car being driven without the key in the ignition, bringing a whole new meaning to the term “keyless entry”. Damn gaya man, wished Top Gear could have seen this. Oh, how stupid I must have sounded when trying to explain this miracle to the mechanic: “Boss, my car just now can’t start right. Uh…now it can’t stop.”

Unable to identify the source of the problem after checking through the alternator, starter, fuse box & relay box, the shop contacted an Ah Beng Wire-man from a nearby shop. The Ah Beng came & raped…I mean, stripped down my car interior to bits, checking every single wire & socket for any possible cross-contact that led to the car draining the battery continuously all the time. After a thorough process of perogolan, he finally hit jackpot.

The Ah Beng charged me a significantly high price for the replacement of that damned component, but I was desperate, & I need my Hero back so I could get my ass to KL for Avril. Good thing it was nothing serious in the end, & the Hero lives to serve another day. Today however, will forever be remembered as the day my Wira died, then got resurrected, & then mutated into an automotive immortal for a couple of hours.

So the next time your car suddenly became an immortal, it might just be the hehcartlaitsweet.

UPDATE: “Show will go on for rock star Avril on Aug 29″ – The Star Online, August 23rd.

PETALING JAYA: Canadian rock star Avril Lavigne will be performing in Kuala Lumpur after all. The final decision, after a week of uncertainty, was made at a meeting of senior officials from the Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry yesterday. The organiser, Galaxy Group, obtained its permit last evening to stage the concert at Stadium Merdeka on Aug 29, sources said. Avril’s concert here – the launch pad of her Asian dates – made headlines across the world after the Federal Territory PAS Youth told the ministry and the Kuala Lumpur Mayor to ban the event. The wing had argued that Avril’s concert is “too punk and rock for Malaysian youth especially so during Merdeka month.” Since then, many have criticised the wing’s move and decisions were purportedly made on the status of the show and its date. Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal had earlier said the application to hold the concert had to be studied, as they did not want it to coincide with the Merdeka period and the tahlil religious programme on Aug 29. Shafie had also denied that the ministry’s earlier decision to call off the concert was in response to PAS Youth’s call for the ban.

Oh, the morons we have that govern our country. The clowns finally found the light that was shining out of their assholes. Screw them all. Avril, you are totally owning. Blow the skirts off our wussy government, & PAS youth, who all think with their damn penises (& think they control all OUR penises). Show these idiots what independence really means, & that music is not controlled by some idealistic political movement. It’s time to bring on the fun, & rock on.

Kevin is currently salivating at Avril Lavigne’s acoustic concert at the Roxy Theatre.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Bless Pak Lah’s hairy balls.

From YAHOO! News: KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia on Tuesday canceled a concert by Canadian rock singer Avril Lavigne, saying it may taint the Muslim-majority country’s independence day celebrations after the Islamic opposition slammed her show as being “too sexy.” The Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry said it had decided not to permit Lavigne’s show because it was unsuitable to Malaysian culture and could not be held on August 29, two days ahead of independence day.

“It is not timely. It’s not in the good spirit of our National Day. If we go ahead with the concert, it is contrary to what we are preparing for,” said Shukran Ibrahim, a senior official from the culture ministry’s department that vets all foreign artists.

The decision came after the youth wing of a fundamentalist opposition party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, called for the show’s cancellation. Kamarulzaman Mohamed, a party youth official, told The Associated Press on Monday that Lavigne’s show was “considered too sexy for us” and would promote the wrong values just before independence day.

What. The. Fart. Ma. Chi. Bung.

This really takes the cake. How dare you bastards take away every Sk8er Boi’s high school dream. Do you know how long I waited to see Avril live in person?! Okay, so what if I’m not a fan of her post-marriage 3rd album, I was hopelessly devoted head over heels for her first two albums. This is the first time I’m forking an investment of over 300 bucks for a concert ticket, and you go and fart her away just like that?

The unholy ticket to sexiness

Let me tell you assholes something, it’s an indescribable honour that a foreign artist, someone even of Avril’s stature, would actually consider putting damned Malaysia on their tour’s schedule. Have you not learned shit? First Beyonce ditched us. Then Christina Aguilera. You know what, I actually believed for a second that Malaysia was heading for a good year ahead when artists like Switchfoot, Daughtry, Colbie Caillat dropped by, or hey, even that Digby free showcase was a good sign. Then this pile of cow dung landed.

“It is considered too sexy for us…It’s not good for viewers in Malaysia. We don’t want our people, our teenagers, influenced by their performance. We want clean artists, artists that are good role models.” - Kamarulzaman Mohamed.

Excuse my ass, Avril Lavigne – too sexy? Never in any of our teenage-horny-hormonal-years have we ever associated Avril with the word sexy. Oh sorry, I forgot I was listening & speaking to the holiest monk on planet Earth.

“Hold on hold on, what if I sang the Merdeka song during my concert? Or your Jalur Gemilang? Could I come then? I promise I won’t do a ‘I-wanna-be-your-girlfriend’ on any Malaysian guy!”

& not in the good spirit of National Day? So putting the concert just before Merdeka will make us less patriotic? You know what, choosing Azizul over Chong Wei to be the flag bearer for Malaysia in Beijing, now THAT’s bloody unpatriotic. We are not dumb enough to believe the reasons you gave us, we KNOW the real reason behind that choice okay. In the end? Chong Wei gave us a silver, and symbolically kissed the Malaysian flag logo on his T-shirt repeatedly after the semifinal win over Lee Hyun-Il, while Azizul finished last in his event. So yea, fark you.

“Tanggaaaalll tiga puluh satuuuuuuuu. Bulan lapan, lima puluh tujuuuuhhhhh…”

First you wanna ban Faizal Tahir’s nipples. Then you tried to ban the boobs of Ella & Mas Idayu, followed swiftly by the ban of a local rock band singer’s boxers. Oh yea, now you wanna further make Malaysia a complete international mockery in front of the entire world to gleefully see. What, the global humiliation that our ex-Information Minister heaped on our country when he spluttered his attempt at the English language live on Al-Jazeera after the Bersih protest; that wasn’t enough?

“Next, I’m gonna sing an acoustic remix titled Hey Hey You You Negara ku ku…”

Several female artists including Gwen Stefani and the Pussycat Dolls have run into trouble in Malaysia, which requires all performers to be covered from knees to chest and refrain from jumping, shouting, hugging and kissing on stage.

Jumping? Shouting? Hahahahahaha, even Sesame Street had performers and puppets jumping! What a complete joke! I’m sorry, oh PAS Youth muffinheads, that you actually believed us Malaysians to be as easily “influenced”, naive & stupid like yourselves. I personally feel sorry that you actually think us to be as low as you. Kudos once again, Malaysia, for being able to push the limits of narrow-mindedness, both on the local & international stage. Indeed, with this kind of INTELLECTUAL mindfulness, we are SO on track to being a fully-developed country by year 2020. Our country is so going to the dogs.

Next time they’re gonna ban Hayley for having “rambut terlalu oren” when Paramore decides to drop by, if they ever do. Or even ban Jennifer Lopez for “having an enormous arse”, or Mariah Carey for her healthily sculptured fruits, or Justin Timberlake for his “sexyback”, or Timbaland for wearing singlets that inappropriately show his big-ass abs, & his bulu ketiak. That’s when I’ll be moving, period. For now, instead of looking forward in full anticipation to August 29th, here I am flopped down on my chair in despair, wondering how it would ever feel like when Avril sings “Hey hey you you, I want to be your girlfriend” to me…

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

If you’d asked me how The Dark Knight was right after any of the 2 times I went to see it in the cinema, I would only have 1 word for you: “Whoa…”

Finally, everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve hoped for, is here…is true. This is Batman like never before.

I’m telling you, Christopher Nolan of Memento just can’t do no wrong at the moment. His Batman Begins was already very much the definitive Batman movie, so with such impossible expectations & anticipation from the entire globe for this second installment, what does he do? He blows us all away with some exceptionally sublime & original directing. The Dark Knight not only surpasses every of our over-hyped expectations, it is the mother of all superhero movies.

“Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Where do I even bloody start? Nolan once again pushes the limits of the superhero realm to be as realistic as possible. It does not get any closer than this. The storyline is gritty, complex & darker than ever, & the action scenes are spectacularly gripping. So many things were happening at once, with such a stunning plot that was so well-executed; I almost forgot to breathe. Not contemplated with that, Nolan even had a few turns & surprises along the way, just to completely knock the socks of us all. It was perfect, making The Joker the logic response to the Batman, & make no mistake, despite the fabulous & shocking Harvey Two-Face story (Nolan’s interpretation of how Dent became Two-Face was both original & more realistic), the face-off (direct or indirect) between Batman & the Joker throughout the entire 152 minutes is the real deal, making The Dark Knight chaotically beautiful & a complete glorious anarchy of a movie. Gotham City was brought to life in a much more vibrant way, allowing us to explore an alternate yet recognizable reality, & boy were Batman’s slender kevlar & gadgets cool this time. I absolutely loved how the Batpod was actually ejected out of the self-destructing Tumbler! & oh, Batman can turn his head now, lol! The one-liners of the script were well-structured & affecting, capturing our collective anxiety over the resurgent politics of hope.

“Let me get this straight. You think that your employer, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is spending his nights running around the city beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.”

A lot has been said about the late Heath Ledger’s The Joker, so what can I say anymore? He was spectacular. Completely overturning & overwhelming Jack Nicholson’s version, Ledger comes up with a psychopathic terrorist version that not only scares the balls off you, but is strangely captivating &…funny. He balances the Joker’s sadistic nature with an enigmatic sense of wit, making his last complete performance an Oscar-deserving one. Who could ever forget the Joker’s scenes such as the disappearing pencil magic trick, his perfect Joker laugh, the lip-licking, the delayed hospital bombing scene, & lines like “very poor choice of words”, “you complete me” & “wanna know how I got my scars?”. Oh yes, Ledger sure was mind-blowing, & most importantly, The Joker was a worthy & mighty foe to Batman, in a more psychological way. Nolan does extremely well in structuring & prioritizing, pushing aside how the Joker schemes & plots his terrorism acts, instead concentrating on the bigger picture of how The Joker plotted the downfall of Gotham through the city’s white knight, Harvey Dent.

“The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.”

But, truth be told, no one was overshadowed. The cast was astonishing, yet again. Christian Bale was imperiously suave as Bruce Wayne, & as Batman was pushed to the limit, even losing his cool during the interrogation scene with Joker. Michael Caine returns as Alfred, & though he had lesser screen time, his interaction with Wayne was still as engaging & hilarious as ever. The same goes to Morgan Freeman, who seems to be appearing in every movie these days. I was most impressed however with Gary Oldman, who turned in an outstanding performance as Lt.-turned-Commissioner Gordon, justified by a much bigger role this time around. Most surprising of all was Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. I was not too excited when Eckhart got the role of Harvey Two-Face, but wow, he sure amazed me with his performance as the fallen hero of Gotham. The only disappointment for me from the casting & the entire movie in fact, is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Rachel Dawes. Despite her being an improvement over Katie Holmes, I just can’t help but prefer someone like Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Connelly or heck even Rachel McAdams to play Dawes, especially since Dawes was a central role to the origins of Two-Face.

“See, I’m not a monster…I’m just ahead of the curve.”

What made my favourite superhero’s big screen movie even better were Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard. While Batman Begins’ scores were majestic, they were quite incomplete. This time, Zimmer’s heavy influences throughout the main themes are much more powerful, gloriously dark & thrilling. The Joker’s theme starts off the soundtrack album, & it was experimental, complex, & bloody brilliant. James Newton Howard’s contribution is more distinct this time with the Harvey Dent theme. All in all, a fantastic film score that enhances the film’s strength by a complete mile.

