dusting off the cobwebs....

omg. more than half a year. super slack seyyy....

The new year's come and gone, and we're now into the third month of twenty-oh-ten. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I'm surprised there's no virtual mold growing on this blog. I'm not even going to try justify my absence; but let's just say that 2009 was a pretty good year, both personally and professionally (eksen tak to use this term for my teeny-tiny cake biz?) Let's go for a round-up now shall we?

1) Yes, teacher!
BB is now in playgroup! Didn't cry at all on the first two days but on the third day, pretty much cried for two hours straight. Most likely 'cos other kids were crying. Yes, my boy has a sensitive soul, bless him. Now, everyday when I pick him up at the end of the session, he will proudly proclaim,"Ashraf tak cry in school!" And when I say everyday, I mean everyday. It's the end of Feb and he still says it. Let's see for how long eh?

On the upside tho, he loves school. Like absolutely besotted. And it's been really good for him too. He's picking up things faster than before, he's a lot more confident around other people and he's learning to share (quite difficult to teach this at home since he's the only kid). In fact, I found out from his teacher that he's been sharing his snacks with his classmates, so proud of him :)

The downside is that his uniform totally engulfs him. He's slowly but surely growing into it. But his shorts still look more like culottes, beh.

2) The Big Move
Yes, it will happen this year. Don't ask for details but it will be in the next few months. MB and I have been sitting down, planning, drawing and discussing colours and fixtures and budgets (bleurgh!) and we're mostly having fun whenever we're not tearing each other's hair out, that is. We're targetting to be in and settled by BB's birthday. So yeah, it's exciting but also so, so terrifying. I'm not looking forward to packing my stuff 'cos God knows how much stuff I've accumulated over the years. And I hate to throw stuff. And I (still) keep collecting stuff. I'm such a magpie, geez.

Buuuuut....I so can't wait to start using my Kenwood Major Titanium, which, at 1500 watts, kicks major ass and looks like a shiny, silver Decepticon ('cos the bad guys always look bad-ass gooood). Pow!!

Man, I'm such a baking nerd.

3) Village People
Went up to Sedili in mid-Dec 2009 and again this past January. I love it there. I hate the flies when it's warm but yeah, that's about the only thing that doesn't agree with me. I can live with that. Other than that it's all tres bien.

List of awesomeness:
- The stars. When you look up at night, you can totally understand the phrase 'the sky was peppered with stars'. No way in hell can you see this in SG. I was speechless when MB pulled me out into the dark driveway and pointed up. I can totally get why he used to bring a mat and lie down in the driveway at night when he was younger.
- You wanna cook something to eat? Go pick something out in the garden and bring it in. I had the freshest lauk lemak daun ubi there. The leaves picked up outside the gate in the morning; and the coconut juice comes from the coconuts growing on the trees behind the house. Yummooo. And let's not talk about the other awesome plants: limes, water apples, guava, roselle, aloe vera, breadfruit....I could go on for hours.
- BB loves it there. It's almost like he was born a kampung boy. No squeamishness or anything. In fact, the only time you see a frown on his face is when he's not allowed to roam the grounds 'cos everybody's in the house. Then he'll sit on the front steps and just stare longingly at the neighbour's chickens and the goats grazing next door.
- Time. Stands. Still. You feel like you've done so much and then realise that only twenty minutes have passed.

4) Gig! Gig! Gig!
Ahhhh....gigs. 2010 is shaping up very nicely thankyouverymuch. After the dearth of bands (the ones I like anyway) last year, suddenly it's raining Brits. Very nice. We bought Muse tix the minute they came out last November, and picked them up the day before the concert, at the same time getting tix for Placebo (Placebo!!!).

Muse was awesome. There's a reason why they always win Best Performing Band at the NME Awards (speaking of, I miss reading NME). The show was spectacular and slick. Very very professional. Oh Muse, my life, you electrify my life. The Post-Muse Withdrawal Symptom was a suck. Three weeks after the concert and I was still humming Plug-In Baby and Uprising 24/7. MB and I shouted ourselves hoarse at the concert and actually took more than four days to recover.

Yup, we're that unfit. Now I'm worried about Placebo. I mean, it's one of my fave bands. Ever. And I've been looking waiting for them to grace our shores for freakin' ten years. I don't wanna pancit after the third song. That's gonna suck.

