4614454591458502933 (No, It Is Not A Random Number)

Whoosh. With a swirl of cape and an air of mystery, the masked murderer makes his appearance once again, having laid low for almost a month. Who will be his next victim?

Who has watched Transformers? In the cinema. I'm not actually eager to talk about the movie, since it's new and I don't want to spoiler anything for anyone.

I mentioned in the cinema, because instead of talking about the movie itself, I'd like to mention the delightful Heineken advertisement that I saw before the movie. It's absolutely hilarious.



And, it comes with a sequel:



Haha! I love it. There are, in fact, an abundance of hilarious commercials on Youtube, if you ever bother to look. Anyway, next topic.

Tan-ta-da-da!

Welcoming the newest edition to the Chan family!

Cost me a whopping RM600, but who's to say it isn't worth it? I'm still learning to use it, though. I suppose it takes time. And the program it comes with is even more complicated.

Recording software. The instruction manual for this is well over 200 pages, and it's bliddy hard to understand. A whole new world altogether. It's like learning Photoshop all over again.

Alright, I'm going to tackle my "whole new world". OH WAIT! Watch this. Disney's A Whole New World cover, by a guy who sings both Aladdin and Jasmine's parts splendidly.

Okay, done.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Newest Updates

Don't expect any. Not soon. I'm too lazy.

However, I suppose you deserve something after typing the whole url or clicking on my link or whatever.

Thus, here's some space to imagine your own post! It's ultra-fun and makes me feel less guilty!




























































































Note: Posts that you imagine yourself are not Madness approved and I will not be held responsible for anything said there.

Magnificient

Yesterday was the Fight For A Reason gig, and although it began kinda headache-y, what with all the metal performances and booming extremities of volume, every once in a while we had a band that stood out above the crowd. Marinate amazing showmanship with great musicianship, then fry it in a crowd with good response, and you get... Well, an awesome performance.

I arrived on scene with Dylan at about 4:30, and met Jon Gui, Eric Soo and the self-proclaimed "Birthday Boy"(no idea what his name is, Jon told me to call him Malay, but I don't think it's suitable to be used up here) right at the entrance. We stood around considering the ballet class for a while(the only requirement was to be aged 3+), and eventually went in.

We entered the room to find about 20 unrecognisable faces inside, with the exclusion of the organisers and a small handful others from school. We set down our instruments and took our seats on the carpeted floor, after paying for our tickets. Half an hour later, everyone had arrived and the sound check began. One by one, all the bands plugged in their instruments and tested the amplifiers and adjusted the settings.

Funnily enough, my whole band had left to go to the bathroom when suddenly:

"Initial Sound, it's your turn for the sound check now."

So I grabbed my guitar and went over to the corner with the amps, and several minutes later saw Dylan, Jeremy and Justin return from nature's call. They stood around asking "Where's Jun Shern?" for a while, and I thought that I would let them search a while, seeing as they had ditched me for a bathroom. It would have worked out, but Alison suddenly said:

"Oh, Jun Shern's over there. You can tell it's him because his shirt is so-"

It was at this exact moment that my amplifier decided to blare out loudly and prevented me from hearing exactly what my shirt was. I got the gist of it though, but talking about distinguishable clothing, I don't believe that she's one to talk, what with the luminous yellow jacket she wore yesterday. Haha!

Anyways, we finished checking our amplifiers and guitars, then at around 6:30 the emcees(Alison and Kim) walked up and announced that the show was about to begin.

Thus began the incredible lineup of heart-pounding loud music. I'm not saying that it wasn't good, but it was loud. And although some of the bands played songs that were too metal for my taste(I'm not saying which bands. Partly because it's rude, and partly because I don't know the names of the bands), some of them were absolutely awesome and great fun.

I won't go into detail about the performances. Instead, I'll put up some pictures. However, if you want more pics and videos, you can go to the FFAR blog to check it out. I daresay there'll be many more pictures there, seeing as I've just spent my whole morning uploading a whopping 114 pictures up there for Naveena. And also because of that, most of the pics you see here will also be there.




Some time during the band above's performance, I'd gotten tired of the loud music, and went out to check out the cafe outside. I had a drink there with Justin, Dylan, Jeremy, Tzer Chyuan, Ashwin, Mark and Jon. The peace of the outside world and the coolness of the 100 Plus was reviving.

Apparently, while we were outside sipping our drinks, the crowd broke out in mosh-pit fever. I wouldn't have known, but I found evidence within the camera that Naveena was taking pictures with. Ta-da.

This picture apparently shows someone kicking another person in the behind, and the victim obliging to position himself for the kick.

So anyway, I decided that we'd better go back in case we missed our turn. And in we went.

About this time, we were all feeling dead tired, and I wasn't inspired to play anymore. But the time came when we had to get ready to play, so we went backstage and tuned up our instruments.

Then came the announcement: "The next band is Initial Sound."

