... PENANG! 'Nuff Sed!

I went back to Penang on 6th December 2006 to help look after my Grandmother. She's living with my aunt near Batu Ferringhi. My aunt went on a holiday to China along with her husband and twin girls, so my brother and I accompanied my mom to chill with my grandmother.

Assumption #1: The happy trio took Jerral's car to drive up to Penang.
Assumption #2: Jerral's driving.
Assumption #3: Penang. 'nuff sed.

Conclusion: FOOD FIESTA!

One of the many good things about living in KL is that every time I go back to Penang, I appreciate the food so much more.

My memory's been absolutely horrible ever since I waltzed past the quarter century mark, so instead of telling a story here I'll just talk about some of the pictures I took.

This is Barney the Dog. Yes you got that right the first time. If it were Barney the Dinosaur there I'd be the center of hatred for kids all over the world 'coz I'd have kicked its tail back to pre-history. Anyway, this Barney belong to my twin cousins and I thought it was a retarded Shih Tzu because of the decentralized eyes (opposite of cock eyed, don't know what that's called) and the way its tongue perpetually hangs out the right side of its mouth. Now I know many dogs leave their tongues out when they pant, but Barney's tongue looks like its dead, as if that side of its face was paralyzed.


Nasi Kandar. Despite what anyone else from the other parts of Malaysia say, Penang has the best Nasi Kandar around. Heck, the best Nasi Kandar in the world, since I doubt there's Nasi Kandar anywhere else. I went back to my favourite Nasi Kandar joint next to Chow Rasta Market but I was a little disappointed because the place had changed hands! With a sigh (and a salivating mouth) I thought to myself "Hey, it's still here, so I guess it can't be that bad."

True enough, it wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't really that good anymore either. The people running the place were quite rude, but what ticked me off was that they no longer had their amazing mutton kurma anymore! All good things come to an end, I suppose.


One of those 'spur of the moment' shots. My 6'3" brother walking alongside my 5' grandmother.


The famous "Sisters Char Koay Teow" is something everyone who visits Penang shuld try. We met Karpal Singh having lunch here many years back too. Anyway, look at the size of that prawn! Only sad thing is that it comes in a standard (read: small!) serving size. Tastes great though! The shop has some really good packet nasi lemak and otak otak as well.


Penang has many old guilds and associations predating World War 1. One of these establishments was the Carpenter's Guild, located along Love Lane just before it intersects with Chulia Road, if memory serves.

The entrance to the Carpenter's Guild, established 1855. The place was so empty and quite. Which was exactly how I liked it ;)


One of the many carvings in there. This is the top of an altar and was about five to six feet wide.


OK, time for a That's So Jerral story.


I was taking this Picture:

This is the base and foundation for one of the pillars. Someone was telling me that the foundation was an intricate part of work because it consisted of three different parts and went on to explain on how that made the foundation much stronger than the single piece block which was more commonly used.

So while taking that picture, I backed into this:


As you can see from its age and build (and the myriad of things hidden behind it), bumping into this created quite a big CLUNK followed by a clatter. Take into consideration that I'm not exactly small sized and put all these sounds into an old stone building with a two story ceiling, you get this amplified sound which is echoed by all the walls.

And the result? I scared the heck out of this poor dude:


He must have thought that the building was finally coming down, followed by thoughts of "Damned tourists!" but he promptly returned to his afternoon nap after I gave him a sheepish smile and apologized.

Right. End of story. Too sleepy to go on with the rest of the pictures so that'll have to wait for another day. I shall close with a picture that serves as an inside joke. It'll probably bring a smile, some laughs and exclamations of "Oh My God!" to those who know this story. Ask me if you don't know it and want to hear it, but it needs to be told over a few teh tariks.

... of spiders, amphibians and aquatic creatures

Tamera's sister visited KL with her husband sometime late October 2006 and I was temporarily recruited as a tour guide. Well, to be more precise, I was one part tour guide, four parts chauffeur. One of the places we took them to was the Aquaria in KLCC. I was quite happy because I've not been there myself, and I finally had a reason to use my not so trusty Vivitar digital camera for something other than work.

Not supposed to flash, but accidentally left it on. Must've scared the bejeezus outta this poor fella.