So MB suggested we do an exercise routine that involves jumping like monkeys to the band's songs. Kinda like rehearsing for the actual gig lah. Gig-o-robics so to speak. We're gonna look for recent concert setlists and bop to that. Daily. Except that we've not started yet. And the concert's in less than 20 days. Egad!!

Just read today that Stereophonics is coming our way again. This time in April. Niiiice. I gave their concert a miss the first time they came around, and felt like a stupid piece of shit for the longest time, so I don't think I'm gonna not go this time round.

But yeah. Placebo. omg. I'm so glad MB's really into it too. We're gonna do T-shirts for the gig. Haha! So on right? After getting all prim and proper for Esplanade shows last year, its good to scruff up a bit. Not that I didn't enjoy the shows at the Durian of course; Dunas was jaw-dropping awesome (and I'm not really into dance) and I was just as excited about the Count Basie Orchestra (luuuurve swing music and big band) as I am about Placebo. Oh, scratch that. Who am I kidding? I'm getting palpitations thinking of Placebo right now.

5) Biznez
Things are going nicely on the baking front, Alhamdulillah. It's been a bit slow for the first two months, but it's great 'cos I could actually spend more time with BB and sketching cake ideas, and now it's going pretty smoothly. Wedding cakes in the coming months, fitting just nicely around our reno plans. I was initially a bit worried about accepting orders 'cos of the reno but I think it's been alright so far. Allah helps when you ask Him, and if you're doing things for the right reasons, Insya-Allah, He will help you. I feel truly blessed :)

6) Terror & Magnus
Ooooh, gotta squeeze this in. Found Joe Ledbetter stuff. Nearly stopped breathing when I spotted his prints while passing by a seemingly innocuous looking toyshop. Spotted tokidoki: hmmm ok nice. Gloomy Bear: the totes look nice. Trexis on a shelf: ok can lah, moving on.

Was just about to walk on by when I stopped in my tracks and squeaked out to MB," Stop! Joe Ledbetter! Prints!" And proceeded to grab his hands and stomped into the shop. Didn't buy the prints in the end 'cos what with the packing and moving, we didn't want to risk it getting lost or damaged. We got a Ledbetter Trexi in the meantime though. Can lah. But we'll definitely be back.

Okie dokie, gonna wrap things up and catch me some zzzzzzzzz. Time check: 3:52 am. Gah!!

NR
please Mr. Molko: please sing Without You I'm Nothing. pleeeeeez.....

Ashraf is two!! Choo choo!!

My BB's all grown up now. Awwww....

Had a small do to celebrate his big day on Saturday 16th May, 'cos his birthday (20th May) falls on a weekday. Anyway, we all know that preparing a party for five will still be as exhausting as prepping one for thirty right? But a good kind of exhausting. For one, its totally worth it :)

I kinda sorta loosely based his birthday around things he likes; so I knew upfront that something to do with trains was in order. And maybe stars, cars, any Playhouse Disney cartoon character, fishes, moons, cats, birds, balls...aiyayai, so many things to sift thru.

I decided to do a 3-D train cake. My first ever 3-D cake project. Kinda hesitant at first, I mean, what if I mess it up? In the end, I thought, just plan it carefully, give it your best shot and just wing it. At worst, it'll look like a train wreck and we have ourselves a real cool real-life diorama. Or something. Ika said it just doesn't have to bad enough that it ends up on Cake Wrecks. Heheh, I agree. That blog is fab tho, for all the wrong reasons :P

So yeah, cake planning started some months back. Since I knew most of my time would be spent on the cake, there was no way I could prep all the makan stuff. So I roped in my mum to be in charge of ingredients shopping and the main food items, leaving the dessert options to me.

Fast forward to the week leading up the party. To say I was starting to resemble a walking zombie was to say it lightly. Owing to the fact that I could only work after BB has gone to bed (and my son sleeps no earlier than 11pm), I was surviving on a couple of hours of sleep per night. But the anal freak that I am, I'd already planned out what to do in as detailed a manner as possible so I wasn't totally freaked out. Just effing exhausted.

