Playboy

This, is the Playboy bunny logo if you didn't know. Ignore the number 3994 at the bottom (too lazy to photoshop it out). I ripped this of some poster site. This logo is a recognised globally in any country that has American TV programming. It's on par with Coca-Cola's logo.

When I was in the U.S., one of the junk mail that I got was an offer for 2 magazine subscription for 12 months at a discount. So I looked through what was available and I ordered Premiere, a movie magazine since my minor was in Film Studies and Playboy Magazine. Before this, I've seen them selling it on the campus bookstore before (can you imagine Malaysian campuses selling Playboy?). No browsing was allowed. In secondary school, we always joked about the raunchy pictures in Playboy, even though none of us has ever seen one before. So I thought subscribing to one would be fun.

I have to say, once I got my first Playboy magazine, after scanning through the 'fun' pictures I started reading their articles and I was wowed. They had some extremely good liberal articles and difinitely fitted their gentleman's magazine title. I loved reading their interviews they had with prominent people. It wasn't just a magazine with naked girls in them... they actually had some insightful articles and personality profiles. Their editorial was liberal, freedom of speech was their key thing. Hey, when you're in the business of selling pictures of naked girls... all the more for freedom of speech yeah?

I wished I still had the magazines. I think I actually brought back 2 but I lost them already. I have a totally different perception of people who read Playboy after subscribing to them. Now I think of Playboy readers as the same demographic as GQ readers. Smart, driven and sophisticated.

Now in Malaysia, they have Playboy merchandise too. Who would have imagined, a magazine that Hugh Heffner started in his kitchen would have been such an amazing global brand?

By the way, Chui Yan actually got me a Playboy sunglasses for my birthday. I was smiling at the irony. Before that, I would never use their merchandise but since she got it for me, I wear it. She says I look 'cool' in it. I guess it doesn't matter if I didn't bring back my Playboy mags, it came back to me in another form.

I was walking around Chicago many years ago after a snowstorm and was looking for a building I could stop by to warm myself. I stumbled into this skyscaper and my friend Joe's eye lighted up. I looked up at what he was looking at and lo and behold... it was Playboy's corporate headquarters! I quickly ask Joe to take my picture. In the background is the guard actually walking up to us to chase us away. Farnee...

Find Wally

I've always been amused by the easter eggs producers put in their show. I've been doing that in the shows I produce too. Sort of my idea of social re-engineering. In most of the programs I edit, I like to play Find Wally (Waldo in the U.S.).

In current show I'm doing, I had a few cameo shots of myself in there just for kicks. I had my hand in one episode. I see the trill directors like Quetin Tarrantino and M. Night Shyamalan (did you know his full name is Manoj Nelliattu Shyamalan? I wonder if anyone calls him Manoj on the set) get by appearing in cameo appearances in their own movies. It's just something fun to do I guess.

Another easter egg I have in the current program I'm editing is the songs I used. They're all from a certain era. Actually, the idea wasn't really mine. I didn't do the first episode so I inherited the rest of the show, concept and treatment from another producer. The first episode had a song by ABBA and I thought it would be a fun continuity if we had songs from the same era. Something cheesy to play through out the whole season.

Some episodes didn't have any songs at all. Some of them just didn't fit in any of the songs that comes to my head. Some of the songs just came to me in an instant. One of the episodes had a bulletproof vest, the song I picked was Pat Benatar's 'hit me with your best shot'. Another one was about a business woman, I thought about for one whole day and I finally remember hearing the chorus of this song:


Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman


It was an old feminist song by Helen Reddy. I thought it was fitting. Putting the songs into the show puts a smile on my face. I wonder if anyone out there actually gets it. Doesn't matter, I get it. I let the lyrics tell the story of the person in every episode.

I have to becareful in picking songs. I have to google and wikipedia each song before I use it. Some songs may sound innocent but if you read about the history of its origins, it may mean something totally different.

For example, I love listening to Peter, Paul and Mary. Their song Puff The Magic Dragon is a popular children's song now. However, back then a lot of people assumed the song was about smoking opium. You know... chasing the magic dragon smoke.

Then there's also the song by the Beatles, Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds. Lennon claims it was a drawing done by his song that inspired him. A lot of people thought the song was an acronym for LSD. Whoa... way out.

Another type of Easter Egg I've always contemplated putting in is a flash frame. How this is done is by putting in a one frame shot of something totally not related to the current sequence of event on screen. In the movie, Fight Club, Brat Pitt slots in one frame of pornography into a cinema movie reel. It goes by so fast people are not sure what they see. I found that really amusing. No, I won't put any porno on national TV.

Me and most of my colleague can notice a one frame difference. We've been editing visuals so long, we know when just one frame flashes. We call it a jump cut. In the PAL video system, there is 24 frames in one second. So it's pretty fast. To the normal person, it looks like an abrupt flash. It's harder to detect when it's between two different sequence. Often, this is edited in by mistake. I see a lot of colleagues (including myself) replacing a shot on a tape and marking the wrong out on the timecode by one frame. They accidentally leave in one frame from the old shot.

When I do Quality Control and watch someone's editing, I look out for stuff like that. Most of it makes me laugh, I don't get angry because I make the same mistakes too. Learning to edit is one of the hardest thing any broadcast journalist has to learn. It's more of an art than a science. Easy to learn the basic, takes forever to learn how to do it well.

Now... I wonder what easter egg I can put into the last episode I have to edit. This should be fun.

I was surfing the net a little and I came across this music video on YouTube. I googled the chick. Turns out she's and up and coming musician. Check out her Japanese / Irish features. Extremely nice complexion!



At the party I was at earlier, I heard the original Rihanna version. This Marie Digby does a cover version of it. I think I prefer her acoustic version. I've downloaded a few of her other acoustic cover versions. Nice. She's got a young innocent voice. I like that. Reminds me of the young version of Jewel... or even Vivian Chow.

I just got home. It's late. I think I'm coming down with a sore troat... too much cigar smoke. I hate tobacco smoke.

Daphne asked me to shoot a surprise party for her. Turns out to be the most hedonistic party I've ever been too (well, in my standards). It was pretty wild, I don't think I can even write about it... I don't want to get any of them in trouble. Malaysia in general is just too conservative.

I felt like I was in the movie Syriana. In the beginning of the movie, George Clooney is a CIA agent in Iran. He gets to see a totally different side of Iran. On the outside, Iran looks like a conservative Muslim country, but Clooney gets to see the young Iranians partying the night away. I kind of felt like that tonight.

Just waiting for my hair to dry before I hit the bed. I think I must have shot like 1 and a half hour of footage. I haven't even edited the last episode of Winners. Good thing I took yesterday and today of. I don't think I could wake up to go to work. Those poor fools that were at the party all had to go to work in the morning.

I met some really drunk chicks tonight. I worry how some of them are going to be driving on the road. I have a fear of drunk people... actually, I have a fear of anyone who is not rational. You just can't talk to them... when they try and talk to me, I don't understand them.

My troat is sore and my inner ear hurts from all the loud music. I think next time, I probably won't want to shoot anymore parties like this unless they pay me a lot of money. I hope I don't get sick tomorrow. I got a show to produce on Thursday and I need to do prep work tomorrow before the show.

Daorae Korean BBQ Restaurant

Recently, I when with Chui Yan and her mother to a Korean restaurant in Kota Damansara to have dinner. We've seen it before a few times, it has quite a prominent signboard at a corner lot above a mamak restaurant.

The reason I like Korean BBQ is that they really pamper you. The waiters cook the meat for you and do everything else. No need to know when to turn the meat over. I've tried the Korean BBQ restaurants in Sri Hartamas and even the ones in SS2. They're good. My personal favourite is the one in SS2 opposite Coffee Bean... forgot it's name.






Anyway, the first impression of this restaurant is that you have to take the elevator to the third floor. In my mind, I was thinking... if I over eat, I can always exercise by walking down. As we sat down, the service was pretty fast. I looked at their place mat, looks like this was their fourth branch. Looks like they're doing well.




I like the newer Korean BBQ's that use this type of stove. The type where they have an exhaust overhead that sucks away the charcoal and grease smoke.



This is the Tauchu condiments that they serve. I wonder if Koreans have Soya Sauce like we do as a condiment also?



Green Tea as usual. Helps with digesting all the meat later.