“You thought we could be decent men in an indecent world. But you were wrong; the world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance.”

I can say without doubt, that The Dark Knight not only kicks every other summer movie’s ass (yes, even Iron Man), it is well on it’s way to being the mammoth movie of 2008. It is currently #1 in IMDb’s Top 250 list & certified bloody 95% fresh in Rotten Tomatoes. It’s orgasmic to see my favourite superhero being brought to the big screen the way Nolan does it. Oh yes, The Dark Knight was a triumphant masterpiece. I left the cinema, twice, in full awe & respect for Nolan’s genius intelligence, a thunderous applause for the cinematography as well as the casts’ performance, & a tinge of sadness for a great talent tragically curtailed.

“Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now…and so we’ll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he’s not a hero. He’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector…a dark knight.”

Oh by the way, if you are looking for something different, please do try Once.

It’s a very independent, low-budget love story that is completely honest, sincere & charming. Revolving around a guy named Guy (Glen Hansard of The Frames) & a girl named Girl (Marketa Irglova) who both share the love for music, the film is not like any other musical, featuring some of the finest indie music for some time. However, be prepared to cringe at what is possibly the world’s most bashed-up acoustic guitar that ever survived & remained playable.

Hoi! Stop blaming PETRONAS & start asking what the hell the Government has always been doing with the billions Petronas has given to the country!

& so the harrowing 32-week internship comes to an end.

As the last weeks overwhelmed yours truly so much, working his ass off till late hours while at the same time rushing to prepare the many paperwork, reports & the big final presentation for his university, anyone would have guessed that come the last day, it would have been like a huge relief for him that work life is coming to an end & now the author can look forward to returning to…um, Tronoh…wait a minute, did I just say look forward?

Even on the very last day of internship, I was rushing to finish up work, having such a short time to make the rounds to Level 48 and 49 of TM Tower to say my good byes to everyone. I didn’t even have time to join the other interns that were brought up to the helipad on the final day. But then, as the dust settled at about 8-9pm, & after my long talk with my supervisor cum Senior Manager, as I sat down to pack my things in my cubicle, preparing to type my good bye e-mails to those closest, it hit me how much the people in MBM have affected me & my life. Without going into details & much melancholic recollections, I am just utterly lucky & grateful to have encountered people like all my department members, the “aunties” in Level 49, & the girls; Anida, Pey Wen, Liz, Michelle (as well as motherly ex-Smart Theng Theng). Makes you think that sometimes perhaps even if the work kicks your nuts real hard, it’s the people that really make work life go past bearable into memorable. Kinda applies to UTP too ain’t it? It was also hilarious how during my farewell lunch, almost all of my division members fit into our very own 10-seater Vito van to go to lunch, with my German VP & my Senior Manager being made to sit at the rear seat!

As I leave all these wonderful people behind in hope that paths will intertwine some day, she has finally returned from overseas. & that, my friends, is a very good reason to smile.

~~*~~

Okay, so Hancock sort of bombed at the 2nd part of the movie. Not even the rather funny jokes in the 1st half or Will Smith’s quite impressive one-man-show could save this from being a mangled cock-crap with even poorer CGI. Wanted was stylish & Jolie was looking old but bloody delicious, but still…bending the bullet a full 360 degrees in a small confined hall? That aside, the whole car scene takes the cake. Hellboy II: The Golden Army was a whole bunch of entertainment as Guillermo del Toro gleefully unleashes waves of all kinds of monsters in full unstoppable glory. There’s really nothing to complain about; Selma Blair’s hair was ultra-hot, Hellboy really got to kick-ass & got some nice face-bashing himself, & behind-the-mask master Doug Jones shone through Abe Sapiens, the Angel of Death & the Chamberlain. It’s no classic (who the fark cares?), but it’s Hellboy, & I loved it.

But it was among all these continuing onslaught of summer blockbusters that I came across something entirely unexpected. On the night of my final day of internship, as I sat down at my computer desk late at night fully drained & feeling the effects of a 8-month training, scrolling through my massive movies collection wanting to click on something stupidly funny (in the line of Superbad or Harold & Kumar) to get my mind off everything, I found myself double-clicking instead on Grace Is Gone.

I didn’t know anything about the movie aside from the fact that John Cusack was in it, & I read about that somewhere a while ago. Initially thinking I was probably gonna end up just browsing through it anyway, I instead found myself still stuck to the same position on my seat 1.5 hours later, with tears welling up in my eyes. Oh yea, this so-called manly big chump almost cried like a bloody big-ass baby. ALMOST, okay?

At the heart of this story is John Cusack’s Stanley Phillips, an average Joe daddy trying to find the appropriate means & moment to tell his 2 young daughters about the demise of their mother, while himself fighting to cope with the reality of the death of his wife. Struggling & unable to face the moment of telling his older fast-maturing 12-year-old daughter, Heidi (a remarkable Shelan O’Keefe) & 8-year-old Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk) that their mother died in battle in Iraq, he takes them on a trip to Enchanted Gardens theme park. A incredibly sad movie that barely mentions the Iraq war or even Stanley’s soldier wife (she does not even have a scene), the whole story focuses on Stanley & his two daughters, & in the bigger picture, how the Iraq war affects concerned loved ones. Remarkably subtle & not obviously dramatic, the many poignant moments shared between Stanley with Heidi & Dawn throughout the journey to Enchanted Gardens builds up to the big-time tear-jerking moment when Stanley finally finds the voice to speak the painful words to his daughters. Grace Is Gone has no plot twists or spoilers; we know that the inherent pain of tragic loss is coming, & it becomes even more painful for us as that emotional core is dangled in front of us for 1.5 hours.

The storyline hinges on the magnificent performance by the cast. John Cusack gives the performance of a lifetime as a restrained father struggling to cope & to take care of his 2 daughters. Cusack’s Stanley hardly gets to show his true thoughts & feelings, as he sole duty & responsibility goes to his daughters. Shelan O’Keefe does more than holding her own opposite Cusack, almost outshining Cusack as she goes through a period of self-discovery with her dad throughout the journey to Enchanted Gardens, while Gracie Bednarczyk’s Dawn injects effervescence to counter the heartrending drama circulating the movie. & surprise surprise, Clint Eastwood composed the plain but touching music score.

Grace Is Gone does not force any political stance on the Iraq war, just a look at humanity, at how we might deal with the tragic loss of life, & reflect on the effects of war. It is simple yet effective, subtle yet beautifully poignant, sensitively low-key but packs a huge emotional wallop, & it will stay on with you after the end of it all.

July 17th, the Dark Knight cometh. Are you ready?

Boy, Motorola sure puts a lot of effort in packaging the RAZR2 V9, the boxes in the set I received were almost more stylish than the flippy itself!

Acoustic Guitars are best because (excerpts from The Acoustic Guitar Forum)…

Ladies & fellow wankers, while some crazy uncle is marrying his 4th wife & hornily preparing to add to his stable of 25 children, I’m here to present my new wife, the all-solid Lana Lang 16.

Uh, wait, I’m of course referring to officially my 1st serious acoustic guitar, the handcrafted Yamaha LL16 from the top-of-the-line handbuilt acoustic Yamaha L Series.

Okay, so naming her Lana Lang just because it’s an LL model (& since she was my old flame) may sound lame, but hey, it’s my first RM3k guitar & I’m pretty much on cloud nine right now, so screw you, if I say it’s Lana, it’s Lana you punks. After all, she (the guitar) would probably be as beautiful as Kristin Kreuk’s Lana Lang at the age of 16 anyway, but with bigger boobs & an even bigger butt of course, no contest.

Let’s start from the beginning. I’ve been scouting for a serious guitar for quite a while now, after being faithful to my old Yamaha F340 BL for over 8 years now (bought it with my own piggy bank 500 bucks when I was 14!). Now let’s be honest, brands like Taylors, Larivees, & Matons are sold at outrageous prices over here in gawddamn Malaysia. Initially armed with only a 2k budget, I went around hopelessly in search of a good, beautiful guitar but at the price I wanted. There’s no doubt the ultimate acoustic guitars come from Taylor, so at Bentley’s, while trying really hard to ignore the gorgeous T5s on display, I tried the Taylor 110 which sounded like crap but was priced at 3.6k, while the Taylor 210 was retailing at 4.6k. So when you can’t afford made-in-USA guitars, you look at the Asian made models. The Takamines G Series ranging at 1-3k just could not satisfy me either, & don’t even get me started on the apalling sub-2k acoustics from Fender & Ibanez. At Mahogany’s, they let me try a Takamine retailed at 3.6k that had a very jangly bright sound. But then that Takamine’s (like many other Takamines) finishing & physical look was so unattractive & half-baked (maybe I’m just vain). It wasn’t long before I ended up back at Yamaha.

Some of Yamaha L Series artists: Clint Lowery of Sevendust with the LJX6C, Dave Navarro has his own signature L series model, the LLX6 DN, & John LeCompt (formerly from Evanescence) uses the LJX6C

Among other Yamaha Acoustic Guitar artists: Edwin McCain uses the APX10NA, Chad Kroeger endorses the handcrafted CJX32, while Avril Lavigne performs with the APX9C

Overshadowed by what are without doubt the best pianos in the world, Yamaha on the other hand has always been associated with cheap affordable guitars just because, well, their prime market IS at the affordable range, but upon closer look, the guitars are always bang for bucks. Yamaha guitars are under-rated, simply put. In the midst of trying everything from their CPX700 to the sexy APX700, it was one fine morning when Chris forwarded me an online catalog of Yamaha’s high-end L Series Acoustics, & suddenly it brought back memories of how infatuated I was with this handcrafted series back when I was working part-time with Yamaha. I always thought they were beyond my reach (in terms of price) then, but couldn’t help but be kinda pumped-up this time around especially upon checking out the many (& I mean, MANY) raving great reviews of the L series guitars online. It did help that Marié Digby used an LLX6 when she performed at 1 Utama months back (refer back to my Digby entry). Well, Yamaha has 4 lines within the L series, the 6, 16, 26 & 36s. The 26 & 36s are handmade in Japan & retails here at an average of a whopping RM12000, but to my silent joy the bottom-of-the-barrel 6s go for around RM2290 while the 16s were retailing from RM2990, because these two lines are handmade in China/Taiwan (Yamaha moved it’s Taiwan base to China a couple of years back).

Some of the L series guitars on display at The Curve (from left, the LS16, LJ6 & LL6 Sunburst). On the extreme right is the LJ26, which retails at RM11900

The L Series also offers 3 types of body built which gives the distinction in each sound & playability. The standard dreadnought (LL) is widely touted as the most well-rounded & balanced, always associated with a bright sound suitable for both strumming & finger-picking. The semi-jumbo (LJ) has a rounder & bigger body, often suitable for strumming because of it’s better & warmer sound projection, while the ground-auditorium size (LS) is smaller in built & has a more focused midrange. Choosing a guitar based on excellent online reviews & its handmade reputation (though to what extent of handcrafting is still questionable especially for the 6 & 16s, considering their rather good price) of course is not an option, I had to try them out. To my joy the LL6 (with a solid top & laminate back & sides) was a dream to play, but then found out that for an extra 700 bucks I could upgrade to the LL16 with a FULL-SOLID body! In this moment of desperation, it was mom & someone (wink wink) who decided to pump in some financial support to finally enable me to make an order for my first full-solid handmade 900-US-dollar acoustic guitar. Purchased it at 15% off, & it took about 3-4 days for the guitar to arrive after the deposit for order was paid.