Surprisingly, the night before the party saw me finishing off what needed to be done pretty early. I was all done just before 3am, so that was good. But I decided to stay up with MB, who was pumpimg balloons with his trusty bike pump. Afterall, he accompanied me the previous night when prepping the cake kept me up till 5.30am, so the least I could do was return the favour.

Besides, he was starting to scare me a little.

I did mention that it's be nice to have balloons around, you know, just a couple for the kids to play with and some to bring home. But no, he was furiously pumping the balloons and in no time, he was getting surrounded by them. I was like,"Erm, no need to blow up all hon. I think this is enough."

"You can never have enough balloons!" he answered, hands furiously pumping air, maniacal gleam in his eyes, crazy grin and all. Scary shit. I decided it was best to stay up with him in case something silly happened.

He didn't stop there. He proceeded to put balloons up around the living room and dining room windows, about a dozen on sticks arranged in a humongous vase, and dozens more stowed in the balcony. Suka dia lah. I was so spent, what's another hour or two up eh?

But I guess it was worth the effort. BB woke up and got a mild shock at the sight of so many balloons. He stopped in his tracks and went, "WAAH!!" and then proceeded to drag someone, anyone, to see what he was seeing. Heheh, he ain't seen nothing yet.

MB took him off my hands for the morning (thank you, I love you!) while I made the crumble bars and roasted the veg and started baking the chicken and prepping the pizza and finished up the cake. BB happened to walk by as I was affixing the train wheels. Again, he stopped, shocked, and immediately went, "Choo choo!! Wah! There! See? Yumm!!"

The rest of the morning went by quickly, but everything was in order, so no worries. BB got changed into a new T-shirt ('I didn't ask to be this cool!') and a pair of berms 'cos it was a hot day. MB wore his blue T-shirt with a cute graphic print of little things on rainbows. I wore my newly arrived Twilight T-shirt (La Push Cliff Diving Association); comfort being the order of the day, I didn't want to think of anything beyond T-shirts. By the time we all got changed and ready, my SIL arrived. Perfect timing.

More peeps arrived and we soon got to the cake-cutting. A bit late actually 'cos BB had a pretty long nap and I didn't feel like waking him up. Who wants a grumpy birthday boy?!

All the kids seemed really excited when I brought the cake out and were calling dibs on which part they wanted to eat. We sang the birthday song of course, BB looking a bit bewildered with a "Why are all these people singing??" look on his face. Then we got to the "Happy Birthday to Ashraf" part and then his face perked up and the look changed to a "Everyone's singing for me? Nice!" one. Hehehe.

BB blew out the candles and cut the cake very nicely (with a plastic knife of course) and proceeded to hang back, totally smitten with the knife and forgetting about the whole fuss.

The kids started to swarm around demanding cake, and I said, "Who wants cake? Line up!" and they actually proceeded to form a queue, passing out plates as they did. Very good, keep it up, you cute adorable tykes!

Of course I had to cut the cake and serve it. I heard my uncle lamenting, "Sayangnya nak potong!" I didn't mind. Actually, I'd be quite sad if people didn't want to cut my cake 'cos it's too pretty. The only problem with this train cake was, how the heck do I cut it?! I decided to start from the back, saving the engine portion last. Pretty soon, the kids were calling dibs again.

"I want the yellow part!"
"I want the star!"
"I want the grass!"
"I want the flowers and wheels!"

Thank goodness everything on the cake, except for the paper banner on satay sticks, was edible. I can't imagine the look on the kids' faces if I told them some parts were not to be eaten. It took some time to distribute the cake; the kids kept themselves busy while lining up by munching on the marshmallow flowers and picking out the grass on the side.

"It's like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! The grass is edible!" MB's nephew said. Hehe, I had to agree.

More noshing and chatting followed. Very casual, very stress-free. Everyone left by the time Isyak rolled around I think, I wasn't actually keeping track of time. By that time, I was ready to sit down and have a proper meal. Kind of. There were still presents to be opened.

I handed a present to BB, and he just sat there on the floor with the present in his lap, propping his head up with his hands. He had no idea what to do with it. Mummy to the rescue!! I love opening up presents, so helping my son do this was not a problem :)

Needless to say, he was really pumped with his birthday spoils. We didn't take them all out of the boxes; keeping some to be opened up later in phases. But he stayed up till after 11pm playing with everything, including the boxes. Finally, exhausted and still looking slightly overwhelmed by the day's events, he snoozed out.

