Hey ho anyone who sees this.
I'’ve got a new blog in blogspot called urban crate. It’s gonna focus more on fashion, music, food, that sort of stuff. Gonna keep this open for any personal rants, hehe. Do give it a visit

This is in reference to a blog post that I came across moments ago. There is a blogger who finds it preposterous that the Chinese and Indian Christians, who despite being unable to string a proper sentence in our national language, would vehemently defend the use of a certain A-word in the national language editorials. He goes on to conjecture that behind this rally is a veiled sinister motive on the Church’s part.

I have decided not to post my comments in his blog as I know the trouble that have arisen from blog comments. Furthermore, this is a rather sensitive issue that could raise the ire of his angry (possibly similarly misled) readers. I am not trying to stoke any fires, for I myself am no religious zealot with sufficient knowledge. I simply aim to clarify from my point of view as a regular Catholic.

I am already aware of this conspiracy which has caused fear in certain communities. I can quite safely consider it a conspiracy, at least when it comes to my church (a catholic church). The current nature of the Catholic Church practices provides little basis for this conspiracy accusations. That said, I cannot speak for other churches and if ever it was true, the extent of it.

As a non-Christian, this blogger in question is probably unaware of the differences of practices between various churches and the unlikelihood of the Catholic Church’s involvement. Perhaps because of that, he seems to have linked the Catholic Church’s A-word issue and the conversion conspiracy together in his acrimonious blog post.

Here is my response…

First of all, cool down.

Second of all, I think you may need some clarification.

The church in question that is embroiled in this issue is basically the Catholic Church, one of which publishes the newspaper The H-.
The H- is a multilingual section that includes English (mostly), Chinese, Tamil and surprise surprise, Bahasa Malaysia. Some of you may be quick to jump into conclusion that it is aimed at converting the lot of you. But have you forgotten of the non-Muslim bumiputeras? The Sabahan/Sarawakian/Orang Asli? They exist too, you know. And anyone could guess that their language command in BM is the strongest. Apparently they use the A-word when praying, hence explaining the newspaper’s usage of that word in its articles. Sorry to burst your bubble, but editorials in the national language are for their benefit and not yours.

I am not a religious academic and I’ll leave it to them to debate on the right to use the word. But what bothers me is that you insinuate that the motive behind its usage is mass conversion.

One other thing you should know is that the Catholic church is comparatively passive when it comes to converting non-Christians. Even activities to convert the Chinese and Indians aren’t many as compared to other churches. All my years growing up as a Catholic, seldom was there a concrete mission to set out to convert the non-Christians, much less to convert the lot of you.

I have heard of rumours of conversion attempts by secretly making people drink our ‘holy water’, and I cringe at the ridiculousness of it. Holy water is used to bless a person and does not possess magical powers. To utilise it to trick a person into conversion would be sacrilegious and bordering on witchcraft. When I read about the news of fake SMSes of a mass conversion service which turns out to be a First Holy Communion (a rite of passage for young Catholics) service, I shake my head in disbelief.

I really would like to know what is the basis of your strong unwavering conviction that we are out to get you?

I am surprised that I am still feeling the way I do right now. I have always thought that I have matured, that I have outgrown this sense of insecurity. But tonight has just proved that I merely went one big circle and now I am back at square one.

I truly detest feeling like this. I never expected this feeling to return after so many years. I find myself realizing over and over again that I am still so naive. Now is one of those moments. I thought that by coming back to KL, my problem would be solved. But my situation in KL now is no different from when I left it 3 years ago, if not even worse. Maybe I can be completely irrational and blame KL and its self centered attitudes as the source of my predicament. I now theorize that people like me can never be happy in a place like KL. But what if moving out of the city/country does not guarantee me the life that I want to live? What would become of me then?

I have to tell myself over and over that there will never be any one event in my life that can change my life totally. No such thing as, “I am finally [rich/looking good/have got a Master’s/migrated/married] now, so life’s gonna be perfect from now on”. Things will not change, because there are some things I cannot change. I cannot change people’s opinions, I can’t make them accept who I am, much less like me for being me.