Moment of unvirginizing at the Yamaha outlet (top), & then back at home

Miss Lana Lang 16, or the Yamaha LL16, is a handcrafted acoustic slender dreadnought guitar, boasting a hand selected Solid Engelmann Spruce top & Solid Indian Rosewood back & sides (this Engelmann Spruce-Rosewood combination is also used in the 4,5-times-more-expensive Taylor 700 series). While traditionally a guitar neck is carved out of a single block of wood, the LL16 neck is crafted off the unique L series trademark 3-ply design, featuring a strip of Rosewood sandwiched between 2 layers of the Mahogany neck construction for extra neck stability. It also features a new non-scalloped 90° X-bracing construction that is designed to deliver a thick & well-focused tone. The Ebony bridge is bigger & has a bigger mass than usual Yamahas & the Ebony fingerboard has neat humble abalone rosette position markers that do not exactly shine out, but it’s acceptable. The die-cast Gold grover style tuners keep the strings in tune just fine (though I’m suspicious of how long they will remain gold), & the nut width is 1 3/4″. The flawless Hi-Gloss on the body & clean Satin finish on the neck & headstock gives the LL16 an extremely understated but alluring look, given that extra spark by its nice inlay encircling the sound hole. Feeling a little skeptical about the foam casing it came with instead of my preferred hard case, I was thoroughly relieved to find the foam casing fits her (yes, I’m referring to the guitar as a her now) like a glove & keeps her nicely cushioned.

Amboi~ selesanya…

“It’s the ballsiest sound I ever heard”, proclaimed a review online about his LL16, & though I’ve never encountered any guitar associated with the word “ballsy”, after playing her for the past few days, I simply cannot find a more suitable word to describe the gorgeous bright sound she produced other than BALLSY. Having no pick-up system or cutaway, I knew I was getting every single dollar fully invested into her sound & tone. Has a well-balanced & rich sound with great sustain, with a strong bass that does not overwhelm the sweet clear mid & highs. Though not perfect in terms of clarity & separation, it was such a joy to hear how such a physically understated, composed & simple-looking guitar can sound like it has an enormous pair of balls when aggressively strummed, though the sound has become warmer (probably due to the Yammie factory strings it came with) day by day. Many forums have mentioned how incredibly remarkable the LL16 can sound like the Taylor 400 & 600 series & kicks Larivee’s ass (some of these comments came from Americans guitarists themselves, mind you), & at a quarter of the price. Frankly, I think of it this way, if you can afford them or willing to go for broke, just buy the damn Taylors & if you can’t, like me, you find the guitar that might just match them.

The solid Rosewood grains of her back/sides & the 3-ply Mahogany-Rosewood neck (apologies for the poor photography, my place had very poor lighting)

The Rosewood grains on the back & sides of the LL16 I chose were nicely tight. However, upon peeking inside the sound hole, some minor glue marks at some edges hint at it’s China handmade origins, but I could forgive that . The neck has a V-profile that I got used to without any problem, although I have to say the factory setup of the action & saddle is a little too high for my liking, thus affecting it’s playability. In addition, there was a little buzzing on the low E string when plucked hard (discovered this when executing my favourite “Little Wings” acoustic solo on it the 1st time). Another complain I would force out is if they had only gave extra effort in creating a more distinct looking pick guard that would suit a 3k-worth guitar, rather than the standard black dull one, & but hey, again, I’m just nit-picking at what is already an incredible guitar. The slender dreadnought curves fit snugly into my wrapped arms & the usual Yamaha straight boxy butts at the end have been rounded off for the L Series. This guitar is noticeably a little heavier when compared to my old F340.

No, I’m not being racist just because I replaced the old black one with a fairer one

From bonking heavy to light strumming to finger-picking, the Yamaha LL16 is probably one of the best guitars at this price range (I of course can’t state for certain as I’m not exactly an expert nor did I try all the guitars available). Where else can you find a handcrafted full-solid body acoustic at this price value? I tend to stay loyal to my instruments, as shown by how my brother & I stuck to our old Made-in-Japan LU-101 piano from the beginning till the end (hey, that so-called beginner piano produced two 140-distinction Grade 8 results okay?). Like many, it is likely that many of us (especially Malaysians) start off with an affordable Yamaha acoustic, & if in the future I am still unable to afford a Taylor, I just might not be surprised if my Yamaha LL16 goes well on its way towards being more than capable of being my last guitar. Ooooh yeah, Lana Lang has never been this hot.

As an addition, find out how the L Series guitars are handmade in this tour around the Yamaha L series factory in Japan at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP0d18tFjSY. You will be pleasantly surprised at how intimate & small the factory is, with a small group of Japanese luthiers showing incredible dedication to their work. If you wanna hear how the L series guitars sound, Dave Goodman gives a solid demonstration here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2FbHCWPNA.

Kevin is now officially much skinnier (yearight! His wallet actually) in this week alone due to expenditure for his car repaint, his perempuan simpanan (the V9) & Lana.

Current situation

Wenger! Get rid of Adebayor & get David Villa to put on an Arsenal jersey next season! NOW!

Currently back in his hometown for the weekend to collect his repaired & fully repainted car (thus deducting a thousand plus bucks from his pockets), Kevin is at this period of time suffering from extreme lack of sleep & therefore humbly requests for lenient forgiveness for his zombie-like appearance & extreme lag in normal communication & response during the day. He is too engrossed in supporting his beloved childhood heroes Netherlands in the current ongoing EURO 2008, or rather, now absolutely DEVASTATED that the Oranjes have been kicked out at the quarter-final stage (bloody Russians, suddenly playing so good football!). However, he is still aware enough to find the recent moanings from PAS Youth about implementing the Islamic administration at PR states & attempting to ban Mas Idayu & Ella to be flabbergastingly dim-witted.

Don’t you just hate it when during the past few days you had a whole junk of ideas to pen down, & then all it takes is a couple of depressingly stressful days at work to blatantly ruin your entire go-go mojo that you initially had, as if you’ve got someone’s foot permanently lodged into the back of your head? I do. Okay, perhaps it was not too bad since my past weekend was spent with (Joshua & Len Nee aside) Liv Tyler, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson & Zooey Deschanel.

Let’s go for a round of quick reviews shall we. Anyone remember that melodramatic green monster fiasco Ang Lee cooked up a few years back? Well, if that movie dwelled way too much on the character & inner struggle of Bruce Banner, this movie goes the opposite way & decides to throw character development out the window & smack us with an onslaught of bashing-up action sequences. Not exactly a bad thing since this is about The Incredible Hulk; it’s a boy’s dream to see the monster bashing up The Abomination as noisily & violently as what was shown, almost like sex on an overdose of steroids.

Hulk still looked too CGI’ed for my liking, & I have to state that Edward Norton tanked as Bruce Banner (Downey’s cameo as Tony Stark was more memorable, so that says a lot), as intense as he was, & he had an agonizing lack of chemistry with Steven Tyler’s voluptuous daughter. Liv Tyler was sweet & much more girl-next-door than the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly from the previous Hulk; asking me to choose 1 of them as the best Betty Ross would be a tough one. Tyler did have the best scene of the movie though when she went bonkers on a taxi driver. Tim Roth was as dependable as ever. Good kick-ass summer movie all in all, but nothing more.

I finally got to watch Definitely, Maybe on DVD; the only reason I wanted to watch this was because I really needed to know why in-a-normal-homo-sapiens-universe would women like Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks & Rachel Weisz even go for a wuss like Ryan Reynolds. Turns out the movie was pretty decent even with the usual predictable storyline, especially since Abigail Breslin’s captivating interaction with Reynolds anchored the plot pretty well. The 3 gorgeous actresses play pretty much standard 1-dimensional women; the cute best friend, the high school sweetheart, & the elegant ambitious one, in which between these three only Weisz manages to squeeze in something a little more outstanding of a performance. Isla Fisher was noted to be extremely beguiling though.

In line with 1-dimensional women characters, let’s move on to The Other Boleyn Girl, also indulged on DVD. This time, the question was, how do you choose between Natalie Portman & Scarlett Johansson? It’s as easy as choosing between exotic brains & a huge set of melons not as easy as you think. Well, Eric Bana’s King Henry has the answer: don’t choose, bonk both, dump one & decapitate the other. The captivating Portman & curvy Johansson play Anne & Mary Boleyn, sisters who are caught in a dramatic sequence of events with King Henry that leads to horrible aftermaths. A vivid, well-carved out story, what the movie lacked (the Boleyn sisters’ 1-dimensional characters each & lack of further development) was made up by a commanding & intense performance by Portman. Even Jim Sturgess was effective in his small role. The costumes deserve special mention for they were amazing & appropriately symbolic. The timeline was however sometimes a little blurry & rushed, only dictated by the babies that popped out of wombs (watch & you will get what I mean).

This brings us to the final movie on the big screen, The Happening. Now I’m not a film critic specialist or whatever, but I know the sad misconception of the general public that M. Night Shyamalan’s movies are about the twists at the end, often overlooking the fact that this dude has came out with pretty decent original storytelling in beautiful ways. The Sixth Sense was acknowledged as incredible, & like many, I loved it. I thought Unbreakable was slow but awesome nevertheless. Next, though initially feeling as if I got cheated into anticipating it as a horror movie, I really appreciated The Village as a breathtakingly beautiful movie (after the 2nd & 3rd viewing) with stunning performances from Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, & John Hurt, among others. The porch scene between Howard & Phoenix will remain one of the most incredibly poignant & unforgettable romantic scenes ever. I do, however, have to admit nothing could have saved the calamity that was Lady in the Water, so let’s push that aside. I thought The Happening, a movie about nature kicking humans’ asses for once, had a great concept, but was let down by poor execution & acting. I remain oddly intrigued however.

Spoilers ahead: Let me lay it down for you, the twist in this movie is that there is no twist. The movie kicks off with rather stunning sequences of people inexplicably killing themselves in several horrible ways. Within the first few minutes you see a girl explicitly stabbing herself in the neck with a chopstick up close, lines of construction workers walking off the top of a building falling to their deaths, a man intentionally setting a lawn mower to run over himself, people hanging themselves on tree branches & a mass-shooting of their own heads with a gun…you get the idea. Terrorists releasing toxic gas? This idea quickly gets kicked aside as our hero Elliot, played by Mark Wahlberg, while leading his estranged wife Alma (I love Zooey Deschanel!) & his friend’s daughter away from the phenomena, soon figures out it’s the plants that are messing with humans.

I can recall many of the movie’s flaws. As this is entirely a character-driven movie, it is absolutely excruciating to watch Wahlberg’s dreadful performance. On the contrary to many reviews however, I found Deschanel’s eccentric portrayal of the neurotic Alma to be rather endearing. The rather fascinating idea of plants communicating with each other to teach humans a lesson gets revealed too soon without much suspense, & after that the movie seems designed to just show us the many creative & gory ways humans can think of to kill themselves, made worse by laugh-out-loud scenes like the one involving a man feeding himself to lions. The way the whole shooting-the-two-boys scene & the horrible B-grade horror part of the movie involving the crazy old lady were handled just tops it off. Though still managing to instill shock & awe most of the times, the execution of such an intriguing idea was so appalling & left much to be desired. Even Shyamalan’s usual slick camera work were missing. Thankfully, for once, Shyamalan did not appear this time around, instead he was only the voice of Joey, the guy who kept on calling Alma.