The one thing that impressed me about this restaurant was the service. This waiter who was serving us was extremely attentive. He was super efficient. I looked around the restaurant and peeked into the kitchen, almost all their staff wasn't korean. They either looked Burmese or Pakistani. This waiter of ours was quite intuitive to our needs. He knew when to get things for us and he never got in the way even though he was around often to BBQ the meat for us.

Check out the number of side dishes they served us. My favourite are those spicy cockles they serve.




This is like the Korean version of an Otak-Otak. Looked like one, but didn't taste like one. I think it was made of flour.



Look at that purple colour. Looked like Barney barfed all over my salad! I didn't eat it. The purple sauced scared me away.



The usual Kimchi side dish. This one wasn't too spicy unlike the other places so I eat this one. Chui Yan prefers spicy stuff.







We had pork and lamb. The pork wasn't well marinated. Somehow I think it wasn't marinated long enough. The lamb was good though, the marinate was very sweet.



After eating all that meat, I had to visit the loo. I had to make space for all that extra food! I was pleasantly surprised by the toilet in the restaurant. Check out their toilet bowl. It was cooler than some of the toilet's I've seen posh hotels I tell you!

Overall, I like this restaurants mostly for it's excellent service. Chui Yan left the waiter a RM5 tip but he was so confused over it, the manager had to explain what was a tip to him. Poor guy, never got a tip before I think.

The captain even escorted us to the elevator. That was nice. It was kind of dark at the stairwell. Looks like I didn't get the chance to walk down after the meal after all!

Oh man, it's 7AM already and I'm still awake. I was going through Facebook and looking at the groups the people I know in there join. I saw a journalist group and I was about to join then I realized I might not fit the definition of a journalist anymore.

I actually had to look up the word journalist in wikipedia just to see what people are defining it by these days.

'A journalist is a person who practices journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues and people.'

So I guess I might fit the definition some what. I don't go out on daily assignments anymore. I don't exactly practice journalism. I'm far from objective.

I managed to crawl through my journalism ethics class with a C when it was expected more than half the class to fail. I've never been so proud of a C.

I don't even have an official government press tag. Mine expired years ago. I was supposed to have it renewed but I got lazy. I can still do it but the hassle of going down to Bernama to get it done is too much. Besides... no one ever asked me for one ever since mine expired. Everywhere I when, I was invited. The places I wasn't invited... I had a video camera and a vest with my company's logo on it. That was my press tag.

I haven't been to a press conference in ages. The last press conference I was at, I was at the other end actually giving an interview. That was so freaking wierd. I just started spewing out stadardized quotes for the reporters. Looking back, it was quite funny. I guess I did learn something from all those press conferences I've attended.

My body clock is so screwed up now. I just finished watching a DVD, The Invisible. A remake of a Swedish movie. It's a different take on those 'Ghost' movie where the main character is invisible and no one can see him. A bit of a voyuer kind of movie.

Anyway, I was in Pavilion today. It's the latest mall in Jalan Bukit Bintang. I wonder how that Malton Bhd got away with making such a huge mall in such a high density area. That road was already jammed up before the mall. Now, with the new Pavilion, it's even worst. Tearing down BBGS was such a farce. It was a historic building and now look what stands in its place... a place where all the old girls of BBGS shop.






I managed to take some pictures of the mall. It's well lit and quite spacious. There are no fast food chains here. No supermarkets either. So you can tell it's catered to the high end market. No place for the lower end income groups to hang out.





I managed to get a quick shot of this while I was going down the escalator. This is the famous donut shop everyone was talking about in Pavilion. Look at the long queue. It's crazy. Just for donuts? I've tried one before yesterday that my brother brought back, it was good, but not worth the long lines.

The restaurants were packed when we when there. We ended up eating at Laksa Shack. Not my first choice but it had the shortest waiting line. My advice, eat before you visit this place. They have limited restaurants and no food courts. The mall is designed in a way so that all the visitors here are pushed to the few restaurants. Good way to ensure sales for them I guess.

It's free 2 hours parking if you spend RM100. I barely spend RM30 so I had to pay RM4 for the 1 hour 42 minutes I was there.

Getting out of there, we ended up in a traffic jam on Jalan Bukit Bintang. It was caused by people parking their cars on a yellow line blocking up one lane. That caused a bottle neck and people had to squeeze around those selfish bastards.




Check out those cars on the left of the picture. They're just sitting there waiting while people are all jammed up. I wish Pavilion would post some guards there to shoo people away like how they do at One Utama.

Running on Vista

I have two Windows OS on my PC, Vista and Windows XP Professional. I have it both running on seperate hard disk so I can choose which one I want booted up from the BIOS menu. I haven't been using the Vista for 3-4 months now. I've been using the XP for work in the past few months. I just loaded Vista a few hours ago. I downloaded this wierd file through limewire and it was corrupted. I couldn't delete it. I had to start up Vista hoping that Vista could read the file and delete it. I'm glad it worked.

It's wierd having two OS on my PC. Even though Vista is the newer OS, I haven't touch it in months. It feels a little dated since all the newest changes I've made in XP are not in this OS. New bookmarks are missing. All the data files like my mp3's are still there. Not sure if I like staying in this Vista. I think I'm going back to XP... this Vista is just too alien.

Cuti Raya



I just woke up from a nap. I haven't taken a nap on a Sunday afternoon in months ever since I've been working 7 days a week for 2 months now.



It's the long Raya weekend holidays. I didn't visit anyone this Raya. I know, it's so unMalaysian but I just feel so lazy and needed time to unwind from work. I just have one episode left to edit. I hope to get that done in the next few days time.



I have stack of DVD's to watch. So far I watched 28 Weeks Later and Children of Men. Both are British movies with similar themes. Both have refugee camps and are quite depressing some what. I think I enjoyed watching Children of Men more... better ending than 28 Weeks Later. In the later, it's just a Zombie movie. You know what happens in a zombie movie, everyone gets eaten. The two that deserved to get eaten don't get eaten in the end. In the movie, two kids break out of their camp to pack things in their home. They find their mom who's a carrier of the zombie virus, Rage. Their father kisses their mother and infects him. He turns into a zombie and then the fun starts. Those two kids should have been shot while they were running out of the camp.



The gun battle scenes in Children of Men is pretty realistic. They use handheld shots and in one scene there's even blood splatter on the camera. Reminds me of one of those photo journalist that are embedded with soldiers in war zones. There were half blown up people with body parts every where. Gory.



I think watching British movies are always bleak. I think it's their weather. They always have overcast clouds and their lighting tends to be darker. Their dialog is a bit depressing.



I also got to watch Japan is Sinking. The Japanese version of a disaster movie. Only in this movie, the whole world isn't about to end... only Japan is about to get destroyed. The special effects are pretty cool in this one. This movie has similar themes as another Hollywood disaster movie I watched, The Core. Both have problems brewing under the mantle of the earth.



Japan sure makes some slow disaster movie. Their editing is too slow. The pacing is slower with more character development than Hollywood type disaster movies. The premise of the movie is pretty simple, Japan is sinking into the ocean so they have limited to evacuate Japan and meanwhile, they're trying to stop Japan from sinking into the ocean. The funny part is, none of the other Japanese allies like the Americans help in the evacuation of Japan. So much for allies.

I also have the chance to walk around The Garden, the newest mall next to MidValley Megamall. It's got a design way better than Sunway Pyramid's new wing. It's a more organic design with curved lines. Sunway Pyramid's mall is just all straight lines and the ceiling height is too low. Makes the place looks dark. I'm hoping to visit Pavilion today. I hope YTL designed a better mall.

I just watched Bourne Ultimatum... and mind you, I watched it in the cinema, not on the pirated DVD even though they're selling the clear version.

Was quite a hassle getting the ticket. I had to buy it online in the GSC website 3 days ago. I collected the ticket yesterday since I was at One Utama already. Finally got to watch it earlier in the evening.

The movie was good though I wished I watched the second movie again before watching this one. I totally forgot how some characters are related to each other. This movie still has the great car chase and crash scenes. The fight scenes were chaotic with the handheld camera styles but it fits in with the overall chaotic style of the movie.

I'm listening to the title song from the movie now, Moby - Extreme Ways. Moby rocks!

I like reading Taoist stories. They have some philosophical insights and are quite beautiful to read.




