Leading the wild into the ways of the man…
HB 
Open Sesame mouth!
Disclaimer: The Xanax and Rivotril depicted in the photos above are not mine. It is in fact, very empty collectibles. Please do not zoom in or squint in any way to verify the veracity of my claims since you’ll most likely find that it is not in fact empty. In any case, I have prescriptions for both from a doctor in KL.
The return of the prodigal son! I flew back to Sibu after nearly a year of being in KL for one sole reason – to attend the wedding of a good friend and ex-classmate I’ve known since high school. Diana is currently living in Australia and came back for the home leg of her wedding reception.
I know her sisters Daphne and Doreen too – we’re all from the same high school. I haven’t seen them for ages and it was fun sitting on the same table together – kinda like old times back in 2005. Diana is the last of the sisters to get married. I’m her age and most of my friends are already hitched. Jesus, either I’m late or they’re early. Hmm…
Back to the wedding, let me produce a montage of images to best represent the night:
Congratulations to Diana and Keith!
Hmm…does this mean I have to call you Mrs. Towsey now? 😉
I went out drinking with Jan, Sam and Shawn on Saturday night after dinner at Bubba Gump. During the course of the night, I consumed enough ethanol to kill a small horse but somehow managed to maintain my sobriety.
It was a night of Bloody Mary’s, absinthe, frozen martinis, shooters, Flaming Lamborghinis and various other cocktails and at the end of the session (and after racking up a staggering RM 566.96 bill); Jan got rather inebriated and fell down while puking on my shoes.
The problem is she fell flat on her face into the tarmac outside Telawi Street Bistro.
I tried to grab her, but missed and scraped my hand instead. Thus, I bundled her into my car sans seatbelt on the front seat while I drove back.
Thank God, Allah, Buddha, Confucius, Gaia, Sol Invictus et al that I didn’t run into any road blocks that night.
I cannot imagine talking my way out of a failed breathalyzer test with a passed out girl in my car. I think it would be a catastrophe of epic proportions if I were stopped by the police. Since I didn’t get apprehended, the damage level has been downgraded to merely tragic. 😉
There has been a deluge of spoofs on the highly viral and successful Heineken Walk-In-Fridge commercial. One of the funnier ones I’ve seen is the Walking Fridge spoof and all the parody videos share two things in common…Heineken and The Scream (TM).
No, not the painting by Edvard Munch.
It’s the outrageous expression of joy red blooded males manifest by ecstatic screaming. I can’t remember how many spoofs I’ve seen, but if I had RM 1 for every time I’ve seen a parody of the video, I’ll probably be a Datuk by now. Datuk Evil. 😉
I decided to make my very own spoof video, and enlisted the help of the Kamen over lunch at Chili’s one fine Saturday afternoon at MidValley. The script was scribbled on a piece of paper (kindly furnished by the waitress) and we discussed it over drinks (the final scene is actually in Chili’s – a test run of sorts).
I tucked the script (the technical term for this is “piece of paper with my scribbles”) into my front pocket for safekeeping and we proceeded to purchase several bottles of Heineken before getting my car. Thus armed, we drove outside MidValley coz I wanted the mall as the backdrop – Dr, I mean Datuk Evil’s lair of operations, where nefarious activities and ridiculously low demands of ransom in lieu of totally annihilation are conducted.
I parked in front of The Gardens, hoping that we’ll have time to film the entire take without mall security shooing us away. I didn’t have a nifty red button to open up a trapdoor to send unwelcome mall cops into the fiery depths of my basement so it’s a good thing that we wrapped everything up with no unwanted attention. 😉
Except for this dude who was washing the windows of The Garden’s office block…he actually offered to let me go up on his contraption for filming and I would have agreed if not for this:
I was parked in front of a no parking sign and would have to beat a hasty retreat if asked.
It was really fun, Kamen came dressed to the nines coz she just came from a law debate so I cast her as a combination of Number 2 and Frau Farbissina. We actually took turns filming each other, passing the digicam back and forth for each scene and I must say that the end result turned out surprisingly well.