Maybe the problem lies with me. My attitudes and my decisions in life. If I had a different attitude towards relating with others, would things go differently? If I was brave enough to choose another major, to leave my job, to totally start over, things would have been better? Life seems to be full of “if’s” that we’ll only find out when we are brave enough to do it. Would I be brave enough to take the leap and let go of it all, the financial and job security my current life provides me?

I am already nearing a quarter of a century in this world, and yet I am still such an idealist to accept the harsh truths of this world. And until today I still think that by leaving one place, so would my problems. When will I learn? And more importantly, how?

God,
grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

This must be my prayer every day until I start to change the things I can. Perhaps until I am brave enough to choose the path I want, I will never find the type friends I have been hoping for. That may be wishful thinking, because for all we know such persons only exist in movies and books. What I do know is that I do not wish to spend my weekend feeling this way ever again.

This girl is Lykke Li. She’s an indie singer from Sweden. Don’t ask me how to pronounce her name.
There isn’t much info that I could dig from my favourite Wikipedia, it seems like she’s still quite a well-kept secret from the virtual indie masses (for now). I haven’t heard too many of her songs yet (only “Little Bit”, “I’m Good, I’m Gone”, and “Tonight”), so it’s premature for me to compare her to other existing female indie artistes. From my early observations, her voice is breathy like Annie, with a bit of Robyn-like attitude. Her musical style isn’t completely electronic or pop like both aforementioned artistes. It possessed more of an indie Feist-like feel to it, but being Swedish, also had elements of Peter, Bjorn and John (Bjorn produces her album) as well as tinges of The Knife.

All I wish to share is that she sounds terrific live, as I discovered while browsing for ‘Later with Jools Holland’ videos on youtube.

If you have time on your hands, I suggest watching all three versions of her first single, “Little Bit” in the order I gave you.

There is something about the Jools Holland version that is so astounding. I suspect that it is due to their ability to use the simplest of musical instruments (hand claps, foot taps, toy piano both as melody and percussion, finger cymbals, tambourine) to create a stripped down yet mind-blowing performance. Minimal, lo-fi, yet groundbreaking- quintessentially Swedish. The street performance is slightly similar, only in a more open and therefore louder setting. Finally, try listening to the album version which I feel sounds so contrasting to the acoustic versions that it lends a markedly different mood to the song. I also linked to a website containing her mp3 downloads for good measure, in case anyone got hooked to the song (like me).

Little Bit
_live on ‘Later with Jools Holland [video]
_performing on the street in Närkesgatan, Södermalm i Stockholm. [video]
_official music video [video]
_unofficial artiste profile with mp3 [link]

But wait, there’s more! If you decided that you like her music and wanna check out her second single, “I’m Good, I’m Gone”, here are the links to her the song performed again in three different settings. Sorry, no mp3 links for this one (personally didn’t feel compelled to look up the mp3).

The first version is some sort of a collaborative effort between Swedish musicians for this acoustic version. This video is directed by Ted Malmros who directed the famed P,B&J “Young Folks” music video. This version is actually quite synergistic with all the different elements contributed by each artiste gelling coherently.
The second version is done in the toilet(!) with amazingly good results. A very original take, unusual is the usual, as again you see them utilizing unorthodox items as musical instruments: spoon, ceramic sink, water faucet, soap dispenser, and finally the flush(!).
The final version is the official video. No weird percussions this time, but a very well made video nonetheless.

I’m Good, I’m Gone
_acoustic version feat. Robyn, Shout Out Louds, Concretes, Laakso [video]
_bathroom version from soundvenue [video]
_original version [video]

Here’s hoping that she will achieve wider success. While I sadly doubt her songs would make it here, I still hope she gets heard in the US, Europe and maybe Japan. Meanwhile, we Malaysians have to contend to listening to US-based commercial pop female artistes on the radio, some of whom only need 5 musical notes to create a hit song (hint: She was recently in Malaysia).

