Butterfly Lovers

I just got back from watching the musical 'Butterfly Lovers' at the KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC). I brought my mom and Chui Yan there and met Sim and See Ming there who had bought the tickets earlier.
I must say, I was impressed with the KLPAC. They refurbished an old building and turned into one classy arts centre. Normally, I don't like to go to plays but I make an exception for musicals, they're so much more entertaining.
At first I had my doubts about going to an Chinese Musical. I knew the story before hand already but luckily, they had a projector at the top of the stage with subtitles in English. I wish they had put the projector at the bottom though because I had to quickly read the subtitles then look down at the action again.
Overall, it was a pretty good performance. The two butterflies they had at the end of the show was huge though. If I saw butterflies like that, I would probably make a run for it.

Butterfly Lovers

I just got back from watching the musical 'Butterfly Lovers' at the KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC). I brought my mom and Chui Yan there and met Sim and See Ming there who had bought the tickets earlier.

I must say, I was impressed with the KLPAC. They refurbished an old building and turned into one classy arts centre. Normally, I don't like to go to plays but I make an exception for musicals, they're so much more entertaining.

At first I had my doubts about going to an Chinese Musical. I knew the story before hand already but luckily, they had a projector at the top of the stage with subtitles in English. I wish they had put the projector at the bottom though because I had to quickly read the subtitles then look down at the action again.

Overall, it was a pretty good performance. The two butterflies they had at the end of the show was huge though. If I saw butterflies like that, I would probably make a run for it. Janet was in the play too and she was pretty good too. I was impressed with their audio system. At first I thought they were miming their lines but then I saw they all had hidden mic's which was cool. Gotta get me one of those mics.

Looking for a new car

Besides looking for a house, I'm also looking for a new car. Chui Yan's been complaining about my Nissan Sunny 130Y. Okay, it's old but I do have great fun driving it, it's manual and I just love driving manual. I pour a lot of money into this old car maintaining it. Recently, while on my road trip to Ipoh, I got it up to 130 km/ph. The car was basically floating already but the pickup was pretty good. I don't know if it's just me, but I noticed people drive a lot faster in the dark on the highway (maybe because no speed traps at night?).

Anyway, while driving this old car is great fun, it's time to buy a new car. Too much money going into this one already just to keep it in tip-top condition. The current car doesn't have a great suspension system even though I change to a brand new one. Still a bumpy ride even hitting the smallest pothole or uneven patch over job on the road. I've narrowed it down to 3 cars, Inokom Getz, Proton Waja Campro, and Naza Bestari.

All 3 cars have their good and bad points. A few hours ago, the Bestari (also known as 206) was high on my list until I saw a petition complaining about how the 206 engine dies out while driving. So this car is in the bottom of my list now. I like its sporty look but the backseat's and boot is small. No mp3 CD player either. Currently, I fitted a CD player that also has a thumb drive that plays my mp3. No more having to burn mp3's, cool huh? Wish I can transplant my CD player into my new car.

Getz I like simply because of the price RM58,888 and its got lots of carrying space. The Inokom version is cheaper by 10K I think. I haven't seen it in the showroom yet, looking forward to test driving it. I wonder if it has a mp3 CD player too. Doesn't look very sporty though, more like an utility vehicle.

The next option of course and the cheaper option is the waja campro at almost RM60K. It's got a good financing package too. Some complains on forum about its design and pickup but it's got a mp3 player. Not too keen on its leather seats though, kinda hot where I park most of the time. I like the low fuel consumption.

So top of my list, would be be the waja, next is the getz and third the Bestari. Have to see what's my monthly repayment, have to factor in I'll have to get a bank loan to get a house too!

Proton Rally Game

Surf over to Paul Tan's blog and check out the video of a Proton Rally game. It's based on the Half Life 2 engine. The graphic sucks but I'll try to get it for the novelty of the game. They have most of the proton cars from Satria Neo all the way down the line to a Proton Saga! Cracked me up when I saw the Proton Saga in an off-road race in the game video.