Check it out for yourself:
Heineken: RM 7:49 x 4
Bottle opener: RM 10.40
Saving the planet: PRICELESS
Heineken – SERVING SAVING THE PLANET
It’s surprising how good ideas come in little scraps of paper. 🙂
The first time I’ve been exposed to local music was through the song Isabella by Search. It was quite popular during my time (was in primary school then) and it was the first Malay song I listened to and could sing snippets of. The chorus at least…
I don’t play the guitar and I’ve gotten most of the lyrics but I shall attempt to recreate the song here anyway:
Okay, perhaps I shouldn’t quit my day job.
Nevertheless, local music has grown by leaps and bounds since then. I’ve started listening to local bands like OAG and more recently Zee Avi.
I grabbed a guitar from the office and just like buttered bread always lands on the buttered side, my Senior Manager (of all people) walked down, heard the pandemonium that was me trying to hit a High C and failing terribly, and glared at me.
Just look at how paranoid I was in the video! True, you don’t get any prizes for voting for your favorite bands, but hey, the world would be a much better place if everyone tones down the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) mentality.
Just surf over to Channel X MTV World Stage and vote for your favorite indie bands by downloading their Call Me Tones. The top 3 indie bands with the highest download will get a chance to perform at the MTV World Stage Pre-Show at 4.30pm, 15 August at Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach. The voting ends 14 August so get cracking!
Just follow these simple steps to download the Call Me Tones:
1. Type CMT<space><Song Code>
2. Send to 22990
And to subscribe to Call Me Tones:
1. Type ON CMT
2. Send to 22990
Give them a chance to perform at the MTV World Stage. The All-American Rejects, Hoobastank, Boys Like Girls, Pixie Lott, Raygun, Estranged and Kasabian will all be there!
Don’t tell me that indie rock is dead…
Support your local indie bands!
I guess a lot of people would consider it a less-than-masculine trait to express feelings of affection towards someone as “uncool” as a parent. I don’t really care though – my dad is my greatest inspiration in life. He embodies agape – unconditional love. He lives his life with very solid moral principles.
My dad came from an underprivileged family. He didn’t have much to work with but managed to put himself through university by working hard for two years. He believed in education – so much so that he was the first Chinese to graduate with honors in Chemistry from UM (University Malaya – it was quite prestigious back in the days).
He got job offers from Shell as soon as he graduated, but he turned down the high paycheck coz he wanted to make a difference. He wanted to educate. He enrolled in a teaching college and worked his way up, rank and file, to become a principal of the biggest high school in Sibu.
I remember travelling with him when I was a kid. He made it a point to save up for at least one annual family vacation on his meager teacher’s salary. He believed in sacrifice – I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for him to put two (2) of his kids through university. He just wanted the best for me and my sister.
I was shipped off to Christchurch, New Zealand when I was 15, together with my sister (she’s 2 years older – I only have one sibling) for high school and despite that disastrous incident, he still held on to one thing…he had faith in me and believes that I am a good person and would make the right choices in life.
Let me elaborate…I fell in with a gang in NZ and had to beat a hasty retreat after an unfortunate incident where one person was seriously injured during a home invasion. It wasn’t a robbery, it was a gang related attack which I was privy to (and participated in). Unfortunately, I didn’t know that the goal was to actually attempt to take the life of the other party.
To cut a long story short, the person whom we attacked nearly died and we got a text message the next day from the leader to lay low. Several of us decided to fly back home. I was one of the lucky ones…we made it out. The rest were arrested and sentenced from 2-20 years in jail for assault.
My dad knew I was in some kind of trouble since I didn’t want to go back to NZ so he arranged a path for me to go to Australia instead. He never pushed me for details; he never pried into my private life. He knew I a drug user and despite that, loved me the best that he can.
There is one incident that stands out in my mind. I was just a teenager and on IRC (remember that?) and since he’s the principal of the biggest school in Sibu, some dudes started thrash talking about him.
I got sooooo pissed off that I grabbed a parang from the back of my house and drove straight out with a challenge for that gang to meet me at Pedada. My dad actually woke up and he wondered what I was doing. I told him I was out to meet some friends. This was at 2 am mind, so I don’t think he believed me…but I went alone, with my edged weapon, ready to take on any amount of people who defiled his name.