Can't remember what toad this was, but check out its size! I left a 50 sen coin beside it for comparison.


I like this picture. Kinda sad that this Iguana had many spotlights right above it. Good for the camera though!


This tarantula is unique to Malaysia. They had a whole collection of tarantulas unique to our jungles! I'm suddenly thinking twice about camping again. Focus is really bad because my Vivitar was deciding whether to focus on the glass or on the web, but not on the spider itself.


I really had to take this picture. Very reminiscence of National Geographic red eyed tree frog, except that it's not a red eyed tree frog.


Wassup, turtle dude!



There were many other photo opportunities and moments but my batteries decided to die out on me. That's their way of telling me that I forgot to feed them the night before. I saw some two meter sharks, a couple of remoras under one such shark, a baby kangaroo (yeah I know, I was wondering why was there a kangaroo in a place called 'Aquaria' too), several small nautilus (nautili? nautiluses?), sea dragons (they looked a little like spiny, spiky sea horses) and many other aquatic life that I can't remember at the moment.

No moral of the story, no funny or fabricated stories and no humour to this post, just wanted to put the pictures up.

I just realized that I have to spell 'humour' according to the British dictionary and 'enter' according to the American. 'Humor' and 'entre' just felt wrong to me :/

... Of Musical Methods & Pictoral Efforts

Posting up pictures of gigs in March. Hoping to appease complainants (complaints pertaining to mismanagement of blog content - also known as "no updates") Yin Ee and my only loyal secret fan now that I'm plugging in multiple entries within multiple entries ;)

Two Pics Above : International Women's Day @ La Bodega.

This is where we played!

Foresty pics above: Kampung Fest in Ulu Langat, 26 March 2006

Early Dinner After Kampung Fest! Yum!

Pics above: Zal and Myself - Actors Studio 27 March 2006


Rhapsody - Nicole & Ywenna - 27 March 2006

Kevin Brokenscar with Alda in the shadowed foreground - 27 March 2006

Melina William - 27 March 2006
I wanna be just like her when I grow up! No wait.. I'm older than her. Damnit.

... Of Midnight Ramblings - Wasted Funds, Persian 'Chauns, and Gigs for Fun!

Continuing from the previous post, I've mentioned that there were so many things that I wanted to put online, but was just to bogged down with work. Most of you would have heard by now that I've left Permanis. I'm attached somewhere now but I don't think I'd like to announce that just yet. Those of you closer to me would know why, the others... well you've just got to ask me over some teh ais ;)

Right, first thing on my list: I can't find my battery charger for my camera! I loaned it to my mom some time ago and now it's hidden somewhere in the house! No more pictures for me until I find it. Thankfully I took a few before I loaned off the charger.

"What? There's no more Bebop on TV?!"

Now, amongst the many things I wanted to add to this blog were writeups and reviews to a few of my favourite Anime series (how do you pluralize 'series' anyway?), including Rurouni Kenshin, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, the Ghost in the Shell movies and series, Captain Harlock, Tokyo Godfathers... I've actually wrote a few paragraphs each for about 12 Anime titles as well as reviews for games (Final Fantasy Franchise, Leisure Suit Larry, Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, etc) and a little tribute to some games that were cancelled.

Anyone who knows me well enough will know I'm just too darn lazy to write it all out again. At least, not now. I'll take my time and pull those writeups together again eventually. Eventually being the key operative word here ;)

Moving on to a different topic...

...Of Wasting Public Funds You Taxed From Me!

Ever taken a look around where you lived and wondered if the money taxed from you to develop that very place were not only put into good use, but efficiently as well? I was in my car, cutting through Section 16 PJ to link up to Jalan Damansara, right after the toll. For the benefit of those who aren't familiar, the road ends in a T junction; you can turn right into a housing area just before the junction, but once you hit the actual junction itself, you can only turn left and follow the flow of the highway. My question is, how many traffic lights would you need?

Four traffic lights facing me. Another 2 lights faces the oncoming traffic from the right.

Voila! They all turn green!

Okay, lame lame... on to the next post!

...Of Persian Leprechauns, Rainbows and That Pot of Gold

You ever heard of this tale where if you successfully follow a rainbow to it's source, you would find a pot of gold buried underneath the ground where the rainbow ends? That pot of gold is supposed to belong to a leprechaun.