Dreams

Chuang Tzu, ancient Chinese Taoist, once experienced a dream in which he was a butterfly fluttering to & fro. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person; he was simply a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found that once again he was a human laying in bed. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"




In Your Hands
A young man caught a small bird, and held it behind his back. He then asked, "Master, is the bird I hold in my hands alive or dead." The boy thought this was a grand opportunity to play a trick on the old man. If the master answered "dead", it would be let loose into the air. If the master answered "alive", he would simply wring its neck. The master spoke, "The answer is in your hands".



Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, " I wish I could give him this beautiful moon."

Lego Tower


When I was young, I used to have a lego crate my mother bought for me from a garage sale. I used to make ships and houses out of it. I used to play jaws with the ship. In the Steven Spielberg movie Jaws, the little ship slowly sank after it got attacked by a large great while shark. I thought that was cool. I had some action figures on the lego ship and it will slowly break apart and everyone gets eaten by a shark. Yeah, I'm morbid.



Today I when to Toys R Us. It's Mandy's favourite store in One Utama. My favourite store is Home Fix and MPH.



While I was waiting for Mandy, I sat down at the Lego table they had for kids and started building with the blocks. I almost forgot how fun it was to build something with Lego blocks. At first, I wanted to build a hollow pyramid then I decided I'll go for a large tower instead.







Those round chairs are uncomfortable to sit on. I think they're designed that way so that adults can't sit on it. Hah, didn't stop me from playing with the Lego. It would be cool if I had more Lego pieces. Then I would have actually made the tower about a metre tall. I want the next kid to come by to be awed by the architectural design of my tower. I wanted it to say "look at my awsome tower, see if you can beat that!"



heh... yes, I'm still a kid at heart.

I watched Jackass 2. Man, the only way I can describe it is 'depraved' and 'degenerate'. The grosses part was when Steve O put a leech to his eyeball. That was scarrier than any horror movie I've seen. It was scarry because it was real, it wasn't special effects. These guys really love punishing themselves.

I was admiring the cameras they were using. Looks like they were using Panasonic's DVX102B. They have some pretty cool microphones. I wonder where I can get their same boom mics.

I have a cheap RM90 one I bought from Jalan Pasar. It's this china brand shotgun mic. It's a little too long to fit on my camera. It actually gets in the shot if it's extended too far out. Cumbersome.

I'm amazed that these guys actually shot in MiniDV and managed to transfer this movie to film format for widescreen cinemas. Not sure what it looks like in the cinema since I watched it on DVD. You could tell it was shot on a Panasonic MiniDV by the bright radiant colours. Film has a different gamma range.

The guy Chris Pontius aka party boy is cool. He's got a deep voice but man, the guy is just as depraved as the rest of the bunch. I think the first movie was funnier than this one. In the first movie, they shitted in a demo toilet set in a hardware shop. Now that's funny.

Watching this movie and I think "shit, like that also can make movie... I also can do better".

My Panasonic AG-DVC32

Panasonic DVC32 MiniDV Video Camera, originally uploaded by luxen.

Going to work in awhile. Stayed up the whole night editing... actually more like procrastinating and did a hack job editing in the last minute. Now I can't go back to bed because I have to go back to work.

I was just admiring my camera. Even though I had it for a year now, I still like holding it in my hand and admiring it.

Its got a really easy to remember serial number... 1. It's the first camera of it's batch! My camera is actually the demo model Panasonic uses to demonstrate to corporate customers. They were phasing out the model and someone who knew the Panasonic manager asked on my behalf if they were selling it. I got it including the XLR connector for RM7900.

Most people wouldn't have seen this little Panasonic MiniDV. Even the people at the Bintang Maju shop in Maju Junction have never seen this camera even though they are Panasonic dealers. There's another Sony the same size as this but I think mine is better (yes, I'm biased!).

It's light, small and has excellent pictures. Almost the same as the 102B camera by Panasonic.

The camera's missing a screw on the top now, I replaced it with a 20 cent screw. Other than that, I religously clean it. I can't stand spots on the lens.

My camera is the PAL version, the NTSC version is called AG-DVC30. Looks exactly the same, just that it's in PAL. It's unique feature is it's nightshot. I don't think any other Panasonic pro cameras have this. I haven't really had a chance to use it on any shoots yet. However, I do play around with it and it looks great. Instead of the Sony 'green' night shot, this one is grey. It has infrared lights on the bottom that turn on to light up what you're shooting.

The only thing that really bugs me now is the shoulder strap. Originally I had it tied to the back of the camera. Then I changed the position to the top of the camera. Now it always hangs down in front of the lens and gets in the shot. Hate it when that happens.

I think me and the camera are going to have a lot of fun!

I shouldn't be listening to Peter, Paul and Mary (PPM) so late at night. They have some of the saddest tearjerking songs. Makes me feel so... lonesome.


Peter, Paul & Mary - Early Morning Rain

In the early morning rain, with a dollar in my hand
With an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand
I'm a long way from home, and I miss my loved one so
In the early morning rain with no place to go

Out on runway number nine, big 707 set to go
But I'm stuck here on the ground where the cold winds blow
Well the liquor tasted good and the women were all fast
There she goes my friend, o she's rolling now at last

Here the mighty engines roar, see the silver bird on high
She's away and westward bound, high above the clouds she'll fly
Where the early rain don't fall and the sun always shines
She'll be flying o'er my home in about three hours time

This old airport's got me down, it's no earthly use to me
Cause I'm stuck here on the ground, cold and drunk as I might be
You can't jump a jet plane like you can a freight train
So I'd best be on my way in the early morning rain

It's late in the middle of the night again. I'm listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Loius Armstrong. I encoded the whole album to MP3. A gem of an album I bought in the bargain bin in the US. Just puts me in the nostalgic mood...

Anyway, I spend the day shooting in Seremban today. I haven't been to Seremban in years... I think it's been more than 20 years since I ventured into Seremban. Back then, I remembered it was a small town. Today... it's still a small town! We drove around the main Seremban town pass the old bus station and the government buildings. Most of the shop houses look like they were from 1920's.

We were in a small factory in the industrial area. The whole time shooting, I was really sleepy. My body clock is all screwed up. I'm wide awake at wierd hours like now and in the daytime I'm sleepy.

The factory I was at made precision tools. I spied their screws and I asked them if they made screws. They said yes. My eyes brightened up. I told them about the missing screw on my camera and they opened their little drawers and started pulling out screws. Damn, they have a lot of screws. They gave me a few 3mm screws. I was so delighted with my lucky find. When I got home, I discovered it was the wrong tread size. What I needed was 4mm. Damn it! I almost had it!

Anyway... this Ella Fitzgerald and Loius Armstrong calms me down. I used to listen to it a lot in the US. I will pop it into my computer and let it play while I was just hanging out in my room. I used to listen to it in my car in Malaysia but I stopped doing that. I was worried the CD would get damaged. Now that my car radio has a MP3 player with a USB slot, I have a 2GB thumb drive attached to it now. I download a lot of songs and audio books into it.

Before I had the Mp3 player in the car, I used to talk to myself a lot of in the car. I didn't listen to the radio a lot. I don't like listening to radio DJ's talking in the morning. I'm a slow starter. I don't like people talking to me in the morning, I'm grumpy.

So what do I talk to myself about? Mostly philosophy. Wierd questions run through my head while commuting to work and back. Take for example, the past few days while driving I've been wondering why humans want to believe in God. The existence of God is one of the most highly debated topic. Something quite hard to proof. Most of the discussion is now on the proof of Intelligent Design instead of Evolution.

Me, I don't rely too much on God. There probably is a God... or a few Gods. I'm a Buddhist and Buddha says my own salvation depends on me. I make my own karma. No one can bear my burden for me. I'm always reminded of the quote "There are no atheist in a fox hole". It basically means that in times of desperation, we all want to believe in something. I believe it's a human condition as a result of evolution that made us want to believe in God. When we were a few ladders down the evolution chain, we couldn't explain things so we attributed it to God. It was comforting to know that we could affect nature or the course of our lifes by trying to get the favour of God. It's so hard wired into our brain. It's what we do, like how civilizations every where invented societies, bows, growing crops and building homes. It's all random I say. They say it's highly improbable that life started on its own. Hey, but it could right? That's why they don't say it could never happen... they say highly improbable. There is a small probability of it happening... and guess what, it happened! Here we are!

I believe in evolution. Yes, we probably came from apes. Even if Intelligent design is true and that God (or aliens) created life, we have free will (or so we think). One hot summer afternoon in my philosophy class while I was dozing of, I briefly remember my proffesor arguing whether we have free will or not. It goes like this, we are all the result of previous circumstances.

