Kenny G - Heart & Soul Concert

Spent the last weekend in Genting with Joanna. Now it wasn't for any ordinary weekend getaway, but it was to attend Kenny G's concert.


Once again, the concert poster.


Before you read any further, just load up this video and listen to him play while you read.

With the weather in KL being such a royal pain, having Kenny G play in Genting was just godsent. We left KL on Saturday at about noon when it was the hottest, and by the time we stepped out of the car right at the top of the hill... wah so relaxing. It so happened that it was on the verge of raining so it was nice and misty. My favourite part of Genting.


Concert started about 8pm. Hung around a little bit before heading in. After getting our tickets checked and whatnot, we found that Kenny (first name basis ok?) was signing autographs for his die-hard fans. It was also then when Joanna and myself Googled him up to confirm his age. Turns out he's 55, but still looks exactly like when they were printing his face all over cassette boxes.

The concert was opened by this local guy called something Valentine who is supposed to be multi-talented, being able to play the piano, harmonica and a few other instruments. Admittedly I was playing with a game on my iPhone. I only looked up and paid attention when he warmed everyone up with a rendition of one of those quite-popular-songs (really, I'm horrible with song names) on the harmonica and I gave the ObamaFace.jpg


A little while after that Valentine guy got off the stage, Kenny G made his entrance, not on the stage, but all the way from the back.

I envy the people sitting there.

Kenny (my bro) played some of the more recognisable pieces that I listen to all the time like Forever in Love, Songbird. Let me tell you a secret, I don't actually know if he played Songbird. Like I said, I'm bad with song names and it honestly gets harder with instrumental pieces.

All I know was that he played the pieces which I loved, and that's all that matters.

We later found out that there was a lucky draw for the people who purchased his album on that night itself, and they'd be winning a saxophone from his own line of saxophones called "Kenny G saxophones". This guy got the chance to sit on stage while Kenny played to him. One of his newer pieces that I'm not too familiar with. I need to get myself up to date with his newest album, really.

Guy requested his girlfriend join him up on stage too.

The lucky guy who won the saxophone, with his girlfriend (R). I'm hoping they actually learn how to play that instrument, rather than just putting it up somewhere. Image courtesy @joelsmom (L)

Sidenote: Heard from a friend that guys MUST be wearing their underwear while playing the saxophone or risk getting testicular hernia. Not sure how true is that, but here's a piece of trivia for you.


The concert went on for something like 2 hours, which I think is really really great because there are times where you attend concerts that end too soon. Halfway through and you'll probably go "WTF that was it already?" Props to them for keeping the concert going. I was slightly disappointed that he didn't play Jasmine Flower, but then again the pieces from his new album were great so it made up for it.

At the end he even responded to calls for encore, twice!

The first piece was My Heart Will Go On, and the second one...well you know the drill.

Joanna isn't so much of a Kenny G fan simply because of the way it sounds over the radio and whatever. It lacks soul. Now she said she likes Kenny G. So easy to convert hehehe.


***

Ok now I'm done with the good, here's a small piece of ugly. We were all seated at the last row of the hall, not that it really mattered. What mattered was the staff working at the event could not shut the fuck up, while leaning against the railing right behind me.

Do you know how annoying is it to hear people mumbling away while you're trying to enjoy something. A few "shhhs" kept them quiet for a while before they decided they should continue talking. Also, the family sitting next to me decided that a concert will be a best place to discuss....whatever.

Genting, please do something about the staff thanks. And then everything will be perfect.


***

All in all it was a great experience. Decent rooms (not the typical closet First World rooms, but a slightly larger one that was really comfy), not having to queue up for our breakfast table was a big plus point.


Once again, thanks Genting and Nuffnang for the really memorable performance.

Bare Your Heart & Soul With Kenny G

OMGOMG did you know that Kenny G is coming to Malaysia? Truth is, I didn't know that until I read about it from Genting. This is what happens when you don't read the papers sigh.

Anyway, anyone who knows me well will know that I am a very big fan of jazz (among many other genres I love). Influences come from early days when my parents would be listening to the great classics (jazz and non-jazz)like Rod Stewart, The Carpenters and Kenny G on cassettes.