MB and I just had to sit down and chill for a bit. My right knee hurt like hell from all the standing up for the past few days, and the thought of going for aerobics the next day seemed suicidal. But I went anyway, taking it down a notch tho. Pilates was superb, my all-whacked out body got a nice stretch. I went home feeling like a nicely stretched rubber band.

OK, Oscar moment:

Many thanks to everyone who helped out in one way or another; there're too may things, too many people, so if you are one of those who helped out with the party, you have my deepest gratitude.

Many thanks to all those who attended as well. I hope the food was good and you guys had a great time. If anything, it was a real good excuse to meet and chill. Kyn, I forgot to have a pic with you taken. As always. Sorry I'm such a goondu!

Thanks peeps for the fab gifts:


- Nisa and Silah for the Thomas the Tank Engine toy. He was reaaaaally excited over this one!
- Kyn and Dyn for the wooden blocks. Beyond coolness!! Can't wait to play it with him :)
- Piko for the tricycle, even if his feet can't reach the paddles yet. MB like it 'cos it's in Optimus Prime's colours *rolls eyes*
- Shikin for the..hmmm....what do you call it? It's this cool city layout thing where you can put in roads and stuff. He's luvvin' it.
- Ica for the RC car. I think MB's more excited about it, hehe!
- SIL for the tres cool tin lunchbox with monsters on it. And the Eric Carle book. Coincidentally, we just read it at the library a few days before and he loved it, so yay!!
- Ika for the superfast, superloud bullet train toy. It scares the shit out of BB, but he loves it to bits anyway.
- Cik Ros for the kiddie computer and for letting us marinate the chicken overnight in your fridge. Much appreciated!
- everyone else for the cash gifts; thank you, it goes right into BB's piggy bank :)

Eh, did I get everyone's gifts right? Please correct me if I didn't.

OK, now it's Memory Bank time. Purely for my own future reference:

Menu items:
- Pizza
- Mee Hoon Birthday (am I the only one who calls them by this name?)
- Epok-epok Kentang
- Roasted vegetables with thyme
- Baked chicken drummettes
- Fresh Orange Cake
- Sweet Cherry Oatmeal Crumble Bars
- Dadih

Goodie bag items:
- Homemade cheese cookies in Ash's fave shapes (star, fish and duck)
- Homemade Rice Krispie treats with 100 & 1000s and star sprinkles
- Hello Panda (small packet)
- Stickers (stars, rockets, moon etc)
- balloon
- Pooh wooden pencil
- mini toy car
- thank you tag with a train pic

Now that I can step back and look at the whole event objectively, I must say the pain and fatigue were worth it. The look on BB's face when he saw the cake and balloons, hardly any food wasted at the end of the day, much smiles and laughter filling the day...yup, def worth it. And I kinda got to tie in some of his fave items: Trains, check. Cars, check. Fishes, check. Pooh, check. Stars and moon, check. Woohoo! Faboo!!

But now I'm thinking: how the heck can I top this year's cake next year?!

NR
where is it: eh, what happened to the popcorn smoke from the cake? did it get thrown out? did someone eat it? hmmm.....

Good times: of BB, fitness, food and er, Twilight

This is going to be a long post. That's a warning right there. OK, moving on.

This has got to be the longest period of time that I've not blogged. Been busy. Seriously. 2009 has been awesome so far; where work is concerned that is. Just wanna take a sec here to thank you awesome people (you know who you are) for your unfailing support and faith in me where SugarFix is concerned. I am very much humbled and deeply appreciative. It's still mind-blowing that I have people who completely trust my creative direction when it comes to their sugary confections; rest assured I will continue to do my best. I am very fortunate to be doing something that both challenges me and gives me much joy :)

Next up: update on BB (Benjol Boy, remember?). Much bumps on the head and scratches later, my lil precious will be turning 2 in a wink of an eye. Yes, the scar on his forehead is still there; put some glasses on him and call him Harry Potter why don't you? I would, hehe. What scar? Ah....

