"Why are you going shopping have you forgotten that you're a man?"

That's the first line of a radio commercial for a local hotel cafe.

As Cher Horowitz in Clueless would say ... AS IF!

If that sentence have any semblance of truth in it, all single men would be walking around stark naked and starved to death after they've move out of momma's house. That's assuming the man's wife/girlfriend does his shopping for him and feeds him. Well, the stark naked thing might prove interesting watch for us ladies and same interest males if those men took care of their bodies. ;)

Christof Lauer & Jens Thomas: A Review

Christof Lauer - "One of the most important saxophonists on the European jazz scene and a "musician's musician"!
Jens Thomas - "The Jimi Hendrix of the piano"!

That's what's written in the flyer that was handed to me on entering the music hall of the Asian European Institute at University Malaya. Earlier that day, I had managed to scan through an article in The Star about the duo prior to dashing off for work.

Remind me to never believe anything said in print! If I read something and tell go, "Hmmm ... this sounds interesting. Wanna go?" Just give me a hard smack at the back of my head.

A more wasted evening I have never know, this one's almost as bad as the 4 Men and a Woman dance drama I saw, I think, two years ago. All this creative improvisation things just doesn't suit my palate. It's either I'm terribly dense (a huge possiblity) or the music was that bad!

The duo did their rendition of Sting tunes. Starting off with Roxanne, followed by a piece written by Mr. Thomas, Synchronicity #2, another Thomas creation, Every Breath You Take, Dar (Thomas original), Desert Rose, Synchronicity #1 and the encore 'Be With You" or was that "Be With Me". All in all totally unlistenable except for maybe Dar and the encore piece where there is a hints of melody them.

I only recognised Roxanne because while waiting for the start of the performance, I read the handout given at the door which stated that they did a CD covering Sting songs. Therefore, I was looking/listening hard to try and recognise the song. The part of the song that goes "Roxanne", for those that are familiar with the song, was the only recognisable part. The other part was a bunch of Thomas banging wooden on the interior of the baby grand and plucking at the piano strings. Oh yes. I feel asleep in the middle of the first song.

Every Breath You Take fared better in that the tune was quite recognisable, although not completely, and there was less sections where Thomas started playing with the innards again. Desert Rose was absolutely not in evidence except for maybe twenty seconds almost towards the end of the song. As for Jen Thomas originals, most of the were a bunch of banging on the piano, banging on the inside of the piano and fast finger works and excellent breathing technique by Mr. Lauer. All of which culminates to a bunch of noise.

Saving grace of the evening would be that the duo are actually excellent musicians. You can hear the incredible piano playing of Thomas which reminded me in parts to the song 'Study for Three Hands' by Ennio Morricone for the movie 'Legend of 1900'. Lauer plays a mean sax and the tremoloes? that he does sounds simply out of this world. The duo should really start writing that includes more rhythmic melodies instead of experimenting with banging which lays their talent to waste.

Anyway, it seems that there are people who actually likes this sort of music. After their last piece, as I was aching to get out the hall as soon as I can, some guy behind me cried out for an encore and the duo obliged. Shoot! Stuck for another song! Later getting out of the hall, I actually saw people buying their CDs. I was about to yell, 'You freaking pretensious freaks! A baby could make those noise. Want me to gather some kids together?!". That and I was trying had to suppress my disbelief of the people around me.

Getting into the car, switching on the radio, the familiar soothing melodious tune of 'Truly Madly Deeply' was a much needed reprieve. God bless the radio. God bless commercialism!

Hurrah! Just went to the photo shop to collect the roll of film I sent in yesterday evening. They all came out. I wasn't sure they would cause that roll has been in the camera for more than two months.

The pictures came out great. Well, not all are great. The one I took of Miguel Ayesa signing my program is though. I'm such a great photographer. Haha ... self praise. :)

Right. Now, to get my hands on a scanner then I can place some of the pictures I took of the F1 race at Sepang, me in my latin competition costume and the pictures with the cast of FAME.

Gosh! It's been a week since my last blog. This is turning out to be more of a weekly entry instead of the original daily entry.