With so many misgivings, why could I not stop pondering about the movie after the viewing? One would argue that the whole concept remained interesting & thought-provoking. It reflects our times ever so accurately, as in reality men pushes mother nature to the limits day by day, that the possibility of Earth deciding one day to teach us all a lesson just seems timely & even, to some extent, appropriate. Some of the underlying hints in the movie at humanity’s ever-increasing threat to nature were so subtle it took some time to figure them out (I needed some forums & IMDb to find out some other people’s interesting takes on some significant scenes). For example, when John Leguizamo shot out that math question regarding the resulting sum if you double previous days’ pennies everyday for a month, which gives an answer of about 10 million. Some viewed this as a reference to how much we unawarely actually affect Earth everyday with our small acts that increase by day. The whole crazy-old-lady scene was at 1st glance thought as completely pointless & (due to again, poor implementation) dreadful, but after much thought, arguably, she embodied a metaphor of mother nature in some ways. Her grudgingly welcoming & accommodating Elliot, Alma & that little girl into her reclusive home (“I guess I have to invite you all in…”) & slapping the little girl’s outreached hand (“Don’t take things that aren’t yours.”) hint at how Earth had no choice but to accommodate our lifestyle & how we take whatever we want from mother nature as we please.

Of course, when the old lady started killing herself every possibility was pretty much wiped away, & the symbolic possibility hit a brick wall. The significance of the completely-plastic model home scene & the bees question were never answered or discovered, while there was something definitely going on between Alma & John Leguizamo’s character. With such a promising & rather brilliant concept, it is sad that the execution was so poor in The Happening that the positive things that remained most memorable were a couple of cool deaths & a wasted fundamental inspiration.

& the ever-deadpan-gorgeous Zooey Deschanel of course. Her eyes. Wow. Remember her as the hot teacher in Bridge To Terabithia (who still got overshadowed by AnnaSophia Robb)?

Don’t forget to catch her first studio music album as part of She & Him as well, just out this year. Oh, the order for the Yamaha Handcrafted LL16 has been placed. It has happened, I’m doing it!

Current situation, indeed

“Oh! Fark wank bugger shitting arse head and hole!” – Billy Mack from Love Actually, 2003.

Look, I totally understand the increase of the fuel price that we unfortunate Malaysians have to pay from today onwards. It would be utterly impossible for the wankers we have in the government to continue the same subsidy, taking in consideration the shocking current global fuel price while these dickheads continue to spurge our money on other white elephant crap & not going to the root of our problems.

Grand sale! Petrol at 40% off! Final day offer!

What I have a problem with is, the head of the wankers (some of you may refer to him as the Prime Minister) actually promised us all before the election that his government of testicles will not increase the fuel price in 2008.

B-U-L-L-O-C-K-S.

Of course, we all knew it was pre-election bullshit at that time, but now is the part where we can actually say “I farking told you so!”. These lunkheads did not even actually win the election. Take the dozens of small BN component parties outside Peninsular out of the equation, & the 1 million phantom votes, & voila! BN no more.

& that testicle still had the balls to announce that RM625 yearly rebate like it’s some sort of privilege. Yeah, like that’s gonna help a lot for the average vehicle users. After all, this is only the beginning, they are gonna increase a lot more other things. Everything goes up, gaji tarak naik, we citizens suffer, while BN wives have 9 million bucks in an account; you tell me what’s wrong with that picture. Our dear PM then goes on to compare us with neighbouring countries, when bloody hell Malaysia is an oil-producing country! What about our jaw-droppingly embarasssing public transportation system? What about the prices of foreign imported cars that are so farking higher just because you government assholes want to protect your local car manufacturers? Think about that before comparing Lah!

Before & after: Dengan RM1.00, semalam you boleh beli ini macam banyak air kencing, start hari nih beli kencing ini macam sikit saje!

As usual, our country leaders never look to the root of the problem, & just takes the easy way out. What about using our money to REALLY START improving our public transportation system to be cleaner & more reliable, for a start? What about giving more effort in promoting & bringing in hybrid cars, or encouraging NGV installations & increasing NGV stations? Anything! The list goes on and on, but really, does the government even look like they are heading plans to reduce Malaysia’s dependency on petrol & diesel? Nope, in the past 5 years we can only say we sent a man on a vacation in space while Malaysia continues to dig herself a deeper grave hole back on Earth.

Don’t they ever learn? Now a girl can’t even walk outside her home alone, a child cannot play in the playground freely, but still the leaders of our country remain the same. They continue their hopeless tradition of creating bullshit, wait for a problem to arise from that bullshit then only form committees to “discuss efforts” to find a solution. If (& that’s a big IF) problem is solved temporarily on the surface, then they wait for other problems to arise so that other “discussions” to find other solutions could be initiated.

There will be positive outcomes from this heap of baja kerbau. Perhaps, we will learn to spend more wisely, we will utilize energy more efficiently & road demons will learn to minimize over-accelerating unnecessarily. Perhaps, aunties & tuition-moms (Malaysia’s version of soccer moms) will drive using their brains for once, while soon we might see Ah Bengs in un-pimped stock Kancils & Mat Rempits on bicycles. Perhaps, the next Satria GTi race in Sepang will be replaced by the Kancil Grand Prix.

But still.

“Oh! Fark wank bugger shitting arse head and hole!”

Quick update: Guitar enthuthiasts listen up! The newly-opened Wisma Bentley Music near The Curve is currently having the holy-crap-are-you-serious Taylor T5 on display. 5 gorgeous versions of them to be exact, retailing from RM9200 to about Rm12000. You heard that right, the Taylor T5, the one guitar that brings balance to the force (almost literally), the Holy Grail of all guitars, & it has arrived in our country! I was so overwhelmed playing the black one (yes, I’ve finally played the T5!) I almost forgot about the rest of the guitars I was surveying over the weekend. At the moment I’m considering the beautiful handcrafted L series from Yamaha, either the 16 or the 6, anyone with an opinion?

Upon arrival in Penang on Friday evening, the 1st thing Alan & I experienced was a reduce in sperm count.

That’s because our chief tour guide, the supreme sifu of the universe (of Penang that is), Chun Yan a.k.a. BBS (don’t ask, it’s an inside joke) plunged us straight into a tour around his internship company, Intel, where the other EE nerds (oops!) San Nien, Debbie, Wai Lun, Suet Yeng, & Gary were working as well. Just by driving around the free trade zone full of electronic companies & factories, I could already feel my balls shrinking by the minute. The group of us then proceeded to meet Chris (& a distant Erica) at Altera, who forced us to wear surgeon caps as shoe covers. Yea, as if a lower sperm count isn’t enough, now we have to walk around the company with bright light blue surgeon caps covering our feet. After laughing at how small Intel’s office cubicles are (kidding!) & at how Penang’s “Silicon Valley” was the biggest gathering of geeks (okay okay…joking also!), except probably that guy who attempted to drop a pen near the feet of Debbie’s mini-skirted legs, we proceeded for dinner at the 1st place anyone would bring Penang visitors to for a big makan…McD! Haha…actually we were rushing for our movie date with Harrison Ford & a couple of crystal skulls, so we were short of time. It was here when, in the midst of chomping dead chicken squashed between sesame seed buns, Debbie decided to replace the word “air” with “ass” in the “No Air” song by Jordin Sparks feat. Chris Brown. This was then followed by a remixed version of the chorus by San Nien & I:

“Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe shit with no air ass, can’t live shit can’t breathe shit with no air ass…”

That was only the beginning of the fun. We had only a limited time of 2 days to explore whatever we could explore in Penang. So here’s a summary, in pictures.

Oh, Indy was okay-lah. Was fun mostly, minus the horrendous tarzan & monkey scenes & some terrible CGI usage, while the ending was horrendous.

Part I – Penang Hill

First thing Saturday morning, up to Penang Hill!

We couldn’t hike up the hill because Chun Yan injured his leg the day before, so we used the train

While waiting for the train ride, we decided we had time to make stupid faces…

…or to try to smile like San Nien…ended up overdoing it

Tired of making faces, we decided to take a nap…

Before the ride: Alan (circled red) caught having guilty pleasure with 1 of his holes…

…while Chris was pictured molesting a happily willing San Nien (this is a nice natural pic though!)

In the train: All of us. Chris is slightly out of the picture because…

…he was enjoying swinging & dancing around a pole!

A moment of melancholy atop the hill…

I spotted a hot chick!

Hot chick spots a hot guy. Hot guy spotted another hot chick, forgets previous hot chick.

Alan posing like a girl in between Chris & I

Soon Yen will love this picture, but San Nien got really high when she saw this…I wonder why

We guys tried to run away & leave Debbie to rot on top of the hill

Now I know why the air up there didn’t smell as fresh as it should have been!

Before the “thrilling” canopy walk: Debbie’s final smile

After that, she was laughing & crying at the same time…”Don’t SHAKE!!! Scary ah~! Angry ah~!”

It was a relaxing walk for all of us…

Uh, well, apparently not for all of us. One particular person was clinging so hard to the ropes with both hands, as if she was going to miraculously elevate 2 meters up & over the ropes down to the trees below

The man that made it fun & really pushed the canopy to the limits: Chun Yan. His leg miraculously recovered up there. Gawd knows how

He made the whole walk more exciting than it should be. When he leaned to the right, the whole path swayed to the right…even the trees swayed to the right!

So I had to sway to the opposite direction to balance it out…San Nien was 2D, so she couldn’t contribute any weight whatsoever

We stopped by a scenic “Hobbiton” on the way down…

Part I.5 – The “Malaysians Are Friendly” Test

This is something you should all take notice of. When we were in the train going up the hill at first, all in our group were excited (with San Nien singing the Indiana Jones theme at every chance she got) & decided to greet & wave to the other train that passed our train on their way down. Something simple & innocent turned into an experiment when, with all of us waving & saying “Hello!!!” madly to the other passing train, none in that other train responded even in the slightest, passing us by like zombies, even more emotionless than Resident Evil zombies.

We tried the greeting & waving again as we passed our 2nd train on the way up, & we got the same set of zombies response. WTF? What happened to “Malaysians are friendly & warm” & all that Visit Malaysia bullshit? Deciding to give all you remaining Malaysian bastards (aside from the extremely-friendly 7 of us in our group of course) another chance, all of us agreed we will repeat our greeting again on the way down. We were going to pass 2 more trains in the opposite direction as we go down, surely, SURELY, someone, at least ONE, would be less of a zombie & greet us back? That person did not come from the 3rd train; all we got were cold & blank stares, looking at us as if we were 7 horny monkeys on drugs. Sick of making excuses for them, like maybe we really looked like horny monkeys on drugs, or that they didn’t have enough time to wave back at us when our 2 trains crossed paths, we concluded that if the 4th train were to fail in this friendliness test, then Malaysians seriously need a massive behavior overhaul, while Badawi has a one extra reason to resign. Only 7 friendly Malaysians in 4 train-loads of people?!

The 4th train appeared within our sights soon enough. Our hearts were beating so fast San Nien forgot how to sing the Indiana Jones theme. Once the train was near enough, all 7 of us hollered our greetings & waved as enthusiastically as we could at them for one last push for the sake of humanity…the people at the other train were hopeless…there goes Malaysia’s reputation…even the kids didn’t bother carving out a smile…the last guy nearest to the window of the opposing train looked like a lansi Ah Beng product straight from Ipoh…gone, there goes our last hope…wait a minute, the Ah Beng bloody smiled! He is raising his hand…bless our horny monkey faces, he waved back at us! AH BENG JUST SAVED MALAYSIA’S BLOODY ASS! Hurrayyyy!

Talk about suspense eh? That idiot just had to leave it to the last second, ah bengs really love to be heroic don’t they? Thus, we concluded that there are only 8 friendly Malaysians from our 4 sample trains: Kevin, Chris, Alan, Chun Yan, Wai Lun, San Nien, Debbie, & our new friend Ah Beng.

Do note that NO part of the above test story was exaggerated & is 100% true.

