I Suck At Blogging

Wait, let me rephrase that. I suck at updating my blog in a timely manner. Also, I almost always never decide what to write until I'm in front of the PC. That would explain why I sometimes decide to write about something but end up never typing them out. Plus, I never go through the whole process of editing/rewriting my posts unless there's a really annoying typo. Well, I'm just glad that I'll be able to read my posts in the future and go,"so that's how I felt like at the time".

BALL
I joined the Civil Engineering Faculty's basketball team in UiTM Shah Alam for a small tourney. Outsiders were not allowed, but none of the administration people knew that. Plus, most of the ballers in UiTM know me and didn't have a problem letting me play. We got 3rd place out of 16 teams, and I had fun playing my limited minutes. I enjoyed coming off the bench because I've always had issues with stamina and the team already had good players anyways. Overall, I was happy with the team and the tourney. Will go for the same competition again next year, God-willing.
Other than that, I'm sort of training with the Archers now. I don't have my own jersey yet or anything, so you can say that nothing's set in stone yet but I'm pretty sure that I'll be a regular in the lineup sooner or later. Had a friendly match a couple of weeks ago against Raves, which were the "team belasahan" during this year's MB Cup. We won by double digits, so I guess it's safe to say that we're above the "team belasahan" title.

MUSIC
I've been listening to XFresh FM a lot during these past few weeks. Still can't believe how good the Malaysian music scene is right now. Anyways, what attracted me the most to XFresh was the fact that they played 100% Malaysian music and had very minimal advertisements. Oh, and I like how laid-back the deejays are. They seriously sound like normal people that I talk to in everyday life as opposed to highly-paid professionals who try to sound cool. Kudos to XFM!

BIRTHDAY
I celebrated my birthday recently. Had a calming day and sweet night. I went to take a nap in my car at about 10am, woke up about an hour after that and went for a fag. Proceeded to drive around, going through some places in Tmn Tun that reminded me of her. Finally stopped at the park and sat under a shade near my car. Read Archers' A Quiver Full of Arrows. Spent my lunch hour reading the book, and it gave me this contradicting feeling. I felt both empty and content at the same time.
Dinner was sweet, simple and short. Sweet, because I got cupcakes. Simple, because I just went out for dinner with a friend. Short, because she was wearing a short skirt. Let me elaborate.

CRUSH?
On Sunday two weeks ago, a girl I knew asked me for a favor. I shall call her Comel for now, because I'm still unsure about using her real name here. She's not exactly a friend, merely an acquaintance. We've never spoken to each other before for longer than a few sentences and even though she is rather attractive I've never really tried to get to know her. We did sms each other from time to time, but we never hung out together. The only times I've met her were by chance, but I digress. So she asked me to pick her up from the KTM station and I agreed.
We ended up having lunch and it was awkward to say the least. Neither of us really felt comfortable at first but it wore down with time. She was so comfortable, in fact, that she told me that she was bored being home alone and that her housemates wouldn't be coming back anytime soon. I may have been a considered a fool by many, but I did not go to "keep her company" at home. In fact, in retrospect, I may have been turned off by it. No decent girl would talk of those matters on a first date, right?
Days passed by, and I actually got more and more comfortable with her. We went out almost everyday, I even brought her along to watch a Chelsea match with my guy friends, and I even went out for dinner with her on her birthday(only one week apart from mine). I even managed to get in her house one fine evening, although it was only for the intention of using the loo. What happened during that 10-minute visit really opened my eyes. She had the front door of her apartment wide-open throughout the whole time I was there. That simple act oozed Malay quality, and I had a newfound respect, and attraction, for her.
On my birthday, I picked her up from her place. I actually went up to her apartment, called her and waited to see her walk out her front door. I'm not sure why I did that, but I was glad I did. She wore a lively-colored t-shirt(fun-fair, she said) and a denim skirt, and was holding a white box with a maroon ribbon on it. Although it may not seem much to anyone else, I actually stood still with a silly grin. She looked beautiful, and I felt warm thinking about how much effort she put in by herself just to make it a special night for me. What was in the box, you ask? 16 cupcakes, each with colorful icing decorations. Four had the words "Happy 22nd Birthday"(she got the age wrong,so what?), four had hearts on it, four had a ladybug design(weird but cute, nevertheless) and the last four had each letter of my name.
The birthday dinner was sweet, simple and short. Sweet, because she went through a lot of trouble to celebrate my birthday. Simple, because it simply made me happy. Short, because I wish I could spend more time with her that night.