Now check this out. I was driving around in Kampung Pandan and saw this:

And I followed it and saw this:

And discovered where it led to:

Puya's House!

Unfortunately I didn't find a pot of gold inside Puya's house, but I did find Puya standing outside his house, smoking a cigarette and looking at the said rainbow. He did not look much like a leprechaun, even under the most imaginative scrutiny. I guess the rainbow theory wasn't true after all, but he did look like he owned the rainbow and was doing a routine inspection.

... Of Gigs, Gigs and More Gigs!

I've gotten some more gigs under my belt over the last week, but since my camera had no battery, there are no pictures for those gigs.

First up was another performance in No Black Tie on Thursday 4th of May, where Zal and I played 2 sets totalling 12 songs for the night. It was really cool because we had Kevin Theseira from Qings and Kueens on the double bass and Melina William of Tempered Mental playing percussions for us. Kevin of Broken Scar came up towards the end of the night for the open mic segment and we had the whole band play along with him. All in all a great night of fun! Many thanks to Evelyn of No Black Tie for the invitation to perform!

Next up was Saturday 6th of May in La Gourmet House, where I played for Zal again. La Gourmet House had a wine tasting evening with French dinner, so along with Rhapsody, Reza and Melina, we were the entertainers for the evening. Thanks goes out to Anthony of La Gourmet for inviting us to play and feeding us too!

Sunday 7th of May saw myself in La Bodega (Jln Tungshin). We did a really great impromptu set for Kevin Brokenscar in No Black Tie 3 nights earlier, and he invited Zal and myself to join him on his set for the Troubagangers gig. Once again, impromptu performance with Kevin (which really rocked!) and later on more impromptu madness and Zal and I played for Nicole of Rhapsody, before covering Time After Time and closing the night with Zal's "Do You Really." What was really cool was that Alang hopped onto the drums and kicked in with us midway through Time After Time. The important thing for that night (besides a good performance) was that everyone had fun and everyone enjoyed the music! Credits go to the Troubagangers for organizing this monthly affair.

Thursday 11th of May, I went down to Laundry Bar at The Curve to was my friends from False Opus give their first performance in over a year. I wasn't expecting to do any open mic since Zal wasn't free, but I bumped into Kevin Brokenscar and instantaneously we just knew we were going to end up on stage! We had no guitars, so we had to go around asking the other musicians for their gear. Got two guitars in the end and belted out Kevin's "Scratch" to an interestingly motleyed crowd. Credits to Reza for organizing the monthly 'Moonshine' gigs, and thanks to the dude who loaned me his guitar ;)

... Of Returning To Previously Familiar Blogs, And Of Missing Entries Chucked In

Barely a blink of an eye, and another half year has lapsed between my posts. It was pretty sad, as I had much to say. I even typed out most of them on my previous company's laptop, and just before I left the company, I transfered it all into my trusty ol' thumbdrive.

Now the thing is, I can't find that blasted thumbdrive! It's not in my bags and it's not in my old office! Sheesh. There was so much I wanted to say, now I'll probably just dump it all into this post.

Let's start off chronologically. I wrote an entry on 26 Nov 2005 and mailed it to myself, and it goes as such:

26 NOVEMBER 2005...
... Of Shirt, Pants and No Black Tie

"The room was wooded in all directions; the ceiling, the wall and even the floor, in a fashion that one would rarely see in Malaysia. The place was this smoky jazz bar that I've always dreamed of playing in. Even at this time, 2 hours before the first of the night's patrons have walked in, I stand on the stage with Zal, going through our sound test the the audio engineer, I can still smell the leftover cigarette smoke that has been absorbed and have become part of each wood panel's personality."

Good evening, friends and strangers alike. About 2 years ago, I would have written an introduction like the one I've written above to introduce a night's performance at the ever classy No Black Tie on Jalan Mesui, behind Istana Hotel. The No Black Tie that I've grown accustomed to was panelled with light colored, seasoned wood, with the wall on the left racked with hundreds of empty bottles of wine. Each bottle would have its own stories to tell, as how each stain on the wood has its tales. A picture of Miles Davis stares from the stage and welcomes each visitor as they walked in.