Take for example, a criminal is found guilty for murder of his wife. The judge says it was premeditated murder. Basically the guy thought it out and planned the murder. So it goes to show there was free will in the eyes of the law. However, what if the guy is a victim of his circumstances. What if the guy grew up in a home here abusing women was common? What if the diet he ate everyday affected his mood swings? What if the chemicals in the brains were not of his own control and the synapses in his brain fired in such a way to make him murder someone? Victim of circumstances or free will? Hard to tell the difference isn't it?

That's why I forgive easily... most of the time. Doesn't mean I don't hold a grudge. I always see 'the bigger picture'. When the waiter is slow in service, I try to imagine what the person is going through. Could be they had too many customers or they were distracted. However, if they're just busy chit-chatting away with another colleague then I get annoyed. So for me, there is a fine line that I draw when I decide if someone is the victim of circumstances or if it's their free will that made them do what they do.

Someone gave me a book on the history of philosophy. I read parts of it and all this writers would have been bloggers if they were alive today. They wrote volumes of book and most of them were things that just popped into their head. Hey, that's philosophy. The only reason they got famous was because books were so hard to come by. Today, there's a glut of written material out there. Now we just save the blogs we like to read in our bookmarks. That has become our socrates, Homer and Nietzsche.

Toilet bowl in car trunk

Toilet bowl in car trunk, originally uploaded by luxen.

Don't pictures like these make you go "hrmm... huh? What?"

Azlan was showing me the toilet bowl he was carrying around in the boot of his car. He was doing some renovations for his new apartment. I thought it would make for a nice picture to show people his 'mobile' toilet.

Would have been a nicer picture if the toilet bowl was facing the camera.

Just watched Planet Terror, a Robert Rodriguez movie. It's a homage to old B-Grade horror movies. Man, it was cheesy. Lots of blood, violence and hot chicks. That Rose McGowan is hot. She sings the songs in the movie soundtrack too. She could have been one of those Film Noir chicks from the 1940's. Could have walked into Humphrey Bogart's office in Maltese Falcon instead of Mary Astor.

Before that, I when to Sunway Pyramid's new wing with Chui Yan to have a look. Still smells of fresh cement and paint. Walked around a bit, it's been a few months since I visited the place. Everything looks different. I still prefer One Utama. Pyramid is a little dark and their corridors aren't as spacious and high as One Utama. Feels a bit dingy, kind of like how Sungai Wang Plaza feels like.

I was telling Chui Yan about how my film professor asked us what was our favourite movies of all time. Brad Chisholm did a survey every year with his final year film students and would write down the answer. I choose Dumb and Dumber. I know, stupid choice but that movie was so funny back then. Brad was kind of surprised and said he always thought Chungking Express was my favourite movie. I said yeah, but going by the movie which I watched the most, it would have to be Dumb and Dumber and Terminator 2.

Looking back now, my list of all time favourite movie has changed. Actually this is more like the list of movies that has the most influence on me. I think the list should be more like these (in no particular order):

1. Chungking Express
I love Wong Kar Wai's cinematography in this movie. The second story with Tony Leung and Faye Wong is my favourite. I found it really sweet and cute how Faye Wong would slowly change his apartment without Tony Leung noticing it.The California Dreaming soundtrack was cool too. Till today, when ever I shoot, I always try to emulate a bit of Wong Kar Wai's odd camera angles. He has low angles and places the camera in odd places.

2. Forrest Gump
I love the soundtrack in this movie. Till today, the music has influenced the choice of music and era that I like to listen too. My favourite character is Gary Senise as Lt. Dan. Really heartwarming. For some time, I actually thought Forrest Gump was a real person and the movie was based on his life. Funny.

3. Dumb and Dumber
Okay, this movie was really cool when I was in Form 4 & 5 just because it had the dumbest jokes. I must have watched it more than 5 times. It was so funny then. I don't know if I'll still laugh now. I think Jim Carrey probably wouldn't do those type of roles anymore too.

4. Pulp Fiction
Now this movie still rocks in my book. It still has really cool dialog in the movie. My favourite part is when Butch (played by Bruce Willis) escapes and decides turn back and rescue Marsellus Wallace (played by Ving Rhames). He looks around for a weapon and finally settles on a Samurai Sword. Man, that was so cool when he finally got his revenge. The Dialog between Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta is memorable too. Everytime someone tells me they don't eat pork, I think of the dialog between the two of them.

5. From Dusk To Dawn
A gore fest. I like the cool Quentin Tarrantino dialog in this one too. George Clooney has really cool lines in the movie. My favourite is when he says "Everyone, be cool. You, be cool". Sometimes I feel like saying that to Chui Yan when she freaks out but she wouldn't get the joke.

6. Terminator 2
I love the T1000. Awsome evil character. In school we used to play Role Playing Games and we'll all play Terminator games. We all wanted to be the T1000. We made up storey lines and we'll all play it out.

7. Something About Mary
Strange as it is, I found the movie quite romantic. It was funny and cute.

8. Indiana Jones trilogy
After watching the series, I really loved reading up on history. Till today, any movie that I watched that had history as a basis for its plot, I will read up about it on the internet.

9. Star Wars 4, 5, and 6.
Don't really have to explain this one. This was about the same time I was really into origami also. I had made my own origami creations of the Star Wars fleet like the X-Wing fighter and battle cruiser.

10. Gladiator
I loved the first 10 minutes of the movie. The opening battle scene was awsome. I love movies with medieval battle scenes. Probably have to start a different list of movies with awsome medieval battle scenes.

11. Princess Mononoke
Japanese animation. Really haunting soundtrack. First time I was really into watching an Anime. The story flow was so gentle. Characters were very well flashed out. They depended on their little body language movements to tell emotions. Was really nice.

12. Jackie Chan's Police Story series
The stunts in his movies are great. The best part... watching the end credits to see how he did it. Really cool. My hats of to him.

13. Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Sanjuro and 7 Samurai's
I'm lumping this 3 movies together because they're great samurai movies. They have really got plot lines. I like how each of the movie opens also. Of these 3, my favourite would be Sanjuro.

14. When Harry Met Sally
I was actually forced to watch this movie repeated times because I took a communications class in KDU and we had to analyse the movie. So me and Sim watched it a few times and we had to write a paper about it. Okay, quite a romantic movie. Great soundtrack by Harry Connick Jr.

15. Once Upon A Time In China 1, 2 and 3
This was my first introduction to Jet Li. The soundtrack was inspirational, though till today I have no idea what the lyric is about.

Don't drive in KL for the next few days until Hari Raya is over. That's the lesson I learned today. I woke up at 11AM and remembered I had to pick up my standby light I had send for repairs in Ampang. I called the shop and the guy said he closed at 1:30PM. I thought it was a lot of time... little did I know, it was going to take me an hour and a half just to get there!

I took the federal highway and the traffic was pretty clear until I got to KL. It was just a slow crawl all the way. I managed to get onto the Ampang elevated highway and it was a smooth drive on it. The RM1.50 toll to drive on it was worth it. My airconditioning stopped working so I winded down the window, luckily I was driving at a nice cruising speed so there was a breeze.

At Jalan Ampang, it was back into a slow crawling jam again. I finally made it to the shop. It was in Pekan Ampang... a really old part of KL. Some of the shops are pre-WW2 shops. One of the shop had the year on it, 1917 (can't remember the exact date now). This isn't the first time I when to the shop actually. The first time I when there, the guy was closed, so I had to make a second trip.

While I was making small talk with the owner, Vincent, he told me actually I could have just picked it up from his dealer in SS2. Damn! Now he tells me! I was standing outside his shop contemplating whether I should drive back through the jam again or find somewhere to have lunch in the area. I decided the jam isn't going to get any better plus it looked like it was going rain. I didn't want to get stuck in one of those infamous KL floods.

Finally made my way back to KL by 2PM. I turned into Jaya supermarket to have lunch. The place was packed with cars so I turned into the houses in the back to find parking instead. I brought my umbrella along and started walking to Jaya. If I drive alone, I don't mind parking further away. If I'm with other people, they always complain about how far away I park from the elevator or the escalator. Me, I'm just glad I found parking.

I had lunch at the Jaya Noodle shop. They're moving in February next year. They say they're going to tear down Jaya to rebuild the whole area. Kind of sad... I've been going to Jaya my whole life. I still remember when it was just a single storey supermarket and they had outdoor parking. When I was in secondary school, I used to hang out there almost everyday after school.

