M.I. Fireworks Competition 2007 was AWESOME.

Australian team kicked butt, Japan was awesome too. The whole half hour was STUNNING. I'm not usually one to appreciate things like these, but this was really r.e.a.l.l.y. good. To those who missed it, there's no way any of the videos could be sufficient. But do try to youtube for the best versions with the best colors. I'll try on your behalf in a few days when the videopeople load up last night's finale, k?

The colors were prettier than your usual jang Malaysian colours. The sizes of some of the fireworks were seriously, beyond my expectations.
The sparkles were SO glittery! I am still speechless.
The CLIMAXes made everybody go WHOAAAAaaaaa.
YOU SOOOOO SHOULDA BEEN THERE.

p.s. Pictures taken from flickr people.

Scandal in the city

I went to watch Tunku the musical last night (ya, on Merdeka eve, patriotiknya..) with Bernice. We arrived early to collect our tickets. Then went to get dinner, missed a turn, ended up back at Damansara, and made the whole trip to KLpac again.

A quick peek at some of the main cast:

Doreen Tang (Michelle Ooi's aunt) and Zamil Idris (finalist in Malaysian Idol 1), as the lovebirds Fauzia and Malik (son of Syed)That's Syed (Tony Eusoff). He's racist against Chinese, and Fauzia is Chinese adopted by Malays. So he disapproves their love. (ooooh drama)The Singaporean Reporter. Douglas Lim has put on weeeiiiighhhhtttt. Someone tell him to lose some please.

Fast forward - a producer's review.
So of course I have lots to say about the musical since I went to pick up a few pointers for future use.
First, the cast was EXCELLENT. I am really proud of the main cast, the singing was highly professional and the acting was believable and emotional. It's a sigh of relief to hear good performances.I also thought it was smart to minimize the use of props. They kept it simple, less of a mess.

If only the other parts were that good too. I thought the storyline was quite messy - scenes jumped from one to another either too quickly or too slowly. Only a few scenes allowed good time for me to be emotionally drawn into the story. The good scenes I remember included one where a bunch of Malay boys essentially rape/assault/throw the sweet Chinese girl around. That part was well choreographed, sufficiently outstanding, almost radical.

The choreography was nothing to fuss about other than that scene, though. At certain parts, they could have done more than just stand there and sing. I found myself bored quite a bit.
The costumes were...strange because this is the '60s. They were modern, but I dunno. No comment.
My MAIN COMPLAIN OF ALL, though, was the SONGWRITING.
I mean, seriously, it was ridiculous. Absolutely cliche, hardly any sense of originality, and only a tinge of culture to it.
I'm so disappointed about that, for obvious reasons. There were so many lines that were badly syncopated (mismatched) that I would find it impossible to believe that the songwriter studied music outside Malaysia. It sounded like he studied classical music in a local university (not much no offense intended). The harmonies and parts were good, but the actual CONTENT (lyrics and melody) was depressing.

Ok, I know they tried to add a Malaysian touch to it by mixing Malay, English, and Chinese. Plus some intentional Manglish to stay believable. All that is fine. But you can't do that for the serious parts as well! It's so distracting. It's like when people put the wrong accents in words, like TO-mor-row, instead of to-MOR-row.
ac-TION instead of AC-tion.

can you hear it already? wouldn't that be annoying?

Then there's the splitting of words to fit the song. You canNOT split just any word. You can do "desssss....ti....nyyyyyy"

but it doesn't work for "mo....de......rrrrrrate".

get it?

It was all so gagging.

Ok fine. I'll give points for three parts that I actually remember (did I mention the songs were forgettable too?).
Highest points go to No.1, least points to No.3:
1. The reporters are trying to get something juicy from the head. This scene was good; the reporters take turns at posing questions, then singing together the line "What's your comment?", and it builds up to them all just yelling questions then ending with a big What's Your Comment.
2. The mistress is heartbroken about not being able to go public about the affair. Despite the cliche lines, it was necessarily simple, and it had a reprise when he dismisses her. The last line tried to stick in my mind, but all I can recall is "all this time I loved.........aloneeeee". Something like that.
3. The scene where the racist Syed sings about how the Chinese are "bad", and see what they've done...blah blah..Basically there's a killed Malay boy, face down on the floor. He doesn't know it's his son, but you can all predict he's gonna go on til the end where he turns the kid and gets his shock. (wow totally didn't see that coming). It's not a great scene, but at least the part where he turns the kid over goes well with whatever he's singing (but I don't remember it).The other songs were just boring. I wish I could be nicer.
I walked out singing a song from Oliver! in my head. Which totally makes sense since I had just watched a musical and it inspired me to sing a song from another musical. yea. kinda like when you order a burger from a pizzeria, eat it, then walk out singing Mc D-O-N-A-L-DS!Good time,Great taasste, at McDonald's!
I mean, of course that's supposed to happen, right? pssh.