New Idea

Guess what? I waited for a couple of weeks but Niko and Ema were the only two people who actually read and gave me comments regarding "The Waiting Man". Although it saddens me, I will still continue to re-edit the story until I'm ready to post it here. While waiting for that, here's my downdate.

I've thought about it long and hard, and I think that I'll start writing about my former relationships here. My memory will slowly fail me one day, and I want to be able to go back to my blog and re-live my memories here. I won't mention names, and since barely anyone reads this blog I don't see it as a problem anyway. I'll start with my first girlfriend after this blog.

I saw Sepi a few weeks back and I was disappointed. Not because the movie was bad, but because Sepi is not getting enough audiences despite it being a relatively good movie. It basically had three main plots, with each story focusing on three different characters played by Afdlin Shauki, Tony Eusoff and Baizura Kahar. Afdlin was lovable as the fat guy who finds love, loses it and stays in a loveless relationship because he didn't want to be alone anymore. Tony didn't have his usual pretentious slang, and his storyline made me cry. It's too hard for me to explain how without ruining the movie, though. Baizura's story was the weakest, in my opinion, but the poem in her story made up for it. Here's the poem as seen in the movie:

"bisikku pada bulan
kembalikan temanku
kekasihku, syurgaku

tanpa dia malam menemaniku
sepi memelukku

bulan jangan biar siang biar alam ini kelam
biar ia sepi sepertiku"

Beautiful, isn't it?

By the way, I've found a new guilty pleasure. Private Practice! I've never watched Grey's Anatomy before(PP being its' spin-off), but that didn't stop me from watching all 9 of its' episodes. The real attraction for me here is the supporting characters because I don't know why but I find Addison Montgomery to be uninteresting. Hot at times, but almost always uninteresting.

P/S: Elephant Man's Alarm Clock by Buckethead is arguably the best instrumetal(instrumental+metal) album I've had.

I Think I Like Writing

I finally came up with a name for my short story. I'm going to call it "The Waiting Man". I've got a draft done a few days ago with just under 1000 words. Am hoping to add more stuff as I go along. I've already sent the draft out to a few people, and I've only got two replies so far. Nick said that it was unimaginative and failed to grab the readers' attention while Ema said that it was awesome. I'm going to go with Nick on this one. I may very well post the story up soon, once I've got more replies and more ideas to add/edit the story.

By the way, I think I like writing short stories. This is only my first real attempt, and I felt giddy while writing some parts of the story. I can't really explain it now but I'll do once I post the finished product here. Hopefully it won't take too long.

I Don't Usually Do This

Saku introduced me to the Onion Movie a few days ago. The movie's basically just like the Onion Newspaper, where you get funny twists on current events such as an oil tycoon donating a billion dollars to his son. The whole movie's a mixed batch of funny short sketches. It's actually more like a 90 minute tv special, come to think about it. Don't expect a storyline, expect laughter.

One of my favorite sketches is the one about Melissa Cherry, a teen pop sensation who is trying to defend her songs in an interview with the Onion News Network's senior correspondent Kip Kendall. Enjoy.




Oh, and by the way, some people find the movie stupid and offensive.

Plans, Plans, Plans...

I've got a lot of plans lined up for my two-month holiday, but I'm halfway through the holiday and I still haven't done any of the things I've planned. Times like this make me wish that I'm not Malay, because, well, you know what they say...

My first plan was to compile all of the pictures I took on my Tokyo trip last month, and make 1r copies for a few people. I did that when I came back from Melbourne and I think that I did it within the first week of coming back from that trip. How come I've been so lazy these past 2-3 weeks?