I browsed a DVD shop and bought Flashpoint, a Donnie Yen movie. I also got Grindhouse and Rogue Assassin. Grindhouse is dual feature movie directed by Robert Rodriguez. The other movie in the dual feature is Death Proof directed by Quentin Tarrantino. I watched Death Proof. It's got some long draggy dialogs but some awsome car chase scenes in the ending. I think you can only do a good movie once and anything after that is in bad taste. Quentin made some really kick ass movies like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and From Dusk Till Dawn. However, after watching Death Proof... it's just not the same as Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. Yeah, it's got some cool dialogs but it's way over done. I loved Pulp Fiction for it's scripting and dialog. It's got some of the most memorable dialogs in a movie.

Anyway, I finally got home and I watched Flashpoint. Man, all I got to say after watching the movie is Awsome! Donnie Yen rocks! The fight choreography in the movie is really good... probably better than his SPL. I like the judo moves he does in the movie. This guy beats Jet Li any day man. Jet Li always fight with the same style, however, Donnie Yen is willing to use new fight styles in his choreography. For Flashpoint, there was a lot of Judo influence which was really cool. I wish Donnie Yen the best in his career.

Hrm... I think I'm going to play a bit of my Medieval Total War 2. I just made it into the age where I discovered The New World. I'm playing the Spanish now. Sailed all the way to central America and set up a colony. I tried trading with the Aztec empire but then I realized this guys don't even have a port! Haha... what a backward race. I thought I'll be all nice and friendly instead of invading them, I'll be chummy with them and be their allies. I gave them 100,000 florins just to be their friend and to trade with them. Now I discover they can't trade... they don't even have a market!

Damn... I guess I'll just have to conquer their lands.

It's late. I should be in bed. I didn't sleep last night, stayed up the whole night just to finish editing episode 11. Finished at 11AM. I took a short nap and drove to the office at 3PM. When I got there, I started making calls in preparation for my first WHI show after a few months. Man, I felt so wierd... like trying to learn how to ride a bike again.

When I got to the AVID room and tried to transfer to tape what I edited, I discovered that my material wasn't in my portable hard disk. I had saved it into my local disk at home instead! Man, that sucks. Now I have to wake up early tomorrow morning and transfer it before I do voice-over tomorrow with Mano.

Today, I bought flowers for Chui Yan again. This was the second time I was buying flowers from the same florist in Aman Suria. Small little shop. They had rows and rows of Raya hampers.

While they were preparing my roses, I made small talk with them. I asked them what was their most expensive Raya hamper. They said it was RM540. I asked what goes in a RM540 hamper? She said it's not easy to find expensive stuff for a Raya hamper compared to a Chinese New Year hamper. Malays don't drink alcohol so they put a lot of expensive raya cookies and chocolates in it. I asked her if she put in any canned abolone then. She laughed and said no... she didn't think it was halal. haha. Well, just to be clear, abolone should be halal except I don't know about the preservatives that go into the can.

I like making small talk with strangers occasionally. Especially when I'm on the job. I get to learn a lot of things. Sometimes people I meet for the first time find it unnerving that I ask so many questions. The way I see it, better me asking the questions than them.

Like the other day I was on a shoot in UPM. I ended up at a server farm in the middle of no where. Since my cameraman was on auto mode I started talking to the manager there. I asked him what type of people work here. He says he doesn't hire many UPM students even though they are based right in UPM. The going salary for a degree student with 1 year experience is about RM3K. Damn, that's almost as much as I make.

The manager was complaining about the quality of graduates today. I asked him what was the dumbest grad he interviewed. He said he interviewed this guy who used to work with Streamyx and asked him how to install Streamyx. He when on to explain how to do it with the Streamyx installation CD and all... when the manager asked him how to install without the CD the graduate replied "without the CD, you can't install Streamyx... positive!". I bursted out laughing when the manager told me the story.

Sometimes making small talk with people helps you learn new things you never knew. In my job, it really helps in getting the inside story. Although at times I hate making small talk as I just want to be alone.

For example, when I'm in the office cafeteria and if I have a newspaper in my hand, I don't want to sit with anyone else nor will I allow anyone else to sit down with me. All I want to do is read the papers. I need to know what is going on in the world.

Anyway, while I was at the server farm, I saw this hanging from a car parked there.



See it? Look below the license plate.







Poor Patrick hanging from the bottom of a kancil bumper. Driving through the rain... mud, heat, etc. Makes me wonder if this is a chick's car or a guy's car.

I'm procrastinating again. Should be editing the show but sometimes it's just so hard to get something started you know?

Anyway, I looked up my recently downloaded photos from my camera and I found these. It's Sim, See Ming and their baby Max.



The boy looks like he's riding a bike.



Queen - Bicycle Race

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

You say black I say white
You say bark I say bite
You say shark I say hey man
Jaws was never my scene
And I don't like Star Wars
You say Rolls I say Royce
You say God give me a choice
You say Lord I say Christ
I don't believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I wanna do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my
Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah
Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race

Bicycle bicycle bicycle I want to ride my bicycle
Bicycle bicycle bicycle bicycle
Bicycle race

You say coke I say caine
You say John I say Wayne
Hot dog I say cool it man
I don't wanna be the President of America
You say smile I say cheese
Cartier I say please
Income tax I say Jesus
I don't wanna be a candidate for
Vietnam or Watergate
Cause all I wanna do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like


ok, I really should get down to cutting some videos!

Jalan Bukit Bintang Saturday night

Jalan Bukit Bintang Sunday night, originally uploaded by luxen.

I when for dinner at Jalan Alor today with Chui Yan. This is the second time I when there. Lots of hawker food. Chui Yan likes the food there. For me, it's just something different besides the usual place we go too in PJ. The parking was RM7 on a Saturday night.

After dinner, we thought we'll drive by the newly opened Pavilion to have a look. That was a big mistake, it was totally jammed up. It took me 30 minutes just to get out of Jalan Bukit Bintang.

I don't understand how the authorities could have allowed YTL to build such a damn big mall without proper traffic study. The road was already jammed up before they had the Pavilion, and now that it's open, the jam is even worst.

The Pavilion isn't even opened to full capacity yet and the traffic is already quite bad. Too make it worst, there were all these idiots parked on one lane next to the Pavilion blocking up traffic. That really cheesed me of.

I probably would never go down to Jalan Bukit Bintang on a Saturday night again. I hate traffic jams.

1993 Bukit Bintang Boys School, 4 Sains Hijau class photo

1993 Bukit Bintang Boys School, 4 Sains Hijau class photo, originally uploaded by luxen.

That's me, middle row, second from left. Another picture I found while I was digging through my old photos. On the back of this picture, I scribbled down "4SH / cleanest class of the year". Hrm, some accomplishment.

It's a 14 year old picture. I hardly remember any of them now. I hardly keep in touch with any of them. Looking back, I didn't really enjoy secondary school much. I always felt like an outsider... like I didn't fit in. I blame that on my family's nomadic lifestyle. Every 3-4 years we would move to either Ipoh, PJ and once, to Bagan Serai.

I don't remember our class teacher's name now, but I knew she thought us maths and additional maths. I totally sucked at additional maths. I think most of the students in my class flunked it. Once, we were so proud that someone in our class got 20 out 100 for a test (or something like that, heck it was ages ago).

I always felt like this was a prison. The only class I was good at was English. Though I did enjoy biology, I barely passed. I think it was a mistake taking up the science stream. I totally sucked at it.

I never played any sports in my school. That would explain my weakling demure. I still don't play any sports. The only thing that I actually liked was swimming and cycling. I don't play any team sports or things that involve hand-eye cordination. I couldn't hit a ball with a racket.

I really tooked up cycling when I was in the US, was fun to cycle in St. Cloud as it was really flat. I won a racer in a bet. Yew Sum was leaving and he wanted to give away his old racer he inherited from his sister. It was old but it still worked. One day, me, Yew Sum and Siva when out for lunch at a chinese buffet shop. As we were having watermelon for desserts, Yew Sum announced that who ever can guest how many watermelon seeds was in his mouth, he could have the bike. It was between 1 to 3. I said 3 while Siva guessed 1. Yew Sum then spitted out 3 seeds. After we got home, Yew Sum said he actually planned to give me the bike already but Siva kept pestering him for it. So I asked him what if I guessed the wrong number of seeds in his mouth, he replied "I was going to swallow the rest if you guessed 1 or 2".