Anyway, not much happened last week, which was probably why I didn't make any entry in here. Monday is much the same as most of my Mondays, work and then choir practise in the evening. However, prior to practise, I met up with a guy, Ram, at San Francisco? Starbucks? who's searching for people to make up a band. He's already in a band and is looking to have a sideband. I told him I could sing. Did a three liner of Letters To Cleo's I Want You To Want Me. He thinks I can sing. So, yay. I might be in a band. Haha ... so teenagerish.

As for Tuesday, the choir committee had a meeting. The tentative date for the press blitz of our Opera Di Tutti Frutti performance is Monday June 3. More talk about posters and postcards and programs. There isn't much that I'm assigned to for these issue. However, there are plans for an after show party after the performance. That would be where I come in.

The rest of the week was just work. Then on Saturday, went to watch Ram's band jam. They're pretty good. Sounded better live than on their home made CD recording.

Later that day, I went to stalk the cast of FAME to sign my program after their matinee show. Very successfull outing. I managed to get almost everyone's signature. Only one missing, Leah's. I heard she has a twisted/busted ankle so she wasn't at Istana Budaya (the venue). They're all so very nice. Especially Miguel Ayesa. Deonne Zanotto got overly excited when I asked her to sign my CHICAGO program. She was in that show as well about a year and a half ago. In fact, everyone got excited over the CHICAGO program. All of them poured over it like they've never seen it before.

That was great! Of course, I had to go back after their evening show cause I didn't manage to get them all after the matinee. Had to miss the second half of the BBC Proms being relayed live over the KLCC park to go back but I'm glad I did. Otherwise I'd have to go back into the city the next day. Don't want to do that if I don't have to.

Fab! Fab! Fab! Can't wait to get the pictures developed. Hope they all come out well. I'll have them scanned and the posted after I do.

Still slightly buzzing from watching FAME - The Musical last night. The energy. The enthusiasm. It's incredible.

Reminds me so much why I wanted to have a career in music theatre when I was young. Of course now, older and jaded, I don't believe that dream will ever, ever come true anymore. Should it ever materialise however, THAT'S the sort of musical I'd like to be in.

Back to FAME. Great voices and great dancing. Maria Mercedes's voice is just incredible. So powerful and rich. Besides her, I also like Simon Gleeson's voice. Dance wise, I like Deonne Zanotto aka Carmen Diaz. She can really dance! Wow!

I usually look among the supporting dancers in musicals such as these for that one person with that extra presence, that extra bounce that catches my eyes. Sometime I see it and sometimes I don't. This time, that person is Kane Bonke. He just seemed to have the extra bounce to his steps. My eyes were trained only at him from the moment I spotted him. Very arresting. Later, I saw him and some of the other dancers at the side exit while on my way to the car.

Darn! Where's my pen when I needed one?!

I might go back one day just to wait for them to come out so that they can sign my program. Hopefully will be able to catch Maria Mercedes and get her to sign my Chicago program. Just realised she played Mama Morton in the Chicago musical that I saw in Singapore two years ago. Oh! And Deonne Zanotto as well, she was one of the dancers in the Chicago production.

One of my friends asked me whether musicals with Malaysian cast will ever be at this standards. Pessimistically, I said no. If you'd just read the bios of the cast in the program, you'll see that these people have been dancing/acting/singing since they were practically toddles. Most performers in Malaysia seem to have cultivated an interest only when they are in their teenage years or adulthood. How can you compete with years and years of training? Dancers, maybe cause people do place their children in dance classes although they do not really encourage their children to grow up to become a dancer ... or maybe that was just my parents?

I'm currently in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer crave. Have been pouring through various Buffy sites reading spoilers and fanfics.

Spike is yummy. I think it due to his bad boy image and British accent. I've always been a sucker for accents. Aussie, British ... whatever. Found some gorgeous Spike wallpapers and WinAmp skins. Didn't download the wallpaper cause I still like the idea of a calendar for wallpaper (I have the whole set of LOTR calendar wallpapers). Might change the wallpaper for the PC at home, maybe.

This is so funny/odd. Last night, I stayed up watching a slew of Sex & the City episodes till the wee hours of this morning. I think it was about 2.30am when I finally went to sleep. Astro was having a Marathon Sex & the City thang prior to airing the new season ... or at least I hope they're gonna air the new season. Aidan is so sweet. Such a perfect boyfriend. Yum.