I remember it as clearly as if it happened yesterday. It was 8th of January, and I was just cleaning up after finishing up one wedding cake before getting ready for the next one when this little boy speedily climbed up the chair next to me to offer his supervisory skills (snort!). Needless to say, he lost his footing and fell on his back, hitting the back of his head on the floor, but not before grabbing something, anything off the table in a frenzied attempt to gain some footing. Of all the things to have grabbed, he grabbed my rolling pin. My solid, wooden, long, heavy-duty rolling pin. Sigh. You can guess what's coming right? The edge of the rolling pin hit him smack on a soft bruise (suffered a few days prior to this), breaking the skin and squirting blood all over the floor.

Did he cry? Yes. All of ten minutes. And I discovered later that after he was over the shock, he was just grossed out over the blood. Did we go to the hospital? Ho yeah. I took off my apron, rinsed my hands, and off we went. Me smelling like a cake, with specks of crusting blood on my leg (I discovered this at the waiting room much later) and my hair in shambles (Also discovered in the waiting room restroom where I went to wash off the crusted blood; I gave myself a shock when I saw myself in the mirror), and my nerves on end. Was BB ok with going to the hospital? Hell yeah. He was just thrilled to be going out; he waved everyone goodbye and jumped with joy in my arms while we were leaving, leaving two very worried grandparents behind us.

Worrying if there was further damage was quite unnecessary. He was running around happily in the waiting room, oblivious to the huge piece of gauze the admissions nurse had plastered on his head. You should see the doctor's face when we explained what happened. "Rolling pin?! Like that thing grandmas use to make bread?" Sigh. I had to explain the size of that thing before he understood. The doctor asked us to monitor his reactions in the next 24 hours, but I remember him pausing after he said that and remarked,"Looking at how active he is right now, I don't think you'll have anything to worry about though."

Thank goodness no stitches involved, the cut was glued shut instead. MB and I were worried when they said they were gonna wrap him up in a blanket and we had to help hold him down while they glued the cut. My boy DOES NOT like being wrapped up. Loathes it. I was imagining him struggling and screaming his lungs out and quietly mentally prepared myself while they got the things ready.

I needn't have worried. We explained slowly what was going to happen and tried to keep him as calm as possible, even though it was a good chance he didn't understand what we said. But he kept still while the nurse glued his cut. We could tell he was trying very hard to be brave; you could see his chin quivering as he tried not to cry and he blinked away tears that streamed down the sides of his eyes. But no cry. Not even a squeak. I was so proud of him.

BB continues to amaze and amuse me every single day. He's picking up words now, but he can be quite selective. His favourite word is 'papaya' and any fruit that is not a banana ('cos he knows what that is) is a papaya. But he hates eating papaya though. Just like pizza. Loves saying it, but won't take a bite of it. I'm glad he's ok with vegetables. Cooked ones though. His new word is 'carrot' though he pronounces it "ka-ghot". Very a la francais. Hehe. I'm glad he eats it too. It's quite frustrating when I'm trying to give him his lunch and he dutifully picks up each and every pea, carrot and corn to eat individually. But it's vege so I don't want to complain. I found out he likes carrot juice too; practically hijacked my pack of carrot juice that I was happily sipping and ran away with it, only giving it to me later, all emptied out with a nonchalant, "Mama, no more."

He's currently munching on a piece of tempeh goreng, one of his fave foods the little Wak Jawa, while I'm typing this. Yup, good times.

Good times indeed. One of the things I set out to do this year was to get fit. It used to be that I got my exercise while taking care of BB, but now I need to get fit to keep up with him. Dah tua dokk.... So anyway, even if I myself was thinking,"WTF am I doing, signing up for aerobics?! I don't do aerobics!!" lemme tell ya, I'm enjoying it so much. Wasn't as bad as I thought, and the best thing is, it's completely stress-free.