I'm going to do what I did to The Fray's How to Save a Life to Hujan's Bila Aku Sudah Tiada. I think that Hujan is a great band and is setting a good example for teenage kids who's aspiring to become musicians. Problem is, I got bored of their songs after just a short while. I think it's because their songs are too vocal-heavy for me. Their instruments, except for a few interesting riffs, get drowned by the vocals and I think that's the only reason why they're becoming so popular now. You know how pop songs tend to have very simple and repetitive music with a lot of emphasis on the vocals? That's how I see them now and thus, that is why I am inserting another guitar to that particular song.

Which reminds me. I'm glad that bands like Hujan and Meet Uncle Hussain are getting mainstream listeners to notice them but how long will it last? No, I'm not talking about the attention they're getting but how much longer can their music last? Firstly, they often get the "Malaysian New Artiste" syndrome, where they're only famous for a year or so. It's not like I'm a big fan of their music in the first place, but I really do hope that they'll last longer Black Maria. Who's Black Maria? My point exactly. Secondly, these indie bands usually change the way they write songs to "better fit" mainstream radio. They use words like maturing, exploring or experimenting to disguise it, but who are we kidding here? If you're selling out, then you might as well be open about it but I digress...

Another plan is to do a simple workout I've concocted everyday for two months. It's basically to improve upper body muscle mass and jumping ability. It takes roughly 20-30 minutes to complete but I got injured a few weeks back. Haven't done a complete set in more than 2 weeks.

Last thing I wanted to get done was my short story. The story's quite complicated, but I'll try to keep it short here. Basically, the main character's in love with this one girl. He waited for her for almost a year and she's finally giving him signals. The problem is, he finds out that the girl is cluelessly still in love with her ex, and going into a relationship with her would be like taking poison. He gets stoned for a few days straight and the story will revolve on the fifth day that he's stoned. By the way, what's the minimum word count for a short story?

P/s: Pray that I'll get over my "malas" streak and get all of these things done by August.

So, when was the last time i downdated?

October 3, 2007. Roughly half a year has passed since I've written anything here so I don't really know if I should just continue blogging or leave it altogether. I read my old blog (yes, I had a blog before this and I abandoned it because of identity issues) and I realized that I was actually capable of writing a few good lines back in the days. Unfortunately, I don't think that I can say the same about myself now.
I used to write for the masses back then, writing about Siti Nurhaliza or other mainstream news at the time, but now I'm just writing about things that most people have absolutely no idea about. So what am I trying to say here? I'll address the issue in a later post. As for tonight, I'm going to try to write out as much as I can, not really because I want to, but because I need to. Reading your old works gives you a glimpse of who you were in the past and I want to be able to (in the future) recall who I was in 2008 by reading my blog. So here's my 6 months in a nutshell, read accordingly to what heading interests you:

NBA BASKETBALL

1. Kobe Bryant for MVP! He's officially won it at the time I'm writing this thing, and I don't think that anyone deserves it more than him this year. Arguably the best player in the NBA, he's just too good to be simply written about by a lowly blogger like me. So here's to KB24 who, even though I'm not going to write praises for him, is the best basketball player that I've ever seen play. P/s: Keep in mind that I've only started watching the NBA in 2002.
2. Lakers-Celtics in the NBA Finals? Very, very possible outcome. The Cs will undoubtedly win the East, but the West isn't really clear-cut. The only two teams that the Lakers have to worry about before reaching the Finals are the Spurs and the Hornets, mainly because they can't contain Tim Duncan and Chris Paul. Of course, even if the Lakers don't win it this year they still have a good enough team to contend for the next 4-5 years. Their bench is just superb considering their youth, and Bynum will be unstoppable once he's matured. Not to forget they also have Kobe.
3. Seriously, best Dunk contest I've seen in a long time. I just wish that D12 could've battled it out with Jamario Moon instead of Gerald Green. Which brings me to my next point,
4. D12 is a beast! Dwight Howard, along with Andrew Bynum, Emeka Okafor and a few other names that fail to come to mind right now is the future of the center position. By the way, I'm not putting Amare in because I think that he'll be a much better 4 than a 5.

