Ouch! Ouch! ARGHH! Ouch..

shucks.. woke up aching all over..

had my IPPT yesterday....

AND I PASSED!!! YEYYYYY!

those who know me and knowz how lazy i am.. will know what a great feat that was for me kkkkkk....

damn.. i had been lazy for centuries.. in terms of exercising lah.. i think this is a good catalyst for me to start running...

i think lah.. dunno whether that thinking will lead to actions or not.. i got myself a treadmill 2 months back.. and the only time i used it was to test it after fixing it up..

ok.. anyway.. yesterday.. after reservist.. went down to tampines mall had dinner at coffee bean with her.. and thatz it..

supposed to meet the band at 3+.. but now change of plans.. i dunno whatz the plans now..

aishy will be there ard 4+..

isha is planning for a meetup with me this evening.. but it seems that the plans seems to clash..

the rest of my band members are coming later in the evenings..

i dunno where and what time i'm meeting who now.. coz all plans are in a mess.. damn..

i'm a last minute planner.. but i hate it when ppl plan with me at the last minute..

Police! Come out with your hands up!

ermz.. chey.. i changed the blog title of the entry oso..

ok.. anyway.. today is my first day of Reservist.. or as they call it now.. National Servicemen. the budak budak NS are now known as National Servicemen, Fulltime.. supposedly, by them not calling us Reservist officers will make us work harder.. so sorry.. *THAT* will take a longgggg time before it happens..

first two days in Clementi Police Station before i have to be deployed elsewhere..

anyway, i wont be blogging much details abt my reservist coz i'm not supposed to.. so itz just some general stuffs abt it..

itz nice going for reservist anyway.. a change of environment from my workplace.. at least got different things to do for the next 2 weeks.. just that i hate doing IPPT and we dont have much choice on what we wanna do as a reservist officer...

actually.. not even as regulars or NSF.. as long as u are in the Force, do what the Force wants u to do..

another thing is that.. WE CAN'T SMOKE. wth.

but itz nice meeting old friends.. especially coz my troop had been together for several years.. and itz a matter of keeping tally on who got how many kids and how old they are.. and whether is Zul married and who is he dating now..

I met with my old good friend, my Corporal when i was doing my National Service.. now a Senior Station Inspector in the Investigations unit.. so we sat down for an hour over coffee and catch up on the updates of our lives.. our ritual for the past years, everytime i do my reservist there..

at 4.45, i left, had a haircut there, and bought a pair of Nike Air running shoes for my IPPT tmrw..

from City Hall, we walked towards Esplanade, along Penin, Memo, and walked along Esplanade.. then towards Marina Shopping Centre..

went down to Rastafari.. and everytime i go there.. i end up buying stuffs that i dont need.. so i bought a pair of yellow Jamaica shirts, and a jacket and a choker with a Rastafari-colored fishbone..

along the way out... came across 3 guys from Queenstown NPC, where i do my yearly reservist.. and will be meeting them in 2 days time... one of the fellas, Stanley.. had quit from the Force.. another one is quitting soon..

had dinner at the Makansutra place at Esplanade.. had stingray.. again.. as it was yesterday at Lau Pa Sat with some of the rest which i will mention later..

it wasnt fantastic.. and the sambal wasnt fantastic.. actually.. wasnt good either...

but the reason why i would never go there again is that..

THEY ARE GOD DAMNED FUCKING RUDE.

fucking ah bengs.

if u guys dont believe me... go there.. and find out for urselves..

why do i keep on getting bad service everywhere i go now? damn.. and itz a good thing that the government is trying to improve the standards in the service sector.. but trust me.. these group of fellas should be tied to a tree and be left to the dogs.

after dinner, we sat down for a while next to the river, then made our back home at abt 10.15.. walked back to City Hall and drove off..

i just got back abt an hour ago..

ok.. backtracking to yesterday..

i had abt 45 mins of sleep in the morning, woke up to send my mom off to airport for her flight to jakarta...

we checked in quite early.. so after that, had breakfast with my dad and mom at the Terminal 1 canteen.. they met their old friends who sell makan there.. and i sat there eating my bean curd while listening to old stories..