Occasionally in conversation, a person may say something like, “Maybe he/she is just not cut out to be a _____(fill in the blank)”. Oft times, I would retort by defending that person, as I am an idealist who believes that anyone can achieve anything (varying only in terms of amount of time and effort put in). Today, I can set aside my beliefs and make an exception to the rule for the franchise holders of the above mentioned restaurant here in Kuala Terengganu.

Here’s why:

As my housemate and I were pretty sick and tired of what the so-called city of Kuala Terengganu had to offer in terms of epicurean pursuits, we decided to try out this place called Mama Chops Papa Grill (sic) for the first time. Undeterred by the fact that there was only one other table occupied on a weekend night (and that it was a WWF-certified mosquito breeding locale), we sat ourselves on one of the tables and someone took our order. Three of us had ordered the ice-blended chocolate, and we patiently waited for our food and drinks to arrive while chatting happily and swatting mosquitoes.

As we had some pretty good iced coffee drinks just the night before at the Heritage Bay Club, I was eager to see how today’s drinks would compare to yesterday. So I took the first sip and that got me thinking: ‘This isn’t ice blended chocolate, there’s too much ice in it.’ And then I took the second sip, and that got me thinking: ‘This isn’t ice blended chocolate, this is ice blended bloody COFFEE with too much ice in it!‘. So we called the guy who made the drinks over and told him about it.

He went back to check and returned to us, saying that he used the chocolate powder sachets and not the coffee ones. We argued that it tasted of coffee and nothing of chocolate, but still he insisted. At this point, our friend Medic Angel was already getting pretty agitated and snapped back, “I know what ice blended chocolate is, and this is not ice blended chocolate”. We left it at that, Medic Angel and I changed our orders to apple juice while Mr J stayed put with his coffee flavoured chocolate drink.

So they took away our ice blended, our juice came and we ate, we chatted, we scratched our mossie bites, we swotted mossies…bla bla bla.

Then comes the dramatic part, at the cashier counter. When it was my turn to pay and I was telling the cashier what I had, the cashier smilingly told me in BM,

“You do know that you still have to pay for the ice blended chocolate that you ordered right?”

“Yeah like totally, ‘cause you’s already drunk from the ice blended chocolate, so you’s gonna have to pay for it, little schmuck.” (Haha I exagerrate, she actually spoke very politely to me.)

I was too confused at this moment. So I went,

“But I already cancelled that, that’s why I changed it to apple juice.”

To that she replied,

“Since you ordered apple juice after your ice blended, you will have to pay for both. We are already charging you only half the price of the ice blended drinks.”

What in bloody hell?
I said,

“But I did not have the ice blended, how could you charge me for it?”

And then the coup de grace came from an older lady with authority, the lady boss I presume:

“But you had already taken a sip from it, hadn’t you? We can’t take it to sell it to others now. ”

And that’s my fault? By now, my face was flushed with fury and I raised my voice, saying:

“OF COURSE I had to taste it to know that what you served was coffee and not chocolate. I sent it back because it wasn’t chocolate. Why do I have to pay for something that wasn’t ice blended chocolate?”

You dumbf**k!
Idiotic lady boss went on,

“I am telling you that that was the chocolate flavour. The sachet has already been opened.”

Hello, the drink was RM3.00, so the cost price for the sachet was what? 50cents? And you are holding ME responsible for your shitty coffee masquerading as chocolate?

I was so furious that I could not think straight, all I knew was that I didn’t want to reason with retards who had an altered sense of business logic. So I paid for them stupid drinks and f’ked out of the restaurant for the first and last time.

It was only after we got into the car and started talking had I realised two things:
1. The idiotic waiter who made the drinks and got our apple juice order did not tell us that they would still charge us for the apple juice
2. The idiotic waiter who made the drinks also TOOK AWAY OUR SHITTY ICE BLENDED before our apple juice came!

At that point, I was ready to march back into the restaurant and demand for the shitty ice blended that we paid but never had, even if only to throw it back in their faces. But logic got the better of me, because to do so was solely to get even and vent out my frustrations. Trying to infiltrate one or two rules about customer service into that incompetent numbskull of hers would be a futile attempt.