They never showed up. >.<
I also remember the time when I attempted to kill myself, and the psychiatrist subdued me with an unknown substance (it’s not a benzodiazepine – I’m seriously super tolerant so it’s gotta be something else, something much stronger) so much that I fell asleep on the wheel chair from ICU to SGH (where they intended to bring me to the famous psychiatrist hospital dubbed 7th Mile by Kuching people).
You know, I was so groggy that I couldn’t answer their questions and slept the entire night.
When I woke up at 7 am on suicide watch, my dad and my mom waltzed into the hospital ICU with a look of concern on their faces. I felt sad, nay, devastated at the grief I had caused them. My dad didn’t say anything, he didn’t judge, he didn’t lecture.
He just pulled me into a bear hug and said:
I’m glad you’re alive. I don’t know what I would have done without you.
Yes, he is balding. Yes, he lacks height. However, he is MY BIOLOGICAL FATHER and I would give my life for him.
He’ll do the same for me, without even a nanosecond to think.
…and that’s why I’m nominating him instead of someone I barely know.
Do you know someone who stands up to challenges in life against all odds? Nominate the unsung heroes at Honda – Our Challenging Spirit.
I have preached again and again about the importance of having a digicam with you at all times. Unfortunately, I am not exactly known for practicing what I preach, often with disastrous results. A friend of mine called me out for dinner but he was struck down by a bout of food poisoning so it was just Jojo, Stephanie and me.
I didn’t know which Jojo it was until I arrived and nearly drove the 23 km back to grab my dSLR. It was Jojo Struys and Stephanie Chai! Alas, armed with only my crappy cell phone camera, I couldn’t really take good photos but Jojo was kind enough to use her Blackberry to take photos and email it to me.
This is why you should lug your dSLR everywhere you go. You just never know who you’re going to meet.
Thanks for buying me dinner Jojo! 🙂
Kampua mee is to Sibu what char kueh tiaw is to Penang. There are a lot of good kampua places here but the best is arguably the one beside the fire station, dubbed Ang Kao kampua (Monkey kampua) after the owner’s nickname. I believe most of the locals here know about the income tax fiasco and the buzz that the owner drives two luxury cars, one of them a Mercedes, despite being a “humble kampua stall owner”.
Word on the street is, one day some people from the IRB came in and sat there posing as customers, with an increment clicker to count how many plates of kampua they serve on an average day, tallied against their reported income. The discrepancy was so colossal, no amount of hyperbole can sufficiently describe it, and thus the owner was slapped with a huge fine.
I am not sure about the veracity of the story, but if it’s true, this has made the proprietors understandably wary about people with monitoring devices in general. I was asked if I was a reporter when I waltzed in and started taking photos of the place, and although they are friendly people, I had the distinct impression that they would not take it very well if I had stated that I represent the IRB. Heh!
However, the kampua is the best in town. This is the classic version of kampua mee – the flavor comes primarily from pork lard and shallots. It’s served with finely diced spring onions and char siew.
Monkey Kampua also serves a mean dish of pork liver soup. It’s mixed with pork balls in this photo but kampua is versatile in the sense that you can order it with pien nuk (pork dumplings), in soup (ching tang mien) and with pork liver (tu kang in the local dialect).
I like mine with soy sauce and chilli sauce. The accepted vernacular for this is kampua puak lak puak tau yu and should be preferably vocalized with an appropriate Foochow accent.
My only beef with this place is that they don’t serve beer. 😉
I flew back to Sibu on Saturday and was surprised to see the sheer amount of people donning masks at the airport. I presume this is to avoid getting infected with H1N1 but I find the lack of basic knowledge about the efficacy of face masks appalling.
You can’t prevent someone from passing H1N1 to you by wearing these. They are perfectly healthy people, mind. It’s more about not transmitting it to others by containing particles when you sneeze or cough.
Either way, it’s the wrong kind of mask. This kind won’t make an iota of difference.
Greetings from Sibu! I was nearly late for my flight yesterday for the very obvious reason detailed in the photo below, which I’m sure requires no further explanation.
On another note, my relationship status has changed from Single to It’s Complicated (TM). 😉
Okay la, In a Relationship with Jan.