the old man was a national soccer team captain in the 60s! in the same squad with samad alipichay! damn.. aint that cool... my mom and dad confirmed it..

and he told me the story of how he survived cancer of the lungs.. went thru operations, and several chemotherapy sessions before he decided that he cant bear the pain of the treatment and would rather die.. then they found out that his cancer was gone.. and that was like 15 yrz back.. and he looks healthy to me..

after my mom left, i went home and slept..

we were supposed to meet Yazid and assist him appeal to LTA at Sin Ming, then go to ikea, then go to library.. but Yazid called and said that he had to work, so we postponed that..

we had lunch at Macdonald's at Commonwealth.. the one with the small park and a pond.. i had always liked that place.. nice ambience.. quiet.. and used to hangout there when i was in secondary school..



the pond.. itz a nice place.. really.. but my fav Macdonald's is at West Coast Park..
thatz the nicest Macdonald's ever..

walked ard IKEA for a while, and i got 2 blind curtains (fabric, not those plastic shutters kind of blind.. and some other stuffs which i needed and i dont need..

went down to Esplanade to meet Hamdy and Shida and Mas (Shida's bf? i think so.. )

Din came down later, and soon after, Meraj arrived..

oi Din.. lu tengok mana?



ni monyet terlepas dari Tekong..

we went up to the rooftop terrace to lepak there..



at the rooftop terrace..

at abt 9, Shida and Mas left, and the rest of us headed down to Lau Pa Sat..
dont attempt to eat that unless u have a high tolerance of chilli+gunpowder+volcanic lava..

eh.. the satay was from stall 13.. but the stingray was from another stall which i dunno..

but then again, the conclusion of 2 stingray eating days.. if u want good, and assuredly not dissapointing stingrays, GO NEWTON!

and after a long time, i lost my way.. dunno why.. i somehow just forgot the directions there..

and no.. itz not a sign of aging, u bastards.. stop commenting abt that in ur minds..

ok.. had a nice day..

i'm actually so so stoned now.. and dread going for IPPT tmrw.. i dont intend to pass anyway..

Live & Loud

hmm.. ok.. today's the gig day... Live & Loud 2005... at Toa Payoh South CC..

actually i played without knowing the title of the gig.. i think no one does anyway.. i just found out the title a few minutes ago..

it was kinda weird.. of all places... Toa Payoh?

ok.. anyway, we had a song that we wanted to play but we have not practiced.. so we jammed this afternoon..

woke up at 10.30, instead of 10 as i planned.. coz today is Noreen (my ex-gf) brother, Izzan's wedding.. planned to go there, and leave by 11.40 for a jamming session at 12.. but since i woke up late.. i went jamming at Yishun first..

arrived at 12.. but the studio wasnt open yet.. so we slacked at the coffeeshop next to it first..



Bapak dengan anak at Bilal coffeeshop next to the jamming studio..

after jamming, I headed down to Noreen's place.. met up with her parents and grandmother and her uncles and aunties.. after so many years not seeing them.. her dad saw me and gave me a hug.. her mom told me that they missed me.. and her grandma cried..

awwww... sweet, isnt it?

that was how close i was with them..

i made my way abt 20 mins later to head down to Toa Payoh for the gig.. Umi and Iqa came out to take the stuffs, and we ended up going to Banquet at Toa Payoh Central for lunch coz we were god damned hungry..

got a call from Nas who just arrived, and she joined us there..

arrived at the CC at 5pm, and the girls started sessioning.. i met up with Aishah and Chuck.. and saw some faces i recognised but i dont know the names..

came in just after Comic Strip performed.. and watched Deviation Of Ska..

At 6, we started playing..

the equipments SUCKED like hell..

the amps sucked.

some of the microphones didnt work.. so the horns played without their sounds being heard properly..

the main microphone wasnt working properly.. so the vox sounded like a robot.. luckily Din pulled it off nicely..

i was warned that the drums will slide.. and it did.. so i had to reset the drums after every song..

the cymbals were like... ermz.. tudung periuk.. i should have brought my own..

the pedal stopped working at the beginning of the first song.. and i played without bass pedal for the rest of the song.. the spring came off and it got stuck.. luckily Hamdy covered with the bass properly.. somehow whenever i screw up, he always managed to cover up my notes.. i dont think he even realised it..