Anyway the weird thing is that I usually dread waking up and will postpone waking for almost an hour after my alarm rings. But this morning, I didn't mind. Felt like I had enough sleep but I actually had less. My usual sleep hour is about 12.30am. Why's that? Was yesterday's weather more condusive for deeper sleep and therefore resulting in me feeling more refreshed this morning? Or is my required hours of sleep less than the norm?

I have heard/read that each person have their own amount of hours that they require for a good sleep. Too much and you'd feel groggy and too little, ... well, sleepy.

So, should I start experimenting sleeping later and getting up earlier?

Oh, on Saturday, I shifted the furniture a little. I've moved my be so that the side of the bed is against the wall instead of the headboard. Ever since that day (which is two days ago), I haven't woken up on time. I almost missed dance practise on Saturday and work today, if it hadn't been for my mom. Maybe the change was bad feng shui. Or something cause this morning I woke up feeling sickly.

Slight throbbing in the head, achy shoulders. Felt like skipping work actually but didn't think I was sick enough. Skipped choir practice though. Spent the extra hours watching Malena. It's great. I'm convinced that any film of the Giusseppe Tornatore and Ennio Morricone collaboration is good.

Saturday: Spent the whole day in KLCC. It's the monthly credit card paying outing. Every month, I'd go pay my credit card in the city. After dropping in the fast cash deposit envelop (this takes about 5 seconds), I'd take the 10 minutes walk to KLCC. Then hang around there till about 6/7pm when it's time to go home for dinner.

This trip was pretty good. I managed to get some design work done; not much but better than nothing. Sad, isn't it? Working at a shopping mall? I meant, when you're suppose to be there to enjoy the shopping experience, not when you're hired to work in the shops. But I think it's great. Away from the distraction of the telly and internet, I managed to get things done. Plus, I don't look so stupid sitting at Dome's alone waiting for my ordersto arrive and starring at people all around. Actually, I love people watching. However, I'd like to watch from a corner, where nobody know's I'm watching. People watching is great fun.

Okay, besides working, I actually got myself a pair of heels from Vincci; a black strappy concoction of about 3 inches high. Have been looking to buy a pair of heels forever. Something with ankle holds so that I don't have to worry about my shoes flying when I go dancing. Then, forked out RM62 buck for the April and May copy of Wired.

Watched Blade 2 on VCD. What a let down! I absolutely enjoyed Blade but Blade 2 was a dissappointment. Not much of a storyline just a lot of slashing. Bleargh!

Sunday: Dance practise and class as usual in the morning. Minor change to the cha-cha routine. Changed from a Natural Top and hip twist to lots of spins. Minor stuff. Nicer I think. I never did like Natural Tops.

Watched Vatel on DVD in the afternoon. My DVD copy's kinda screwed! Lips and sound does not synchronise. Quite distracting actually. That aside, it was a pretty nice movie. Amazing what they go through just to gain the favours of the King. My favourite actor, Tim Roth, didn't get enough screen time but that's mostly cause his role is just that, small. Very much like his other villainny roles which he seems to excel at. He's deliciously bad.

Later in the afternoon, watched the Keanu Reeves film 'Hardball'. Feel good movie, sad ending and wooden acting by Mr. Cool Breeze. The kids were great though and Keanu's got a great smile when he so chooses to display it.

Gilmore Girls @ 10pm. This is the episode where Rory's dad Christopher came back for a visit. The guy playing Christopher reminds me a lot of Cameron Daddo, who I first saw as a photographer in Aaron Spelling's Model's Inc. Cute. As usual, lots of laugh in this episode, thoroughly enjoyable.

Possible Breakdown

Near miss on Tuesday; almost knocked down a motorcyclist when he was coming out of a junction. This happened when I was on my way home, just a few more meters away from my house. I stand firm that this incident is in no way my fault. I had the right of way. It was clearly my road. I was going straight. He was coming out of a junction. He didn't seem to be watching where he was going, seemed to be staring up the hill on his left. He didn't even pause at the junction!