Click here to check out the video on Paul Tan's blog.

I hate Ramadan traffic jams

I hate the inconvenience Ramadan brings. For instance, I was stuck for one and a half hour in a jam in KL on Monday. I was driving from Jalan Pasar back to PJ and we started of at 5PM and we were stuck in a massive jam just because everyone was rushing home to break fast. Damn it, good thing I don't work in KL. I don't know how much of this I can take if I had to do it everyday.

Hello

I used to think no one actually reads my rambling, since I didn't bother to tell anyone about my blog. I guess with the power of google, you can find almost anything on the internet now.

Anyway, someone read my blog and complained about my bitching haha. I found it quite amusing that anyone could make any sense of what I wrote. I've been noticing the amount of typo's I've been making, must be the result of blogging half asleep most of the time.

I think I should find a way to start making money of the small amount of traffic coming here. Maybe if I can have google pick up some of the searches and then direct them to my blog.

SEX MELAYU
SEX MELAYU
SEX MELAYU
SEX MELAYU

Now let's see if that actually works hehe.

Audition

Audition
Video sent by luxen

I was at an audition for my company recently. We took turns interviewing people and I tell you, some of those people who were short listed to come for the audition were real jokers. The first guy who turned up did stand-up comedy and impersonations. When he reached for his hat, I was cringing because I wasn't ready for a Michael Jackson impersonation. Okay, it was a smite funny because it was stupid.

I was going to leave at lunch as my shift was ending but the next girl who came for the audition wore this shirt that was one size too small for her and her buttons were going to pop out. So I decided to sit down for just a little while longer and see what she could do. I was going to ask her what's up with the shirt but I guess it wasn't my place to embarass her.

I find it dssapointing that most people didn't even do any research when they came for the auditions. They didn't even watch any TV or research the positions they wanted.

One lady said she wanted to be like Azizah Ariffin and when I asked her why, she said she liked Azizah's style on TV. I told her, that was only 5% of Azizah's job (okay, I'm going overboard here) and the rest are scripting, assignments, etc. I asked her if she liked writing and she replied no, then I asked her how she's going to write scripts and she gave me a meek answer and said she could do it. That just doesn't cut it for me. One needs passion to succeed in this job.

Personally, I'm biased. I studied broadcasting, TV Productions and Broadcast Journalism to be exact and I expect to hold everyone else who wants to join this industry to have adequate training. If you don't even have a basic mass communication degree, you're learning curve is going to be too high for you to succeed. I admit, there are those who did not come from a broadcast journalism background who are well known in the industry now but they would have been better if they had the proper training.

There are 3 reasons why people join this industry... power, money & fame. Those who do it for power want to change something, for example, those who would want to save the environment or want to stand for election one day. Those who do it for money also do it for fame most of the time. There are those who use this as a stepping stone to move on to a career in PR to build a reputation (through gaining fame).

For me, its always been for power. I always wanted to be a gatekeeper, a controller of information. I believe in living for something bigger than yourself and for me, that's helping people. I believe that through what I do at work, I get to reach out and change people's life. So far, it's never been for personal wealth, shit.. this job just isn't paying me enough. Sad to say, I have to admit I'm doing this for the challenge, not the money (sorry Dilbert!).

Anyway, during one of the breaks, Ali the cameraman told us a funny story about a host he wouldn't name. The host came late for a shoot and couldn't remember his/her line and in the end, Ali had to stick the cue card on his forehead and his chest while holding the camera.

Here's Ali telling us the story in the video.

Road Trip

I just finished my road trip with Chui Yan and her family to Genting, Ipoh and Penang Island. We drove up in 3 seperate cars. We headed up to Genting on Thursday and spend the night at Theme Park Hotel. The room was okay, but I've stayed in the Deluxe Room in First World before and it's much better. I bunked with Chui Yan's grandfather. The guy wakes up really early without and an alarm, good thing neither of us snored hehe.