If she did know a thing or two about business, it is that the customer is always right. If she wanted someone to take the blame for coffee flavoured chocolate, she should take it out on the supplier and not her customers.
And what a way to drive away customers, by asking them to pay for something they didn’t drink.

Who does she think her customers are? Weaklings who accept whatever crap you serve them, also handicapped with retarded taste sensors that cannot even differentiate between coffee and chocolate?
I don’t know how things work in this state, but over in the west coast there is such thing as consumer rights. I suggest this woman to read up on this topic at once, before she loses more customers.

The more I live in this place, the more I realise one thing. People here are too tolerant, so much so that they accept whatever ANYONE gives to them, be it a pile of gold or dog poo. They don’t complain when they have to wait in 1 hour queues, they don’t sue when medical professionals misconduct, they don’t even honk when a car approaches recklessly. As an effect, they themselves expect others to be tolerant of them. They park indiscriminately, they don’t flush the toilets, they cut queues. Since they can accept being inconvenienced, they feel that it is ok to inconvenience others too.
This woman must be mistaken to have thought that we were also one of those who would readily accept the dog poo she served us. One thing for sure is that I am never going back into that place in this lifetime.

So anyone reading this, if for any reason you happen to be in Kuala Terengganu for work or play, are hungry and see a franchise of MCPG by the roadside, please keep this unfortunate first-hand account in mind.

Some people can be such sore losers.
Kecil hati.

Photo by Chris Astley

The Upgrader on men.style.com just came out with their latest feature on old school canvas sneakers. By the time I had reached slide 12 of the slideshow, I was hyperventilating (literally).

If I were to own even 10 of the total 18 sneakers mentioned there, I am certain I would die without regrets. I blame the photographer whose choice in lens, lighting, angle, and zoom tricked me into thinking that each pair is yummy, immaculate and a must-have.

I wonder if it’s Christmas because I have a letter for Santa already.

*On a more realistic note, I am thinking of getting one pair from the 18 that they have featured. Just you wait, Puma/Vans/Tretorn/Keds.

Wardrobe malfunction Part 2

To the OL (office lady) at the LRT station who was wearing Crocs on her way to work: you need divine intervention.

#1.To the fella in the LCCT airport wearing an LV cap and holding an LV sling bag, LV trolley bag and LV duffel bag: you’re not convincing anyone that you’re a jet-setter.

What kind of person would openly declare their love for fake leather goods? Go figure.

#2. To the person in KL Sentral who was wearing an Adidas sweater in the sweltering heat, with beads of sweat trickling down her forehead: I pity you.

Sweaters are meant to keep people warm in COLD WEATHER.

Fashion victims, all!

Don’t you just love it when you discover something new?
A little coffee shop that serves fantastic char kuay teow that only you know about, perhaps?
What about a bar packed with sweet 20-somethings with great music but no cover charge?
In the same vein, I just made a rewarding discovery over the weekend. It’s the musical misfits who call themselves by many names (just like God, or the Devil) : 2 Many DJ’s/Soulwax/Flying Dewaele Brothers/Samantha Fu/Kawazaki. I refer to them as Soulwax because that is the moniker by which I was acquainted with.

I do not want to introduce their music any further without first introducing the aforementioned interesting piece of mashup. Imagine: Nirvana’s “Smells like teen spirit” on one side, Destiny’s Child’s “Bootylicious” on the other. Head on collision. Would never work rite? Try giving the song a listen, then reconsider.

To listen:
1.Visit this website.
2.Click on the heading that says “JUKEBOX”.
3.Scroll through the leftmost column that says “Audio” until you reach ‘Soulwax Mashups’.
4.Click on the song title “Smells like Booty (Nirvana vs Destiny’s Child)”.

