U2 Equivalent

Dad just bought a Celine Dion Concert DVD and both my parents are now glued to the TV and this DVD has just converted them into my equivalent of U2. It's funny watching them and hearing their comments. Dad's commenting that the next time she performs, even if it's in Las Vegas, they would like to make that trip! And they're expressing that one of our names would have been Celine if she had been famous back when we were born.

Ah well, she just performed here in Malaysia on April 13th this year. Too bad they didn't see the DVD before. :)

When You're Popular...

I've been quite an avid reader of Kenny Sia for some time now but his postings lately have been too much advertisement that I log in only perhaps once or twice in a month. Apparently there are over 500,000 hits on his site with his soaring popularity.

Anyway, he has created a lot of enemies and there's even a hate blog about him. Real nasty stuff. Talk about hate mail but an entire hate blog? Plus it's written anonymously. While I don't particularly like him, the blog is fascinatingly horrid. It's like reading a tabloid!

CD Frenzy

Usually, KS is the one who will buy music CDs but I recently shocked him by buying quite a few (8 in total). I've always wanted to have the complete Lord of the Rings soundtrack and now I do. What I didn't expect to see was a complete Fellowship of the Rings music score, which I saw in Hong Kong. It took 3 CDs to record the entire 3.5 hours of the movie but I reckoned if I can listen to the entire score, I might as well watch the whole movie again. Which reminds me, it's about time to start my annual watching of LOTR.

I also got myself copies of the entire 5 Harry Potter soundtracks. Still haven't fully appreciated every soundtrack yet.

Yesterday I bought Josh Groban's Noel CD to start off my Christmas mood. Always something about Christmas songs that makes me feel fuzzy. With Josh Groban, I'm wishing I had a better sound system to fully immerse myself in his baritone. Bliss.

The Breaking of the Fellowship

Today was the last day for my ex-colleague in my old place. He is moving on to another department within the same organisation but will be located elsewhere. I will greatly miss his company especially since I have been having lunch with him several times despite my new workplace.

He is my photography inspirer, the one who got me going on photography lately, introduced me to doing crazy things like going all the way to KLIA to take photos, the one who was trying to get me to buy a DSLR amongst others. Gosh, this is starting to sound like an eulogy so I'd better stop here.

The breaking of the Fellowship continues. Next, my other ex-colleagues will shift to another building in a couple of months and I will be left alone to fend my own lunches. Ah, I'm just having one of those "I wish things would remain the same" moods.

Sophisticated Phone

In my 10 years of working life, I have never had such a sophisticated phone. It is even featured in some TV series. It has a directory as well as a clear speaker function (in my old office, we only had one or two phones in the entire floor that could have speaker function and even that we had to almost glue our ears to the speakers to hear the other person talk).

On top of that, I just need to carry it with me to any work station and plug it in while my extension number remains.

When I took this shot, my colleague who's a fresh grad laughed at me for being so kampung. Humph, little does he appreciate this small privilege.

U23D Not Happening

Looks like my plan of going to Singapore this weekend for U23D has to be scrapped. Just looked at the tickets for confirmed seats have already been sold out (and they're incredibly expensive!). And the thought of going all the way to Singapore just for a chance to get tickets for U23D seems a bit crazy, especially since I'll be working every weekend thereafter.

So no U23D :(

Capoeira

Last week I had the pleasure of accidentally witnessing a Capoeira performance by some international students at Jaya One. Capoeira is "is an Afro-Brazilian art form that ritualizes movement from martial arts, games and dance." - Quoted from Wikipedia.

To me, it looked like break dance mixed with martial arts with graceful but powerful flips, head stands, hand stands, cartwheels with fluid body movements. Even the girls had built biceps. Guess that is a given since they have to do so many upper body lifts.

The performance at Jaya One was sort of like a graduation class where each student received a coloured belt (indicating their level very much like karate). Some were kids who looked like they were just 2 years old and they were extremely cute to watch. Alas, my 4G SD card was full so I only managed to capture just a few seconds.

The song they were chanting was quite catchy and I found myself so engrossed with the whole performance,I stood there for over an hour watching them.

The fascinating thing was watching the adults. Man! They were really good! Since they were performing against the kids, you could see they were holding themselves back. (Sorry, this one had another instructor blocking my view but you can still somewhat see what's going on at the back)

Anyway, here's what it's supposed to look like, I think. Wonder if Capoeira is featured in any movie yet.

Akeelah & The Bee Quote

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

- Marianne Williamson

I had a great birthday week, still having cakes and birthday songs right up to today. Work is getting better, with strengthening relations between colleagues and getting into the flow of things.

Unfortunately, other than work, my life has been a little bit uneventful so my blog has been a bit empty. I WILL go find a life so that I can blog. Sheesh...

By the way, Akeelah and the Bee is a movie where I learned some pretty cool words like logorrhea, xanthosis and prestidigitation. How to use some of these words, I still have no idea.

Laugh Out Loud

This is an excerp from the Star papers today:

Abdullah: ‘Anyone can be PM’
PUTRAJAYA: It is possible for anyone from a minority group to be a nation’s leader, even in Malaysia, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi.

“It is up to the people to decide, just as the Americans had done through the democratic process,” he said while extending his congratulations to Senator Barack Obama.

This remark comes right after the big protest of the Selangor Governer who wanted to promote a Chinese lady to head the PKNS (Housing Committee of Selangor) as the previous head retired. She has been working there for over 31 years and is the right hand man of the head. And this is just PKNS. PM?

Hahahahahaaa..... maybe what's missing from his remark is the year 2277.

Melaka, Oh Melaka!

First, they were in the news for intending to give famous Indian star Shah Rukh Khan a Datukship despite the fact that he isn't a Malaysian. The reason cited was because he filmed a movie in Melaka which caused a slight increase of tourists to the state.

In that case, what about Sean Connery who filmed a show with the KLCC Twin Towers? Or Jackie Chan who has done countless movies in Malaysia? Oh, how about Jodie Foster who filmed Anna and the King in Ipoh and Penang?

The list is long.

Anyway, recently the state government was in the limelight again. They are offering RM1,000 for any married Malay man to take on single mothers with children as their second wife. This is so that the state will reduce costs in providing for these single mothers. Sounds a little familiar.

Wonderful! And these very same people will lead the nation one day. Shudders...

Futuristic Cars

Just saw a program on future cars. The show introduced three types of eco friendly cars. One runs on hydrogen from water and expels water from the exhaust pipe. Another runs on solar (but this one doesn't look too promising since it doesn't move fast and it's hot!) and the third runs on air.

I'm just wondering if I will ever live to have these prototypes running on our roads since these inventions aren't new and have been in prototype for ages. But ah! It would be so cool to have an eco friendly car!

Annual Dinner

The two dreaded words. It's in two weeks. The new dress I bought can't be worn for this. Not Shariah compliant (too much exposed skin). And it is held at the Carcosa Seri Negara (my second time going there this year when I never knew where it was even located prior to April 08).

It was quite funny as I was listening to my colleagues talking about the annual dinner. At first, I caught the theme as Las Vegas and thought feathers and fish net stockings. Not Shariah compliant at all! And I was worriedly thinking if I would even dare to show up in a Las Vegas outfit (or maybe I'd come as a croupier).

To my (slight) relief, the theme is GlamCity, which could be interpreted as anything. Sigh. The stress of dressing up begins again.