Where'd my GDoc go?!?

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Erm... okay. So where is it now???

Too funny not to post

Click it!

John Williams is Da Man!

An acappella tribute medley by Corey Vidal and Moosebutter.

To all Star Wars fans out there.

British India WTF?

Taken from britishindia.com.my :

"Presenting an era of racism, oppression, injustice and nice outfits."

Yes, seriously. Looking at the mannequin, even the last point seems in doubt.

Marketing department epic fail, anyone?

Need help going off burgers?

Then watch this:

http://www.wimp.com/paintedgrease/

Charming innit?

Duct Tape?

Spotted at Ace Hardware:

Oh the humour, I really don't know where to start. Anyone wanna have a go?

East vs West - a comparison through icons

I received this via e-mail (and usually the sender forwards junk, so thanks mate!) and thought it a great way of looking at how East and West differ culturally. These icons were designed by a Liu Young, who was born in China and educated in Germany. Here are some lines from the e-mail:

"Understanding of Chinese/Asian culture vs. Western..... ....interesting research .
It also applies to all Asians, including the Indians, Japanese, Thais, Koreans, Indonesian, Malays, Dayaks, etc... "

And the guide:

"Blue --> Westerner

Red --> Asian/Chinese "

Opinion

Way of life

Punctuality

Contacts

Anger (it's a frown in the thought bubbles)

Queue when waiting

Sundays on the road

Party

In a restaurant

Travelling

Handling problems

Three meals a day

Transportation

The elderly in day-to-day life

Moods and weather

The boss

What's trendy

The child

Food for thought.

The Star: Malaysia's Health Minister admits to sex video

One day after the new year, The Star comes out with this: The Health Minister admits to being the star of a sex video making its rounds in Johor (or, more likely, the whole of Malaysia). He has since taken the route of integrity and honour and resigned from all his political posts. Good on him.

Generally, I would think that the first thoughts of most Malaysians discovering his involvement in the video would be:

• "Aiyah why he so stupid go get caught ah?"
• "I wonder who the girl is (and is she hot)?"
• "So old only want to film your own home video ah?"

But, most importantly:

• "Where can I find the video?!?"

If you scan your eyes further down the front page, you'll come across possibly the finest piece of honest information dissemination from The Star:
Wow, how kind. Thanks Star - guess I won't have to pester my pirated DVD salesman for it.

Rose Rose I Shit You

Overheard in the male dressing room:


X: "You know what? Ever since we came up to Genting, I've been shitting 3 times a day. I mean that's not actually bad, it's not diarrhea or anything but you know what's really annoying is that my ass itches like hell!"


Y: "Here. Take these pills. You'll be okay in about 30 minutes."

PersonalDNA calls me a Dynamic Director

If you're curious (it's lengthy), my personalDNA Report. It posts on your Facebook profile if you want it there, clever stuff.

The short version:

Dynamic Director

These tests are always interesting, aren't they? Sometimes as a guide to where you are (as compared to where you think you are, or where you'd like to be), ofttimes as a guide to how other people see themselves. "Agency", to save you some serious clicking, refers to how much one believes one is responsible for one's life. ie High = I create all my own results, Low = God/the world/luck/fate is out to get me.

It's a really cleverly done test though, so I'd recommend it if you've time. No multiple-choice nonsense, it's all slidey bars and graphs and stuff. Check it out!

Quick funnies

Came across this entertaining blog:
the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks
which is funny for anal people like me (in reference to punctuation).

Which led directly to this rather ridiculous one:
Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century
yes. It IS as WTF as it sounds.

If you haven't seen it, this one's always entertaining:
I Can Has Cheez Burger?
where cats are actually funny and cute. Well, its the captions that come with them that are funny. Por esempio:

more funny pictures

AND they make it easy to take pics from there, too! Instant code to paste.

Into the final quarter

Yes yes it's been too long. Maybe I've been too scared to face my thoughts, my reflections. Maybe I just haven't had time, running around desperately making this wonderful life of mine work.

Responsible citizenship

So let's start with being a good Malaysian. Save our judiciary (oh dammit requires a Facebook account). Ok this one's good too. Check it out, e-mail the dude, sign the petition.

Moving on to being a good Earthling. Join the protest against Burmese (Myanmarese?) tyrannical crackdowns. According to my Dad, 50 years ago Burma was ahead of Malaysia. HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED. That's what 20 years of military dictatorship does to your country.

Just to add to that note, Sri Lanka was ahead of us 50 years ago too. Now's what happens when civil war doesn't end. The Philippines were ahead of us 30 years ago (in fact, even ahead of Japan). Now's what happens when corruption is rife, and military coups come by every so often. Are we fucking lucky? Hell yes. We have it so damn good here, we have to compare against the best in the world to get upset.

