February Festivities

* GONG XI FA CAI *

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

I want to go to Manila !!

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...

*BOOOOO* :-(

MANIC MARCH so far...

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...


Happy Birthday to my lil Munchkin!

And Lightning Strikes !

It is said that some of the most memorable experiences happen by accident. I thought I was lucky to have one, and that was when I got to snorkel beside a baby Whale Shark (it was 5 metres in length!)

Now I can say I have had 2 such memorable experiences : I have a passionate attraction to sunsets and just last week whilst sitting in traffic on the way home from my niece's birthday party, I noticed a dark & brooding, fast-moving sunset in the distance. Grabbing my camera as fast as I could from my bag and tapped on the shutter button...

and this is the moment I captured :

The bolt of lightning present on the left side of the picture was not seen when the picture was taken in fact only noticed it on review... AWESOME innit :)

Mia RIP : 11.05.98 - 25.01.10

I lost a beautiful soul yesterday. One who dedicated her life to me.

Mia had been deteriorating over the last few months due to old age. Last week she lost her ability to stand up. She spent her days horizontal & grew completely dependent on me to hand feed her food & water & carry her in an upright position to relieve herself. She was so stiff from arthritis that she would call on me every few hours, even through the night, to turn her over.



Her chronic arthritis had finally taken its toll on her & no medication or painkiller seemed to help anymore.

She was in a lot of pain and I had the painful task of making the decision to have her put down. The hardest part was knowing that all that was failing her were her bones. And because of that she had lost a lot of muscle mass. Her blood and all her organs were in perfect working condition.

I kept postponing the date as her spirits appeared to have picked up for a few days, but her great fighting spirit appeared to be shortlived. 2 days ago she stopped eating her food. I knew that her condition would deteriorate at a rapid rate from then on.

I could never imagine my life without her; my best friend who's seen me through my darkest most lonely times.

It is the end of a chapter of my life and as a result I feel a void within.

I miss her unconditional love.

I miss her dedication.

I miss feeling her presence.

And although I have been blessed with beautiful supportive messages through SMS, Twitter & Facebook from friends & acquaintances & even people who have never known her - it doesn't help to lessen the emptiness i feel.

Everytime I'm asked : "Hi Sa, How are you doing?" my chest collapses, my heart feels crushed and tears well-up in my eyes

I've had her since she was 7 weeks old and she passed away 11 weeks shy of her 12th birthday. Like me, Mia is a Tiger / Taurus.

This year was meant to be OUR year.

Now what?? I am now incomplete.

Whether you like dogs or keep pets, Mia touched all those who knew her. She has a beautiful soul and it is that which I hang on to

My faithful companion, my soul mate.

You may be gone, but you remain in my heart for eternity.

I miss you Mia.

Voize Independent Music Awards 2010 @ MIST Bangsar

And the results after all your votes and the Judges' deliberations?

The M.A.D. Project wins 2 Awards for "CHANGE"!! Go here to listen to it

Best Collaboration


VR1 Award for Best Positive Message

That's in addition to the award for :

Sunshiney-Smiley-Feel-Good Song for 'I Can't Sile Without You' by Me!

3 VIMAs!! What a fantastic start to 2010

Thanks again for your support!


(Go to www.voize.my for a full list of the results)

Happy 'Ew' Year

I had a wicked New Year...

Although I do feel I spent most of the night running up and down the stairs pointlessly as I kept forgetting WHY I was going down... or was it up? hehehe

It was the night of the Lunar eclipse... before which the sky was lit by a radiant full moon - which served as great entertainment during the earlier part of the evening...






We also got creative with our glow sticks :)




Even Mia joined in on the fun. She was never one to miss out on anything :



We really are a silly lot...



Go here to download / stream a mix tape recorded LIVE during a portion of the night

How was your's?