Taking the leap

Going away, I am.

I want to find out if humanity is the same everywhere.

'Cos I'm losing faith here.

Blog on hiatus until forever.

So I went to the Mogwai show...

I'm not a hardcore fan of Mogwai or post-rock, but it's certainly one show I wouldn't miss. I only found out about it three days before the actual show, that's how disconnected I was from the local scene. :)

But anyway, seeing that I am preparing myself for some uncertain future NIN shows, I couldn't help but bring my NIN attitude along to my very first actual concert experience in my 23 deprived years. My friend and I had been lurking around the venue since 3pm and I wanted to queue right then but she said, "This is Malaysia lah...". We ended up lurking around 5pm, and the actual line for ticket holders only started somewhere after 7pm. The show was advertised to start at 8pm. So of course I was bitching about it. Fuckin' inefficient.

Since we managed to be among the earliest to get in, we got a really good, somewhat center-ish rail spot. I clung to the rail with my dear life in case anyone would just carry my 5ft self to the back of the venue. If I had a handcuff, I'd definitely use it to cuff one hand to the rail. Surprisingly, no one came close enough to dryhump me from the back. There was like, a one foot radius between me and the person behind me. Must be my porcupine hair. I also expected it to be hot, but the venue actually felt chilly and I barely sweat.

By the way, security was totally lax. At the door they only checked our bags - no pat down - and a lot of people got away with even SLRs and videocams. But expecting the worst, of course I smuggled my illegal recording device, right where it belonged.

See those peeps in red? I was expecting a version of them at the show, but there was none. NONE! Only the media people scurried in front of me. By now I knew I should have smuggled my big-ass digi cam into the show too...

The band came onstage right as "Sex Dwarf" by Soft Cell ended. Great song, innit? Here's a vid to remind you of its awesomeness:



Turned out I stood right in front of Barry. My friend heard him cursing quietly when his guitar wasn't working during "Hunted by a Freak". Seeing them all, especially Stuart and John, made me feel compelled to sing the Lumberjack Song. Of course I didn't.

While everyone else was stoned, I was too busy trying to take it all in: the band, the stage, the lighting. They were all so into it, I can't remember John ever opening his eyes while Dominic and I headbanged to the same rhythm. 'Cos I stood near enough to the speakers, it really hurt my ears when they suddenly "attacked", though I'm sure it wasn't as bad as for those who actually stood right in front of the speakers, like the people on my right who were literally covering their ears with their hands. I don't remember which song, but a girl clapped during a quiet part 'cos she thought the song had ended. Poor girl. My friend recognized her as the loyal girlfriend who was trying to enjoy the show for the sake of her guy. I envied the people at Stuart's side of the stage 'cos he looked like he was having fun. He said "thank you, thank you very much" after every song. I'm not exaggerating, I got a boobleg of the whole show to prove it.

Again, I'm not a hardcore Mogwai fan, so I didn't recall most of the song names when they were played. ALL of them sounded familiar to me. Here's the setlist.

There was an autograph session backstage right after the show. Again, my friend and I were among the early birds. The Force really wanted us to meet Mogwai. I got a spare white t-shirt in my bag, actually, my Joy Division t-shirt. Seemed like a good idea at the time, until after they had all signed it when I realized I wouldn't be able to wear it again. But it's all for a good cause.

They were thrilled with the shirt. Martin said it was a great honor and when he said "Bloody Curtis", Barry laughed and added "(Curtis)" under his name. Stuart signed it twice. I was lingering around him 'cos I was waiting for my friend and he sort of pulled the shirt from me and signed it again. Made me lol in my heart that he didn't realize his first, bigger signature right in the middle of the shirt. Btw, his fave Closer track is "Decades".

All in all, excellent show. The tameness was surprising though, way too tame compared to my Harry Potter book launch experiences. Guess we Harry Potter fans are a violent flock. Oh, and my post containing my bootleg audio in the Facebook event was deleted. Now I feel like buying some ad time for that sendspace link. Here's a much cooler event page on last.fm, with lots of pictures!

craving for ice cream

On Christmas, I went out with a friend whom I haven't seen for a while. A high school friend, probably the only one that I still maintain regular contact with. But anyway, she mentioned to me that she craved for ice cream that day, but we ended up eating something else.

Anyway, I went out by myself the next day, dragging myself around Bukit Bintang. I was about to go home when I saw a signboard advertising a new ice cream shop on the third floor of Berjaya Times Square. I was near the monorail at that time, the first floor I think, but suddenly I recalled my friend's words and that we were deprived of ice cream the day before. So I jumped on the escalator and made a search for that shop.

Kindori Ice Cream was right smack in front of the Golden Screen Cinemas. Their specialty is fruit ice cream, RM8.90 in a cup and add RM1 for a cone. Basically, you choose a fruit and it'll be crushed together with vanilla ice cream using a machine. I had strawberry and it was good.