We trotted up to the stage and got everything ready. Dylan introduced us and made his birthday greetings to "all of you birthday people".

We started off with When You Were Young, as made famous by The Killers, and received surprisingly good response from the crowd. I never expected people to really cheer for us, because it was our first performance, and well... I didn't expect much. At all.


Afterwards we did Shattered(by OAR) and finally, Yellow. With a twist of Fix You at the end. The Fix You ending was the most amazing part. The build up was unbelievable. Everyone was clapping along, and when we started the final chorus, everyone within my sight was singing along. Thank you so much to everyone in the crowd last night. It was absolutely... Magnificient. I will never forget that moment.


So afterwards, we had Ashwin's rendition of Jason Mraz's I'm Yours. It wasn't that bad, I mean. He got everyone singing along with him. Though his song dedication was a bit of a lost cause, as his dedicatee was not there at the moment. Sad.

Towards the end, the bands seemed much better. My favourite performance afterwards was Blink 182's All The Small Things. I'm not sure which band did it, but you gotta admit. They could've rocked up hell if they'd wanted to.


Other performances worth mentioning were Holiday, performed by Kheng Yew's band,


Kim's take on Mad World and Pokerface(I never knew Kim could sing. And yes, she's good),


the solo performance of When You Say Nothing At All,


and Shadow Of the Day(Linkin Park), which was the last song I witnessed before I went home.

Okay, enough said. Remember, the videos and pictures are here.

Oh yeah! One more thing. Nav says we've collected RM1614 in total! Not bad, eh? That's about... 20 dogs? AWESOME!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Yellow and Black Stripes

It presented the much required stress relief to me during the exams. Now I share it with the rest of the world. Watch, and feel in awe of

the master of self-defence,

the black belt of ridicule,

the Chuck Norris of India,

the Indian Tony Jaa,

the one and only: RANJINI KHANTH!

And part two:

L is for the way you look at me O is for the only one I see V is very, very extraordinary E is even more than anyone that you adore

L-O-V-E, by Mister Nat King Cole, everyone! *clapclapclapclapclapclap* Ah, the brilliance of the oldies. It's one helluva lot better than the Ashlee Simpson L-O-V-E(even if you do happen to hear me singing it in school, it doesn't mean it beats the oldies), and it should be recognized as so. Especially with the awesome trumpet solo in the middle, which was almost definitely done by a black guy. You see, white guys just don't have the soul to play the trumpet like that.

Anyways, today I was in Yellow Cab with Jeremy, Dylan, and Justin, enjoying our brilliant 18-inch pizza, when suddenly I heard another old favourite. Let's see how many of you know it. It goes:

I'm a-walking in the rain
tears are falling, and I feel the pain
wishing you were here by me
to end this misery
and I wonder wa-wa-wa-wa-wonder why
wa-wa-wa-wa-why she ran away
and I wonder where she will stay
my little runaway

The song is "Runaway" by Atticus. The other day, at Tzi's house, we were singing another pretty old one. Guess:

I wonder how
I wonder why
Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree

Yeap, it's "Lemon Tree", as made famous by Fool's Garden. I think it isn't as old as the others, but still. And this one, which'll be the last one I mention here, you may have heard me or Alistair singing in class if you're in W or P.

When I was young Id listened to the radio,
waitin for my favorite songs.
When they played I'd sing along,
it made me smile.

Ta-da. It's Yesterday Once More, by The Carpenters. Alright. That's done, I guess. It's way too hot for me to comfortably continue sitting here and typing. Even with the air-con on. Which doesn't seem to be working.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Updates

Exams? Over. Holidays? Beginning.

Well, they've already begun, with the teacher's day celebrations and Tzi Hua's surprise party. And yes, it was a pretty awesome party, as it was last year and the year before (though I did spend more time playing football/basketball with Eric and a little boy who I'm guessing is about half our age).

I don't really have so much to say about this partae, especially since I don't have any of our turban pictures with PAS and UMNO and Parti Negara. We'll just let someone else do the post. Someone like Tzi.

Hmm. Okay, let's see. What else has been going on? Oh, of course. I never DID actually get around to advertising our new online shop. Topsyy Turvvy. By our, I mean me, Isaac, Gwen, and well, god knows who else. I haven't really been a very active member of the community, what with the exams and all.

Anyways, online shopping is the new era. So do visit the site and see if anything there interests you. If you want anything sold, too, you can trust us to help you sell it. There're tonnes of things you get buy there for dirt-cheap-prices.

(Except for what I really need. Ugh)

Haha! Scratch that last sentence. I've been trying really hard to get this thing cheap. Online, secondhand, anywhere, anyhow. As long as it works and is cheap. Though even cheap for this won't be cheap. So anyways, I've spent the last few days of my life painstakingly digging through the internet for this item.