Yazid got his own complains abt the amps and cables and stuffs like that..

according to Din, the organiser requested over and over again for us to do a cover of Hadirnya Cinta.. so we did.. we played it halfway.. just till the end of the chorus, we ended the song.. actually.. i think we should have just continued the song coz the crowd was singing along.. but too bad ah..

and anyway, this is the first gig for Iqa, our new keyboardist.. and funny.. looking at how nervous she was.. relek beb... relek..

deeeeep breathhhh...



Announcing the arrival of our latest Pirate.. Iqa The Keyboardist

we played a total of 6 songs.. and i think this is the least time we took to prepare for a gig.. but it turned out to be ok anyway..

i had fun..



see.. with so much sweat, how not to have fun..



Shida, The Clarinetist-cum-newly-found-backing vocals.. suara halusss je..



Mistaken Pirate's frontman, Din The Lulu..



My troubleshooter, Hamdy The Kotai The Bassist..



Azil the Guitarist-cum-Jantan-Joget



The Horns without Shida, who was at the other side of the stage..
Fiza Trombone
Nas Trombone
Umi Trumpet

a.k.a Tiga Abdul



Ditto, reversed view, with the crowd skanking in front..



Yazid.. SKA BEB.. SKA! *NOT* Metal..

after the gig, slacked around and watched Gen69, a skinhead band.. supposedly doing their last gig.. and Sally's Rejex played at abt 9.. damn.. they are getting so much better now.. very tight.. but they are without horns now.. but they have such a good keyboardist that covered nicely.. and their vox now sounds good..



Generation 69, with the skinheads moshing and bodysurfing.. itz a waste if itz really their last gig..



Sally's Rejex..

we left after Sally's slot, and headed down to Banquet again.. i had to make 3 trips to convey them there.. first the girls.. then the guys.. then Fatin and Hidayu.. who were taking a lift from me to go home..

so you have a chicken, a wolf and elephant.. and one boat.. how do u cross the river full of crocodiles?

just cross lah.. who said u need to bring any of them.. elephants cant ride in boats anyway.. maybe u should just bring the chicken..

some of the guys seemed to be taking a fancy of Fatin.. ok lar.. she is cute.. and now she looked better than the time i saw her at Paradigm.. that time macam kental sikit.. but now she's getting cuter.. dah besar lah katakan anak mak ni..

after that.. sent Fatin and Hidayu back, and i stopped over at my cousin's place coz my mom wanted to borrow her camera... she didnt like digital cameras..

Mom is heading to Jakarta in the morning.. for abt a week.. to initiate the beginning of her Jakarta posting..

will have to wake up in 2 hours time to send her to the airport..

and Rhythm Masala, your equipments sucked. Always trust Lee Kwong Seng for good stuffs.. Keith is damn good.. leave everything to him and he will get it done for u perfectly.. i'd suggest Rhythm Masala people learn from him if they want to do things right.. this fucking set got no fucking soundman either!

and itz $10 per person! i dont think the organisers anticipated the fucked up equipments either..

whatever lah..

I had a nice day at the gig just now.. even with fucked up equipments from Rhythm Masala, we had a lot of fun playing.. especially when the crowd got up and skanked.. thanks to all of u who made it to the gig..

Skavoovie!

I HATE YAMAHA MUSIC STORE IN TAMPINES MALL

ok.. hello.. see.. a title of hatred..

i hate hate hate hate hate yamaha music store in tampines mall..

did a hanoi turnaround flight this morning.. came back in the evening.. and got home, changed and rushed down to tampines mall to get a new pair of drumsticks and my drumming gloves for tomorrow's gig..

which was a mistake.. coz saturday evenings are as full as hell in tampines mall.. took me 20 minutes to get thru the traffic at the side road of tampines mall.. and another 25 mins to get parking..

so by the time i got to the shop, it was 8.45, which i thought was perfectly fine lah.. since they close at 9..

but it seems like they are the only shop in singapore that has opening hours like a johorean shop.. and to think that yamaha is a japanese company?

i entered the shop at exactly 8.45pm..

walked around for a few minutes.. wondering why they switched off their lights so fast, when the sign in front state that they close at 9pm..

i approached one of the male sales staff..

