Often you meet a couple who are so different in personality. One is stronger than the other. One has a stronger personality. One is more confident, more sure etc...
Basically one always seems to be more dominant than the other - apparently that helps strike a balance. The weakness in one is balanced out by the strength of the other...
BULLSH*T I say : How about if we view it this way...
'A' seems stronger than the 'B' because 'B' is SO much weaker / LESS strong.
'A's strength is not measured according to the merits that 'A' has earned for him/herself...
Think of an elephant and an ant. In real terms an elephant is far stronger. But facts tell us that an ant can carry up to 50 times its on weight.
I'm pretty sure an elephant can NOT carry 50 times its own weight
If you see people and relationships in this way, it may give you an entirely new view on things... and as profound as it may sound...
... perhaps a whole newview on LIFE ...
Essentially we are ALL weak, and weakness is a very HUMBLING condition
Relationships are all about managing our weaknesses
It seems like Solaris Dutamas is the popular location to open an F&B outlet amongst my friends as only a week after I visited Noreen & Tubby's Pink Sage Diner, I went to check out Effie & Luis' Waupenyu
A lovely resto specialising in home cooked malay food from the East Coast... home-cooked being the operative word as every mouthful was wholesome, tasty & comforting. The place is decorated tastefully and in a manner that creates a lovely ambience. It has an extensive menu - so extensive we actually had problems choosing what to have... so we had everything we fancied *burp*
Among our choices were : Nasi Kerabu Mee Rubus & Sup Ekor But I believe our dish of the day has to be Nasi Dagang - you just HAVE to go and sample it! A lot of the other dishes we wanted to try had already sold out (which I reckon is a good sign!) The dessert menu is pretty extensive too. I'll definitely be going back :)
Effie gave us the 'alcove' table which was cosy. The service was a little challenged as Effie revealed she had to let go of 3 staff literally the day BEFORE opening - but what more than made up for that, was the staff's attentiveness and enthusiasm. Waupenyu : a great place to go for breakfast, tea, lunch, coffee, dinner : basically whenever you're hungry!
In November 2009, I was invited to EmCee & play for The Queens of Hearts Event - celebrating female power as Zouk KL featured an all female international and local line-up of DJs for a good cause : Women's Aid Organisation.
It was an awesome night with a line-up that included :
DJ Baby Diamond (Aus) Melissa Indot (MY) DJ CC Sound Factory (Sg) DJ Niza Minx (MY) To stream / download the set I played, gohere
This year's line-up is interesting with a back to back or a 'battle' flavour injected :
Headlining the night with one of their floor stomping sets, (no doubt) are Tunku Nadia & Arabyrd, collectively known as TWINKIES, with the QUEEN of Hearts herself, none other than Stella Nutella playing the closing set :)
This year's Valentine's Day also brought in the year of the Golden Tiger in the Chinese Horoscope. It is also known as the year of the Metal / White Tiger
I am a Tiger too - so this is MY year... what better time then now to be part of what is an ongoing global movement to help spread awareness on the current plight of the Tiger who is dangerously close to extinction.
I've already registered to be part of an online campaign known as Tiger Blogfest 2010
And if you do not have a blog, don't worry, you can still show and lend your support by helping to DOUBLE the number of Tigers here ...
Let's all ROAR together to make a Change in the lives of these beautiful felines
To say that my first weekend of March was hectic, would be an understatement - the fact that it was rounded up by a manic collaboration was the "cherry on the cake"
What do you get when you stir together the following ingredients :
Lots of games, laughs, giggles, sniggers and toys! In fact, presentation of a toy at the bar meant a discount on your drink - Genius!
Sample toys.. Made some new friends, hung out with old ones and caught up with those that i rarely see, like the Bangsar Boy himself Niki Cheong who filled me in on his escapades including a recent trip to London for Project Alpha & the next Twestival ... I also got a chance to share with him my ideas for a charity event that I'm planning for the endof May : Get updates on it here
Me & Bangsar Boy SalahWrong on the decks providing their unique classic emo, indie, retro, (good) cheesy playlist. They were using their brand spanking new Paul Frank headphones :) KBF + Boogs = sillynessness Getting creative with toy hairdryer *ahem* The BBQ provided by Palate Palette is always yummy as more and more peeps started to stream in, I reckon CGYT revellers were calling their mates from home and around town to come by to check out the Twinkies event
Busy room! And yes that is Rudyculously u see there... Lead singer Fuad from Kyoto Band, Lady Elephant (real ID unknown), KBF, Stylist Extraordinaire Ming Tunku Nadia (one half of the Twinkies) spinning her *MAGIC* As you can imagine i suffered terribly the next day and missed my early Monday morning run *ooops*
Even so, I can't wait for the next Twinkies event :)
It's been an interesting night. my mum's older brother who lives in the USA has been home for the last 3 weeks and shamefully i will admit that i did not spend as much time with him as i would've wanted to and that I should have made time for.