Fortunately for him, I saw him nearing the junction. I was going 30km/per. I managed to break in time. I saw him put up his hand in apology. Had he not done this, I might have wound down my window and screamed and yelled at him like a fisherman's wife (no offence to all the fisherman's spouses, tis just a common phrase I've seen used).

Labour Day today is depressing.

Met up with Shawn for lunch. Haven't seen him for quite awhile now. Last time I talked to him, he was working in Singapore. He's back for good now. New job. Now here's the depressing part, at least for me. They are going to pay him RM5500 a month! That's almost double my salary. I've worked almost the same amount of years and I'm earning chicken feed. Is the pay for a Software Developer and a consultant so vastly different?

Plus, I just realised that I'm close to having a breakdown with regards to my work. I don't know what I'm doing, I have to develop a product, I have to lead a project as well as design and code the bloody thing and I find that I don't have time to do all this at the same time and keep up my schedule of dancing and singing.

I'm not, however, prepared to give up those leisure activities cause if I do, I think I'd go mad. I know me and if I don't do those, I'd just be sitting in front of the telly and not doing any work anyway.

I need to focus more on work I think. Put more importance on what I have to do and not just doing it for the pay. Need more passion for work.

Therein lies the problem. I just can't seem to feel passionate for it.

P&P said that I should take time to think about what I want to do. Do you want to continue in the computing line? Do you have something else you'd rather be doing? Do you have any idea what I want to do? Should you pursue your interested in dance & song?

I don't know. Nothing that I know of at this moment. No. No cause I know that I'm not extremely talented in those and those things just can't support my lifestyle.

What do I want? If I quit the computing line, I can't think of anything else that I am capable of doing.

First step - Tomorrow (or in a few hours time), I plan to lock myself in the meeting room and think up the design for the project. I hope that this will at least map out what there is to do for the project so that I can distribute parts of the development to the others. Maybe after that, I won't feel like it's such a big thing.

Then, I can see if I can make time to extend the email module that TL's been pestering me about. If I feel that I can't, I will just have to tell him that I can't at the moment but if he needs it, he can always look into Java Mail and do it himself. I wrote the bloody module a year ago so I'd probably have to relook the Java Mail APIs again anyway.

Hope this works. My plans never seem to work. Most probably cause I tend to postpone anything serious and unpleasant eg. actual work.

Right. This is for when I get home. http://www.tonos.com/app2/articles/business_of_music/jsp/foster_in_studio.jsp. Firewall at work doesn't allow most RealMedia streaming.

I would like to write a review on 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum' that I watched yesterday afternoon but my friend accidentally took my programme. So, with no names to rave or critic on and no song list to guide me, I can't. I'll probably be able to get it back tonight and will write the piece when I do. In the meantime, do go watch the show. It's hilarious and highly entertaining. Plus, Chef Wan wasn't that bad in it.

Not bad but not good either.

P.S: This was the musical I auditioned for.

Just submitted my monthly article to Delusion of Adequacy. The Editor sent a mail reminding me of the dateline a few days ago. I didn't know what to write about so I think I submitted quite a useless piece. Click on Dateline--Malaysia at http://www.adequacy.net/columns.shtml. I don't think I'm cut out for this article writing thing. Just don't know what to write about. Feeling the pressure and this is only my second piece. :={

Affaire Française

The coronation was a non-event ... at least for me. Did they indeed install a new King that day? I guess they did from the front page picture on most of the newspapers around. But for me, it was just another day off. Didn't glue myself to the television watching this event happen live from Bukit Jalil. Had instead a nice family outing.

Started the day with a nice brunch at a chicken rice shop at Jalan Gasing. Yummy rice, very small amount of chicken and quite expensive as well (it's kampung chicken that's why). That was nice, would have been even better if my parents were able to answer my questions directly (about why the shop's location is) instead of trying to tell me where to go.

You see, I have been to the shop before it's just that I forget how far into Jalan Gasing the shop's located. Therefore, I need to know where to turn in from the road parallel (the one which passes Amcorp Mall) to Jalan Gasing (I can't go straight into Jalan Gasing from Federal Highway!). Why can't they just tell me if it's at the beginning or the middle or at the end of that road? They always want to tell me what to do. Shit! Just answer the question!