"erms.. excuse me.. i need to buy a pair of drumsticks"

"sorry.. we are closed"

"but itz not even 9pm.. and u guys are not even selling now?"

"even if u want, cannot. register shut down already"

i was like.. WTF?

"i thought u guys close at 9?"

"yes"

"it's not even 9! therez like 10 more minutes!"

"oh.. normally we close before 9"

damn.. what the fuck? am i in Malaysia? no offence to the Malaysian friend of mine ah.. but true mah..

why have the fucking signboard then?

i had disliked the shop way before this.. coz the staff are always rude... unlike the store in Plaza Singapura.. the staff there are REAL musicians who can answer ur questions pertaining to the instruments that u wanna get..

ok.. fine.. so u guys have a habit of closing earlier coz therez no point opening up when therez no customers.. and u, Mr Salesman, might have a dinner date at pizza hut with the ah lian girlfriend of yours..

but WTF????

i saw a salesgirl attending to a chinese couple who was looking at pianos.. and i saw her bringing the couple from one piano to another.. so what happens if they wanna buy the piano? u'll definitely switch ur fucking register on so they can swipe their credit card rite?

WTF?

that's why we like Swee Lee even if they close at 6pm.. they are not rude and they have yearly half price sales, even though i always found out about it the day after the sale..

damn.. i dont have my drumming gloves.. and the problem is that, i have a damn freaking sweaty pair of palms.. so guys.. dont skank directly in front of me.. unless u wanna get a drumstick stuck on ur head..

Hello Sir, Rolex? Omega? DVD? DVD?

ermz.. ok.. i got back from Shanghai yesterday..

or rather.. on Thursday evening.. itz already past midnight now so itz a Saturday..

Arrived at Shanghai in the afternoon, on Wednesday.. and went out to Xiang-yang market with Tun Fatimah, Kelly, Jasmine and Cynthia..

therez a real market there.. at the back, but thatz not where we headed to.. thatz where the locals go to to buy their pork.. or at least.. i think itz pork, from the smell that i got a distance away..

Xiang-Yang market is where u should go to to buy cheap stuffs.. full of foreigners, and i came across a few Malays there too.. and they sound like Singaporean Malays..

it is extremely cold now in these parts of the world.. temperature in the day was at -2 degrees.. so i guess u could imagine how freezing cold it can get..

after arriving in Xiang-Yang, abt 5 minutes later, i made my own way.. coz i didnt want to walk around with the girls as they normally would stop by every shop.. i walked around on my own and bought a belt for myself and a bag and some other stuffs, all within 45 minutes..

spent the rest of the time walking around.. was looking for some stuffs for my mom coz she is going to Jakarta for work.. but couldnt find anything interesting..

The mainland Chinese are very rough in the way they talk and they way they behave.. but they are nice generally..

during my first few times in China, i was taken aback several times coz it seems like they were arguing.. but actually.. itz just a normal conversations that they were having..

You could easily spot the ones who came from places like Mongolia.. u can always differentiate them.. obviously.. and they are normally quieter than the locals.. thatz my opinion anyway..

a lot of the beggars that hang around there are Mongolians as well.. quite a pity.. but their state looks better than those in India, as i had mentioned previously..

u could get a lot of fake stuffs there in Xiang-Yang.. but some of the popular brands had been removed, like Mont Blanc, Louis Vuitton, Prada.. so now itz Kipling, Adidas, Nike..

but dont buy fake shoes.. i dont think itz ever a good idea to do that.. coz fake shoes doesnt ventilate properly, and ur feet will stink at the end of the day.. so i think itz always a good idea to invest in a proper pair of shoes..

some of the vendors will approach the foreigners to buy fake stuffs... Hey Sir, Rolex? Omega? DVD? DVD? sexxxxxxx DVD? nice.. good quality.. HEY SIR.. YOU WANT?

but they dont tout.. they dont disturb u once u say u are not interested..

here's a pic of Xiang-Yang..



no matter how many times you can walk around the market, and how many times u had passed by a certain shop, therez always something that u had missed before that will attract your attention..

but if u are alone, itz hard to stop and look at the stuffs, coz they will pester you to buy..

once the price had been given to you, and normally, the prices are absurd, bargain. heavily.

the belt was quoted to me at 180 Reminbi.. which is abt $35.. and i started bargaining at 25 Reminbi.. which is $5.. finally got it at 40 Reminbi.. which is $8..

see the difference?

and never assume that the price that u get will be the same price that ur friend will get... to us, itz always like a game bargaining.. sometimes u win.. and get it at a really cheap price... sometimes u leave the shop feeling dumb..

i think if i would have stick to a bargain, i might get the belt at 25 Reminbi.. but what is $3 to us anyway..