Just on Thursday, I'd found it. A BOSS ME-70 for the price of RM600! Retail price of the thing is actually RM1200, so that is seriously an awesome bargain. Or rather, it was. It was on Ebay, and it was open to bidding, until yesterday night. So yesterday night, I went on to check on it again and to do some last minute bidding.

Lo and behold, my heart shattered. It broke. It exploded. Terletup. The price was about RM900 suddenly, and including the shipping fees from the US, it would cost about a thousand. So yeah. I was pretty cut up.

So anyway, I abandoned dreams of such amazing prices for such a new product, which only came out only a few months ago. So I turned to the older model. The ME-50. Which is still considered a pretty good competitor of value to the ME-70. So moving on, I went on another search. I immediately found a No-Bidding, Buy-It-Now price of RM600 for a brand-new ME-50.

So I immediately ran a background check on the seller. It was a shop in USA, which had achieved the status of POWER SELLER. I quote Ebay on the subject: "They are exemplary members who are held to the highest standards of professionalism, having achieved and maintained a 98% positive feedback rating and excellent customer service as reflected by high detailed seller rating scores". Now THAT's impressive. Haha!

So without further ado, I emailed my cousin, who was coming back from the US in just a couple of days' time, and pleaded her to bring back the ME-50 with her. A while later, I went to check my inbox to see if she'd replied. She hadn't, but somebody else had.

On thursday, I had also asked around on a Malaysian music-oriented forum, to see if anyone was selling their ME-50's or ME-70's. Yesterday, someone replied. He said that he was looking to sell his ME-50 for about RM600-700, and it was in tip-top condition. So, thinking that I could save my cousin alot of trouble for my cousin on the online ordering and stuff, I decided to support local trading.

Right now, I'm just waiting for him to reply my email, and give me his phone number so that we can do some bargainning and come to some sort of arrangement. The wait is killing me. Ugh. I just hope he replies quickly. Really quickly.

Well, that's the story. If you've put up with my nonsense for this far, here's the final stretch. Meet my soon-to-be-erm. Fiancee? Nah, it's just an item. An extremely awesome, dreamy item. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you: The BOSS ME-50!

I like the colour more than the ME-70. Haha!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Fight For A Reason

So here's the story. There's this dog pound in Setapak. The goverment are paying them to round up all the stray dogs and kill them brutally. People have tried to stop them, but the only way is by buying each dog a ticket out of there. The price to release the dogs is RM70 per dog.

Are you ready? Here's the plan:

We are going to buy as many dogs out of there as we can, and send them to the SPCA(unless any of you want to adopt a dog). Of course, the SPCA doesn't have unlimited space, so we're donating partially to the SPCA for them to widen their facilities.

"That's all fine and dandy, but how are we going to do that? Where do we get the money?"

You've asked the right question. I did mention buying tickets, didn't I? So here. This right here is the dogs' tickets out of hell.

This ticket has obviously been Sampelized, so don't try anything funny.

Anyway, it's a gig which Naveena is organizing(yes, so that means the idea and credit is all hers, and I am merely an employed designer and performer). A charity gig, at that. For the uneducated, a gig is a concert. Only more laid back and not neccessarily professional. I'm not really going to say much here. There's a website for a reason. Oh, you didn't know?

Here. Fight For A Reason. And obey the title, if you want to hear Initial Sound perform live for the very first time! (go for the gig and save some animals in the meantime, if you don't know who I'm talking about)

The flyers will be passed around soon enough, but here it is beforehand, just in case it doesn't get to you in real-life.

And about the bands performing, we are still searching for people to perform, so if you have a band, please do join. Let us know if you're interested. And as for those without, if you know anyone who do, tell them about it. Also, you can show your support by being there.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Is There A Ninja In Your Pants? Cos Your Ass Is Kicking!

Show: Prom- The Musical

Rating: 10/10

Whoa, my brother sings. And it's not bad, either. I mean, whenever I hear him singing in the bathroom(pretty often, too, since his bathroom is right next to my room) or practicing for his performance, it's horrible. I was kinda dreading his solo part in his KLPAC musical.

This one.

Anyway, he didn't sound anything like himself yesterday night, in the musical. So, yeah. It was good. The dancing was great, the singing was great, the jokes were great, and the gay was BRILLIANT. That sounded a little wrong, but it's the truth. The guy who acted as a gay was so.. darn.. FUNNY!

And I'm going again on Sunday. I went last night with the relatives on my mum's side plus Jeremy and Lin Rui, so this Sunday I'll be going with my father's side of the family.

And look! I made a poster. Can you tell which one is my brother? The one next to the gay. I'm sure you can tell which one is the gay.


Sigh. Damn exams and projects. Suddenly I feel so... Dull. As in the opposite of shiny. How ironic.

WHOAH! DID YOU GET THAT JOKE?

I was talking about dull and shiny, which are usually used to describe metals, and what's a common type of metal? IRON! So I said "How ironic."!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*