Oh yes, that and my grandma keep asking if her precious grandson know's that we are here and if he'll be joining us. We just saw him get all dressed up for work and walk out the door prior to departure. Gosh! Focus! Now, that's bad of me. She is quite old. I should just indulge her and tell her he has to work and being the goody too shoe that I am, told her that her precious has gone to work, albeit sarcasm was dripping like liquid honey.

Next went home and just sat for awhile before heading out to Bangsar with Stef. She wanted to get her belly pierced. It cost a heck of a lot! RM100 just for the piercing and another RM80 for a normal stud with no gem or RM90 for a stud with one gem and RM120(?) for a stud with two gems. She only brought RM150 so she didn't have enough cash then. Besides, it was expensive and I advised her to go check out the pricing in other places. So, we went down and into a clothing store just next door. Her still torturing herself thinking whether or not to just get it done cause she's been wanting to do it forever and me being absolutely non-supportive. My reason being she hasn't checked out other places. They might be cheaper! Me the el cheapo. Hah!

Anyway, she finally decided to have it done anyway and I spotted her the extra dough she needed. Her belly is well and truly maimed now. Looks alright. The stud's kinda plain though. Saw some cool looking ones at the shop which made me think if I should get my belly maimed as well then I get to use one of those fancy belly studs for my latin competitions. Would look très cool doncha think?

Then it's off to Midvalley we go. It's off to MidValley we go. Hey ho the derry oh, it's off to MidValley we go.

Got my movie tickets - Meilleur Espoir Feminin and The Count of Monte Cristo. The French flick was good. Saw a similarity between the daughter-father relationship with that of my sis and papa. Stef and I joked that we should get them to watch the movie and see if they see it as well. Better yet, make them come watch it together! That should be interesting.

Count of Monte Cristo was lavish. Good as well for someone who has not read the Alexandre Dumas classic. I had heard from someone that the movie wasn't so good but that person has read the book. Maybe the book was better? Sort of how I feel about Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone I guess. Lots of scenes chopped off from the book.

So, Thursday was good. Yesterday was boring. Work and then dance practise. *Yawn*

Argh! Christ! I knew I shouldn't have made that coffee or at least shouldn't have drunk(? - excuse me if that's the wrong tense, my tenses are quite weak but I am not going to invest anytime to improve that) it. Now my stomach's churning. Will have to get home and to the loo quick before it explodes!

Tomorrow's a holiday. Yay! Coronation for the new Agong (King).

This will give me a chance to go watch 'Meilleur Espoir Feminin'. Have been wanting to watch it since it first started showing but never had the chance. More so now that it's showing only once a day in the afternoon when I am at work. Pm's seen it and she wants to watch it again so it should be good, no? As for tonight, ballroom class and after that latin practise (SM called during lunch asking if I could practise after class). Then if I feel like it, maybe, Spiral with Az.

Eyes red and dry, I finally finished porting the app. Minor modifications made and repairation to stuff that I missed out earlier. Time to say goodbye to this project and continue with the next.

Urgh! I dread starting that other project. Don't know where to begin. To just code? Or to design first? Obvious and ideal answer would be to design right but that's such a drag. But I will have to since I have to break it apart so that I can assign it to others in the team to help me with it. Ah well, this my first project (well, first big one anyway) that I'll be heading. I just hope I don't screw it up too much.

Righto ... lets talk about what I did the past couple of days.

Club nite on Saturday was a success (my opinion anyway, others might have thought it a complete bore). Almost everyone who confirmed their attendance actually attended. The food was really good (I well and truly stuffed myself). However, my singing that night was atrocious. Atrocious doesn't even come close to describing it. I was too soft when duetting (unpractised) with Cris on 'I Know Him So Well' and started too low when I did 'On My Own'.

So embarrassing!

But it was lots of fun. Better towards the end when a few of us gathered around the piano and belted our hearts out. Then Suzan and I did 'I Still Believe'. I actually sounded quite ok. I should practise this song more often. It seems to be within my range, whatever my range is.