 
Cassettes, they remember where you last left off!

The fun thing about jazz is that there are a lot of covers, which means you'll get to listen to interpretations of great pieces by different artists. The downside of this is that it may be a bit tough to erm... source for softcopies of such pieces heh heh heh. Ok back to Kenny G. I believe that he is a phenomenal star because he is one of the few people who has managed to create albums with a very high acceptance rate, as judged by myself of course :)

Where most artists would only have a couple of good pieces within an album with the rest of the pieces being somewhat filler, I can safely say that Kenny G is one of the few artists that I've never found a reason to click 'next' to skip a particular song. The expression, grace and beauty of music that oozes from his saxaphone is just... wonderful. Perfect for long drives, getting stuck in the jam, or even before heading to bed, the versatility in most of his pieces are just great. Here are some of my favourite pieces:

Jasmine Flower
 


Forever In Love


And one of my all-time favourite piece, Girl From Ipanema. Its almost impossible to find a version that I dislike!
 


So, Kenny G is a phenomenal superstar because he embodies what all great musicians should be like: great pieces, clean personality that doesn't appear on dodgy sites like Gutterpost (hehe), collaborations with other artists that doesn't suck, and a dedication to his art. In an age where electrofunk and trash music rule the ears of the masses, having a great saxophonist survive (and also be appreciated by some of these mainstream listeners) is testament enough that he is a great artist well worthy of his fame.

The best thing about Kenny G coming to Genting is that you stand a chance to win not only 2 tickets worth RM170, but you also get accomodation, all of this thanks to Genting!

Head on to Genting's Evangelist page for more details which will feed your envy monster... because I am going there!

p/s: Kenny G holds the world record for the longest note, which is at 45 minutes 47 seconds. I can't even hold my breath for 2 minutes sigh.

Defragmenting OS X

I love Macs, and people around me will find the occasional evangelistic aura oozing from my pores. However, unlike evangelists Mac Fanboys who do not recognise flaws in their beliefs are annoying as fuck, I recognise flaws to the OS X, with high memory usage (thus reducing available physical memory) being one of its drawbacks, amongst others. One of the supposed advantages of OS X is the much (one-sided) discussed efficiency of the entire system's design, thus negating the need to defrag the system. This view that Apple goes along with.

"You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X. Here's why: [redacted]
...
For these reasons, there is little benefit to defragmenting.
...

If you think you might need to defragment

Try restarting first. It might help, and it's easy to do.

... there's a chance the disks could be fragmented¹. In this case, you might benefit from defragmentation, which can be performed with some third-party disk utilities.

Another option is to back up your important files, erase the hard disk, then reinstall Mac OS X and your backed up files²."

In a typical Apple-isque communication, one can basically sum it up as 'the problem is there, we don't recommend you fixing it but if you want to, go ahead and sort it out yourself, its not our problem'.

With my MacBook (late 2008 Aluminium Unibody, 2.0GHz) maxxed out (7,200rpm HDD and RAM at the officially supported 4.0GB), I was satisfied but was always picking up interesting articles which could potentially enhance my computing experience.***
During one of my usual tech-blog crawling sessions, I stumbled upon a Lifehacker discussing various defragmenting utilities for Windows, with a number of comments beating an already dead-horse on Mac defragging when someone mentioned iDefrag.

iDefrag is thus far the only Mac defrag utility that I know of, and offers several defragmentation algorthms such as compact, metadata, optimise, quick defrag (online) and full-defrag.

While I won't go into all the different algorhythms, one mention worthy method which allows you to imagine its effect would be 'compact', where it shifts all files to the beginning of the volume, freeing up space. This is possibly due to files occupying half-blocks similar to FAT32 structures. I'm not a programmer or an expert in storage so I'll just leave this as it is to use your imagination to further expand on such concepts.

The problem with running most defragmentation programs is that your main disk would be mounted / online, reducing the ability of the defrag tool to defrag certain system files in use. The only defrag-algorhythm available to online users would be quick-defrag, which didn't provide much gains on personal observation.