Of course it's no bed of roses, but we're actively making things better (start with that petition). And we generally fight hard against overly dumbass behaviour. So, so far so good.

Life's a stage...

... and the stage is my life. In a nutshell - Tunku's over, rocked. Next up, Rose Rose I Love You (blog here). Yay, first supporting lead role! Name on postcard!! KICKASS!!!

Possible Christmas event at a shopping mall, to be confirmed in a week or so. Little dance sketch at the end of this month, which I'll find out more about soonish. Possibly stage managing a KLPac production in Dec. Possibly directing a short play I wrote, in 6 months; more info when 1) the play's written and 2) I know more.

Helping out The Oral Stage with setting up auditions for their 2 forthcoming productions (a triple-bill in end Nov and The Illusion by Pierre Cornielle in mid Dec) and managing their people database. I so love that kind of data. The Illusion's audition will be this Saturday, which should be an interesting and fun day. Interested, e-mail people.theoralstage@gmail.com to book an audition.

Their auditions last weekend was most enlightening. It was posted on kakiseni and sent out to friends of TOS, with a reasonable turnout. Some of the characters that turn up, wow. It's quite an experience sitting on the other side of an audition table. After the event, I went nerdy on the results and seems that 67 was quite a key number.
- Percentage of people who booked auditions from the number of contacts: 67%.
- Percentage of people who turned up for the audition after booking: 67%.
- Percentage of people who can possibly act from the turn-ups: 67% (by my generous estimate).

Invaluable experience, in terms of both sides of the table. I understand better why people can be hesitant about open auditions. I also see better what works and what doesn't work as an auditionee. Funnily enough, the person who irritated me the most was not the person who rambled pointlessly like he loved the sound of his own voice, but the person who took too damn long to do everything. Tell us about yourself: 3 minute answer (avg time being 1 min). Perform your monologue: 1 min to start it, 1 min to restart it, can't remember if I stopped him after 3 mins. Perform the readings: 1-2 mins to start each (of 3) readings. Do improv: 1 min to prepare, 1 min to restart. Holy shit fuck off my stage!

Another interesting point is feedback. I've been dying to give some feedback on what they could do better, but I'm reserving it for people with the initiative to ask. So far, only a few people (who know me) have asked. C'mon, sure it's hard to hear that you sucked, but don't you wanna know how NOT to suck at the next audition?

Money makes the world go round...

... and my world revolves around making enough to sustain this journey of mine. To be self-sufficient. To be able to shove it into someone's face and go - see, I did it, now go away and don't presume to tell me what to do!

Unfortunately, Tunku took a toll on my Agel and I've yet to get that engine running again. I've recently finished reading Timothy Ferriss' brilliant Four-Hour Workweek, and I'm so inspired. Been scrounging around for ideas for an automated information business, anyone with potential ideas and a desire to be more in this life give me a yell.

But thinking about all this people database thing, I've just been thinking about having some kind of actor's database here. A one-stop destination for actors, directors and producers to find each other, something superior to what kakiseni currently has. It would maintain good, clean records that ensures a certain standard to the applicants. No more "I'm a singer... for the tone-deaf club". Could it work? Not financially, but as a service for the community. Hmmm must test.

The written word

Just finished Mitch Albom's For One More Day. Brilliant brilliant brilliant. It's my first Mitch Albom, and I finished it in under 24 hours (I think). Simple, poignant, tear-jerking. I try to apply it to myself, to see what lessons I can learn from it and be personally changed by it... but I just can't. There just aren't those moments in my life. I don't know lah.

Through a magnificent series of fortunate events, I landed myself with a freelance writing job... for a marketing e-zine. Pays amazingly well for a relatively short article - I just hope my marketing bullshitting skills are up to par. Done the main article, just gotta review a book called Leadership Brand. Life is good.

Working on a short script for production next year. Working on a musical for production... sometime in my life? Well the theatres are practically packed for the next 12 months so I suppose it'll have to continue on slow-motion. Anyway we'll see.

So I semi-recently wrote a tech article on Aggregators, and had to do some research on it. To cut things really short, check out Google Reader (it'd help more if you had a Google Account). Put in the URLs (links) of all the blogs you read, and it's a one-stop centre for all your blog-reading needs! Handy stuff... except that I've put too many in there and I can't keep up. :P If you've already added blogs as your Firefox as Live Bookmarks, fret not: check out this OPML exporter extension that allows you to export all those Live Bookmarks and then you can import them into Reader (or another Aggregator out there). If you don't know what the hell I just said last sentence, ignore it - your life won't be made better by understanding it, trust me.

Another funky thing I used recently was Gmail (excuse me - Google Mail)'s Vacation Responder. Now it's a brilliant thing to use at the office (thanks Tim Ferriss), and for e-mail addresses for specific functions. I used it for the Oral Stage auditions - it'd just respond to every mail answering FAQs or asking for the relevant info I needed. It's in Settings, the General tab. However, if you encounter problems using it, this thread will help.