We when to visit the casino and Chui Yan's father gave us some cash to play the slots. If you haven't played the digital slot machines in Genting before, here's how they work in a nutshell. In the old classic slot machine, you try to match all three tumble in a line to win, for example 3 cherries wins you the jackpot. However, the digital slot machines allows you to bet up to ten lines. The lines come in a different combination, top line, bottom line, criss-cross... you get the idea. They have 2 cent, 5 cent and 20 cent machines. So each line you bet is 1 credit.

Chui Yan and her grandfather kept betting the maximum lines, so obviously after awhile, you'll lose out. I told her to stagger her bet, to bet only 1 line out of every 10 times... that's roughly the ratio she was winning at the machine she was sitting. At first, she won about 20 ringgit, but she didn't wanted to quit and ended up losing about 40 ringgit in the end.

Anyway, the next day, we walked around a bit and ended up at the Galleria. It's basically a tribute to Lim Goh Tong and how he build Genting. He's got an amazing story to tell, everyone wants to his grandson/daughter.

He's got a huge picture of him smiling at the Galleria entrance. I think he's smiling and thinking of all the money people are giving him in the casino.

I took a picture of a model of Genting. Most of the resort you see in this picture is in Pahang, lower down the hill where Gotong Jaya is (not in picture) is in the Selangor side. Not sure of this, but this is what the Galleria guide told me.

After that, me and Chui Yan drove to Ipoh on our own instead of going in a convoy with her family. I stopped by the police station to ask for directions and the nice punjabi police officer gave very good directions. We headed to Batang Kali, then passed Kubu Bahru and then to the highway all the way to Ipoh.

Chui Yan wanted to eat Chicken Rice in town and we both didn't remember the shop we ate at once so we spend about 30 minutes driving around in circles until I called my aunt for directions. It was already 3PM by the time we reached the chicken rice shop and there wasn't much left. Anyway, after that we when to visit my grandmother and aunt.

Took a picture of my aunt and my cousin's daugther. My niece (my brother's daughter) and my cousin's kid both have the same smile. Look at their eyes.


After the short time in Ipoh, we drove straight to Penang. We used the new Jelutong Highway and I must say it was a really nice drive though I have to admit I'm not used to people driving at 80 km/ph on it. Maybe Penang people don't drive as fast as Klang valley people.

We stayed at Sunway hotel. Lots of hawker food outside. Most of the time in Penang was spend eating. We visited the Khoo Kongsi and also the Snake temple. I liked the Khoo Kongsi, took some really nice pictures with Chui Yan's camera. Will upload them soon. The Snake Temple wasn't as great as it used to be anymore. Less snakes now. I guess it's because all the land around it is industrial now, so no more snakes coming to the temple for shelter.

Man, I ate so much I put on about 5Kg's. New few days, I'm gonna eat less (I hope). On the way back from Penang, we stopped in Ipoh again and my aunt took us to buy Pomelo's in Penang. if you ever wanted to buy Pomelo's in Penang, head towards Tambun town and about 2-3 kilometers before Tambun town, you'll see this stall on your left with an old chinese man selling Pomelo's. His orchard is right next to the stall. My aunt knows him well because she always buys from him and he's pretty honest in telling you if his pomelo's are good or not.



By the time we drove back, it was getting dark and raining heavily. We were listening to the music CD's we bought in Penang. She bought Korean TV Series soundtrack compilation. I bought chinese oldies song and a Johnny Cash CD. We spend the next 2-3 hours driving back listening to her Korean CD. Didn't understand a single word (except for bits of English in the songs) they were singing. At least it helped me focus on driving.

Monster

I feel partly guilty now for helping in the Lebanon project. Those scientist who created the first nuclear bomb must have felt the same way. There are many reasons why I volunteered to help. One would be because I thought it was a project worthy of my charitable attention and time. I guest I didn't have any money to donate to those poor souls but at least I could help get the word out. Plus I also love editing.