Plus it's an extra incentive for me to go researching on healthier foods. Good stuff to know. Slowly but surely, my hidden hippie is starting to come out, and I like it. I for one, am a convert where agave syrup is concerned. It's all natural, usually organic, and has a super low GI; perfect for diabetics. And it tastes like golden syrup, yumm! It's just a shame that it's not so readily available; and that it costs about $10 for a bottle of 330ml. Gulp, I've used up about 3 bottles while experimenting so far. But it's all good. Wanna know more about agave, drop me a line. Or Google it. I'd gush about other new staple ingredients I've started stashing the kitchen with, but maybe, another time. Still tinkering and experimenting for now :)

Loads of reading up this search for healthier alternatives has taken me (eh, I sound like Yoda), but that's the great thing, I'm setting aside time to read again; research or otherwise. Another great read so far this year is Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. Thanks to Kyn for the lead on this one, I owe you sis! It's one of those books that managed to clear the clouds in my head, much like what Tuesdays with Morrie did, for me at least. We all need books like this from time to time to help us take stock of what's really (REALLY) important in our life and finding the guts to work towards it. I firmly believe that if you're doing things for the right reasons, the journey will get steadily easier, Insya Allah. Dare to be different, go against the humdrum flow of the hoi polloi. Allow me to quote a line from Tuesdays with Morrie (TWM), the one that gave me definite push to change things:

"The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it."

If something doesn't work for you, then don't. Don't bow down. Don't bow out. Don't follow. Make your own destiny.

OK, enough with the carpe diem already. If you've not read TWM, check out some other quotes from the book here, then go get the book, 'cos if anything, it's a deeply moving, beautiful story.

MB if you're reading this, you must be wondering when Twilight is gonna make an appearance. Sigh. Yes, I admit. I've been sucked into the saga that is Twilight. *blush*

Yes, as Ain mentioned to me, teenagers read the books, but then you know what? Kids read Harry Potter and I love the series, so there. Besides, did you know that Tolkien wrote The Hobbit for 6-year olds? It doesn't make it less of a classic.

OK so Twilight is not exactly classic. But we can't all read Austen and Hemingway all the time yeah? I know I can't. What's great about the books is that it's got me thinking of other classics; Stephenie Meyer references them a lot. Which is a good thing; I was already toying with going down to the library and re-reading some of my fave classics (love Far from the Madding Crowd, but dunno where mine is), and Twilight kinda gave me a more distinct push. Now I'm considering re-reading Wuthering Heights. The last time I read that was like what, more than 10 years ago. It's worth another read I guess.

I did remember after reading Wuthering Heights how incredibly depressed it made me, not in a bad way though. It's an excellent book, just, well depressing. Quite overwhelming. Like listening to Dog Man Star for the first time. Depressing but insanely beautiful and totally overwhelming. But beautiful all the same. I kinda feel like I can appreciate the book better now, 'cos I'm older *rolls eyes*. Sounds stoopid right? But y'know if I'd read The Little Prince when I was young, I couldn't have fully appreciated the deeper meanings in that book. Age mysteriously does things to you.

Anyway, classic or not, I somehow got sucked in, line, hook and sinker. Devoured the whole series in about 5 days, ignoring pretty much, well, the whole world while I did. It is quite disconcerting. I came across this article on why Twilight is accessible to many, go check it if you want. If any of you's a Twi-fan, gimme a shout-out yeah? It'll be nice to know somebody else who devoured the books like I did.

So yeah, the only thing I (and MB) need right now is a break. It's been a whirlwind these past few months and we both need a breather. Especially MB; he's been elbow-deep, nay, head-deep (is there such a thing?) in work these past few weeks, it's been crazy. We need to get away for a bit. Probably somewhere local. BB can't tell the diff if we're still in good ol' SG or not, so we're not gonna bother with the hassle of going overseas while he's still a wee lad. We kinda have a good idea what to do, but if anyone has any ideas (shopping mall trips don't count), shout it out please!

After the break, the craziness will begin again. Good times. No, really. At least my package full of goodies will have arrived by then, so yeah, very good times :)

NR
go team: I'm on Team Switzerland btw, why choose?!

We'll Shine Together

Finally!!!! It's up on YouTube!!!

Here it is, Manics' version of 'Umbrella', performed at Fort Canning last Monday:



On another note:

Hopefully with the turmoil that's going on in Bangkok, those going to see Manics at the 100 Rock Festival stay safe and have a good time. There's a few other foreign bands involved like Ash, so I think people may be flying in just to catch the event. Dunno how they're gonna get out of the airport though. The pics in the papers today look pretty scary. Lots of flights going to BKK are cancelled too, so I don't know how the bands are gonna get there in the first place.