Enough seriousness

Indeed. Couple of colleagues from Tunku performed for Reshmonu's MTV - The Way It Makes You Move. Check it out on YouTube. Pretty good video, looks like good production quality. Don't know about Reshmonu himself endlessly swimming.

Now THIS you have to check out for the cleverness of technology. Coolness.

My self-definition of Metrosexual:

Walking into Body Shop wanting to buy a loofah ("bath lily" in Body Shop talk) and walking out spending 10 times as much, with a moisturizer ("clarifying night treatment") and a mask ("3-in-1 deep cleansing mask") in the bag. Sheesh.

fin

Yeah I'm done. About bloody time eh. Quotes coming up!

Tunku without his right hand

On Wednesday's run, which is the opening night of the YTL run (which went swimmingly well with a very appreciative audience, thankfully), Tony Eusoff conducted himself incredibly well on stage, and was the epitome of professionalism. Fella comes in to KLPac clutching his stomach, saying that "if this were I rehearsal I wouldn't be here" - believing himself to have indigestion of some sort, or something like that. On stage, he is Syed, Tuan Syed, Tunku's political aide. The slightly pained expression suits his character, who undoubtedly goes through a lot of stress in his role as Tunku's aide. Off stage, he is in agony. Even moments on stage where he needs to remain still, milliseconds drag out into endless eternity. By the end of the show, he is on the floor; resting, recovering, and allowing the pain to give him a serious smackdown.

Come Thursday, he is in hospital - eventually diagnosed with acute appendicitis, duly removed. Crazy bugger, I salute you. Good show. Rest well and have a good recovery - we're seriously missing you mate.

Come Thursday night, and Joe is a wreck. His cast have only had 3 hours of rehearsal with a frantically revised play that does not include Tuan Syed. His cast are a mild wreck too, especially Douglas who carries the burden of conveying some of Tony's more important lines in song. Thankfully, everything turned out great - and no one misses the irony of doing Tunku not just without Tunku on stage but without his aide as well. So good job all round guys and gals, that was just nutty balls.

So, as an interlude. We funnily had this fly / flies who drove some of us mental on stage. Let me tell you that this fly had an uncanny sense of theatre timing - here is a list of locations it landed DURING THE SHOW:
- my hand
- Tony Leo's forehead
- Nicole's nose
- Zamil's hair (with a serious Free & Easy tour included)
- my hair & face
- other places I can't remember / don't know about
Now 2 things about this fly. 1) by "landed", I mean "landed and had a nice stroll around". 2) this fly is one big bitch that is damn slow and stupid. The only way it could survive that long in Malaysia (ranked #1 fly-swatting country by the Book of Records) was by being on stage during a show, where no one could've made up a real enough story quickly enough to whack it in character. So, to make up for that lack of imagination then, here's my story now (with added embellishment for those versed in RPG lore):


Once upon a time, there was a boy. A very young and special boy. He was in line for apprenticeship for a very important role in his village - a doctor. But no ordinary doctor, oh no; for this was a special village too, located in a remote jungle in the exotic island of Borneo. He was to become a witch doctor, and the journey of learning was a long and arduous one.

But young Tony (for that was the young boy's name) proved a most adept and able pupil, and learned rapidly. For example, he quickly learned a spell most important to Bidayuh (for that was the tribe the young boy belonged to) culture: Grow Hair - most crucial for jungle survival. Body hair can ward off undesirable pests, it can camouflage the natural luminescence of human skin, and it can disguise a human as a nondescript native jungle dweller. Young Tony promptly cast the spell on his face, which proved useful for looking not-so-young.

Another spell he learned at a young age that bore fruit further in the future was Sharpen. Now this spell was important for the village doctor to know, as it meant that the doctor could bless the weapons of the village warriors before they went hunting. Young Tony, astute to the ways of the modern world taking shape outside his village, again promptly cast the spell on his face. One side effect of casting that spell on his face, as he would later find out, was that it came with an Aura of Gay Magnetism +10.

15 years later, and not-so-young Tony has put his knowledge to good use. He had grown powerful and expanded his repertoire, the most useful being Charm Director and Charm Producer. This, over time, landed him several roles in musical theatre but conjuring such witchcraft took its toll. 3 days before he was to end his most recent performance, his weakened body was attacked by A Cuter Bendy Sytis (a malicious foe indeed, by Bidayuh folklore), which overwhelmed him and landed him in hospital.

Poor Tony, who sorely missed his beloved cast-mates, decided to send an agent, a representative, an avatar if you will - over to KLPac to see how things were going.

"Lat tali lat BAGI LALAT!"