MY BALL

1. Remember when I said Ball over Boobs? Well, I'm still sticking by it. Nothing much has changed over the past 6 months other than the fact that I'm concentrating more on rebounding now. Seriously, for my size, I think that I'm doing a pretty good job rebounding the ball. I have to thank Hanamichi Sakuragi for this. He's an inspiration.
2. I started playing is SS3, Kelana Jaya with John and I have to admit that I like having a change of sceneries. I don't want to sound racist, but the Chinese play a whole different ball-game compared to the Malays. Everybody's a shooter, so you can't give them too much space when they get the ball but most of them are so athletic that they can blow past you and drive to the hoop at will. I love defending these guys.
3. That reminds me. I think I'm getting a more defensive mindset nowadays. I seem to enjoy shutting a person's offense more than getting my own offense on. Crazy, considering my first year playing the game where I saw myself as a scorer.
4. Here's the few plays that I remember from the past few months:

• Me playing the guard position with Lan mole-mole, intercepting a pass on defense and running a two-man fastbreak with Lan that resulted in us winning the game.
• Me blocking Wan Kidal's potential game winning shot, and passing it to the front for what was the real game-winning shot.
• Shooting 3 treys in a game, bringing my team from down 8 to winning the game.

MOVIES

1. Laugh all you guys want, but I think that Dunia Baru the Movie was actually really good. I still think that Hitler Zami's overuse of good songs in the movie (and TV series) is rather annoying, but other aspects of the movie is just so freaking good.
   
2. Juno is a brilliantly made movie that pokes fun at teen pregnancy. What do I like about the movie? Its witty dialogue and catchy tunes.
3. Movies I'm looking forward to - The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight and Iron Man.
   
4. Other good movies I've seen -
   

• The Bank Job
• Stranger Than Fiction
• Cuci

MUSIC

1. Bullet for My Valentine's effort, Scream Aim Fire was nowhere near their debut album's greatness but still had quite a few good songs. My personal favorite is Hearts Burst into Fire.
2. The soundtrack for Juno is so good that I have to give it a mention. A quirky soundtrack, catchy and innocently sounding like a mixtape done by a 16-year old boy who's got an infatuation over a girl. Anyone Else but You by the Moldy Peaches - super cute and sweet and makes me feel like I'm that 16-year old boy.
3. I just started listening to Paramore, mainly songs from their album All We Know is Falling, and I must say that they do sound good especially on their acoustic songs. Don't trust me? Go ahead and youtube Paramore and give yourselves a good listen. Any song would do.
4. CoCa's No World for Tomorrow is just too good. A lot of people may think that they sold out, trying to go mainstream, but I personally think that the album is a masterpiece. Especially the five-part End Chapter. I simply can't ask a person to listen to just one song from this album. You HAVE to listen to the whole album. Seriously. I don't care if you buy it, download it or steal it but get the whole album. Trust me, if you're into rock then you won't find fault in this album.
5. Barry Manilow's actually got a few good songs. Surprised myself a little bit, but I have to admit that Mandy, My Eyes Adore You and (They Long To Be) Close To You are all good.
6. As I Lay Dying, Atreyu and Trivium. Just had to mention these bands again.
7. Chipmunknation! Youtube the word, and watch a few of the videos. Freakin' funny.
8. Stephen Lynch's The Craig Machine. Funny as hell. Try Voices in My Head.

MISCELLANEOUS
I need to get laid, man. Seriously. So if you're a willing lady who lives around Damansara or Shah Alam just drop a comment. I'm freaking serious! I NEED to get laid.

Other than that, I'll try to update this thing more often now. No, wait. Let me rephrase that. I'll try to update this thing, period. I'm not making any frequency-related promises. Til the next time.

As promised

First of all, here's Cara Selamatkan Nyawa.



And here's the new countdown image for CoCa's new album.

• Yellowcard - Firewater
• Coalesce - Blue Collar Lullaby
• From Autumn to Ashes - Chloroform Perfume
• Midtown - Knew It All Along
• Rise Against - Swing Life Away
• Taking Back Sunday - Cute Without the E

Helllllooooo... frennn...