Right after watching the second episode, I realized some idiot out there could be incited to turn himself into a suicide bomber and go of blowing up more innocent people. Damn, what kind of monster did I create this time?

Red Cardigan

I was editing the Lebanon project and Said told me he bought the Tommy Hillfinger red fleece cardigan for real cheap at FOS. So the next day, I when over to check it out. True enough, it was only RM49.90 so I bought one too. Now bought of us have the same cardigan. He was obviously not pleased I bought the same cardigan as him haha.

The funny thing is, a few days later, Said came into the editing room and told me that another guy from the entertainment department bought the same cardigan. Now there's 3 guys walking around in Sri Pentas with the same jacket. The good news is Said is leaving for UK tomorrow so now it's just me and another guy I haven't seen with the cardigan yet.

Looks like guys also the same problem that chicks have about people wearing the same clothes to work. Funny.

AVID Vs. Premiere Pro

After spending almost two weeks of non-stop editing for the Lebanon project, now I have too much time on my times with the project over. I've dropped by Low Yatt Plaza to pick up some training softwares. Found some new versions of AVID. Maybe, I'll re-install the new Media cutter at home. I'm still a fan of Premiere, but I realize that AVID does have it advantages. For a major project with multiple editors working on it, AVID is the way to go. In the office, we had 4 editors working on the first episode for the Lebanon project. It was really messy with files not being named properly but amazingly, we pulled through. Wished the titling system for AVID was much more efficient to support subtitles.

Anyway, I have to go back to Low Yatt, this is the 3rd time I have to go back to change softwares. The first time, I asked to test the DVD and the guy said his laptop wasn't working. I told him I don't want to come back because parking was a bitch. True enough, the second DVD didn't work and the next day I had to fight my way through traffic and find parking. The guy had a smirk on his face and laughed of my request to subsidize my parking ticket. I saw another DVD that I liked but decided not to buy from him since he couldn't test it.

In the end, I found another shop that had a PC to see if the DVD could be read. Should have asked the guy to open the movie file. It's actually a DVD with 4 training videos. I have 4 CD's but this versions had all of them in one DVD. 2 of my CD's wouldn't play the movie finish because they weren't burned properly. I was hoping the DVD version had an okay copy, but I guest it's just a fault of with the master copy. They actually managed to copy a bad file over to the DVD.

I've been thinking of starting an AVID user's forum for my office. There's a lot of things that I've learned by trial and error that I would like to pass on to the others. For example, the damn video cable on the mojo machine is loose and if you get pink visuals, you gotta wiggle the cable around. Maybe I'll start one in blogspot

A Life or Suffer Question

Today I was asked a life or suffer question (oh, death would have been so much less painful). It's one of those questions, a million options would run through your mind in a split second before you made up your mind on what to do or to take no action at all.

I was editing today and in came a colleague of mine who sat behind me and started complaining about our common superior. As I was busy editing and minding the editing machine, I just smiled agreeably while she called our superior unkind names. After 10-15 or so or vicious bile and venom, she looked at me from the corner of my eye and smiled and asked "Do you think I have a bad temper"?

Now here's the catch-22:
A. Tell her she's a bitch who spits venom and bile who can stand no one, even herself or;
B. Lie to her face and tell her the world is so lucky to have her.

Being the idiot I am and after racing through all the options at hand, I choose option A. She looked at me and laughed and asked if I was just saying that to pissed her of or if I meant it. I said, 'you DEFINITELY have an anger management problem!". In all the years I have known her, she certainly does have an uncontrollable rage. She's the SheHulk I tell ya.

However, to be fair, she does come useful most of the time. When people are too diplomatic at times, she can get things done fast as everyone's too afraid to piss her off. She doesn't take shit from anyone and I admire that. However, I sometimes feel that most thing can be done diplomatically.... on the other hand, as the bad guy in "Kiss Of The Dragon" said... 'The time for diplomacy is over!"