BUT. It's exactly the same thing like what Nelson's had some years ago. I preferred Nelson's ice cream too, 'cos I could choose something else to go along with the fruit. My fave was strawberry and cornflakes. And strawberry and cookies. Fuckin' great stuff. Cheap too. But it's not mentioned anywhere on the website. I remember having my last one at the Sungei Wang outlet more than a year ago. Think I'll go there and have a look.

edit: I went and had a look. The product, I dare say, is now obsolete from the entire Nelson's catalog.

No wonder the speed has been bloody shitty

19/12/2008
SERVICE INTERRUPTION IN JITRA , KEDAH

Dear Valued Customers,

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) would like to announce that its telephony and Internet services in Jitra, Kedah and its surrounding areas are currently disrupted, due to cable breakdown.

Restoration work on the affected cables is in progress, and service is expected to resume on 20 December 2008.

TM apologizes for any inconvenience caused by this, whilst at the same time, we would like to assure you that we are doing all that is necessary in order to restore our services as soon as possible. Your patience is much appreciated during this restoration process.

Customers can call TM at 100 or e-mail us at help@tm.com.my for further enquiries or to report any service-related problems.

Thank You.

Today is my birthday

No party today 'cos unlike as usual, the new semester starts after my birthday. I've been spoiled 'cos my friends in university threw me a surprise party two years in a row, but more people know about my birthday this year, thanks to Facebook and NIN.com (two rooms have me as the topic, can you say I'm cool? XD).

I'm not sure if I'll be driving back to KL on Saturday or Sunday. Seems like I can never get enough of being at home, even though I'm deprived of all the foods I've been craving (takoyaki and nachos among others). My classes start on Monday, so it would be a poor choice to travel on Sunday but... =)

So, I've been spending my time at home sleeping with my laptop of course. My remaining two external harddisks died, taking with them hundreds of gigabytes of music and movies. That's my karma for downloading too much. But that's not all, my internal harddisk also died one day, forcing me to get a new one. This baby is 160gb though and I've been feeding it new stuff non-stop.

My online activities this one month are very limited. One thing for sure, I hang out at NIN.com chatrooms ALL the time. I think some history should be disclosed here. When I was in high school some six or seven years ago, IRC was a part of my life. I saw my friends at school, came home only to talk to them again on the phone and chat with them online at night. You can say I had no life. I still don't. After high school, I didn't chat so much anymore. Heck, I didn't even go online for months 'cos I was working - busy making money at minimum wage. I did chat again in my first year of college, but it wasn't frequent and I stopped totally until this NINchat came along. Now I can't even get out from the rooms. Damn you, NIN.com.

I'm totally addicted to the whole site. It's a social networking website, like fuckin' Facebook, but NIN-based. Yup, I even have my own profile page. But the fact that I love the most is that NIN attract fans of ALL ages. This is actually one band where it's cool to have 13-year-old kids to people as old as my mom rocking along as fans. And for once, I've found people who actually know what I'm talking about and they provide me more wonderful things to discover, making me very content indeed because this is the kind of communication that I've been yearning for. We share grief and heartbreak, anger and fear - stuff that most of my real life friends can't accept, thus limiting my relationship with them even further. It's not just about NIN anymore. It's beyond music, it's about everything and everyone, and the community is like a support group now. NINaholics Anonymous, anyone?

Well, I don't know if this is my last post at home. I got too much in my mind but whatever I want to say is not suited to a public blog I guess. After all, this blog is only here to entertain those fuckers who can't be bothered to contact me yet are curious as to how much I am failing at life.

Here's a song I've been addicted to recently:

No world tour?

So... just a day after my previous post, Trent Reznor made an announcement on nin.com. Here's the quote that sums it all:

"The shows we have announced in 2009 and any more that may be announced will be a completely different approach with some different personnel and will likely be the last for the foreseeable future."

Chaos ensued in the website forums. A tour in the UK sounds unlikely now, let alone a world tour. Some even took it as the end of Nine Inch Nails!

We are lucky though to have some humorous fans.

My fave is this though. Still funny on the 10th view:

NIN makes me worry

It's 8:15 in the morning, and I'm worrying about the tour dates for Nine Inch Nails. A world tour seems on the way next year, but so far they've only announced the Australian dates, which I can't attend since they're in February.

It wouldn't be that complicated if I could up and go as I liked, but I couldn't. Budget is a big issue for me - I don't really have it.

So I've been planning to go to the UK 'cos they will tour there for sure. Why UK? My uncle is there, 'nuff said. And now AirAsia has flights to London that are very affordable, but which I can't book yet 'cos I have no passport.

But the problem is, my education will be completed in late April and my graduation is in late August. I don't mind missing my graduation, but I don't even know if they'll be there within that period.

Let's say they will and I can go there, it will be pathetic for me to attend only one show. I mean, I'm going there to see them, right? I'm staying for three months at least, and only one show? Gah...

It's not that they're not coming to Asia - it is a world tour after all - but I can't afford the tickets to and accommodation in Japan, and I'm not sure if they'll go to China or Korea 'cos last year they were there, they performed in festivals. I don't want to catch them in festivals. That will totally suck for me, traveling all the way just to see them perform a few songs.

I can work from now to earn money, but the currency exchange rates will kill me.