Now when ever I see watermelons, I think of Yew Sum. I could just see his expression now as he was trying so hard not to laugh as he spat out the watermelon seeds. He must have been glad he didn't have to swallow any seeds then.

KDU Orientation Night prize giving

KDU Orientation Night prize giving, originally uploaded by luxen.

Who was that chick in white? I was listening to a Peter, Paul and Mary song in my car earlier. Listening to PPM always makes me feel nostalgic.

I was digging through my old dusty photo albums and I found this photo. I recognize Idham in red and Angie in black... but who's that cute chick in white? What did she win? I sort of remembered that it was an orientation night award. Maybe she won for best dressed?

I wonder what she is doing with her life now
I wonder if she's gone on to great things
I wonder...

Taking a break from editing one of the last few episodes. A few weeks ago, I was in Tawau to shoot the episode I'm editing now. I thought I'll stop for awhile as my neck is killing me and all the marking in and out's are getting to me.

In the early production planning, I knew I had to go to Tawau to shoot this episode, however, time really flies by and before I knew it, I haven't even booked my ticket. Plus Fadli had a pretty tight schedule so after discussing it, we booked ourself a flight to Tawau right away for a 3 days shoot. Right after we booked out flight, Fadli was told he was to leave for South Africa on the second day we'll be in Tawau, so he had to return earlier than me.

Anyway, once we go to Tawau, the weather wasn't that great either. When ever I brought out my camera, it started drizzling. I kid you not, when I kept my camera, it was bright and sunny. It was as if Tawau wanted to keep its secrets from me.


A picture of me at the Semporna jetty just before we left to see the seaweed farms. It was raining and dark even though it was only 10AM when we got there.


We took a boat out to see the seaweed farms. It was interesting. The water was really shallow and clear. These farmers are mostly Bajau's. They build houses on stilts right in the middle of the sea... although the water under their houses isn't very deep. Each house has about half an acre to more than an acre of seaweed growing on long strings that they float with plastic bottles.



This is the family we visited. Notice the boy who is squatting, he just finished giving himself a haircut. I took a peek in the back of their house. There was a DVD player and TV where they karaoke. I didn't see a toilet around, I think the genset was next to their toilet.



The bottom of their house... their sewage system also. Food for the little fishes!

So, what can you do with seaweed? Well, besides eating it and making it into jelly, the company that we were shooting makes it into Carrageenans. It's the plant equivalent of gelatin so for the muslim world, it's Halal. It has various applications in the food industry, mostly as a food stabilizer. For example, if you ever look at those orange juices with pulp in it that we buy in packets from the supermarket... you'll notice that the pulp floats nicely in the juice. That's cause the carrageenan is holding the pulp together. If it wasn't for the carrageenan, the pulp would have floated to the top and all the orange coloured stuff would have floated to the bottom.



This the seaweed that they harvest. The farmers usually dry the seaweed first before selling it. According to the person I interviewed, one family makes about RM4,000 every 3 months for their harvest. Not bad.


Looks gross doesn't it? It feels very rubbery. They actually eat it raw like a salad too. The family we visited actually cut it up for us and served it with mixed with pepper, chilli, and garlic. It's mostly tasteless except for the slight taste of the sea (slightly salty). However, if you wash it of more, it's totally tasteless. When you chew it, it's got a crunchy texture.



After spending some time there, I needed to take a piss and I didn't want to use their outhouse. I looked around and saw on the main island, Pulau Bum Bum that there was actually a brick building with a jetty. I asked them what was that, they said it was a community hall. I thought to myself... "hrmm, government building, must be a toilet there!" So I said, okay let's go over there so I can get some shots of the jetty also.

After a 5 minutes boat ride to the jetty, I speed walked all the way to the building and to my dismay, the gate was locked and there was no one in sight. In fact, it wasn't a community hall at all, it was a rest house. I decided I'll just hold it in instead until we got back to Semporna's main jetty.




The water got really shallow because of the low tide on the way back. At one point, it looked like one of us almost had to jump out of the boat to lighten the load. It looks like as if I could almost touch the bottom with my hand. I was wearing shorts and plastic clogs but I didn't wanted my leg to get sticky after that.

On the way back, the sky cleared and it was all bright. On hindsight, it was a good thing it wasn't hot on the way there. It was cloudy. Even then, we got a little sunburned. If was bright and sunny, we would have been totally sun burned.




When we finally reached back at the Semporna jetty, the skies were clear again. Because of the low tide, we could see that kids had actually walked a mile out from the beach in knee high water to fish. I took the picture above from the Semporna jetty. The island in the foreground is Pulau Bum Bum. In the back, that hill looks like the profile of someone's mouth who is shouting as it is lying down facing up.

This 7 days a week working is getting to me. It's becoming so damn hard just to edit one bloody episode. My creative juices have run dry and I'm beginning to procrastinate more. Oddly enough, I do find that I work better under pressure when the dateline is nearer. When I start editing early and I know I have a lot of time to play around with, I have to many editing choices to make and end up not doing anything.

The kids screaming outside my room makes working from home not so pleasant anymore. The main reason I wanted to edit at home was because the AVID server at work was always full... plus I wanted the pleasure of editing in my underwear in my room. However, with screaming kids... maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.

Those kids drive me nuts but I still love all three of them. Number 2 is a real screamer now. Sometimes it gets so bad, I come out of my room to see what's going on and ask them to pipe it down... which of course doesn't work because kids don't have the cognitive skills to understand reasoning yet. I want to slap some sense into them, but I know that won't work. That will just make it worst.

The story about the little girl Nurin who was raped and then murdered really got to me. I have 3 kids who I stay with me and everytime I hear about things like this, it makes me only more fearful for them.

Unlike other people, I don't believe in punishment. I believe that all criminals are ill. Some are mentally ill, while others are 'socially' ill/handicapped. What do I mean by socially ill/handicapped? I use this term to describe those who have grown up or currently live in an extremely hard social situation, poverty or abuse.

I feel that our justice system is all wrong. Convicts are sentenced to prison terms and canning or even the death penalty. I feel that prisons should instead focus more on 'curing' the illness that those prisoners suffer from. Take for example, the rapist. Counselling or medication should be given to remove their violent urges. If they can't be cured, then they should be removed from society.

Locking up someone and canning them is revenge, not rehabilitation. Most of the time, it doesn't 'cure' the person of the reason why they committed the crime in the first place. In fact, prisons today are schools for criminals. They learn their trade and craft when they are in prison now.

I know everyone wants to get the person who did this to Nurin, however, most of them want revenge. They want the guy to suffer just as badly as Nurin suffered. They want to inflict pain. However, that won't bring Nurin back. Catching the guy would prevent further rapes and murders but the little girl will still be gone and her parents will still be sad.

Don't give in to revenge. It's a fruitless path. Everytime when I drive, I have to remind myself to let go of my anger and need for vengance. Someone cuts me of and I think "damn it, he did it on purpose just to piss me of!". I want to get back at him by doing the same to him. However, before I do that, I always think how fruitless and dangerous that would be.

Now I just imagine that me driving on the road with all these road bullies around me is like me floating on a river with all these fishes swimming around me. Sounds idealistic? Well, I have to start somewhere.

Normally I don't write about politics, but this one just gets me all angry and sick after hearing it.

http://anwaribrahimblog.com/2007/09/19/video-korupsi-tun-ahmad-fairuz-dan-vk-lingam/

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim posted a video on his blog about the alleged fixing of judges by a lawyer. It was a phone conversation the lawyer having with someone on his campaign to get a judge appointed as Chief Judge.

While listening to the guy talk on the phone, I just felt so sick someone could talk so casually about something like this on the phone. Plus, who was the mystery person recording this? Must be someone close to him to be able to record it on their phone. My guess is it was done with his permission to be used as evidence later for black mail of the person on the other side of the phone. Who knows...

I've met Anwar a few times. The first time was at his brother's funeral at the TTDI grave. I was a young journalist covering it. The prison department was escorting him as he was still held in detention then. It had just rained and the ground was wet. There was a huge crowd of reporters already surrounding the grave when I arrived. As I walked up to the grave, this rotund cameraman was coming from the opposite direction. He was covered in mud up to his chest level and he was holding his beta camera. I asked him, what on earth happened. He said, he was taking shots of the funeral when he fell backwards into an open grave that was flooded. He said luckily he fell and landed on both feet and held the camera above his head. Talk about bad luck, falling into an open grave.