Part II – Fort Cornwallis

Next stop: Fort Cornwallis. Salute!

The valiant & brave Private Kevin Wong wasted no time in the frontline of the attack on the Fort, blowing Francis Light’s light bulbs off in 1 single shot

He then proceeded to hold defending Private Chris Lee as hostage

But Private Kevin’s fellow invading comrade, the sadistic serial woman-murderer Private Alan Leow, was less merciful, taking pleasure in violently shooting local milk lady Deborah Sim

Private Alan’s chilling crime spree finally came to an end when muscular General BBS blew his brains without showing any mercy. The mad Private Alan was said to be still smiling in a horny way at gunpoint.

But wait! There’s still hope for the women defending the fort! Vowing to take revenge for Deborah the milk lady’s murder, here comes Corporal Lee San Nien! She was famous for being able to invade bullets by cleverly utilizing her slim 2-dimensional appearance.

The invading army responds by sending in the heroic Sergeant Lee Wai Lun, who was famous for distracting his enemies in the battle field using his yellow slippers

The 2 Lees square off, 2-D vs yellow slippers, & in the end, girl power prevails! Sergeant Lee Wai Lun surrendered & gave his yellow slippers as a present to Corporal San Nien in exchange for her sparing his life

The victorious Corporal Lee San Nien, flanked by her loyal Private Chris Lee & her new lelaki simpanan Private Kevin Wong, who surrendered after the loss of his fellow comrade Sergeant Lee Wai Lun

We noticed Debbie loves to make weird (or funny, from her own point of view) faces

& here’s another. She’s like saying: “I want to OC!”, which she really did want to actually, at that time

In the end, we could no longer stand it & locked her up for good at the fort for various offenses including making weird faces, mistaking dolphins as elephants & for thinking & claiming that the Pas logo was a white circle with a RED background

Part III – Batu Maung Outdoor War Museum

The next day, with Debbie still locked up in prison & San Nien getting married, I mean, attending a wedding, the remaining 5 guys went to explore the outdoor War Museum of Batu Maung.

Talk about having a huge mojo

Chun Yan has a message to George Bush; he is against war…

NOT!!! Die! Die die die! Die you farking mosquitos!

As we further explored the jungles surrounding this fort-turned-war-museum, we made one of the most shocking of discoveries; we found a long-lost caveman wandering around whom we labelled as A.L.A.N. (A Long-lost Ancient Native). He is seen here (extreme right) unable to pose like a civilized human being, but that’s understandable.

We tried our best to teach him to how to pose as normal as possible while taking pictures. Him squatting in a shitting position is the closest-to-normal attempt we could force out of him

Chris leading A.L.A.N. in a brave escape out of the war museum using hidden passages.

On the way we stumbled upon a set of rotten testicles, to which A.L.A.N. identified were his own, chopped off by his village head a long time ago as punishment for inappropriately molesting a baboon

A.L.A.N., pictured here with Expedition Chief Chun Yan & Chris, the man who headed the escape mission & brought A.L.A.N. to safety for future experiments

Finally, a normal pose! All of us with A.L.A.N. after successfully crossing over the border

As you should realize by now, this is not a properly detailed journal of my travels in Penang, instead it’s a parody of sorts. Please find the more accurate & proper stories of our Penang trip at San Nien’s http://magicporridgepot.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/kevin-and-alan-was-here/. Anyway, I would like to forward a massive word of gratitude to the temporary Penangites for having Alan & I over for the weekend, & for bringing us around to great spots to makan & visit! How remarkable it is that simple things became so memorable because of the company. It was undoubtedly a whole lot of madness, even the first night chat with the guys & the pillow talk was awesome (thanks for that girls, & to San Nien for not allowing me to sleep), & I certainly welcome the weekend break from all the stress back in KL. Looking back at some of these absurd pictures, there was certainly an embarassing amount of childishness involved, but hey, if you can’t find time to let out the inner child within you once in a while to just have a little fun, then you lead a depressing state of life my friend. I returned from Penang a whole lot heavier from cendols & laksas & char kuey teows, with the hope that my sperm count increases back to normal soon.

On another note, Digby’s album, Unfold, did not disappoint. It is a very pretty album, nothing outstanding about her voice or songs, but the 2nd half of the album deserves a listen. At the moment, I’m hooked to “Spell”; her voice is unassumingly angelic in these sort of intimate songs. I’m disappointed about the “Unfold” track though, it could have been so much better if she had only used a brighter guitar for the choruses.

Overheard in Starbucks IOI Mall; a Chinese dude on the phone: “I now at Setarbak ah, you now come Setarbak find me ok!”

If Marié Christina Digby’s recent acoustic showcase at 1 Utama on Wednesday night was to prove anything, it was that loads of Malaysians watch YouTube, loads of Malaysians love to just be at a free concert even when they don’t know who the heck is performing, & loads of Malaysians were there to just take photos of her rather than listen to her sing.

& honestly, yes, at first I was there mainly because I was curious of the hype of this gorgeous-on-video Japanese Irish-American (yet another rojak hottie) who’s most popular due to her doing an acoustic “ella ella ella” & posting herself on YouTube. & because I don’t have to spend a penny to satisfy my curiosity. What I didn’t expect was the truck loads of people that were already cramming near the stage at the ground floor anxiously waiting for her appearance more than an hour before 8pm. So I positioned myself on the 1st level balcony; at least from there I really get to see the whole of the stage rather than getting sardined down there in front of the stage. The anticipation of the crowd was noticeable & growing, & catapulted a level higher when 1 young girl who was at the 1st row suddenly collapsed, though fortunately she regained consciousness a minute later. Maybe a guy farted beside her.

Anyway, the emcees started off the night & were disappointing (though VJ Jay looked good), going slightly overboard with their self-centered ramblings. Then 3 contestants who were selected to compete for the Yamaha APX-500 guitar prize went up on stage to sing Digby’s “Say It Again”. The 1st was Kimberly, only 12 years of age, who was a nervous wreck but recovered & hit the high notes convincingly in the chorus, followed by a dude who totally bombed with his over-the-top antics & for holding a piece of paper containing the lyrics. Yeap, he couldn’t remember the lyrics, & as hard as he tried to be charming, he made a complete fool of himself. The 3rd contestant was a girl who was forgettable, & anyway we all knew who was going to be the winner, since it was going to be decided by the volume of the crowd’s cheer. Everyone however just wanted to get all this done with as quickly as possible, because we all wanted the guitar chick on YouTube to start singing!

Cameras & camera phones flashed furiously when the extremely lovely (& I mean by golly, REALLY LOVELY) Digby finally stepped on stage, flashing a smile so sincere & endearing, accompanied by her guitar bloke whom she later introduced as Lance. With a shy wave at the crowd & the customary “Apa khabar?”, she started off the first few chords of “Say It Again” on her Yamaha L Series to the hoots, cheers & applause of the crowd, who began to push forward to catch a better glimpse of her. I could tell those at the ground floor, even those quite at the front, could not see squat. Haha! Should have taken the escalator up a floor eh?

She went through 3 instruments in total, first starting off with that Yamaha L Series, then doing a couple of tracks on the Yamaha keyboard before finally slinging on the Gibson for the last few songs, including “Umbrella”, which she performed alone on stage sans Lance. Digby possessed a kinda soothing & unbelievably sweet voice (i.e Holly Brook), just the kind I adore. Her songs were fairly simple & safe, but nevertheless poignant & easy on the ears. She may not be as skillfully effortless as KT Tunstall on the guitars, but she still looked comfortable playing & singing live. In the beginning, the 1st thing that caught me slightly off guard was how much bigger she was in person. The next thing I noticed was her unblemished skin, lolz. As she breezed through her songs effortlessly, I was pretty impressed by how comfortable she seemed on stage in her own skin, radiating such a natural down-to-earth personality. She spoke humbly, waved shyly at times, but was just so darn hopelessly sweet (there is no other word!) all throughout her appearance, fully endearing herself with ease to the crowd. I do like her outfit that night as well, the dress & the boots rocked! Blessed with such engaging, alluring & doll-like beauty is perhaps a bonus but not such a good thing for her music however, as most of the crowd that night were definitely clamouring for her because of her looks. Look at how crazed the crowd was lining up for the autograph session at GAP after the performance. I however, was appreciating her music, though saying I was not infatuated by her sweet demeanor would be a really big fat lie.

To be frank, though unspectacular, the 30 minutes acoustic showcase was rather good. However, I have to say the choice of the venue was the biggest mistake. Digby’s songs had that slight indie affecting feel to the pleasant pop melodies, & performing them armed with just a guitar & 1 single backup guitarist was just not made for a shopping complex crowd. A majority were more interested in snapping a good shot of her rather than just listen to her angelic voice. In fact most of the crowd were already losing interest in listening by the 4th song, which is maddening & saddening, really. No doubt a free showcase at a shopping complex would lure a much bigger crowd & make her a household name, but her performance belongs indoors, where the audience would be able to just sit down & appreciate the simple quality of her music in a quiet, relaxed mood. After seeing Digby in action here, I wouldn’t even hesitate to pay for an indoor intimate acoustic performance by her, but that’s just me. That being said, I was still mesmerized & enjoyed Digby’s efforts that night.

Just to add, as I was on the the 1st row on the 1st floor balcony & there were some people behind me who tried to peek above or through, there was this chick who was standing behind me. She was trying really hard to catch a glimpse of Digby, so hard she was practically leaning on me. Now, I’m not complaining but it was rather uncomfortable trying to ignore the pair of fruits that were poking my back the whole time. Halfway through the show however, to my horror I discovered that tropical season was over; the pair of fruits was replaced this time by the chest of a man. “Oh gawd murder me”, I thought furiously to myself, I so DO NOT want to feel a fcuking sausage poking my bloody hamburger ass if that dude was to lean on me. Thankfully he did not, or maybe he just had a small twat. Oh, a Malay dude who was standing beside me was just telling me how gorgeous Digby was, & said she looked “macam awek Smallville tuh, Kristin Kreuk la”. Oh well.

Yay! Digby pointing at me! Or that lucky bastard beside me…

In a nutshell, Digby gave an extremely simple stripped-down sweet (there’s that word again) & unassuming performance, & though she did not make an immediate fan out of me (yet?), she was successful in piquing me to get a taste of her album, soon. Well, there is no doubt however that she sounds more interesting than sultry but dull Colbie Caillat, that other online phenomenon. I may have attended this showcase because it was free, but at the end of it I do kinda feel blessed & thankful that she stopped by for us.

I’m getting tired now, so to cap it off, here’s a really quick review of The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which I managed to catch on the 1st day of showing. Though maturer & grittier, I would say it was overloaded with too many battle scenes that it lost the heart & spark the 1st movie had. Some of the scenes were however well executed (the 1 on 1 face-off between Peter & the King was an example), the grumpy Trumpkin (played remarkably well by Peter Dinklage) & the swashbuckling mouse added some rib-tickling humour here & there, & all in all, the movie did enough to still make the whole viewing an engaging one. Now I am not a fan of the 1st Narnia movie, but I have to admit that there were good things from it; Georgie Henley was extremely endearing as Lucy Pevensie, Aslan was impressive with Liam Neeson voicing it, Tilda Swinton was imperious as the White Witch, & Harry Gregson-Williams composed a lush & beautiful score, especially during the build-up to the final battle.