Certain Windows utilities like O&O Defrag permits offline defragmentation, but the problem with iDefrag was that there was no user-friendly method to initiate offline defragmentation, so I had to resort to installing a fresh copy of OS X on a portable USB disk and booting to it. This kept my main disk unmounted and open to defragmenting access, and allowed me to run a full-defrag.

***After defragmenting my computer, there was a slight but noticeable increase in performance. General things that cannot be reliably measured like the time it takes to load certain programs³ were noticeably smoother. Unfortunately, in the excitement and anticipation of testing the application, I forgot to do pre-defrag tests. I am seriously a fail-blogger.

Fortunately, I found a friend who was willing to let me have a go at her computer (early 2009 MacBook 2.0GHz, 120GB Hitachi with 2GB RAM).


Pre-defragmentation. Not much you can see from the main window as it is zoomed up far too much, but do note the lower bar which indicates fragmentation. Boot up time (easiest metric to measure reliably) was about 1 minute 4 seconds.



Post defragmentation. Fragmentation is low, with only 11 files left fragmented. For some reason they could not be further defragmented, but trying to defrag those files would be just chasing marginal gains. Boot up time reduced to 54 seconds.

She later reported that her computer is now very fast, and that I am very sai lei.
***

A round up of iDefrag's pros and cons.
Pros
1. Improved load times.
2. It has a very fun GUI that shows the copy and write process, similar to Windows 98⁴. A simply and yet surprisingly and annoyingly addictive process to watch.

Cons:
1. It costs £19.95. That's a shit load of money there.
2. No user-friendly way to run a full defrag.
3. Quick defrag (only option available to general users) does not provide noticeable results.




Notes:
1. Bad Apple, going back on your words.
2. Backing up and restoring your entire hard disk probably allows the system to rewrite all files in a structured manner, permitting better file contiguity.
3. Being a student, the 3 most frequently used programs would be Excel, PowerPoint and Word from the Office Suite. These programs take excruciatingly long times to load, but has since improved noticeably.
4. Windows 98 Defragmentation Video

Boys are dirty

I was talking to Joanna one fine day, and referring to Secret Garden's plot (I swear to you, I don't watch that stuff), I wondered what would it be like if I were to swap bodies with a girl.

Being a stereotypical vulgar male, the things that I listed included, but were not limited to:
1. Play with my (new!!) boobs
2. Have sex
3. Pee squatting down

I was getting really excited blabbering on about what I would do if I had a girl's body, and realised I never asked what would she do.

"Shower, wash properly and all first".

WTF.

How to choose a boy/girl-friend

I was having a conversation with Cheryl, a fatass who stays near my place my neighbour, where I discussed the drawbacks of getting married to a naggy spouse.

[redacted]
C: Wow, say until like you're going to get married to her.
H: Yeah, I'm 6 years older than you and any relationship goals at this point of my life are long term. Now imagine if you get married to someone who goes "dear don't do this, don't do that, don't cum so fast" I WILL shoot my own ears off.

The conversation steered away from naggy spouses, to my perceived age vs. my actual age peppered with with a large amount of teenage exclamation along the lines of "omg I can't believe you're 24!"

H: At this stage, my idea of 'seeing girlfriend' sitting in the garden in the evening talking, and later dinner with parents. No clubbing, and I aim to buy a house within the next 3 - 4 years.
***
Interestingly enough, I encountered a woman who seemed to be a very active henpecker. Thus began my conversation with Joanna. Joanna is a former client of mine way back from my Nuffnang days, she is also very cute.

H: Wow, I just saw this bitchy looking woman at the bank. One look you know she dominates her husband in the relationship.
J: Isn't this usually the case, one person will dominate the other?
H: Well, I'm sure there's one person in the relationship with a stronger personality but I think outright dominance is just plain mean.
***
Here are some points to prevent / mitigate poor decision making while choosing spouses, with the basic assumption that your spouse is the perfect person.