I walked around Xiang-Yang for abt 2 hours looking for the girls.. but i cant find them at all.. and it was a torture coz the weather was getting colder by the minute..

finally, at abt 6, i gave up and had dinner by myself.. at Yoshinoya, and ordered a bowl of beef rice.. met a set of other cabin crew who did a later flight and just arrived at the market to start their price haggling day..

i walked around for 15 more minutes.. and decided to leave the place as therez nothing else i wanna get.. and it was already dark.. it gets dark at abt 5pm there..
took a cab and showed the driver my hotel room key which comes with the address of the place..

a confusing trip.. the driver tried to talk to me in Mandarin, and i couldnt understand a word he said.. and i talked to him in English.. and we ended up using signs.. and attempting conversations again and giving up.. but he was nice.. seeing that i have a camera with me, he stopped at a nice place for me to take a picture of Christmas decorations on the street.. i should have taken my time to snap, so a lot of the pics ended up being very blurry.. and when i arrived at the hotel, the fare was even cheaper than the one that i took on the way there.. just by a few cents.. so i knew that he didnt detour to let me take pictures for him to get extra money..



here's a picture of Christmas decorations on the street.. i couldnt snap a proper pic.. so just take my word for the fact that itz much nicer than it seems in pictures..

in fact, the taxi fare in China is EXTREMELY cheap.. in comparison to what i said abt Japan.. a 20 minutes ride barely cost $4.. and almost everything else is cheap there too... u can have a good meal which can last u a whole night at abt $8.. and this is the kinda meal that will have u crawling on ur knees to walk back coz itz just too much to eat..

once i arrived in my room, i had a phone call from Tun Fatimah.. they had been looking for me for a while and gave up too.. and they probably had arrived in the hotel less than 5 minutes before i did..

so we went down for a buffet dinner at the hotel.. and i had 4 full plates of sashimi, sushi and oysters.. and ended with fruits as dessert, and thatz it.. and i cant eat anymore..

the sashimi spread was fantastic.. and the oysters too... damn.. i think i had abt 10 oysters.. and itz a good thing that i had my hepatitis jab..

i took a pic of Shanghai sky line just before i left my room.. so u can see that China is not as backward as u might think it is.. in fact, Shanghai is moving SO fast that from one trip to the next, there are new buildings that will appear out of nowhere.. and the country is quite clean too.. though there are a few slums here and there.. itz not that bad...



i arrived in Singapore at abt 7.30 pm, and got home and went out to Coffee Bean at Century Square with Alwi and Isha.. called Wily and he came down at abt 10.. and we headed to a small muslim coffee shop at Tampines St 42, called 7K.. i didnt even know the existence of that place..

slept thru the whole of today, and woke up at 5+, had dinner with my family..

will be working tomorrow morning, doing a turnaround to Hanoi.. which was in replacement for my Perth flight..

I managed to get an off day for the gig on Sunday.. so we will be playing at about 5pm, and therez gonna be quite a few ska bands, punkrock and oi bands..

I'm not really up to it, playing a gig this month.. we had rejected several slots coz we wanted to continue playing only in 2006.. just wanna relax and chill for now.. but since Din had given his word to the organiser, we are gonna do it this Sunday..

so any of u interested to come down and skank for us? itz gonna be at Toa Payoh CC.. dunno which one of the CC.. and i think itz somewhere around 5pm.. if i am not wrong..

i wont be having anymore flights for the next 2 weeks coz i'll be doing my reservist..

MAJULAH SINGAPURA..

i dedicate my reservist to Devan Nair.. heh.. if i could..

but i do like that guy.. really.. dunno why..

Skavoovie..