INXS Rocks Again

Last Friday, got to catch JD Fortune live with INXS at Stadium Negara. Definitely the most "comfortable" concert I've been to. Just about 5000 people so you had room to breathe and enjoy the music.

All I wanted most to was to hear and see how JD would do the the old INXS numbers. To hear INXS live again with their new RockSt*r belting out "Need You Tonight" and "New Sensation"... phoarrrrrr, best. Mouth-watering.

(pictures "curi"ed from arong the net. Sorry my handphone has no camera, cheap phone)





JD did well, establishing his own style. He is no Michael Hutchence but he's got his own presence and definitely has the strength to carry the band. Afterglow was a huge hit with the crowd.

We (Mel, Willy and yours truly) bought the tickets at the final hour and did some shopping at Top Shop - all so cool and never in a rush. Juz was supposed to get the tickets but we ended up having to do it, and we even went to Ticket Charge instead of Ticket-whatever to buy the tickets... thankfully the girl employee at Ticket Charge was nice enuff to direct us to the right place in Mid-Valley.

But I tell you what-I have to say the opening act was well... to be polite ... just plain BAD. Gawd. I mean obviously we the audience would be in trouble when the very "handsome" lead singer says things like ..."I wrote this song so you can jump" ... and when he "ordered" the uninterested audience to get up their lighters and phones for one of his songs, the power went off. Thank GOD. It took divine intervention to stop the hurt from getting to us muahahhaha. The irony is I bumped into the lead singer in a lift when i was going for dinner at luna bar last nite. What a coincedence. I didnt even know the name of his band or who he is.

Was it deliberate on the part of the organizers to get a band who was so band so that INXS would look like rock gods? I wonder.

JD being the true ROCKSTAR - came on, strong and powerful... and it was fun.

3 days of chill... the josh-kumar tour of penang
3 pals with a bit too much of work pressure decided to take a break in penang. art on a 2 month-job break, kumar had the 3 days of leave and i had to clear mine.

since it was art's first trip to penang (can you believe it), being the usual man with a mission kumar and i made sure that he would manage to sample all of penang's finest.

We started early, leaving at 6:15am. Look at what we did for day 1:

... herbal duck mee in bidor

(good stuff)

(what a beautiful town, with much of its old world charm intact)

... lunch at line clear nasi kandar and penang road chendol

(arthur and kumar with glorious penang nasi kandar)

(awesome. our culture still is well and truly alive with the old blending in with the new)

... checked in at continental (so we could easily walk back from soho after getting wasted)

... dinner at gurney drive (whacking rm6 worth of chicken skin)

(see the happy faces whacking hawker food with its unhealthy goodness)

... dvd shopping at bt. feringghi

... drinking away at soho and catching pole dancing at nearby club


Day 2, it was the more "touristic" day out:

... morning walk along golden sands beach





... teluk bahang jetty




... teluk kumbar seafood


(a view like this convinces you that there is a god)


... nite market at feringghi and dvd shopping day 2

and to cap it off, stopping by taiping on the way back on the third day.



Arthur, dude that was the best we could offer you as far as a tour of penang goes. Lotsa penang food to remind you how stale you singapore food is and a bit of penang nitelife and drinks with friends to remember these 3 days of chill.

GOOD FOOD, COMPANY AND A WHOLE LOT OF CRAB

Alfie made another stop for 2 days in KL today. So yours truly drove him and his VP, Chris around town. Picked up Lan before the 2 guys and it was the 6 of us including Mel and Johan to have dinner at PJ Seafood at Tropicana.

Well, being your resident "chinese" dude, I decided on this brave attempt to order all the dishes. Gawd. That's what happens when you have half-breeds ... melayu tak melayu, cina tak cina at the table. Sure, leave it to the half-chinese-portugese guy to do the job.

Here's what we got:
..3 types of crab (chilli-sweet-sour, marmite, cheese)
..Fried garupa
..Sizzling tau-foo
..Kangkung belacan-friend
..Fried Man Tau
..Kam-heong friend mantis prawn

Somehow I managed to order, and became "the man". Mel asked how come I ordered cheese crab, she thought I didnt order that. To be honest, I thought I didn't too. Ah well - it was a great combination of stuff to pig out...

Service super-fast, food was good... That done, it was 3 of us (Alfie, Chris, driver)... drove them to KLCC. Good for these guys, I work on the 70th floor Tower 2, so played the unofficial tour guide and brought them to the 42nd floor for the unofficial skybridge view and unofficial visit to me office...