When I got to the crowd praying around the grave, there was heavy security guarding Anwar Ibrahim. I took a peek into the flooded grave next to us. It looked grim, something out of a zombie horror movie. It was flooded and I doubt anyone would have been able to claw his way out without help. I reminded myself to stand back as far as possible. Anyway, with all that mud around, I didn't want to ruin my shoes.

The next time I met Anwar Ibrahim was actually at a friend's wedding. He was the guest of honour. By then, his back problem had gotten pretty bad already and he couldn't move very well. I moved a chair out of the way for him and helped him down a stage. He thanked me. In my heart, I kept saying this was the man I hated all these years. This was the man I blamed for causing riots in Malaysia. Here I am helping him down a stage and he thanked me.

I used to be angry at him... sometimes I still am when I think back of the riots, the financial crisis and how it affected me in the US. I blame him for inciting the hooligans to riot and in someway causing the huge difference between the Ringgit and the Dollar. My parents had a hard time sending me money when I was studying in the US. Times were hard for everyone. What I read in The Star online only made me angrier.

Now... I'm more mellow ever since they let him out of jail. I guess time does heal some wounds. Buddha says revenge is like a piece of coal you hold in your hand waiting to trow at someone. I feel that anger is kind of like that too, you just get burned in the process. Better to let go of that anger. Hrmm... then again, if you're smart, once you let it go, you could swiftly kick it to the person's head!

petaling jaya panorama

petaling jaya panorama, originally uploaded by luxen.

One of my favourite things to do is to go to the rooftop of my house and take panorama pictures. On a clear day (especially right after it rains) I can see Genting Highlands. My house faces directly north. To the west, I can see the Chinese graveyard the west just peeking out above the row of shops.

My house is on the rim of a valley. The lowest point is Taman Aman while the other end of the rim is Bukit Lanjan to the north of Petaling Jaya. So I can see up to TTDI, condominiums in Sri Hartamas, Bukit Utama condominium in Bandar Utama; and even D'aman Crimson Apartment in Ara Damansara.

I get to see the fireworks that they occasionally have over One Utama and the Curve from my house, although it looks small from where I stand.

My view to the west is blocked by houses as my house is at the bottom of a steep incline. Behind the hill you can see a clear view of Kuala Lumpur. From that view, the Twin Towers and KL Tower are aligned together and they look like one single tower.

The view to the south is not much to shout about. It's just a view of southern Petaling Jaya. Industrial side of Petaling Jaya with a low cost apartment complex. The view is mostly blocked by the house behind mine.

It's late and I should be in bed. I haven't written anything lately. I guess, when I put of writing then there's just too many things that is of interest to write and it becomes a chore to write it down already.

Lately, I've been working at home a lot. Mostly editing in at home. I hardly go to the office unless I needed to transfer a tape. Doing this Winners is really getting to me, I hardly have much time to rest.

Editing one episode takes up at least 15 hours of editing. That's not including the time I spend shooting. I keep thinking it feels like a long distance drive.

Anyway, yesterday someone called me while I was still asleep early in the morning. She wanted to thank me for one of the episodes. I was a little blurry and mumbled it was okay. She mentioned I got her name wrong but other than that, she liked it. I mumbled out a thank you and when back to bed.

This is not the first thank you call or email that I got. I guess it kind of makes it worthwhile when there are people who do appreciate what I've done. I did get one e-mail from a viewer who wrote in really bad English that the show was crap. Oh well... can't win them all eh?

Besides work, I've been busy with other things too. The bank called me today and said my home loan was approved. Another sign that I'm getting older. I've never taken a loan in my life before. The bank couldn't believe that my credit ratings was really good. I don't have any outstanding credit card debts (never paid credit card interest before); I don't have a car loan and my income was stable. It took the bank less than a week to approve my loan.

Sometimes when I walk around my office lobby and I see all these new young faces walking by full of energy and I think to myself "man, either they're getting younger or I'm getting much older". Hrmm... probably both.

The first day I started work still feels like it was only weeks ago when it's been almost 8 years. I don't make friends easily so I don't talk to any of the new staff unless they talk to me. I know, it's rude but somehow I feel like people have to earn my trust. It's not that I'm snobbish and wouldn't help if they asked, I would gladly help but I won't make the first move and introduce myself. Wierd isn't it?

Lately, I've been questioning my level of job satisfaction. I yearn to do more... actually, I yearn to do something different. Doing the same thing over and over again is boring. I want to try my hands at something new. I don't have the time to actually sit down and plan what I want to do yet, but once I'm done with what I'm doing now, I will definitely do that!

Today, I only managed to download the visuals from the tape to the hard disk. Didn't actually get down to cutting anything yet. I cleaned out my Canon IXUS today. The lens was getting smudgy. I bought this nifty screen cleaner that was like those wet wipes. Only, it has cleaning alcohol in it. RM15 for one pack with 25 pieces. Not bad.

There was a fine strand of fibre in my video camera's eye piece. It was actually inside the eyepiece and behind the eye piece lens. I tried using the blower to blow it out but it wasn't long enough. In the end, I used my portable vacuum cleaner to suck it out. That damn fibre had been bugging me everytime I look through the eyepiece for weeks already. I was smiling when it was finally sucked out. Ah the little trivial things that makes me happy.

Live for the moment I say.

SPIDER PIG

SPIDER PIG

Does whatever a SPIDER PIG does

Can he swing

From a web

No he cant

He's a pig

LOOK OOOUUUTTT!!!!

He is a SPIDER PIG!!

Oh man, hearing the spider pig song in "The Simpons, The movie" really cracked me up. I remember watching The Simpsons when they used to have it on TV (I think it was Metrovision, now 8TV). It was the funniest cartoon I ever watched. Sure beats watching stuff like Sesame Street.

Some wonder where I get my sense of humour from, I definitely have to say it's from The Simpsons; South Park; and Douglas Adam's "The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy". I like dark comedy and sarcasm.

Blame it on American culture. Those who say TV doesn't influence our lives only has to look at the generation that grew up watching TV. We learn cultural references from American TV programming. I dare say, if you pluck an urban kid English speaking kid out of KL and drop in LA, he'll probably get along fine.

All the prime time TV program that are imported are American. Why America? Beats me why my company buys mostly American programming for prime time. Probably it's cheap. I wouldn't mind watching British, Australian or New Zealand production if it's good. Hey, Benny Hill used to be really funny! Mr Bean was cool too.

When I was in the US, the only cultural clashes I had was when I used British/Queen's English. For example I would say "let's take the lift" and people would say, "you mean take the elevator?".

The article in Wikipedia about the spelling differences quite aptly explains it all.

meanwhile... I'm going to download Spider-pig and used it as my ringtone on the phone. In tribute of all the pigs in Melaka.

Recently, I bought a bag to put all my equipment inside. The reason I got it was because of what one of the cameraman in my office did to one of our office camera. My office has the same camera I do, DVC32. It's a great camera, and really hardy. The cameraman brought it to Singapore with him and when it came back, the LCD Panel wasn't work; the battery holder was broken and the iris control wasn't working either.

That kind of scarred me because I kept thinking if that can happen, it might happen to my camera too. So I when out to get two Lock & Lock tuperwares. They're about RM50 each. Both are airtight though it can be a problem when you're travelling by air. The pressure sucks all the air out of the tupperware, creating a vacuum effect in it. A little hard to open it after that.

A when to buy some dish washer sponges to stuff inside the tupperware to keep the things from moving around.

Some of the original equipment that I bought are already falling apart. The first tripod I got is already broken in 3 pieces. First one of the foot broke of. That wasn't so bad because I could still use it. Then Fadli brought it to South Africa with him. When it came back, the tripod head had came of. Damn it. That really did in the tripod.

The large extended use battery I bought early this year died too. It won't charge anymore. I wonder if it's still covered by warranty. Either way, I need to get a new one. It was RM420 when I bought it. What a waste of money.

I hope nothing else breaks down.

Jalan Ipoh Bah Kut Teh next to Dynasty Hotel

Jalan Ipoh Bah Kut Teh next to Dynasty Hotel, originally uploaded by luxen.

This is the reason why I am getting wider around the waist... Bah Kut Teh. This dish is also one of the reasons that makes me proud to be a Chinese, even though I can't speak Mandarin.