Conclusion: a. I loved the cast. If it weren't for their excellent performances, this would have been officially a flop. Because b. I hated the songs. Which beats the whole point in a musical. in my opinion. as Hardie my lecturer always says to add, to avoid being hyperbolic. and we want to be professional here don't we. yes we do.

Congratulations if you made it to this sentence without skimming. i love you and goodnight.

UPDATE: Apparently the black and white outfits were meant to indicate that it was "olden times", like black and white tv. But weren't there other colored outfits too here and there? I remember a green kebaya. hm.

stupidstupidchild.

So ridiculous. And the irony is that I've been CHEERFUL happy these past two weeks. I mean, you'd think that a person would get messed up if they were depressed or sad or something right?

sheesh. So I've popped another cherry here. NOT happy about this one at all. I hate breaking my own rule.

BUT, at least now I know it'll never happen again for sure. Coz last time when I said that, I would always have this uncertainty about myself for some reason. And now that I know how lowdown it feels, I can be assured that this time, if I say it won't happen, it won't happen.
Thank goodness for that at least.

For everything else, MALU SIAL.
Thank you Pet, Paul, Yohan, and ...*swt* whoever else.

Lesson learnt.

Quote of the Day

"Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts. - Leonard Shelby (Memento)

Bridal Fair Pt.2

Yea the guys were vainer than the girls.

I think I'm gonna need some therapy.

No wait, actually, YOU need the therapy.

ok, moving on.

I've been thinking about change a lot. I was such a wannabe at 12 - big black t-shirts, dead straight hair parted in the middle, and owning one much-hated dress that mom forced on me for a wedding. I don't have many pictures to prove this thanks to my passionate hate for cameras then (haha. u may stop rolling on the floor now)

Nothing too dramatic, a regular stupid teenager who moved around a lot.
Then I was almost 18. The semi-late blooming wild child. The first taste of parental freedom. The tighter sealing of the Foursome friendship.

















And suddenly I'm 21. A head full of thoughts and decisions that will drive the next decade or so.
Last year I thought I had grown numb to nearly everything. Now I take time to weigh things out. I can find credit in the lowest things. I can pick out the "happy" things in most circumstances easier now.






It's strange though, watching others around you evolve too.

I think back to when you would practice the song til you had it memorized. When one of the biggest issues was whether we could all make it for practices.
And when it was easier to reach out to God.
We went off to college/uni and I guess everything changes at that point of life in general.
Do you still feel? Despite all the garbage, can you filter everything and take what's good? I guess what I'm just trying to say is - Who Are You Now?

hm. yea there doesn't seem to be a good point in this post huh. and i'm too lazy to edit til it makes more sense. heh.
i smell shisha. *investigate*

APU

haha. So Saturday night a bunch of us went to the Sunrise Jazz Fest. Pet, Sarah and I go almost every year to watch the Aseana Percussion Unit (APU) coz well, they're fun to dance to. haha.
Our target band used to be Groove Unction but they've kinda...I dunno actually.
I mean, Mia Palencia's pretty much solo now, John Thomas has his Funk Mob, Rozhan is still in the States, so I assume they've split? They were the absolute best then, though..

Anyhoo, this picture's about Justin (guy in red pants) the cause of Sarah Lim's throbbing heart the past 5years or so..he's a percussionist from APU. lol, too bad you can't see his dreads, they define him kinda. Lydia Kwan is a new fan as of last Saturday.=D

Update: oh ya wanted to put the older jazz fest pics with justin also.haha. you can see his dreads much better here.

Bridal Fair bored us to poserism.

Darren's band Missing Mercury was supposed to play at this Bridal Fair in Klang recently. Sean couldn't make it, though, so Tammy and I ended up replacing him with one song. Basically they were to play loveydovey songs - weddings mah.We rounded up the session quickly, and walked around the mall abit where I found this - New Zealand Natural icecream (i used to work at an outlet) except this one looks so much cooler. sheesh.
We then proceeded outside where we found a "globey-map" thingie - instantly inspiring a round of poserism.

=)

To you-who-shall-remain-unnamed:

These are the good ol' days, my dear. Make the best of them, then you won't have to feel nostalgic about the things you could've but didn't do in the past. eh?

For all it's worth, I'm here. I'm listening. I care.

One good thing about Joni's PMS...

I get this drive to do hard labour. Sometimes I'll spend the entire night sweeping & mopping, or arranging my cupboards. Sometimes I'd focus on a particular assignment, whether personal or educational, and try to finish as much of it as possible. Or I'll just run various errands the whole day. This may sound like a really useful mood. Well, mostly I do like the day I have this mood. But sometimes it seems to come at the wrong time - I want my hardworking spells to come at the beginning of assignments, not at the end. I'm not complaining, just...um..wishing. heh.
pfft.

Coming Soon - what were these clowns up to?

Soon I wannawillmust be able to do this:

Paramore - Misery Business (acoustic)



Flyleaf - I'm So Sick

*crosses fingers*

P.S. I'm actually waiting for JUSTIN LOW to post up the pictures we took after a Bridal Fair performance! AHEM AHEM.