1. If (s)he nags a little, ask he(r) to stop. Explaining what's wrong with nagging (i.e. its fucking annoying).
1.1. If (s)he doesn't stop, screaming at him/her won't help because its built in them to tell people what to do all their lives. Revel in the fact that they will be excellent JKR foremen, and your marriage will enjoy income via pencen upon his/her retirement.

2. Subject to #1, if (s)he doesn't stop, it's going to get worse after you get married. Bail the fuck out or you'll be living a sad married life, seriously. I've been in a naggy relationship and it wasn't fun because
2.1. If you're free spirited like me, I didn't enjoy being bossed around and I rebelled to show that I could do things my own way. I'm sure she didn't enjoy the fact that I didn't want to listen to her as it went against the basic rules programmed in her. This step is counter-productive, as you'll probably be doing things the wrong way to spite him/her.
2.2. If you're spineless, you'll be living the rest of your life knowing that there'll be someone telling you: (a) how to fly a kite, (b) how much Milo powder to put in your drink, (c) how to take care of your dog, how to be careful when attending a debaucherious house-party.

3.1. Something that most people are aware of already but I'll just state it: you date his/her friends in your relationship.
3.2. Something that most people would never have thought of: In-laws. I'm not saying that anyone's family is bad, but given how each family operates in a different manner, there are bound to be different paradigms. If you think the conflicts are manageable (read: tolerable; NOT mendable), by all means go ahead. If you think that they're a bunch of bad motherfuckers who deserve to die a horrible death, imagine your life with a similar outcome to Pt. 2- 2.2. The only difference is that it'll be the in-laws ruining your life and you probably can't do anything about it.
3.2.1. If you really really really want to spend the rest of your life with him/her, revel in the fact that your parents-in-laws are easily 30 years older than the both of you. Combine that knowledge with statistics on mean life-expectancy available via your local ministries of health, you can revel in the fact that the final x-years will be in-laws free.
3.3. How well does (s)he coexist with your family.

Fire off more points in the comments section.

WTS iPod Touch 32GB

An iPod Touch 32GB for sale.


Purchased on 2nd of January 2010 from Apple.com


Just a quick rundown of the specs.

3rd Generation 32GB iPod Touch
600MHz processor
256MB RAM
320 * 480px resolution
Nike+ enabled

Battery life is rated at 30 hours (audio) and 6 hours (video) at new. Battery life is still good as I only use it for some light web browsing and playing music when I'm driving.

Item is engraved with my name, however...


...with the bundled casings (one Griffin, the other unknown) it shouldn't be a problem.

If there is ever a worry that someone would accuse you of stealing it from, I will provide a lifetime worth of moral consultation to 3rd parties. This service is provided by default, with the sale of this item.

It also comes with a complimentary dock with lineout. Lineout is great if you enjoy playing music on a home theatre system, which means you don't have to manually max out the volume every time you plug it in.


I am asking for a reasonable RM650 for this well taken-cared of unit. There are some light scratches on the stainless steel backing, but it is mainly from inserting and removing it from the casing. I am willing to try to buff it out if you indicate serious interest.


The item also comes with its original packaging and accessories. The headphone is a new and unused unit from my iPhone 4 as I gave the old one away.


Interested parties may contact me at tanyeehou@gmail.com, or call/SMS at 017 - 366 0933.

BBM Conversation with Chris Tock

A little bit of history behind this: Chris and myself call each other 'baby'. In spite of that, I am slightly homophobic.

Me: Baby I'm having bacon+cheese omelette
Him: Ya I know I saw (on twitter)
Me: Are you jealous?
If yes you can come over
I put chicken eggs in your backside then you sit down and you can feel it crack
Then after that I'll eat it when it flows back out.

Something tells me that my mind hasn't recovered from my 2 girls 1 cup adventure, which incidentally I have yet to finish.

Trauma sial.

Boogers

I was having lunch with Royal Gold when I discovered an annoying booger stuck up my right nostril. It wasn't the normal sort of boogers you would nonchalantly discard, but rather it was the flat kind which held on to your nasal hairs like a Jew assigned to Auschwitz. It just simply refused to come out. What made things worse was that it was strategically placed on the roof of the nasal canal, making it harder for me to remove it.