When I think about the debate about Article 11 of the constitution, the freedom of religion, I think about Bah Kut Teh. I always think about what I can do to guarantee my freedom to eat Bah Kut Teh. Yes, when it all boils down to it, it's when I can get my servings of pig intestines and stomach.

Inilah ertinya Merdeka... dapat menikmati Bah Kut Teh bila-bila masa!

This Bah Kut Teh shop at Jalan Ipoh next to the Dynasty Hotel in KL is my new find. I was looking for a new place to try and Chui Yan's sister suggested it. One has to park in the Dynasty Hotel to get here. The parking in the hotel is a bit tricky with really tight corners and small parking lots. Make sure you're not driving a large vehicle if you plan to park here!

Eating here is really interesting with all the noise from the traffic from busy Jalan Ipoh. Occasionally, you'll get an irrate driver laying on the honk just as you're about to swallow.

I think the soup is served with a little bit of rice wine. It's something different. It's sweet compared to the other types that are bitter.

Service is fast here, even though the shop is mostly full in the evening. Best time to come is the evening for supper or dinner. In the daytime, it might be a little too hot to have Bah Kut Teh!

Bah Kut Teh was one of the first few dish I learned how to cook when I was in the US. I used those instant soup packets that my parents send to me, I think it was that A1 brand that they still sell in the supermarkets.

Pork was cheap in the US, though I did sometimes substitute it with chicken thighs just for variety. I couldn't find pig intestines or stomach in the American supermarkets. Anyway, I wouldn't want to touch any raw innards of a pig, quite gross.

Those instant Bah Kut Teh spices were a highly valuable trading commodity in the US. I remember trading it for free dim sum with a waiter in the US. Was quite amusing what one would do for a taste of Bah Kut Teh.

After a few years, when I was back in Malaysia, I tried cooking Bah Kut Teh again for Chui Yan with the instant soup packets. All I can say is, I think I'll stick to letting others cook it for me... taste much better.

I remember one of the first times I when out with Chui Yan was to eat Bah Kut Teh. She was all dressed up and was suprised I was taking her out to dinner at a road side stall to eat Bah Kut Teh. Occasionally she still brings it up when ever we wonder where to have dinner. Funny.

I'm way behind in my production schedule. One plans and hope for the best, but Murphy's Law always get in the way. What can go wrong, will go wrong!

Ideally, I'm supposed to have 4 episodes lead time, that means 4 episodes ready before it goes on air. Now, I'm just one time. My shooting schedule is doing fine, but my editing schedule is way behind. It's really tiring to go out shooting and then coming back to edit.

At first, it seemed pretty easy to edit a 30 minute documentary but after 5 episodes into it, it's really mentally draining. I find it really hard to piece together things. It reminds me of the time we had to drive to Nibong Tebal. It took us 4 hours plus just to get there and we had to drive back in the same day. We left at 7:30AM and finally got back to the office at midnight. That was like 17 hours of work!

It takes me 8-12 hours to edit one episode and I can't edit half and come back to do the rest later. I have to edit it all in one stretch otherwise I loose the story flow. I think things would be much better if I had a storyboard written out. The only storyboard I have is the one in my head. I roughly know what I want to do but when it comes to implementing it, it's really hard.

Now I have 3 episodes to edit by this week. I think I'm going to edit at home instead of using the AVID system at work. Editing at home has its pro and cons. I get to edit in my underwear at home but I also get too comfortable and take too many breaks from editing. At work, it's really not hygenic because the airconditioner hasn't been cleaned in a year and everyone smokes there.

Okay, of to complete a very long journey to reach the ending credits!

Kneel before Zod!

If you ever watched Superman the movie (the original one with Christopher Reeves), it has one of the most memorable villains, Zod. This dude has a penchant for asking people to bow before him in submission.

I was watching Smallville on TV3, the re-imagined story of Superman when there was an episode about Zod. I when to wikipedia to read about him just out of curiousity sake and found out that there was quite an interesting background story to the original Superman movie (part I & II).

Apparently the original director Richard Donner got fired and that's why some of the editing in the movie wasn't so smooth. You can read about it here in Wikipedia. Now they have the original version of the movie on DVD as intended by Richard Donner, it's called Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. Hrmm... imagine that, a movie from over 1980 re-edited.

As I was reading this, I was also keeping an eye of an episode of Winners I had edited on air. I saw a lot of similarities in what they were discussing in the article with my work life. As any editor/producer/director one is always bound to get criticism about artistic styles. One's poison, is another's one meat I suppose.

With my close colleagues, we always criticize each other's work, but it's all done in good humour. I get a lot of crap sometimes for editing decisions I make. I just accept it as it is, someone's opinion. However, others might not take the criticism as light as I have at work. Artistic people are very sensitive about their work you know!

By the way, did you know that Nicholas Cage named his baby Kal-el Coppola Cage? My goodness... why on earth did he name his child after a fictional character and a famous director? At least it's a cute baby, you can see the picture here.

Giant spider webs

Giant spider webs, originally uploaded by luxen.

Here's the picture of that giant spider web. Makes you wonder if global warming has anything to do with the spider's wierd behavior. Or if could be a cross-breeding between a non-native species of spider.

Either way, I wouldn't be walking under those trees in the picture!

This however could have economic benefits, now they have spider silk! Would be nice to see someone make a shirt out of spider silk.

Saw this in The Star today. Scarry...

Texas spiders' monstrous webs baffle scientists

By Ed Stoddard

LAKE TAWAKONI STATE PARK, Texas (Reuters) - Texans like to say everything in their state is bigger. They can now add spider webs to that list.

A monstrous network of sheet-like webs covering several acres has been spun over trees in this state park 80 km east of Dallas, baffling scientists who say it is an almost-unheard-of occurrence in the region.


Texas state biologist Mike Quinn holds a long-jawed spider in Lake Tawakoni State Park, 80 km east of Dallas, Texas, August 31, 2007. (REUTERS/Christa Cameron)
"The dominant spiders here seem to be long-jawed spiders but this is unusual. Social spiders build communal nests in the tropics but the longjaws are not social," said Mike Quinn, a Texas state insect biologist.

"We still don't have a clear answer for what is going on here," he said as he stood beneath the ghostly canopy of webbing which shrouded a patch of oak and juniper trees.

The eerie scene evoked a B-grade horror movie. Thunder rumbled in the distance as spiders skittered across Quinn's wide-brimmed hat.

He was collecting samples by using a metal rod to thrash branches over a "beat sheet" -- a sheet nailed to criss-crossed pieces off wood into which bugs would fall.

A startling number of creepy-crawlers fell from a single branch which Quinn thrashed, including several long-jawed spiders, also known as orb weavers.

"You would not want to be the prey item on the end of that," Quinn said as he held up one of the aptly named long jaws, a spindly but sinister looking thing with fangs jutting out at the end of its raptor-like jaws.

There are 10 species of longjaw in Texas and Quinn said he needed to take the specimens to other experts to determine precisely which ones they were.

There were several other species of spider in the webs, including large garden spiders.

"I've never seen anything like this before," said Ray Owings, who had come from Tyler 50 miles to the east just to look at the webbing.

Other scientists agreed it was an odd affair.

"You see this more often in tropical rain forests. Longjaws typically make the classic kind of orb web and not a sheet web," Roy Vogtsberger, an assistant professor with the biology department at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, told Reuters by phone.

Well, the Merdeka celebrations are over and I spend most of the time avoiding it. I was either asleep or out in the mall walking.

At work, we spend a year planning for the build up of the celebration, getting everyone hyped up about it. When it all came down to it, I was just too tired. On the countdown, I was at home watching only the last 30 minutes on TV.

I was going to go watch the Ikano fireworks from my rooftop but I missed it by a few minutes.

I woke up on Merdeka day at 10AM and the march pass was over. I only got to see the Agong leaving Dataran Merdeka.

In the evening, I was out in the mall shopping, when I got back, I did manage to catch the finale of the celebrations and the fireworks on TV at Merdeka Stadium.

Somehow or another, all this large organized celebrations reminds me of North Korea. The North Koreans have one most the most largest and beautifully syncronized celebrations too, usually at their premier's birthday. The only thing we're missing is the parade of large missiles down pass Dataran Merdeka hehehe.

Oh, we did have MIG-27's though! Yeah... those pirates in Melaka straits better watch out now. We got submarines and fighter jets now... blow you out of the water!