Well Alfie almost couldnt get past security:
1. Didnt bring ID to register
2. Came in shorts

We resolved item (1) with my ID, and (2) ... yes can you believe it, they have a spare pair pants for visitors just like Alfie. You cant go up the towers in shorts.

Getting all the digicam shots they needed I send back my Malaysian-US bound friend and his Gwai-loh VP back to their hotel.

I think I need a job somewhere else. To quote Alfie - if you would just get up, and just work normally - u'd do fine in the states. Here I work doubly hard and still hardly enough to pay the bills.

We may be a lot of things - Malaysia boleh - I mean Chris was impressed with our Proton, our KLCC ... but good salaries is not one of them.

The Importance of Clarity

One lesson I learnt this weekend is that it is always good to clearly say what you want. Honesty and clarity is always appreaciated.

For example:
In dealing with Business:
1. "Erm... what do you think - would this be a good idea etc."
2. "Listen. I want this and this and this and I need to know your answer for ..."

Number 2 is the right thing to do.

Another example:
1. "Erm... anything la also can"
2. "Yes, that is what I want. No, that is not what I want".

Number 2 is the right thing to do.

Well, I have always been a number 1 guy. Always afraid to hurt people's feelings etc. I guess this is inherited from my dad, the sweetest man in the world.

Sorry guys, I think Mr. Nice guy needs to take a back seat. If you guys don't like it, screw you.

Anyway, I always wanted a dual identity. Sorta clark kent superman. I'll be shy timid clark with the glasses k but superman when I take them off.

What rubbish gets typed at 1:24am in the morning.

Lan - thanks for the drinks and being a pal this evening. Last friday was insane at the loft - guys we were insane... wegottadoitagain.

World - check out Alfie's new band: JuneKnowsJive (www.myspace.com/juneknowsjive

'Nuff said.

TRAGIC! 3 LAPTOPS STOLEN

Today (Tuesday), I woke up in the morning thinking "Gee... now that I am updating my blog regularly, I wonder what eventful event would transpire today to blog about.... "It's probably gonna be a typical day...", I thought to myself... fat chance.

First of all, it took me almost 1 AND A HALF HOURS to get to Subang Tech park for a presentation with my 2 associates from Spore Mr. BL and Mr. T. Round and round I went before I finally found the place. The worse part of it was the refusal of the guard to let anyone in, citing limited parking lots... I had to park my car inn a lot that was about 10 minutes walking distance. Anyway, after the meeting we decided to have lunch in PJ together with one of our business partners.

Well, BL wanted to have lunch at this place called UNIQUE SEAFOOD which is somewhere off Section 14 PJ... HE'S BEEN THERE BEFORE AND HE LIKED IT, so we searched for it with such effort and diligence, making 3 long calls for directions in the process. Alright, fair enough... I parked my car outside the nearby Wisma Celcom... it was a busy area and we went in to have some good dim sum.... We were later joined by our 2 employees of our business partner 30 minutes later and after 1.5 hours of "business conversation", we walked out with full, satisfied stomachs.

Stepping out towards my car with T... I was curious to notice as to WHY my hazard light was turned on. Then T said S**T. My worse fears were confirmed. CAR BREAK IN.

My left front passenger windscreen was smashed in. Thanks to the tinting, the glass wasn't splattered badly... a huge chunk of it was on the ground outside on the grass. I knew, I knew, I knew this was bad and feared the worst.... I immediately rushed to open the boot and ..... ALL GONE.

The loss? The list in no particular order of importance:

1. 3 IBM SERIES COMPANY LAPTOPS
2. 1 rather old K500i Sony Ericsson (with an LCD screen that doesn't light up - no loss except some numbers) as well as my 016 simcard... :( ... now I have lost contact with some people whom I will never ever be able to contact again.... ever)
3. 1 ORGANIZER - which was mine, however the bad news was my CHEQUE BOOK and 2 BANK BOOKS were inside.
4. T's PASSPORT! Gasp. That's gonna a big major problem/headache for him.

Somehow, the 3 of us were rather cool about the entire situation - unbelievably calm. Maybe it was the fact that I had an excuse now not to finish my due powerpoint presentation for my business partner... maybe it was the thought of a spanking new replacement notebook... or maybe it was the joy of the dim sum...

OK, first things first - block the cheque book, sim card and bank book... I called RHB customer service hotline for 15 mins and no one seemed to pick up the DAMN CALL! What kind of service level is this... I finally succeeded to get through by calling the branch instead. Just swell. After blocking all the damn cards, I proceeded to dial 999 and ask the police for the next course of action. "Kereta boleh jalan ke....?", spoke the voice on the other side. I was thus instructed to drive my car to SS2 Police Station. Placed my newspaper on the driver's seat to avoid getting my ass full of glass and then drove with a broken left side window.