Tonite i've come home from a great night out with friends... and i suddenly feel a void. Uncle Henry only left last night.. and although for the entire time he was here, when he didnt come home occsionally cos he was staying with my big brother (my abang) and i never really noticed... suddenly I FEEL his absence.
Only on his penultimate day home he connected with me - shared some amazing photos from his youth. I felt part of him.
Does that matter?
Did it matter then?
Not as much as it matters now...
Regret is a terrible thing...
BTW Uncle Henry is 73 years old.... I will post a curent picture of him soon....
This year was the first time in many years that I didn't spend Chinese New Year with the Chinese side of my family in Singapore. As they were all coming down to KL in the weeks to follow, Mum decided that a family CNY this year was not compulsory. So... I jumped at the opportunity to top-up my Vitamin D in-take and planned a getaway to the sea-side with some close mates. I don't think I'd been this pale for a long while !
The regime would be the same : eat.drink.sleep.swim.float.be.silly.repeat (in no particular order)
I also took the opportunity to take loads of nice pix... and by loads i mean about 300 over 3 days (excessive, yes)
Any of you out there Enid Blyton readers? Remember the MAGIC FARAWAY TREE ? It would make a great 3D movie, along the lines of Alice In Wonderland
Remember MOONFACE?
Well we bumped into him - it was his first time in SE Asia!
This is what happens to drift wood that is left to brave the elements on a beach...
We made a friend from the sea... a baby octopus! At the top of the picture you'll notice a small blue & white pot that just about covers the diameter of regular 1litre sized bottle of water. Well, my friend noticed this tiny pot floating in the sea. Upon investigation of said pot, he found this baby Octopus had made its home of it!
PLEASE NOTE : We teased the baby octobus into the bottle for closer inspection and later released it into its natural habitat ie. the sea. No living creature was harmed :)
When you are vertically challenged (ie. short like me) you gotta try out taking shadow pix like this one... makes me feel lanky & tall, albeit a little disproportionate!
Some of my favourite sunset pictures from this trip are coming up next :
My beach Posse Charlie's Angels EAT-UR-HEART-OUT Moving Silhouettes Serenity Sunset Soliloquy * A Golden Celebration 27 February 1960-2010 *
The big highlight of 2010 for me has to be Mum & Dad's 50 year Wedding Anniversary. The whole family have been busy preparing for the black-tie party celebrations marking this massive achievement.
Those of you who are active twitterers / tweeters will have seen the (in)famous hashtags for non other than Rais Yatim : #yorais. Yes there were many a #yorais comments reflecting some of his archaic train of thoughts, one of which was relevant to our celebrating Mum & Dad's 50 year anniversary.
In short he was quoted to have said that mixed race marriages are more often than not UNSUCCESSFUL. Well here is one that IS SUCCESSFUL...
All tables were named after songs... my table was : L-R Mum's youngest sister & her husband, Mum's other sister & her husband, Mum & Dad Dad & his Indot girls (L-R, Me, my cousin, my sis) It was a magical night with the ages of guests ranging from their 20s to... well, mum & dad's vintage and as expected it was an evening of filled with stories of Mum & Dad's journey together over the last 50 years. Imagine a wedding reception, but 50 years on : after all guests were seated, Mum and Dad were led into the room by my nephews & niece to the classical sounds of a string quartet with a solo alto voice ; there was a 9min video montage (put together BRILLIANTLY by evenodds) ; there were speeches given by close friends, family and my bro, sis & me. An evening of laughter, dancing, lots of love & entertainment provided by my nephews, niece and me :).