Here, a much taller Georgie Henley still impresses, completely lovable, & has the best appeal of all the characters. However, the 4 Pevensie kids remain very unlikable together & completely have no chemistry with each other. Let’s face it, William Moseley & big-cheeked-sausage-lips Anna Popplewell can’t really act, as much as they have improved this time around. I was especially disappointed with Popplewell’s dull performance, since Anna was given a bigger presence this time around, from her character development to her kick-ass role in the battle. Ben Barnes fares better as the new addition to the cast as Prince Caspian. Aslan was given less screen time this time around, only appearing towards the end to abruptly save the day. The worse was the villains in this sequel, who were just a whole bunch of lunkheads lumbering around stupidly. Tilda Swinton’s deliciously evil presence is felt in that few minutes she appeared, & is definitely sorely missed in this movie. Harry Gregson-Williams returns again & as beautiful as the original scores for the 1st movie were, it was sad to see him basically just reusing & recycling the exact same themes in this movie.

Kevin can’t stop playing Paramore’s “That’s What You Get.”

    You can actually die from constipation after 3 days? Something hidden is going on…

    There is actually an association for the wives of BN muffinheads? Wtf? & what in the name of Sammy Vellu’s belly are they doing having 9.9 million bucks? Shop like the WAGs of English footballers?

    Kevin & Kareen both agree that Alan has Parkinson’s. He vibrates his head & parts of his anatomy rather violently when laughing. Kevin & Alan both agree that Kareen has down syndrome. All 3 agree, however, that Kevin seems to be the only completely normal one so far.

    Hm, perhaps something is wrong with me somewhere, because well, I actually rather enjoyed Speed Racer.

    There was nothing else to watch over the weekend anyway. So there I was, stepping into the cinema with Alan & Kareen, without having even the slightest of expectations or knowledge about Speed Racer’s anime history, aside from the fact that this is a big screen version by the reclusive Wachowski brothers collaborating with Joel Silver; the same dudes who blew our brains away with The Matrix & actually made Keanu Reeves’s kayu acting look cool. This lack of knowledge of the anime series, coupled with a complete lack of interest in anime anyway, probably led to me thoroughly enjoying the movie as a movie by itself.

    Before you even think of expecting anything, you must understand that this is made to be a live action cartoon film. You want realistic special effects, go watch Transformers again & again, because here, Speed Racer was completely over the top, outrageously colourful & exhilarating. Farking throw realism & logic out the window, because this is just something fantastical shot straight out of a child’s dream. A typical storyline about a young boy making it big in racing only to find out that how dirty the real world of racing is, & how in the end he valiantly tries to be a hero in making a change, I actually felt the childhood joy & excitement I used to have as a boy watching my favourite Saturday morning cartoons on TV years & years ago! From the moment I found out that Speed Racer is actually our boy hero’s name, well, everything fell into place & I just sat back to enjoy the ride & fun. The colours everywhere were ridiculously too strong & outlandish to stomach, & the effects will knock the socks off you with it’s absurdness, but it was all part of the fun! Unless, of course, you are colour-blind…or your mama didn’t allow you to watch cartoons last time, at all.

    & because this was cartoon brought to life, the characters were all, typically, as in all cartoons, 2-dimensional & under-developed. What else could you expect anyway? Thankfully the cast did pretty good with what they had, especially the parents (Goodman & Sarandon) & of course, Mr. Speed himself, played by Emile Hirsch. Okay, perhaps Matthew Fox really should just stick to being Jack in Lost, because after this rather unconvincing Racer X performance, I just think he’s not really cut out for the big screen. I did however wish to see more of Christina Ricci’s Trixie, she was delicious! Rain, making his Hollywood debut, well…he was trying really hard. The villains are also typical & predictable, like the Snake dude…haha, oh well, this is why we all love cartoons anyway.

    When the film gets going & shows the action-packed blazing races, it was thrilling, but sometimes the conversations & the attempts to evoke emotions & moral ambiguity kinda drags. Even the plot becomes rather senseless & confusing at times, but really, who cares? When it came down to the last race, especially towards the grand finale, as our hero recalls moments of his life in his mind as he tears down the tracks, then goes headlong into a crashing battle with 2 cars whizzing all over him, with those hilarious multi-national announcers going furiously bonkers along with the Racer clan hollering hysterically, it was truly a predictable but thumping, satisfying end. I have absolutely no doubt the critics will crucify this movie to bits, but for goodness sake, this is a live action CARTOON flick!!! Criticizing the unrealistic special effects is like comparing PowerPuff Girls to Saving Private Ryan, you dumb old bores. For me, this movie does well as an entertaining summer popcorn adventure, don’t expect anything more than that & you might just come out of the cinema still humming “Go Speed Racer!” , like me.

    Next up, the unappealing Narnia kids & a 60-year-old Indy. Oh, might drop by 1U this Wednesday to catch the acoustic performance of Ma-ree-ayy Digby, since it’s free. Her music does not particularly attract me, but live acoustic performances by a cute chick that’s free? I’m there. Anyway, if she really sucks, which I doubt she will (I mean, she couldn’t be that bad), at least I get to judge whether she really is that gorgeous in real life.

    Kevin badly wants to watch Paramore live & acoustic. Badly. Really really bad.

    “Happy Birthday” by Weird Al Yankovic.

Well, it’s time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year
We’ll eat a lot of broccoli and drink a lot of beer
You should be good and happy that there’s something you can eat
A million people every day are starving in the street

Your daddy’s in the gutter with the wretched and the poor
Your mama’s in the kitchen with a can of Cycle Four
There’s garbage in the water
There’s poison in the sky
I guess it won’t be long before we’re all gonna die

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

Well, what’s the matter little friend, you think this party is the pits
Enjoy it while you can, we’ll soon be blown to bits
The monkeys in the pentagon are gonna cook our goose
Their finger’s on the button, all they need it an excuse

It doesn’t take a military genius to see
We’ll all be crispy critters after World War III
There’s nowhere you can run to, nowhere you can hide
When they drop the big one, we all get fried
(Come on boys and girls, sing along, ok?)

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
wow! (background screaming, sound effect)

Well there’s a punk in the alley and he’s looking for a fight
There’s an Arab on the corner buying everything in sight
There’s a mother in the ghetto with another mouth to feed
Seems that everywhere you look today there’s misery and greed

I guess you know the Earth is gonna crash into the sun
But that’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a little fun
So if you think it’s scary, if it’s more than you can take
Just blow out the candles and have a piece of cake

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
wow!

(Happy Birthday!)

And a pinch to grow an inch!

    Uh…okay, probably not the best song to dedicate to her eh? That would grant me a free membership to the M.U.B.U. Club (Most Unromantic Boyfriends/Bastards United) for sure. Or worse, she’ll kick my ass.

    Anyway…

    Happy birthday, dear. Thanks for the completeness.

    Actually yours – KeV. Peace.

    Things to ponder upon this week:

    Iron Man, in 3 words: The. Audi. R8.

    Okay okay, it’s actually: Robert. Downey. Junior.

    What a way to kick off the summer blockbuster season. Um, okay so there’s no summer in Malaysia, but that’s quite beside the point. Anyway if there was summer in Malaysia it sure doesn’t feel like summer right now because it’s been constantly raining cats & dogs & even horses & pigs & ducks & rats & dugongs…you get the point, since December till now. Which just kinda gives me the feeling that the world is gonna end the way The Day After Tomorrow depicted it, in superfreeze mode rather than the way in the 2 hour Al Gore lecture in An Inconvenient Truth. Have I gone off course? Right…we were talking about the man who made maroon & gold look ultra-cool.

    I watched it twice with Alan & Chris in the cinemas, so you know for hell sure it was awesome. The movie kinda felt like a gritty war movie in the beginning, as billionaire weapons manufacturer Tony Stark gets captured by the Ten Rings group (a hint at the Iron Man’s future ultimate nemesis, the Mandarin), which have in their possesion Stark Industries’ weapons. In captivity he meets his fellow prisoner & car battery specialist, Yinsen, who thanks to him, Tony now has to carry around a 12V car battery everywhere. Instead of bending to the Ten Rings leaders (bald gay-looking dude & fat dumb ass dude) orders to build the Jericho missile for them, he builds himself an impossibly mini nuclear reactor for his damaged heart (so he does not need to bring that car battery with him when he goes for one night stands…you know, it’s kind of a turn-off for the chicks). He then sets on to build the 1st version of Iron Man with whatever the dumb Ten Rings asses provide him with, making it an escape plan for him & Yinsen. However, during the escape, due to the slow program loading, Yinsen dies while Iron Man Beta Version 1.0 manages to escape in a short burst of flight from the camp. Basically after that, the movie went into comic book mode, where Tony Stark, in an act of redemption, builds a much improved & good-looking suit to kick some bad ass guys, flirts around with his assistant, Pepper Potts, & has a final showdown with his company partner, Obadiah Stane, who himself has built the Iron Monger.

    So the story is pretty much simple & formulaic, so what the hell made it so good? For one, director Jon Favreau paid great attention to the detail & realism of the fully CGI’ed Iron Man suit, & it paid off. Stark’s genius & skills were on full display for us to gasp & ooooh at every step of the detailed rendering & design works on the suit, from scratch to the final upgraded version. It was exhilarating to watch Stark constructing his suit from scratch, & during those hilarious flight tests. Wasn’t his virtual design programme marvelous? There was even a rubbish bin for him to throw crap in virtually! What the fart! Favreau then gave us further delight during scenes like the suit undergoing a full-body check, & then came the first time Stark put on the maroon & gold suit, where every single part was carefully assembled & fitted on him by robotic arms. Although it looked remarkably similar to Transformers, it was completely slick. During flight, parts of the suit moved to achieve aerodynamic realism on screen, & the full suit was given slick mechanical sound & whirrings during movement. & did you notice Stark was wearing a diving suit before stepping into the titanium gold alloy suit? A nod to Favreau’s detailed effort, it was incredible.

    The cast itself is solid, but hands-down Robert Downey Junior was perfectly cast as the larger than life Tony Stark. Downey gave the character the exact amount of arrogance, flamboyance, conflict & charm needed, from playboy billionaire weapons mogul to a man with a personal mission to save the world from the very weapons he created. His affinity for the character shines, even more when it bore some parallel resemblance to Downey’s own personal life. Downey looked so natural in Stark’s shoes, nailing all the comedic one-liners with spot-on timing. Speaking of that, the movie itself was filled with comedic elements that were perfectly timed, which helped keep the entertainment at the highest of levels. Oh boy how we all laughed during those suit flight tests, especially at 10% thrust! What about in the beginning, when escaping the cave in the 1st suit, a baddy tried to shoot at the armour head of Stark when his hand got stuck, & the bullet just bounced off & hit the baddy’s own head? Simply hilarious! Even the robotic arms, Butterfingers & Dummy, were lovable! While Downey was supremely Stark through & through, the rest of the cast, though massively talented & established, suffered in comparison. Gwyneth Paltrow, an Academy Award winner, did everything she could with Virginia “Pepper” Potts, the 2D perfect assistant to Stark, & was sweet & loyal, but that’s about it, aside from the fact that Paltrow really looked good on screen. She did however have some remarkably serious chemistry moments with Downey; the scene of her helping to replace the nuclear reactor in Stark’s body was a perfect example, as were their awkward sparkling conversations. Paul Bettany was the voice of JARVIS (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System), the A.I. “butler” & suit programmer for Stark, while director Favreau himself cameo’ed as Horgan, Stark’s driver.