Shaba Valley

I spend the whole day today editing. Woke up late and surfed the net a little before heading to work. I tried to avoid the lunch hour traffic by driving the longer way and that was a bad decision, got stuck in traffic even longer because it was jammed everywhere!

Finally reached the office after lunch time and was there till 1:30AM. The amount of work that had to be done wasn't that much. It was all the time wasted waiting to use the editing suite. One of the AVID suites isn't working well. Not sure what they did, but the new software upgrade didn't go well with the PC. They added a new video card but it still isn't working, it lags a lot.

The other AVID suite was hogged by someone I wouldn't mention here. Let's just say not many people like how he hogs the editing suite and treats it like his own personal property. Yesterday I wanted to use it and I found the damn door locked. I when to ask for the key and the guy had the audacity to say he locked it because he wanted to use it, WTF?!!

Anyway, we were supposed to finished everything by today and rush a DVD copy to the CEO before he flies of overseas. We didn't make it in time obviously. Tomorrow we have to lay audio, VO and add the subtitles for the arab translation too. Going to be quite a lot stuff to trow in tomorrow.

Spend some time editing visuals of what the aftermath of the Israeli bombing of a town called Shaba in south eastern Lebanon. The Syrians has broadened their territory into the Lebanon territory. What ever else was on the Lebanese side was flatened by bombs. There was a potato farm and the Israeli's dropped a bomb in the middle of it, blowing up potato all over the field. It was a mix of potato and bits and pieces of steel strewned all over the field. Potato bomb salad.

The producer told me a funny story, he took home some bomb sharpenels and tried to clean it with clorox and it started foaming and that freaked him out so he trew them away. I told him maybe it was irridiated plutonium bombs and now you're going to sterile haha. He says he got some Israeli army souvenir, waiting till tomorrow to see what he has. I'm hoping for something like an Israeli army cap.

In the morning going to see an apartment with Chui Yan. I keep saying house and she keeps reminding me it's an apartment. Symantic error there. What I meant was home hehe.

Ultraman patah kaki. My nephew likes to break the limbs of his toys. Here's two ultraman that came with a pack of a few ultraman's. Even ultraman couldn't defeat my nephew. Kesian Ultraman, kena belasah kau-kau!

I've been meaning to write but I haven't had the time... really, I have. It's just that live has been really hectic. A lot of things have been going on, I sit my ass down in front of the PC everyday thinking 'okay, I should blog this, this would make a good story and something worthy of putting down in writing... but nooo... I look at my desktop and instead of clicking on internet explorer to open my blog, I click on Barbarian Invasion and spend the next 4 hours rampaging across Europe killing pixels. Damn, I think I've probably killed half a million pixelled men by now (that's not including all those dogs, horses and elephants I've killed in the game too!).



Okay, so what really has been going on since I've last blogged that's worthy of mention? Okay, I'll try to list them down:

1. When to Perkampungan Hadhari in Kota Bahru. That was something wierd. A total Islamic village and my boss suggested me, a non-Muslim go instead. So there I was, doing a women's talk show and having a women's booth in a middle of a school field. I must say the Kelantanese are really religous, come prayers time, the whole field was devoid of people. Heck, there were more staff minding the booths than visitors.









I got to see Chui Yan's grandfather too. Her aunt bought turtle egg for dinner. Looked really wierd, tasted like half-boiled egg. Her grandfather says the egg white never gets hardened no matter how long you boil it, only the egg yolk hardens. Took some pictures of Chui Yan's cousin eating it too, so I don't feel so guilty eating the egg of an almost extinct species.



I visited Wakaf Che Yeh, it's this night market that opens from 6PM-6AM. It's quite huge actually, larger than one football size. According to the taxi driver, they just moved to a new location. While walking around with two of my colleagues, Teh and Azean we spotted some of the stall owners wearing face masked. We asked them why the mask, was it because they were afraid of bird flu and they said it was because it was dusty there. Just then, a big gust of wind blew up all the dust on the ground as if to prove a point.