It's been almost a month since my last downdate and I don't think I'll be able to write about everything that's happened in the past month. I shall therefore choose very important things that I feel are important for me to share.

Firstly, astro on demand's Tai Chor Laa advert. I personally think that the ad is the best advert of the year so far. Of course, Petronas is going to come up with a soppy/funny ad for Raya but like I said, best advert of the year so far. I think that the actor in the ad is somewhat similar to Rowan Atkinson. Rowan's an intellectual guy from Harvard or something but he goes on to do Mr Bean. This guy, who I have yet to know his name, "act so stupid one" but I bet he's a smart lad.

I defied logic and went into a futsal tourney last week. I don't even have futsal shoes! My team's record for the tourney was 0-1-3. Didn't even get through the grouping stage. I can't believe how bad we sucked but it sort of reminds me of the days when I first started out playing basketball. The only difference here is that I don't have any desire to get better at futsal.

On to the next story, Ashraf Muslim came to play at uitm for two straight days which can only mean that he does not have any job offers right now. I have this fantasy where Acap(that's what people call him in itm) will see me doing one of my crazy tricks and asks me to become an extra on one of his shows. That'd be cool. (Acap, if you're reading this, PG wants to be an actor too!)

Play of the week - Sorry Bot but I have to write this thing in. Botak was running for a fast break and was near the rim, going for a lay-up. Out of nowhere, Sairil came and blocked the crap out of the ball. The ball must have went flying, man. Certainly worthy of being the play of the week. Now play that sportscenter play-of-the-day tune! Tenenet, tenenet!

Balls over boobs. I was talking to Block and Adam and we agreed that balls come before boobs. Why? Because a lot of guys are going out on dates during times that they should be playing basketball. It pisses me off sometimes. These guys claim that they love basketball so much but they don't put their priorities straight. I respect Wan when it comes to this. Wan Kidal, he brings his girlfriend to the court. It's almost like he says to his girl, "You wanna see me in between 5-7, i'm at the court" and the girlfriend understands and they spend time at the court in between games. That's just so wickedly cool. Multitasking, at its best.

What else? I finished Cara Selamatkan Nyawa but It'll take a few days before I put it on here. I got a new countdown image thingy for CoCa's new album(which got reviews so mad it got me jumping in my seat) but I'll most probably put it up the next time I downdate. I listened to Enter Shikari, which was really something else(Em, you'd really like it). Oh, and I went for this formal dinner where OAG performed and I have quite a lot to write about it but I'll wait. In case you didn't notice, this paragraph is like a preview for my next downdate. Adieu.

Countdown

First up, I want to tell people that I believe that Coheed and Cambria is one of the best band I've ever heard. Seriously. Try listening to Welcome Home, or In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth. They're both awesome. Here's the countdown to their much-anticipated album, No World For Tomorrow (the full name of the album's a little too long) .

P/s: My birthday's on Aug 25th, Kobe's on Aug 23rd. Cool.

we lost

Me, Will and John

I know we look happy in the picture, but trust me when I say that we were all pretty pissed off with ourselves. Our team lost in the quarterfinals to the team that later went on to become champs. How good were them? They limited us to 14 points in 10 minutes of game time. Crud. I was so disappointed because after playing those guys and watching the other teams play, I'm certain that our team could've won second place. I felt so down that I left the tourney after losing the match and played in uitm.

I had a good game at UiTM, though. I had good fast break runs, defended the perimeter well, had a couple of made contested jump-shots, the game-winning assist and it made me feel a tad bit better. I needed the game because losing in the tourney was a huge blow for me. I shall wait with anticipation for the next tourney, hoping for it to be better organized and officiated.

By the way, I've been playing basketball for five straight days including today so I've been really tired at nights and mornings. I haven't touched my novels and had no progress with my remix. Life was all about basketball this past 5 days. Hopefully that'll change come next week but I need the weekend to fully recover. Physically and psychologically. Sigh.

P/s: I had a slight ankle sprain yesterday and I think I aggravated it by playing today. Things you do for love.