This just in: unconfirmed news that the whole Festival is cancelled. For the sake of everyone's safety, I'd say it's a good move, but for those who have waited 14 years for the Manics to come by again...ouch, it must really hurt to wait some more. But then it gives them a good reason to swing by this side of the world again yes?

NR
doa for: those stuck at Suvarnabhumi heading for Hajj do make it to Jeddah. A pic of an old Muslim man sitting amid lotsa (obviously Jeddah-bound) luggage in the papers made my heart ache this morning.

"here chewing your tail is joy"

The Manics were kick-ass awesome. One of the year's highlights for me. I'm still smiling and buzzing from the concert.

The weather co-operated, thankfully, so no rain, but it was pretty humid. The crowd was mostly made up of mid-20s to thirties; so not so many irritating teenagers, yay.

MB and I arrived at the venue around 7.30pm, we thought there'd be a huge crowd standing in front already but nope, just a few peeps sitting around and everybody else milling about the grounds and lazing on the lawn. Some even brought picnic mats. Right then I knew. This crowd is gonna be vastly different than the Suede crowd five years back. I like the concert already.

A local band opened for the Manics. The music was alright, don't quite like the vocals though. They performed a 30-min set then got off the stage for the crew to set up the stuff for the Manics. The crowd gave a cheer when Nicky's feather-boa-ed mike stand was set up. Ho yeah.

It hit me right then that I was going to see the Manics perform mere metres away. Woohoo!!!

They came on stage at 9pm. And based on their past few setlists, I expected them to start with 'Faster' but man, they dove straight into 'Motorcycle Emptiness'. Screamed my lungs out and sang along, fists in the air. Love that song. And it just gets better.

Next up was 'Autumnsong', one of my faves from 'Send Away the Tigers', then 'La Tristesse Durera' (more screaming and singing and jumping) and then 'Faster' (jump jump jump!!). I was truly the happiest person there. If the concert had to be suddenly stopped after the fourth song, I'd have been duly sated.

Not that it got worse. Nonononononono.....

Next was 'Everything Must Go', so how to stop?! We just rode along on the high, camera phones clicking (when we wanted to, too busy experiencing the whole thing!). They also did a cover of Nirvana's 'Pennyroyal Tea' much to MB's delight. I was expecting that 'cos they'd been performing that in pretty much all their gigs this year.

After the workers' anthem 'A Design for Life', Nicky and Sean took a short break for James to do his usual solo acoustic set. He stood there with his guitar and said, "I'm just one man with one guitar...and his feelings." Awwwwwwww....

I was crossing my fingers and hoping that he'd play 'Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky'; not a very well known song, but I saw a vid on YouTube of him playing that song acoustically and just melted. I almost teared when I heard the beginning riffs for the song. "This next song is not so sad." he smiled and said when the first one ended, and went straight on to 'Everlasting'.

Then Nicky and Sean came back and we rocked on with 'Your Love Alone Is Not Enough'. With the night going so well, I was hoping Nina Persson would magically appear onstage to perform with them, but that would be asking for too much. Heheh.

And then, and then, James said they were gonna play a 'booty song'. MB and I looked at each other. "Are they gonna...?" Yes they did.

They played Rihanna's 'Umbrella'. Effing brilliant. MB and I saw a vid of them performing this song, and while they had played it a few times at their gigs, I thought them playing it here was going to be a long shot. But oh man, they played it. And damn, they nailed it.

So what's with the Manics playing cover songs? They love doing it, and I don't mind really. It's nice to hear a different version of a well-known song. They've done 'It's So Easy' by Guns n Roses and (I found out recently) 'The Drowners' by Suede way back in the 90s, and though I prefer the originals, it was nice hearing another spin to some songs that I love. I do like their version of 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' though. It was used recently on some ad on channel 5 , can't remember what ad though...

Anywaaaayssss, after 'Umbrella', they played a couple more songs before they ended with MB's favourite 'If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next"( The title is apparently taken from a poster from the Spanish Civil War). We screamed for them to come back for an encore, but they didn't :(

Don't think James could take the heat anymore hehe. He was sweating buckets a few songs into the concert and kept mentioning how hot it was. He mentioned that they should've been sent here for conditioning like the Olympic athletes first heheh. Nicky was totally cool though. He wore a jacket and didn't seem to sweat at all. His glitter eye make-up didn't melt a bit. He smiled a lot too, that was nice. He stood ram-rod straight in his glittery, gold sneakers, playing his bass and mouthing the words to the songs. Very cool. And yes, he is very, very tall; I feel like a midget just looking at him. James joked that he's 7ft 8in during the concert, heh. Sean....I couldn't see him 'cos he was behind the drums. But he was smart 'cos he wore bermudas and a cap; perfect for the weather.