By 9 O' Clock in the evening, the room will have already been filled, and a cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke hangs suspended in the air as if time has frozen as the room begins its journey back in time to the 1930's American jazz era.

No Black Tie has been famed for its quality in musical performances and has set the benchmark for independent and amateur musicians, with its strict quality control forcing musicians to strive for improvement and fight for the permission and honor to perform there.

Musicians and music lovers alike were greatly saddened when this performance hub closed over a year ago.

Fast forward to the present day, No Black Tie has reopened with a bang, relocating 5 doors down the road to a larger venue. Reopened barely a month, I had the honor of being 'allowed' to play there with my long time partner in crime and wonderful friend, Zalila Lee. With many thanks to Evelyn, the proprietor of No Black Tie and Reza, the show's organizer, we opened the night with a 30 minute set, playing 6 songs written by Zal.

(Left - Right: Non participative baby grand piano, Jerral, Zal)

We encountered some minor problems as we went on stage. We were given stools that were higher than the chairs I was accustomed to, and lower and less stable than the high stools that come with most stages. It wasn't exactly much of a problem, but I was conerned about falling off as I swayed to the music, but by the third song, I was able to gauge a safe 'range' for me to move around. Zal and I were also quite deprived of sleep, Zal because of her consecutive performances at La Gourmet House in The Curve 2 days prior and myself largely because of work.

All in all, though, we had a lot of fun performing as a duo again, and I made my first impromptu attempt to shush the talking crowd when they got too noisy. Quite interesting, seeing the nice, quiet and appreciative front row crowd smiling in amusement, some people in the middle helping me shush the people at the back, and the people at the back wondering what all the shush-ing was all about.

The other performers for the night were Isaac Entry with his southern bluesy style, who quite amazed me not only because of his fluency with the guitar, singing and crowd interaction, but because I knew him about 5 years ago as a drummer who didn't play guitars or sang. Reza himself walked up next, with all the women in the room hooting and cheering even before he began his music. He was quickly followed by this Chinese dude who sang primarily Mandarin songs. Can't remember his name at this point, but I think it was Steven something. The last featured act was a duo called 'Rhapsody' who just blew the crowd away with their wit, charm, attitude and last but definitely not least, the Tori Amos-ish music they belted out. To any music lovers out there, check them out if you ever see their name being featured.

Mia: Astounding the crowd with her cross legged levitation trick.

Mia Palencia made a surprise visit for the open mic segment and as always, she gave an excellent soulful performance. I shall close the description of the night with a message to Mia: My Aunt Ninny's Petunias to "I can't sing in Malay!" That was a great song!

Thanks to everyone who turned up that night, and a special shout out to Zal for asking me to perform with her, and cheers to Wei Yein, Puya, Viji, Intan, JJ, Glenda, Rubini, Michael, Michelle, Fariq 'Aminal' Halim, Fiona, Leonard and Nigel. Hope y'all really enjoyed the show, and that exclamations of "You rocked!" and "My god, that was amazing!" weren't just empty words one's obligated to say to one's friends. Good night! =)

Of Early Mornings: Nocturnal Tendencies Defeated

I can't believe it. I was supposed to meet Cass for a belated birthday dinner with her and I fell asleep. I, Jerral, fell asleep. In the evening, nonetheless! I'm so sorry babe! Will call you tomorrow and get an ear lashing. *cringe* I've also missed Nigel's farewell party. Who's Nigel, you ask? Read on.

I was supposed to meet her around 8.30pm and I fell asleep around 7.30. My phone's alarm has this auto 5 minute snooze thing if you don't acknowledge it after 30 seconds and I woke up to it at 4.30am. That's means I slept through 95 alarms and woke up on the 96th!

I slept in my work clothes and contact lens on, woke up with a weird sore throat (can't figure this one out), bad back and neck (I literally dropped on the bed and snored, I guess) and my right eye has had this smoky film for the past 45 minutes. Ever tried sleeping 8 hours with contact lens on? Your eyes attempts to do a Vulcan mind meld with it and ripping it off your eyes feels like you're tugging at your cornea.

NOW.

What made me slumber on through the entire evening and made me wake up so darn early on a friggin' Saturday morning? It's not so bad if they were still airing Robotech on Saturday mornings but I'm digressing.