    Perhaps the most disappointing were Terence Howard & Jeff Bridges. Terence Howard looked pitiful all along, & his only memorable contribution was his glance at the prototype suit of Iron Man & then saying “next time, baby.”, a nod at his future becoming of the War Machine of course. Jeff Bridges sure looked like a bad-ass, but the scariest thing about him was his bushy beard & bald head, otherwise there just wasn’t enough development screen time in his character for us to truly feel the fear & urgency of him becoming the Iron Monger. The villain was simply not up to par with Iron Man, which gave us that feeble & predictable finale that did not match the rest of the movie. However, though there was certainly not enough action in the final showdown (& frankly I couldn’t see much of what was happening when Iron Man was squaring off with Iron Monger on the streets even after 2 viewings), Favreau did give us some truly adrenaline-pumping moments when Iron Man went on his first mission at Gurmila (did you see the way he landed in front of the fat dumb ass?), then got hit by a shot fired by a tank while in flight, taking out the tank in a true superhero backdrop scene, then went head to head with two F-22s. Though it might be a tad limited overall, this movie was more about how Stark became of Iron Man, & as most time & attention were given to the making of the hero, everything was justified. Oh, you might wanna stay after the credits to catch the conversation between Stark & Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson.

    All in all, though not exactly perfect, Iron Man still lived up to all the hype & thrilled me to bits. The effects & the CGI of the armour were extravagant, marvelously realistic & exhilarating, but did not overshine the film’s emotional resonance & finer points, or the Audi R8…kidding. After disappointing comicbook superhero movies like Ghost Rider, Spidey 3 & Fantastic Four last year, I am absolutely euphoric (& relieved) that Iron Man has managed to live up to my expectations, & many across the world for sure. One can only hope The Dark Knight continues if not better the superhero momentum. Though contrasting in mood, as Bruce Wayne/Batman is darker & broodier compared to Stark’s flamboyant personality, Downey certainly has matched Bale in making their respective characters bigger than their suited hero persona. As a matter of fact, Iron Man’s success is reflective to that of Batman Begins due to 1 similarity; that both Favreau & Nolan decided to dwell & concentrate on the man behind the suit before anything, & both had a capable cast of pulling that off. Iron Man though has the upper hand when it comes to onscreen chemistry; Paltrow was a perfect match with Downey.

    As for matching the absolutely jaw-dropping Audi R8 of Stark, Bruce Wayne might want to consider throwing away that new motorbike of his, & perhaps purchase the car that was inspired by the F-22 design: the Lamborghini Reventon.

    At least Batman might be able to hook up with chicks easily in that screamer compared to the big-ass clunk of a Tumbler he has.

    On the 26th of April (last Saturday), the annual Mercedes-Benz Malaysia Inter-Department Badminton Tournament took place at Menara TM’s Multipurpose Hall. Each participating department team consisted of 2 pairs of men doubles & 1 pair of mix doubles (+ reserves), where each round winner will be determined by the best of 3. Among some of the teams that participated were representatives from Sales & Marketing Passenger Cars Dept, Finance & Controlling Dept, Pekan Assemblying Plant, Commercial Vehicles (MB & Fuso) Dept & students from the Mercedes-Benz Academy Training Centre.

MB Commercial Vehicles Team A & Team B together, in our Mitsubishi Fuso kit

MB Academy Training Centre

& the best-dressed award goes to…Finance & Controlling Dept, har har

The trophies with the famous star logo

    The day belonged to my team, Slayer (Commercial Vehicles Team A) which beat hot favourites See-Da-Hand (Academy Training Centre, ATC) in the final 2-1 to emerge overall champions. Our 1st men doubles pairing, Gary & Kamarol, did superbly in disposing the 1st pairing from ATC (1 of them was a super-smasher state player by the way) in 3 hard-fought sets, especially in the 1st set which they won only by a mere point. See-Da-Hand leveled the team score when they trounced us in the mix doubles match, before Jason & I took the court in the final decisive 2nd men doubles match. We took the 1st set rather convincingly, before losing the 2nd set meekly. Thankfully we both regained our form, & my partner was really good, so I just had to support him in the 3rd set, to finally land the needed winning point for the team. The Joker (Finance & Controlling Dept.), led by their very own Vice President Ralph Kirshmer, ended up taking 3rd placing.

Our 1st men doubles in action against ATC

How to play against the pairing of the Vice President & Senior Manager in charge of our company’s finances? You beat them, they cut funds for your gaji. Luckily HR dept. didn’t play…

Su Wen got the biggest cheers for cutest & confused look of the day…& that fitting shirt

Yours truly in action in the final…this time in our MBCV kit

    As the tournament was played in the 21-point format, mistakes proved costly throughout our entire game. I played so “kan-cheong”ly at times that Gary warned me rather menacingly just before the final: “Kevin you better play with your brains ah! You don’t use your brains I straaaangle you ah!”, hahaha. I also seemed to have suffered the 2nd set disease, because I won every 1st set & then lost every 2nd set in every round all the way to the final, which meant every game I played went to rubber sets. What the heck man.

Receiving my trophy from Ralph Kirshmer, V. President of Finance & Controlling Dept

With our champion trophies…the truck slayers! Ok, that was lame…

    All in all, it was indeed a spirited experience, filled with laughs especially from the super hyper mix doubles team from Pekan who fumbled their way through their match in the 1st round. The girls who participated certainly liven up things & kept everything less serious. Some of our umpires made us laugh when they got confused, losing count using the unpopular 21-point format. At the end of the day, it was all in good spirit & sportsmanship, & of course, fun.

    Damn that income tax radio advertisement. The government actually composed a happy song to advertise their reminder to everyone to submit their income tax forms? What the fart? Since when did income tax=happy? The song goes, all radio-friendly pop rock happy style, in the chorus: “Selalu diingatkan~~…blablabla…selalu diingatkan~~!!!” or something, & then ends with a voice-over going “Submit your income tax forms now. This message is brought to you by Lembaga Hasil Dalam…”. Mental.

    Today is Women’s Day for Kevin.

    Who dares to disagree with Megan Fox being no.1 in “FHM’s Top 100 Sexiest Women In The World of 2008″? I’ll shoot your crotch.

    Who the hell looks that hot while bending over a beat-up Corvette bonnet? Oh yea, we guys dig a chick in a mini skirt, bending over a car, & knows her “double overhead cam shafts” well. Though she can’t act to save her life, she has the ability to make Optimus Prime transform a mechanical hard-on in a second. & the rest of the top 5 ain’t that bad either.

    Proof that the top 5 really are the sexiest women in the world? I thought the world was going to end when Adam Sandler (yes, that bastard) laid his dirty palms on Jessica Biel’s bikini-clad hooters. I thought the world really has ended when Jessica Alba announced she’s been knocked up & all pregnant. Next, who the hell does not want Elisha Cuthbert to be our girl next door? & to round up at no.5 is the one with the most famous golden globes in Hollywood that everyone wants to get their hands on, Scarlett Johansson.

    The list was pretty awesome until I puked seeing Hilary Duff making the Top 10, & worst, Britney making the Top 100. Bless me, who the hell still finds anything close to sexy in a totally screwed-up drunk exposing her V to anyone who wants to see it?

    Okay okay, before I get carried away in exposing my overdriven male hormones online, I would like to point out to some other categories of women celebrities which you probably could not find in a hot-blooded magazine like FHM. Now that we know what FHM (in other words, most of the world male population) thinks, what do I think? If you noticed, the majority of the women in sexiest women polls across the globe always are made up by a majority from the 16-30 years of age range. So let’s take a look at the ranges that do not get as much recognition, but from my personal point of view, really are the significant ones in the entertainment world. After all, sex does sell, but talent & uniqueness stay much longer. Let us take a look at the really young, & the old.

The Young Wonders

    This is where the word sexy does not exist yet, but rather, more importantly, when pure talent & hardwork really show. & for me, this is by far my favourite people to watch out on the screen, when the young ones show us what they can really do.

    Anna Paquin amazed everyone with her Academy Award winning performance in The Piano when she was just 10 years of age, & Drew Barrymore was too cute for words in E.T.. But Dakota Fanning was the one that really caught my attention the most, with her absolutely spectacular performance in I Am Sam & Taken. Then came Rachel Hurd-Wood in Peter Pan, with her hot lips matching her sweet English charm. Emma Watson delighted with her haughty-turned-hot Hermione Granger in the Potter movies. Last year belonged to big-eyed AnnaSophia Robb, who single-handedly carried Bridge To Terabithia & saved The Reaping. Finally, Abigail Breslin’s outstanding turn in Little Miss Sunshine, followed by her believable jungle girl in Nim’s Island & endearing daughter in Definitely, Maybe, confirmed her status as the most wanted young prodigy in Hollywood this year. I would also like to mention Ellen Page, the now famous Juno actress who though might be older than the rest above, is definitely the most intensely gifted young actress of all.

    Just to add, I think Miley Cyrus is over-rated. & I do not appreciate her boasting during the Idol Gives Back telecast. Her voice is icky, & she’s not talented at all at anything she’s doing.

The Elegant Veterans

    We’ve done young & talented, while FHM has settled the sexy ones for me, so let’s go for the highest in the pecking order, the ones above the 35 years of age at least. These people amaze me because of their ability to mesmerize us with their supreme confidence, versatility & elegance on screen through all the years of their career.

    Okay, so I won’t go as far as Judi Dench or Sissy Spacek, but my favourite “veteran” has to be Julianne Moore. She’s so bloody convincing she even made Evolution bearable & quite funny. Do I need to say anything that has not been said about Nicole Kidman, the gorgeous Australian actress that really became her own after dumping Tom Cruise, or the alluring Jennifer Connelly, who matches her onscreen elegance with strong performances? Next would have to be Britain’s most glamorous offer, Rachel Weisz. She made a name for herself as the charming bumbling librarian in The Mummy & I’ve been hooked ever since; I even loved Eragon’s dragon solely for the dragon’s voice itself (which Weisz voiced, of course). If elegance was the word for Connelly & Weisz, when it comes to versatility, there is only one name that could live up to it & even surpass it: Cate Blanchett. It takes alot of balls (even more for a woman, since she has none) to be as scary as Cate was in the Elizabeth movies, but it takes even more to be Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator & Bob Dylan in I’m Not There, in which she was stunning in both roles. I even loved her less dramatic roles in Babel & Notes on a Scandal. Just for an exception, I would like to list out Catharine Zeta-Jones, who isn’t exactly a very good actress, but whose beauty in The Mask Of Zorro I could never quite forget. Oh yea, watch out for mom-of-2 Gwyneth Paltrow, who’s making a comeback & looking mighty fine in Iron Man.

    Alright, enough about women. It’s time to talk about the only thing that matters when we’ve arrived at this time of the year. It’s time for the summer blockbusters, the must-sees of the year! Are you ready for…oh crap, look at Eva Longoria, how can I resist her when she’s lying down like that?

    Wait wait…no no. What I really mean is…are you ready for the big ones to hit our screens soon?

    First up is of course Iron Man, with Robert Downey Jr. in the leading role. I sure hope this would match Batman Begins, where the character is bigger than the hero. Christian Bale nailed it when Bruce Wayne became the leading character & not Batman, & Downey Jr. sure looks capable of doing that. Oh, he’s also driving my dream car of the moment, the Audi R8, in that movie. Next up would be the most anticipated Lucas-Spielberg return of Indiana Jones & the B-Grade Sounding Title, sorry, I mean the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with Harrison Ford, Shia Labeouf & Cate Blanchett. The emo green man is also returning in the form of Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk (no more plastic Ang Lee versions please!) & Liv Tyler is in it, so I’m watching it. Everybody should know also by now that Tony Stark@Iron Man (Downey Jr.) will make a cameo appearance here. Wanted looks like a promising special effects bomb, since it’s coming from the director of Night Watch & Day Watch, that were filled with absurd out-of-this-world effects. & Angelina Jolie is in it, so that’s that. Enough has been hyped about The Dark Knight, & Heath Ledger’s The Joker looks set to be the mind-blowing villain everyone’s anticipating. Whatever it is, this will be my most waited movie of the year.