I was kinda bummed 'cos there was no encore, but they had performed a solid 85 minute set with 20 songs, so I'm not complaining. Here's the setlist:

1. Motorcycle Emptiness

2. Autumnsong

3. La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)

4. Faster

5. You Stole The Sun From My Heart

6. Everything Must Go

7. Ocean Spray

8. The Masses Against The Classes

9. You Love Us

10. Pennyroyal Tea (Nirvana cover)

11. Send Away The Tigers

12. A Design For Life

13. Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky (solo acoustic)

14. The Everlasting (solo acoustic)

15. Your Love Alone Is Not Enough

16. Umbrella (Rihanna cover)

17. 1985

18. Little Baby Nothing

19. Motown Junk

20. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

By far one of the best dates I've been on with MB, eventhough 98% of the time, I wasn't paying any attention to him. He's OK with it 'cos I know he had a blast too.

One of the good things about the concert is that the organisers pretty much let the fans take photos and record the concert. I saw someone in front of me recording some songs on his phone. And some people brought their SLR cameras too. Very cool. Videos still coming in on YouTube. These are some of them:

Motorcycle Emptiness:



Autumnsong:



La Tristesse Durera:



Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky:



Faster:



You Stole the Sun from My Heart:



Pennyroyal Tea:



I'm still waiting for someone to upload the cover of 'Umbrella'. This is a vid of them rehearsing the song. It's pretty good. Apparently the song is featured in an NME CD. Hmmmm.....NME.....it's been some time since I last read that mag...



So yes, I am a very very very very very happy person right now. I've waited too long for a band like the Manics to come by. Thanks MB for buying the tix and for a very lovely concert date. After a few shows at the Esplanade, it's nice to go somewhere and rock out :)

Photos on my Flickr and Facebook.

NR
goondu moment: in my rush to get BB ready, I forgot all about my purple feather boa until I saw someone wearing a pink one. Bought it years ago 'cos i saw a pic of Nicky wearing a purple one at Reading '97. He looked awesome, all camouflage-print dress and purple eye-shadow, on the front of MelodyMaker magazine. I thought I'd wear it if I ever see the Manics. Oh well. Maybe they'll come back. I mean, they're going to Bangkok again after 14 years so....there's always hope yeah?

mean

I know you say what's on your mind.

Because you're blunt that way.

I know you say the things you do.

Because you're tactless that way.

I know you do stuff like that.

Because, let's face it, you're not exactly the brightest bulb in the box, are you?

*snigger*

But it still hurts. I need to get thicker skin.

But don't you worry now; go float merrily along with the hoi polloi and breeze through your weekend; everything just flies over your head anyway.


NR
on the couch with the Manics: "What's the point in always looking back / When all you see is more and more junk " (from 'No Surface All Feeling'). Yet why do we still do it?

it's a no go

OK so the deal is off.

No 600 cupcake order. Boo. The Cupcake Tree will be kept back into the box whence it came from. Double boo.

On the bright side, no rush next week. No haggling and begging peeps to help me do one million dozen things. No running around the island buying supplies. So it's kinda OK.

On an even brighter side, Manics is still on, so that's very OK. Collecting the tix later, yay!!

Hmmmm....can do more stuff with BB next week then. Take him cycling again maybe, 'cos yesterday was fun. Can go bowling with Ika too. And maybe fix an earlier dinner date with a couple of friends 'cos we all need to inject some happy-happy in these gloomy times. And I wanna talk MB into going to the places we keeep saying we wanna go, but never seem to find the time to. Yup, so all's good. Everything happens for a reason yes?

Allrighty, need to get dressed to go collect tix and lepak wif Ika.

NR
it's a bitch: pimple attack! argh! havent had an outbreak like this since the last century! hehe, i sound like a dinosaur...