After listening to that explosive track, you’d probably reckon that these fellas spend their musical career ripping off other people’s music and call it their own. If you did, then you are right in a sense. But mind you, they do it with a can of whoop-ass.
Soulwax is an electro-alternative band, and by the looks of their discography, they did tonnes of covers, remixes and mashups of other bands songs. They are also musicians in their own right who create fantastic music of their own as well.
I like the way their bad(-ass?) electric guitar riffs and thumping bass and driving rhythms seem to give a midas touch in pushing the energy levels of the original song through the roof. They remake many songs that were originally tame indie or pop standards with a mean rock ‘n roll twist, which is what I like.

If you don’t believe me, browse the jukebox and check out some other tracks they did. Some notable ones that I had time to hear were:

1. The Gossip’s “Standing in The Way Of Control” (Soulwax Nite Version)
2. The Clash vs Basement Jaxx mashup “Magnificient Romeo”
3. Kyluss Minogue “Can’t get you out of my head”
4. Sugababes “Round Round”

I am certain you’d be, at least, tapping your feet to either of them songs. Provided, you are a fan of indie/electronica/indie-electro/dance music. My earlier exposure to indie-electro music had resulted in me abandoning this subgenre in favour of their separate genres (indie and electronica), concluding this subgenre as a dull, unimaginative offshoot that would be hard-pressed to bring the house down. Discovering such fresh sounds now however, prompts me to reconsider my position on this type of music. Thank you, Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1, for featuring them in 2005, and re-featuring them in 2007. You always know how to cheer up a disappointed music fan.

KL clubbing event managers, bring them in and I’ll kiss your shoes. I got enough of the lame stuff I’ve been fed with lately.

I am sure all of you guys have watched the Petronas ad above already. It features a school boy who did not draw a picture of a reunion dinner during his art class period (Reason? Watch the ad). I first came across this ad yesterday night at the tomyam restaurant I frequent. LY and I were having a quick bite before I sent LY to catch the bus back to KL. I got a bit emo after watching the whole ad (which festive season Petronas ad won’t have that effect on you?), suddenly yearning for the next bus back home. Unfortunately, I had to wait until this afternoon because I chose to work on the morning half of Chinese New Year eve.I had to do this in order to earn the whole of next week off. I was the last of non-local staff to leave this so-called ‘city’ for their respective hometowns/cities.

The feeling of working on 30th night (CNY eve) is not a good feeling AT ALL. Already there is an exceptionally low numbers of Chinese staff in my hospital, insufficient to get you into festive mood. It got worse when my other colleagues kept asking me,”You haven’t gone back yet ar? Strange, all the rest of the Chinese staff are already on leave”. Then I’ll explain to them why. With a kanasai feeling in my gut. And it was true, at work today I felt like the only non-local Chinese left in KT, let alone the hospital.

The same goes for my flight back to KL this afternoon. While there are usually quite a number of Chinese to be seen checking in at the airport, today I was the only one in the KT airport and in the KT-KL flight. Even upon arriving in KLIA and in the KLIA Transit, I could count in one hand the number of Chinese people I saw.

Don’t misunderstand my sentiments as racism. It’s not about wanting Chinese people near me.
It’s just that their absence made me wonder that by working on 30th night, did I appreciate CNY less than them? Hence am I less Chinese?

It felt like I was losing out while the other Chinese are already back home either ‘lepak’-ing or helping prepare for the big dinner. I began to question whether I should have sacrificed my long break instead of sacrificing half of my 30th night.

And so I have decided to make the most out of my long break here in KL. Made sure that my 10 days back here would more than make up for a largely missed 30th night. After the CNY din is over, it’s gonna be all about movies, shops, food and hopefully some artsy fartsy event. Earlier, I was flipping through magazines and drifted through blogs to look for a nice place for a get-together lunch this weekend. I ended up discovering a myriad of KL food, fashion and art scene through these trusty magazines and blogs. How much I have been missing out on. I always fail to realise how much I miss KL until I return here.
I need to get my transfer back, no matter what.
I must, I must, I must, I must, I must.

But for now, I am just glad I have a home to return to celebrate 30th night. Hope you are too. GXFC, people!

Footnote: Check out how this moving ad came about