    Let’s not forget the other movies that just might spring a surprise & knock the socks off us all during this period.

    Hellboy, or the stupidly-renamed-by-our-censors Super Sapiens, was full of fun & it became an unlikely entertaining ride back then, & it’s sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is coming to our shores in July. Is it just me or is Selma Blair looking hotter than ever? Then there’s Hancock, a twist at a superhero tale concerning a hero with some PR issues who’s played by the only man that could pull this off, Will Smith. The next is an offering from M. Night Syamalan, The Happening, which I can only hope is as good as it’s mystifying trailer. Something about plants making people commit suicide or something…at least the poster looks promising. & finally, The X-Files 2: I Want To Believe; will it bomb or will it be able to recapture the TV series’ magic?

    Oooo I just hope it will be a good “summer-blockbuster” period, seeing that the only movie that has really captured my interest in 2008 so far was the explosive Cloverfield earlier this year. Oh yea, for some sleeper hits, you might wanna watch The Mist, which might have done better if it wasn’t released in the same time with Cloverfield, since it’s concept story is pretty much the same.

Current addiction: Breaking Benjamin’s “The Diary of Jane – Acoustic Version” & everything of Paramore.

    I’m writing this in response to, or rather to compliment what Chee Fai wrote in his “I Wish I Can Play Music” entry in http://faiker.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/i-wish-i-can-play-music/#comments.

    Indeed, there are many reasons that would support the urge to create & play music. For me, one is unable to play real music when the purpose is to impress the other sex, full stop. Music should be taken up for the sole reason of the love & joy for music itself. I was lucky to have a dad who forced me to press my tiny little fingers against the keys of a piano back when I was too young to understand that in order to go really far in music, love & interest is not enough without talent or practice. However, after a few maturing years of constant training & practising, I then understood that more importantly, without loving & enjoying the music you play, when it doesn’t come from the heart regardless of how hard you practise, when the vibrations creating beautiful sounds does not send you tingles even a bit, your music will never be as good as it should be.

    As such, music is to be what it always should be, from the heart. That’s what so great about it in the 1st place, when you play music in the sincerest & most honest of ways, chances are it’s already good music without you realizing it.

    Adding on, I would also like to point you all to the other side of music. Beautiful isn’t it, when music can be loved & enjoyed in many ways aside from creating or playing it; it is also meant to be heard & shared. After all, what good is playing music when there are no ears (whether your own or others) to appreciate it. Everyone who loves music can play a role, from playing to listening to sharing; that makes music beautiful & unique. Everyone who plays music starts playing by learning other people’s music, & everyone improves their music by playing other people’s music! You listen to some good music a DJ was spinning at a club or on radio, or some random guy at the streets or at a pub, & you share it with your friends. Some try to learn the song, & then someone who just happened to hear it attempts to improvise with his own version. This then inspires one to create their own music, & someone else listens to that music & puts it up online, & the many other means of sharing it with others, & the cylce continues. Just take a look at the “Canon In D” electric guitar versions in YouTube, that was a phenomenon when so many people from all around the world just started sharing their own versions. So you see, everyone plays a role, the ability to listen, hear & appreciate music & then share it is very much an important talent as being able to play or create something.

    Then we come to the question of comparing music with other talents. Well, I do not have an answer for that, nor can I answer why chicks supposedly dig musicians. But to put it simply, I can only say that music is the one thing that everyone can relate to, whether in love, anger, curiosity, frusfration, sadness & despair, & the most driving reason: hope. It gives us a sense of meaning of the ways of the world, & allows us to express ourselves & relate to others in ways only music could allow. When you can’t use your fingers to pluck the strings of a guitar, or to play the white & black keys of a piano, or you can’t use your hands to caress the bow against the strings of a violin, then use your ears & your heart to appreciate music, because other capable fingers & hands need them. You never know when someone needs them, & who knows, you just might have made someone’s day.

    From hearts, to hearts.

    Unbelievable. Another season, but the same shit happens. Arsenal’s promising season collapsed towards the end, yet again, & in a manner of weeks, yet again.

    I was 1 of the few fans who always trusted Wenger, no matter what drastic decisions he makes. He has made many in recent seasons. It started with Viera. & when Henry, who will always remain a Highbury (& a brief Emirates) legend, left for Barcelona, I knew it was not the big disaster many made it out to be. Don’t get me wrong, nobody could do what Henry did in Arsenal, but from what I saw last season, the team was so over-reliant on him that players around him suffered when he played poorly, & he was not exactly the most encouraging team-mate on field. I saw his departure as the door finally being opened for Van Persie & the rest of the Gunners to finally breathe.

    It was indeed the right decision. Arsenal’s youthful team played superb football, while Henry is far from his best at Barcelona. It started off in the most promising of ways. Yet again, Wenger chose to not sign any big stars, we all know he has an eye for purchasing unknown gems & turning them into stunning players (Anelka & Henry, among many many other examples). Fabregas is without doubt the most visionary & irreplaceable midfielder in the Premier League, & my personal favourite, Van Persie should be 1st choice in front. Flamini had an outstanding season, & his inclusion in the first-team over Gilberto was justified, while Hleb finally showed spectacular skills we all knew he was capable of; he had a fantastic season. Gallas & Toure formed a formidable understanding at the heart of defence for 3 quarters of the season, Sagna was maturing fast, & the most under-rated player in the team, Clichy, was bombing forward like a hurricane with boundless energy for the entire season. United, Chelsea & Liverpool fans will not agree, but Arsenal played the most impressive football of the season. Look at the way we played against AC Milan at San Siro in the Champions League.

    So what in Wenger’s underpants went wrong for the Gunners?

    The League Cup was never a priority in Wenger’s eyes. Then came the 4-0 drubbing in the FA Cup. Wenger proclaimed it was not their priority for this season as well. But it was the turning point for Arsenal’s flying momentum, as they went through a winless streak in the league since then. Then we drew twice with Liverpool, only to be downed heartbreakingly 4-2 in the 2nd leg of the Champions League quarter-final. Adebayor’s equalizer in the 84th minute was barely celebrated when the penalty from Gerrard arrived. United hammered the final nail in when they undeservingly became 2-1 victors in the Premier League, effectively ending Arsenal’s gallant, promising but shattered season. In the Liverpool 2nd leg match, Arsenal played football worthy of champions in the 1st half, only to collapse in the 2nd half & the final 5 minutes of the match. This was again the case in the Manchester United match. The 1st half was filled with a fantastic display of attacking football from Arsenal, only to be let down by finishing & Song, who was erratic in central defence. We just couldn’t bloody score, & we were punished in the 2nd half. We can complain about the penalty that was never given in the Liverpool 1st leg, but the fact is, we were at fault for our defeats.

    The trouble signs were always there from the beginning. Henry leaving was not 1 of them, it was the perfect opportunity for Van Persie. But this extremely talented forward spent most of the season injured, which was the biggest blow for me. Though I admit Adebayor has scored the more important goals for Arsenal for this season, I’ve never liked his style of play, & he was certainly nowhere near being the Henry-replacement Wenger said he was. Van Persie proved a point when he finally returned from the long injury, when he played like he never left the field at all, only to get another knock. By the time he returned again, it was already too late for Arsenal. Walcott showed glimpses of his true potential in that outstanding run during the Liverpool match & the 2 goals against Birmingham, but he was still taking too long to develop into a true 1st team player. The Gallas & Toure partnership faltered towards the end of the season, & worst, Gallas’s (whose appointment as Captain I never quite agreed) public outbursts was an embarrassment to the club & us fans. Sanderos should have played a bigger role, but he was only allowed limited playing time. The goalkeeper position remained a thorn; both Almunia & cry-baby Lehmann were erratic let-downs. Then came that bizarre bust-up on field between Adebayor & Bendtner. & with the most accurate master of finishers, Eduardo, suffering that horrific injury, it was a crucial & painful blow to the entire club. I still do not know what the eff is happening to Rosicky. Arsenal showed much mental strength, something they never had in the past seasons, in many instances during this season, but yet, lacked the sustaining energy for the most crucial period of all.

    I’m not an expert pundit, nor do I, like Shelby Singh, pretend to be one. Dennis Bergkamp, the greatest Arsenal player of all-time & the scorer of that magical goal against Argentina in the World Cup 98 quarter-final, was the driving reason I became a Gunners fan back then, & for many more years to come, through the ups & downs. But as a fan, I also have to accept the painful frustrations of the past 2 seasons, where Arsenal started with so much promise but faltered towards the end. The side is young & inexperienced, but this excuse has been used too many times. When I titled this “Shattered Promises”, I was not referring to any promises made by Wenger before the season started, I’m talking about how a team so promising ended up in such a heart-braking way. The future looks as bright as always, with Van Persie, Fabregas, Hleb, Walcott, & Clichy, with Diaby & Bendtner waiting for their turns. But the question remains, for this season at least, how a team which played the best, most outstanding & scintillating football of the season actually ended it without any silverware.

    Maybe the players got distracted by fans like this…

    Let’s hope Holland & Spain, the most talented countries never to win anything, will fare better in Euro 2008, just to lift my spirits a little.

    On the way to KLCC with Alan & Kareen, with Kareen leading the way to the car park beside her office & me driving:

    Let me get 1 thing straight. Harry Potter may be the main & title character of the 7 books (& movies), but he is no where near being the real hero. Yes, Harry Potter is a total wuss.

    The real & unsung heroes of the entire rebellion against Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Death Eaters & the Ministry of Magic journey were the people behind the boy who lived to complain & feel sorry about his own life without parents. There was Neville Longbottom, who turned from being the lousiest weak git in 1st year to 1 of the leaders in the final Hogwarts battle, decapitating Nagini, the last Horcrux, thus making Voldemort mortal, with Gryffindor’s Sword. Then there was the feisty & gutsy Ginny Weasley, & the quirky but loyal Luna Lovegood, who became leaders of the DA in the absence of Harry, Ron & Hermione. Of course, Dumbledore’s might & importance could never be overlooked, even when he was dead. He remained a calming presence, always seeming to have answers for everything. Don’t forget Remus Lupin, who taught Harry how to conjure up a Patronus, which proved to be the 1 of the most, if not the most important of spells. What about Dobby, who was most loyal to Harry? Most importantly perhaps, is Severus Snape, whose true loyalty & love for Lily Evans, Harry’s mother, & the sacrifices he had to make, served as the backbone to Voldemort’s defeat. Quite frankly, the whole series was built around Snape’s journey of complex moral ambiguity.

    & finally, there is Hermione Jean Granger.

    I did not know for sure how to pronounce Hermione until Goblet of Fire, when Hermione tried teaching Viktor Krum how to pronounce “Her-my-oh-nee”. But right from the 1st book, I was sure Hermione would be my favourite character till the end of the series. She came into Hogwarts as a bossy, clever, haughty “insufferable know-it-all” (as Snape said). She learned everything from books, her lepak place was the library & she loves raising her hands in classes. After that fateful troll encounter in the girl’s toilet, she became a true friend of Harry & that other git named Ron. In the beginning, she was this insecure girl with a knack for losing logic & priorities under stressful situations. After all, in Philosopher’s Stone, she told Harry & Ron that getting expelled was worse than getting killed. Who could forget her for completely losing it when she wailed that there was no wood to conjure up a fire to deal with the Devil’s Snare (she had a wand, you know), or that her Boggart formed McGonagall telling her she failed every subject? Though we all laughed at this bushy-haired-big-front-teeth girl in the beginning, it was all these characters of her which led to her being the total heroine behind Harry. Rowling says that Hermione feels “utterly inadequate…and to compensate, she tries to be the best at everything at school, projecting a false confidence that can irritate people.”

    She progressed thro