The highlights of the visit was me buying a VCD entitled 'Serangan Tun Dr. Mahathir kepada Pak Lah'. The guy at the stall was selling Nik Aziz's VCD's and I dropped by to have a look and lo and behold, I saw Mahathir's face sticking out among the stack of CD's. Got it for 8 bucks. Heh, cheaper then buying some porno VCD and certainly more entertaining.

Another highlight was meeting Pak Lah at the Hadhari. They asked me if I wanted to line-up to shake hands with him. They put a TV9 cap on my head and stood me next to Spongebob Square Pants and Patrick from the cartoon. Pak Lah came walking down and a I looked around and realized I was the only non-muslim standing there to greet him. I decided I shouldn't deprive Patrick the opportunity to shake the prime minister's hand too, so I tried to stick out Patrick's huge starfish hand for Pak Lah to shake but unfortunately, Pak Lah just walked by. Oh well.

2. Okie, I had to go for another karnival, this time it was Karnival Jomheboh in Bukit Jalil, this time I was lucky and I only had to go on Saturday. Thank goodness it wasn't that hot.

3. I've been shopping for a place with Chui Yan, going to look at apartments around PJ. For our price range, it's a bit challenging but so far we're still looking around. I'm personally afraid of hights. I can't look straight down from high places. It's not so scarry if I actually have a safety harness tied to me, then at least I would know it's okay. What ever apartment we get, I don't think I'll be spending a lot of time looking down the windows.

4. I've been spending a lot of money fixing up my car. It's an old Nissan Sunny. It's actually my mom's car. I'm quite attached to the car, but recently I spend close to 2 thousand just changing the suspensions, had too much rattling and a bumpy ride. Fixed the radio on my own too. Would want to get a new car but would probably put it of till I get a place to stay.

5. It's actually 2am in the morning as I'm writing this. The reason I'm up so late isn't because of Barbarian Invasion, it's actually because of Lebanon Invasion. I've been helping to edit a special project. My colleagues just came back from Lebanon and they are doing a two part series. I offered to volunteer my time to edit the visuals even though I wasn't required too. I kinda felt guilty for not giving any money to the West Asian Humanitarian Fund, so I'll just give them my time and expertize. Even as I write now, they're still editing in the office now. I hope everything goes okay for the first episode. In one part of the show, Norzie actually stumbles upon a dead kitten. It's all flattened and dried up, nothing more than a carpet of fur. I don't know why, but I thought it was really hillarious with Norzie poking it with a pebble. I know, it's really mean of me but maybe it's supposed to be symbolic of the Lebanese's people struggle.

6. Oh yeah, I when to a FHM party with Daphne and Mastura. Met a lot of sexy celebrities there. The wierd thing was, they didn't turn me on. I guess it's because I knew most of them professionally and in my mind I just turned it of. Some of the girls on the stage were cat walking in really skimpy bikinis and shaking their ass at the guys.





7. I'm at a crossroads in my career. There has been many requests from people from 'somewhere' to join them. I can't really decide. On one hand, I would really like to do something new that is English based. However, I hate the early waking hours. I'm just not a morning person and love sleeping in. I wouldn't want to give up my social live for my job, no matter how much I like what I'm doing. Now that I'm looking for a place to stay, I realize I need to get a better paying job. I used to think it wasn't about the money, but now I realize I do need the money so I can get a nice home to stay in on our own. If the other job had more money, that would be great. If it's just going to pay me the same with the twice the amount of stress, I don't think I would want to do it.

It's not that I hate what I'm doing now, I get a long just okay now. It's just that I'm getting burned out and running out of ideas to make what I'm doing now really 'oomph!'.

Anyway... it's time to hit the sack. I got to wake up early to edit again.