I started work in Permanis Sandilands Sdn Bhd as a Brand Executive yesterday morning. Permanis is the local bottler and marketer for Pepsi Co International. It's in Bangi, at the Southern borders of Selangor. I happen to reside towards the Northern side of Selangor and reaching work at 8am just means I wake up around 6.20am and leave before the 7am traffic begins. If I'm lucky I'd grab a bun from some petrol station along the way.

First day of work was pretty interesting. I found out which brands fell under my portfolio, met some of the research and advertising agencies we'll be working with and got paraded around the offices like a trophy. At least they were friendly :) They probably thought I was pretty unfriendly coz I was just sleepy the whole day, and why I try not to feel sleepy by concentrating on something, it just looks like I'm extremely stand off-ish. Kinda miss having Zal, Viji and Puya around. Really wished they were working in Permanis as well :P


Anyways the good news is that they're moving to Bukit Bintang within a month. Somehow I have a feeling I might have to get up even earlier to get into KL in the mornings, but hey, I've got options for lunch now. Can even hang around KL if I want to avoid the traffic, plus I'll be quite close to Cass and Yineemeanie and probably a whole lot of other friends that have slipped my mind at moment. I can see myself asking them for lunch, but have to avoid places where they sell Coke ;)

The people I've met here were great. I was kinda worried they'd be dry and boring, but these people are kinda wacky in their own ways, though the wackiest and friendliest was this guy called Nigel who has just left the company. Wish he was here a little bit longer, 'coz he seemed like someone really fun to work with and I think I would have learnt a few things from him. I'm sort of taking over part of the brands under his care, and I now have Lipton Ice Tea, Excel Isotonic and Gatorade in my portfolio.

Try asking me some questions about the company (not questions about work, that's slightly different) and I'll answer them according to my employee's handbook. :)

Once again, my apologies to Cass, and also to Nigel. Waking up 6.20am is not something I'm accustomed to. :(

Of Dave Matthewsism and Duplicity

I'm a big fan of Dave Matthews and his band, better known as the Dave Matthews Band. Oh wow. Creative branding aside, they have collectively created some of the best music I've heard in this lifetime. I hope I'll come across them again in the next, if there happens to be a next lifetime for me.

Anyways Dave Matthews music was introduced to me by an old friend of mine, Boon Yew. I was amazed at the composition and fingerwork for "What would you say?" when I first heard Booners play it. I've pretty much embarked on a mission of sorts to convert people to Dave Matthewsism ever since, preaching to fellow musicians who have the bad luck to have to work with me and to the poor ears who has had to sit down and listen to me out of courtesy.

Of course, being Jerral, I'm not only promoting Dave Matthews all this while, but my own brand of music as well. I'm just using Dave Matthews and whoever else anyone wants to hear as a platform to introduce music as per how I think they should be (I don't change Dave Matthew's music though. Quite sacrilegious, if you ask me).

Left - Right: Jerral and Zal performing in the Commonwealth Club a few years back.

People I've tried to convert over the years. They can comment on how successful I've been if you ever get to meet them or if they come across this entry!): Zalila Lee, Fariq "Aminal" Halim, Fiona Jane, Patricia "Ah Pat" Yip, Yineemeenie, Izzy, Ee Von, Intan Bintang, Shelley Belly, Debbie Tang, Ayunami, Davina, "Ah Long" Wei Yein and Puya. Can't remember if Shuks has heard me play or sing, but she should be on that list too. Yes, I have friends with interesting nicknames, and note that Fariq is an AMINAL, not animal.

Feel you should be on the list? Hit me with a comment if you ever see this blog. Gimme a spankin' high comment count so I can compete in some popularity contest or something.

Occassionally (read: once a year, twice if I'm lucky) I get flattered by an unexpected "Hey! I saw you at [insert performance] the other day! Remember me? I was the one who [insert incident]!" to which I would respond with the never changing "Oh yeah! My God! I've not seen you since then! How've you been doing, man?"

If you ever catch me saying that (unless you're a personal friend) then I've probably forgotten you and that incident, but it usually comes back a couple of minutes into the conversation. *Sheepish Grin*

Anyways Dave Matthews himself heard how I've been covering his music and sends his personal support and endorsement below.

Jerral did WHAT to my songs?!