Getting to the station - there was already a QUEUE with all front desk officers busy. Wow. So much crime going on, I thought. After filing my report, we proceeded to the nearby mamak to wait for the Sergeant’s questioning session.

In our wonderful conversation with the Sergeant who was more interested in small talk then the matter at hand, he mentioned that my case is the NINTH related case TODAY. Apparently the crime rate in Selangor is the highest compared to even Penang and Ipoh combined, with most of the crime concentrated in the PJ area.... "95% Chinese and orang kaya", he said.

Just swell. My dear dad drop by as he was in the vicinity to see how everything was... and after we all got a copy of the report, I drove my car to Proton Mutiara Damansara to get it fixed up. Ho hum. T had to check in to a hotel and had to sort out his passport issues the following day so he was forced to take a "vacation". BL returned to Spore minus a laptop.

Unbelievable. According to the police, the thieves used a sensor to detect laptops. We had one eyewitness from the opposite UM motor, who said the transgression was committed by 2 Chinese guys in a black Proton Wira.

The funny thing is, just the week before, Devan and I were asking Kevin aka Mr. Mozilla Monster - WHY CARRY YOUR LAPTOP TO THE KARAOKE??? Why don't just leave it in the car like the two of us, relax nothing can happen".... Well, Kevin - why didn't I follow your precautionary measures.... GAAKKK. 2 years of work, all gone down the drain - and for the umpteenth time, as everyone has been asking - I did not back the stuff up.

What a "swell" day. BE CAREFUL OUT THERE EVERYONE AND DON'T LEAVE YOUR LAPTOPS IN YOUR CAR.

A DAY AT WORK

Can you believe it. It's been a long day at work (and I didn't even get to the office). In one day, I met 2 business partners, 1 solution partner, made bout 5 calls to Singapore associates, answered about 10 calls from partners, made almost double of that to colleagues, boss and other partners, worked on a solution presentation, compliance statement, answer e-mails in the morning and for my "after work" work I worked with 1 copywriter, art director and designer not to mentioned trashing out ideas over coffee bean till midnite and let's not forget the 100km spent to and fro between cyberjaya and PJ.

Today I parked my tired Gen.2 at over 8 locations, met up and talked to 19 people and had a variety of roti telur, chap fan and nasi goreng kampung for meals.

Just your typical Josh day. I am even in my tie and slacks as I type this.

SUPERMAN RETURNS

Well done Bryan Singer. Just watched the much anticipated summer blockbuster at TGV with Lan to catch Bryan Singer's take on the Man of Steel. Instead of a brand new Supes, Mr. Singer has decided to make a "sequel" of some sorts, and I have to say the coolest thing about Superman Returns is its nostalgia of tying back to the effective 1978 movie.


Brandon Routh has an amazing resemblance to Christopher Reeve (especially as Clark Kent), and does a decent job in his big screen debut. The scene that blew me away was the "sunset" fly-by at the end which was a perfect homage to Christopher Reeves - the EXACT same angle, same shot and same smile on Supes... Awesome.

The only challenge was getting movie tickets - from CineLeisure to GSC and finally as expected we ended up at good old 1U TGV. Old, cheap and available (RM9). A nice cap to a weekend. Long live Superman.

MY PARENTS 20 SECONDS OF FAME

Well, Proton finally launched its much anticipated Satria Neo last week. Not bad, I must say. Better quality, better build and a nice looking car... I noticed better padding, better hinges and the important part is that Proton has used a much better power-window system this time. The doors are solid and its the nicest looking Proton ever...

Anyways, enough about the car. It was truly my parents 20 seconds of fame. We met up at Mutiara Damansara for the launching and my parents got interviewed by TV3. He he. Good for them.

Unfortunately - TV3 billed them RM250 for the footage on VHS (expensive!). So people, if you get caught on television, make sure you record it and not buy it from the TV stations....

My dad gave the best comment from the interviews "...Bentuk Cantik... Seronok.... Tapi roof memang rendah...." ... my mom obviously caught off guard just spewed out this comment - " .... I like the BACK ... it's like EYES".... HAHAHAHAH.

To give them a bit more glam, I edited a short 5 minute clip of their Satria Neo experience, tidying up the grainy video, interspacing it with clips of the Satria Neo and background music track into a nice DVD for them to carry around.