Our MC for the night was non other than Datuk Yasmin Yusuff (a product of yet another long-lasting mixed marriage!). Here's a little known fact : I affectionately refer to Datuk Yasmin as 'Mummy' seeing as she played my Mum in my music video for 'Little Girls'. See if you can spot her :
I'd love to give you more detail and post up more photos but it was a private & intimate affair, hope u all understand!
I will end by saying that I feel truly blessed to have the ultimate role models in life with regards to everything : commitment, discipline, morals, integrity, friendship & love.
Most can only dream of meeting their soulmate let alone achieve such a long-lasting relationship with them.
I LOVE YOU MUM & DAD Next post otw : Twinkies presents Cat Got Your Tongue with SalahWrong @ Palate Palette
Was all set today... sorting out some key meetings in Manila, planned what to pack and was getting excited about seeing an old family friend who's back from San Francisco to do a show in her hometown...
Left what I thought would be the EASIEST part of the planning to the end, only to be disappointed : Can you believe for the whole of next week Monday to Friday, I can't get a flight on ANY airline!!
^#%($%(*$^&^*#&$*#^^#$@@!!!!
If YOU are gonna be in Makati next week - PLS go catch Fe's Book, details here and let me know how it goes...
OK OK OK... so I'm CR*P at updating my blog... but anyone who follows me on twitter will know that I haven't been up to much other than writing songs for the album and working hard towards my parents Golden Wedding Anniversary (and to save you on googling time, that's 50 years)
It's been a MANIC month of March for me so far, jam-packed with meetings for all sorts of things :
album song selection video production animation project live gigs birthdays website overhaul
MAC Launches their Spring 2010 colours @ Mid Valley Centre Court
Juicy aren't they... I got my hands on a RM50 voucher too *snigger* There was stand for each of the main 4 colour shades...
I was drawn to the purple one.... And got prodded by my Sis/Manager & KinkyBlueFairy to have a mini make over (check out her blog for some funky photos!)
Kinky Blue Fairy & I took a candid photobooth photo at one of the numerous iMacs at the event... unfortunately i can't find my copy *sob* so I'm stealing these from Kinky Blur *oops* BluE Fairy's FB page! *muah*
The colour tones of the pic reflected some what MAC's Spring colours which were both vibrant and fresh. Go check them out. I think they'll be set up at the Centre Court of Mid Valley Mega Mall for awhile! The dress code was WHITE The Idan, looking as statuesque as ever (that finger armour did scare me a little)
We slipped away to Alexis in the Gardens where we met up with Serena C and Mathieu. I got to share with them my pans for a charity event I'm scheduling for end of May. Yasmin (Hani) joined us later too and I saw Will Quah there too... Alexis seemed to be the chosen apres-MAC location!
The (NEW) Pink Sage Diner @ Solaris Dutamas
Me and my mates have been waiting for what feels like a lifetime, for the Pink Sage to open after its relocation to Solaris Dutamas... and I was there on their first day of business *YAY*
It's a quite a lot bigger - bright and airy - has an outdoor/indoor space (ie. outside of the main part on the diner but within the atrium part of Solaris Dutamas - as well as an outdoor area for those brave/insane enough to manage the intense heat we've been experiencing
Took my whole family there for lunch :) even little Mikayla came :) (boys were at school and my bro-in-law at a meeting)
The food was fresh, wholesome and delicious - I had the chicken quesadillas, Dad and my Uncle had tacos and everyone else had PinkSage's famous Burgers. The service was a little challenged but I have every confidence it'll improve - I reckon they're just adjusting to the new size of the place!
If you haven't yet been then WHAT THE DUCK are you WAITING FOR?? :)
Strrapped's Birthday
We welcomed my dear fashionista friend Andrea's Birthday at La Bodega - check out her beautiful blog here (She looks great in those ripped jeans)
*WOW* was it raucous :)
As they say, "a picture paints a thousand words" so here are the highlights :
The Birthday Girl (I still haven't got round to asking her why she is smelling the stirrer, although it is a habit that she shares with a little person who also shares her birthday, my niece Mikayla!) Bday girl with the other CHEELREN :
Bday girl with the 'adults'
Time to have your cake and EAT IT! (beautifully designed by Veyonce aka Amy. You gotta check out what she does here) Her gift from moi & (another) Nadia - "concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do' Happy Birthday Strrapped :) Mikayla's 2nd Birthday
So as Mika's favourite character at the moment is Barney, we decided to invite him to the party...