After some forceful and acrobatic digging, I finally removed the offending booger and left it on the floor of McDonalds SS15. The conversation turned to eating boogers when we were younger.

"Eh, you know arr? Earwax is bitter one."

I am liking Royal Gold alot more, really. I think we should start dating or something.

Old Photos (Nuffies) Pt. 2

Look at the size of that ass! Mummy Goon and Doria (owner of said ass) went down to tapau mee sua, soul food that kept us going.


A picture of a prepaid berry. Guess the user!


I think by the time this photo was taken it Waffle and Carol's relationship were in the open already. See! Sit so close somemore!


Patrick put on his baju melayu and we would all head to a Halal place for lunch on Fridays. We would always go late because we had to wait for him to return...ahaha fuck you if you believed that! This particular incident saw him buying boxberries because he liked the flavour. It was a cute image.


Uhhh, this took me out of work for close to two weeks so I guess it fits in here hehee.


Doria (large rear in first pic) tapau-ed kolo mee for us when she went back. It was nice.


KY calling for the waiter during one of our many Friday Halal lunches at Shanghai 10.


Err wtf, Wobb-Wobb letting me trim his kalatai mou. "You gay shit!!" I used to yell that at him all the time. Sexual discrimination lawsuit coming my way T___T

Old Photos (Nuffies) Pt. 1

Am supposed to be studying right now for my paper which starts in about 5 hours time, but fuck that.

Was digging through my cobweb encrusted *sneeze* camera folder on my phone and found a collection of memories, presented in the order they were taken. I'll start with the Nuffies first.


Hui Wen on one of the trips up from Singapore in Feb 09. She looks constipated. I just bought the phone the day she arrived and this was the 3rd picture I took.



One of Waffle's trips down to KL before he shifted here. I remember his relationship with Carol was hush hush at that point, so Carol chose to stay back at the office while the 3 of us went down for dinner.



One of Carol, where we went as judges for TGIF's Mardi Gras decoration contest. It was fun as we had free dinner and wrapped up the night with free (keyword ok?) drinks. The downside was that I was hit on by a gay man, which made me inch closer to Carol for some XX protection.



Andrea, who interned with us. This photo was posed, but if you click on it you'll see her taking out a bottle of Tabasco, because she's a Tabasco junkie like that.



Myself failing badly at the gangsta look. Went shopping at Sg. Wang with Hui Wen and Nic before the Maxis Music Bash.



Unrelated to work, but this was during a little break I took at Cameron Highlands, where Mummy Goon was incidentally there as well. Was supposed to drag her lazy ass up the mountain to look at the sunrise but because she was lazy her parents thought I looked liked a perverted fucker, so yeah. Well thankfully she didn't go up lah cos I wanted to miang her up there one wtf.



One of Penton sleeping. He used to be (secretly) the butt of our (Nic and myself) jokes because of his name. Penton Penton panti....oops. We later made things abit more open and I would call him things like 底褲 wtf


Breakfast with Nic before a morning meeting. Wahh like gahmen servant like that, eat before we work wtf. This was on the day before Carol's birthday, and we bought her a bra for her birthday. Here's my side of the story

After finishing the meeting with the client who owns a dingy rundown mall, Nic and myself were heading back to the car when we spotted this pasar malam-ish lingerie shop and the idea was hatched. The point where I got really embarrassed and decided to let Nic continue with the purchase was when he pointed out at the particular bra that we bought and told the sales girl "我要這個" (I want this one).

I went out and stood guard in case the client happened to walk past and saw these two horny fuckers buying bras. We later discussed this and wondered what would happen if the client said "I also like to play these kind of things" if he actually came across us mid-transaction.

Read up on what Carol had to say about it here. Go read it, I feel so mean on being reminded that I teased her mercilessly on buying flowers for herself to up her market value. I'm sorry Carol.
Total cost: RM4
Memories: Priceless lah even Mastercard can go fuck off


Mell being a total bimbo, the way we love her.


I don't know why were there cake, it must have been Tim's birthday or something?

Well, that's all for now. Time to hit the books.