YAHOO FINALLY

Finally, Yahoo! has released a new version of Messenger for Mac. Wonderful. It even supports my cheap RM60 webcam.

Thus ends my suffering of poor messenging clients on my Mac Mini.

The English players stare in disbelief. We all did too.

DIFFERENT WORLD CUP SAME STORY

Yes. We lost - AGAIN. What makes it more painful this time is that we were the deserving side. There we were, all assembled at Food Foundry Section 17, it was by far the largest gathering among friends in England jerseys together.

It was a lacklustre performance in the first half. But we knew, as the game moved along, England would switch to a more attacking 4-4-2, and with Aaron Lennon poised to come on, we were pretty sure we would able to come out tops over the Portugese.

What the F is wrong with FIFA? How could you assign an Argentinian referee to officiate the match? The Argies have a long grudge history with the Three Lions as well as the fact that the got bundled out by hosts Germany yesterday.

Devan, my good friend came to the Foundry just in time to watch together as we all scratched our heads wondering why for Fs sake did Rooney get sent off. It was diabolical. The attitude of the referee and that of major jack-ass Christiano Ronaldo.

Well, 10 against 11. But England played with a lot of heart and deserved to win it. Then came the penalties. I told Lan earlier before the game that if it goes to penalties I might as well just drive off because England would lose. I was right. I should have.

Unbelievable. Few months ago, you would bet your mortgage on Lampard and Gerard scoring penalties. They do this day in and day out in the EPL. At least just ONE of them missing is acceptable (bullocks Frank Lampard)... but BOTH??? C'mon. All I knew is if Gerard had scored, England would be through.

Well it's over. The world cup is over for me. Once again, FIFA has managed to mastermind another controversial and sad end for England. Let's look forward to Euro (ho-hum).

To Hafiz, Lan, Gary, Devan, Kit and my cousins - your undying loyalty is commendable. Keep it up guys. Hafiz you summed it up well yesterday - "I DON'T WANNA BE FUCKING 80 TO SEE ENGLAND WIN THE WORLD CUP".

Treasure Hunters 7 out of 28th. Thats the placing we had for our first treasure hunt endeavour. Not too bad. It was a ridiculous time to rendevouz behind the Sultan Abdul Samad building (6:30am) and I dragged myself out of bed like a mummy just awaken by a spell 2 centuries later... Well - no mamak/dim sum kopitiam in sight so 7-eleven was everyone's choice for breakfast. Well being the lazy blogger I am, suffice to say, Kevin, Linda, Sophia and myself "cooperated" rather well despite all the fighting and killing each other to end up 7th PLACE. Kevin saw this as the perfect oppurtunity to put his BRAND NEW HONDA CITY to its test. The man truly loves his car (who doesn't). Sophia practically was a passenger (ZZZZZ) for the first part of the treasure hunt. At times insane (the arguments), fun (running, getting the answers), tasteful (the FOOD!) but most of all - a chance to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city. Speaking of food Malacca was a adventure for our taste buds. Saturday evenining and Sunday morning combined selection of Durian Cendol, Satay celup, Pork satay and Durian Cendol (again) in that order. Yumm and nuff said. Kevin, Mr. Mozilla Monster - you do have a future in treasure huntin'.

MY FIRST PROTON - NO MONEY WHAT TO DO

Welcome blog.

Do I really need to blog. No matter how I resolve to start blogging I never do. When I started this, nobody even knew what a blog site is. Now, blogs have become some person's "claim to fame".

Well - a blog is after a all an online journal. So what shall I rant about today?

Since I bought my new car, will just mention a bit bout that,

Yes, I ended up with a Proton and a GEN.2 at that. In the end in came down to the $$$ so the Suzuki Swift was out. At 55K the GEN.2 had the looks and power (1.6 manual) but we all know about its poor QC history with regards of the interiors, doors blah blah blah.

Well, I have to say I am rather satisfied. Anyway my salesman gave damn good support and I ahve to thumbs up for that. Maybe sales have not been as high as Proton so customer service is rather excellent for my part hahahahaha.

The showroom at Mutiara Damansara looks rather nice and posh. OK on to the car. I picked it up on Thursday and I am already almost at the 1K km mark (of course staying at Cyberjaya has a lot to do with that).

Exterior - nice Midnite Blue color. This is the best "Black" color I have ever seen...

Interior - hmmm... thank God the new "version" this year has a Black top dash as opposed to the previous cream color. 55K what to complain....

The seats are nice but they should have been black too. Hmmm... probably need to see if I can change them to leather next time. The semi bucket seats are nice.

Overall, this is probably the best I could do with a tight budget.