It was about 12am Sunday morning when I got to Avanti for Soon's little birthday gathering. Danced some but not a lot cause they closed at 1am. During one song, 2 of the waiters went on the dance floor and started dancing - they weren't any good, whoever gave them the idea that they were must have been intoxicated. One of the waiters, not the two on the dance floor, told me to join them cause, his words, ' ...[I] dance well'. Ermm ... gee thanks. Compared to those two, I probably do. Haha ... good stuff for my ego. Should visit this establishment more often. :)

The next morning, had to wake up early for dance practise at 9.30am. Bleargh! Didn't practise too hard that day cause SM was trying to figure out some steps. After that, SM and I had our lesson. First one ever after my competition debut; which was slightly more than a month ago. Wow! That's really long. We did the basic, which I have never learned, technically correct version of cha-cha and spins. I still can't seem to get the shoulder thing right. So frustrating. It feels odd. Not natural. Like I'm just doing it cause Mr. L tells me to. Need to practise more I suppose.

*Sigh* Next competition's in July. Hope I get enough practise before that.

Well, I tried to installing the app but ran into some problems.

Firstly, it seems that the PHP on windows is more sensitive to unset variables ie. just referring to $aVar without assigning it first will print out an ugly error message in your view page. Yucks! Or maybe that has to do with Apache on windows. I don't know. Either one, I will now have to go through my codes and do an isset() on places that might involve unset variables.

Secondly, my colleague who set up Apache and PHP on that machine forgot to install the mhash function. So I can't get pass the login page cause all following pages requires that. Ah well, left him a message on his mobile. Hopefully he hasn't gone back to Malacca this weekend and would be able to come in tomorrow or something to install it. I'd do it myself except I have never installed PHP before and installing that function might require some sort of compilation. I don't want to screw up whatever that's already working.

Now I must go home and collect the stuff needed for tonight's club nite and head over to Ivy's and await the caterers.

Woo hoo! Tis done. All files transferred.

On another note ... Craps! Have to come back to the office tomorrow to install my, just finished, application in the client's machine. Must have that ready by Monday. The boss wants it.

After this, it's back to Java and CRM.

Now that my home computer have speakers, I think it's about time I take all the mp3 files that I have managed to download over the office's speedy lines. There are almost 200 files there; more or less. I wanted to do this earlier on but I thought that since I don't have speakers to listen to them, what would be the point? Plus my dad didn't have his laptop then so, how was I to transfer all those files home? I don't have a zip drive nor do I have a burner at the office.

Wow! The transfer's pretty fast over the network. I hooked up the laptop to one of the network ports around. Lots of them around now since everyone's gone home.

Might take me ages to transfer it to my PC when I get home using a parallel port. No network card at home. Again. No point in having one.

Hmmm ... not done yet.

Hey! I think they've switched off the air-conditioning! Getting warmer in here.

Of friends and sushi

Yesterday while having lunch with Jen, I noticed that we don't really seem to talk to each other. We got to Genkhi Sushi and sat around the sushi belt. Ordered our green tea and then just sat and checked out the offerrings on the belt. Picked some plates and started eating.

I felt a bit weird so I tried to make conversations; I haven't seen her for a few weeks, close to a month.

"So, anything new?" I asked.

"Nah! Not really. How bout you?" came the reply.

"Nothing here either."

Then silence and more eating.

Is it normal for people who've been friends to have nothing to say to each other? Nothing to talk about? Nothing that they'd like to share when they meet? Y'know, to catch up on the week(s)/month(s). Do friends tend to have the same conversations over and over again? Questions like "Anything new?", "When will you be quitting?", "I thought you wanted to quit?", "Have you seen [movie name]?"

I don't know. It just felt weird.

My friends and I usually go out and do something - movies, pool, bowling, eat (all time favourite) - and even if we don't go out and just hang out in P's place, we'd watch a movie. All activities not requiring minimal communication skills. When we do find ourselves in situations where we actually have to speak to each other, the topic usually centers around work (boring) or if I'm talking to P, what shows/musicals would we like to go for next.

Hmmm ... I'll have to pay more attention to whether this is true for every occassion our clique meet up.

Maybe it was just yesterday. A one time thing.

Maybe it was the sushi ...