Thus went the Summon Fly spell ("Lat tali lat" being a lesser deity in the Bidayuh pantheon, the God of Small Things). So Tony sent his underling forth and eventually found the cast of Tunku the Musical hard at work, reworking the play without him. It conveyed Tony's well wishes physically to as many people as it could - but unfortunately its senses weren't acute and it landed on a certain Johann's hand in between songs. Johann, in a fervour of passion and adrenalin, promptly whacked Fly (Fly was slow to react as it was burdened with Bluetooth equipment to communicate with Tony) dead.

Tony cried out in pain as a small essence of his power was struck down with a cry of "Separation!" Undeterred in his love for his favourite people in the world, he again Summoned Fly:

"Lat tali lat BAGI LALAT!"

"Dengan SENSE OF TIMING!!"

"Dan RHYTHM!!!"

And so it was. Fly 2.0 reached out to members of the cast; during songs, on stage, and always safely.

Fly 2.0 now lives happily with the ducks at KLPac.

Tony recovers well and happily lies in bed all day.

THE END.

Let's say Merdeka...

[Ok so there's something ironic about posting about the opening night of a show close to the end of its run. But my Internet's been utterly hopelessly wonky, and I've been rather wonky myself. The show's been taking up far more time and energy than expected. It's no bad thing as I know I'm giving my all for the show. So I'm posting this slightly unedited version as-is, to get it out there instead of sitting here in draft for 3/4 weeks.]


So ends our opening night of Tunku the Musical. Of course, it's a damned confusing weekend for all of us - last night we performed our full dress rehearsal to an audience of about 30 or so (an estimate from observation), tonight's performance was completely sponsored by The Star (though there was a handful of non-Star people, however they are stars in their own right) and tomorrow's our first show for the buying public. But whatever. We got a standing ovation, which absolutely rocks.

It ends 3 months of uncertainty regarding the whole production: not that we doubted the value of the story being told, but rather how well the many disparate parts would fit together. Would it connect perfectly like a jigsaw, and what image would show up? Unfortunately, we still don't know and we'll never know as an audience - but hey, people seem to like it. With song, dance, videos, cameras, live feed, an orchestra, falling stuff, countless mics, multitudes of cues and mad arrays of costumes; holy crapamoly if we didn't count on so many things working seamlessly.

Cast-wise, there were concerns. Attitudes, Mindsets, Professionalism.

Technically, mics, orchestra, props, videos, cameras.

With stage management, that's a whole mother kettle of fish. Inexperience, attitude, poor communication, poor groundwork.

Costumes deserve a special mention. Something I'll need to visually describe (at a later posting once I get the visuals) is my opening costume. Here's the context: I start with a full baju Melayu - top, bottom, sampin and songkok (black socks and shoes, of course). After that, in 30 seconds I need to be in a shirt, tie, trousers and hat. After that, in 30 seconds (or so) I need to be in shorts, short-sleeved shirt and white socks. Fuck me if that ain't madness, I need Superman's phone booth off stage man. Just FYI I'll need to be in the white shirt, different tie and different trousers (and black socks) again in a minute or 2. It is said that Tunku Abdul Rahman was a clothes-horse, and I guess in this musical that would be what I'm channeling.

What have I learned thus far?
- confidence in voice
- value of hard work from the get-go
- value of dedication over an extended period of time
- value of having a fit body
- there is no excuse for not being on stage on time in character in costume
- tucking the singlet into the underwear is damn useful
- decent make-up skills
- Sentul Park kicks ass
- masks rock
- hats rock
- Dettol disinfectant spray can be bloody useful
- I absolutely love theatre

Read the programme book from cover to cover. Always nice to know more about the ppl you've been around almost daily for the past 3 months.


On a random other note: male push-up underwear!!!

Random shit

First up: how much is my blog worth? Apparently:

My blog is worth $7,339.02.
How much is your blog worth?

Hm. So I could sell it for about USD7k. But if I did... who'd update it?

It must be said that the Japanese are the geniuses of this generation. Absolute nutters, I think you just have to go to Japan to really understand what 'out of the box' really REALLY means. Check out this game of their's, which is like Tetris but with real people. Hilarious shit.

Next is the absolutely amazing matrix ping-pong. It's unbelievable, their creativity and imagination. This one's slightly different to the one I saw - this one's more real and live, with the one I saw a long time ago was probably edited for to make it more spectacular.


Okay real updates next entry.

Nonsense of the Day

Proof that Bloody Marys (-ies?) are good for you: Alcohol boosts health benefit of fruit (unless you think a tomato's a veg, but that's a whole nother story).

Darth Vader getting down with Princess Leia: the Vader Sessions.

No pork I tell you! The hilarious R K Curry House clip.

A Singaporean Hokkien N93 ad.