Ayu has complained that I don't mention her whenever I talk about my music. So here it goes - She loves my simplified renditions of miscellaneous Dave Matthews songs and also my version of Jamiroquai's "Black Crow." She's a gorgeous and smart lass and has a great taste in musicians ;) She enjoys a good laugh, is a fan of Russel Peters, has a great sarcastic wit and does not take lightly to being insulted during a game of Literati. Her current whereabouts are to be kept confidential, but several unverified reports have surfaced saying that she has been antagonizing sheep around the region where they shot 'Lord of the Rings' when she's not busy playing Literati. It's best to stay clear from Lamb Chops for a while. :P

Digressing from music, I'm half a chapter away from finishing Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Might do a review on it if I feel like it over the weekend. Cheers, all!

Song of the Day 1 : Love Me Butch - Freefall. Yes, I'm feeling nostalgic.

Song of the Day 2 : Mono - Life in Mono.

I should mention at this point that Dave Matthews and his band remain a constant inspiration to the little musician who lives inside me. I apologize for any duplicity caused in his name and for using that picture of his, which kind of makes me wish I had a spankin' cool music video myself.

Of random events being blogged together

HAIKU!

Haiku is a a traditional form of Japanese poetry that consists of only three lines. They do not rhyme, but have a strict structure (tongue twister ain't that?) where the first line has to contain 5 syllables, the second 7 syllables and the third 5 syllables again.

I used to play a lot of PS2 games based on Japan and often saw these weird forms of poetry. Sometimes they made little sense to me, sometimes they made no sense at all. Sometimes the third line makes the entire poem profound and meaningful.

Here's my first attempt at it:

Stirring my coffee.
Looking at the morning sun.
You're not here, goodbye.

Oh well, ain't so great after all. Thank God I'm not a poet.

OK. Wednesday 28th September 2005 saw Viji Puya, Zal and myself having lunch at Pizza Uno in Centerpoint after yet another wasted morning in the office. I was having a bad bout of diarrhea and was battling with myself whether I should be eating all these creamy, olive oily Italian food. It was a mental contest between Jerral the Hog and Jerral the Wise and Conscientious One.

The food on our table!

Needless to say there was no contest and I pigged out. Thankfully the stomach did not object to the type or amount of food I put in that day (Seafood Bisque, Spaghetti ala Vongole and Ice Blended Mocha).

Puya promotes the virtues of Tabasco Sauce during lunch

Fast forward to Thursday 29th September 2005, 7.20pm. Location: Megamall, heading towards ICOM on Jalan Pahang. Zal was in ICOM for a performance and had asked us to come around 7.30 tp get good seats. I was hoping to perform in this gig as well but i) I couldn't make any of the practices and ii) I wasn't an ICOM student nor was I in the alumni.

Anyways, Puya and I picked Wei Yein up in my car from Megamall around 7.20 and we headed off towards KL. To cut the story short, I missed a turning and next thing you know I was on Jalan Raja Chulan, having made quite a long scenic route to my destination. We hit Jalan Tun Razak and ran smack into the infamous traffic jam there. We hit Jalan Raja Chulan around 7.45 and by the time we got to the Jalan Pahang roundabout it was already 8.15.

Anyways we managed to drive, park and get into ICOM in time to catch the second song of the performance! So what made this gig so special that we wanted to go so badly(Besides Zal being a great friend of mine)? Zal was playing for Zainal Abidin! Puya was enjoying himself so much he was clapping and singing along to the songs when Zainal went up.

Zal's at the center. Her face is just barely visible, between Zainal and Elliot, the Timbales dude for the night

Because of all the rush, neither of us had the time to grab some food for dinner and Wei Yein suggested that we adjourn to Jalan Ipoh for some Dim Sum. Yum! There was food, more food, and then there was Puya telling us stories about the Mahabharata and the Mnokey King.

Wei Yein: "And that's why Santa Claus is only this small!"
Puya: "No way! I mean.. really?!"

Puya, all ready to knock out disbelievers of his stories with a Bruce Lee punch

Wei Yein: "I wonder if I should believe what Puya's telling us."
Zal: "I shall curi her chicken while she thinks!"

* * * * * *

Currently Reading:
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Hardcover
US$26.95
ISBN: 006051518X


*MPH was on sale. Got it for RM50 ;)