NME Awards 2009

How did Noel Gallagher end up with a nomination for “Best Dressed Male” at the NME Awards 2009? Did they get Our Kid mixed up with Noel? :P

With the release of their much acclaimed 7th studio album [Dig Out Your Soul], Oasis have garnered 7 nominations in this year’s NME Awards, including nominations for Best British Band and Worst Band (wth?), Best Album Best Video and Best Live Band. Noel was nominated for Hero Of The Year and Best Dressed Male. Noel had the cheek to state "Seven nominations, you say? Is that all? I always knew my time would come in the Best Dressed Man In The World category." Humility is obviously not his strongest quality.

The only nomination that Coldplay picked up was for Worst Album - wahey! At least the folks at NME have taste in music :P

Cast your votes now at NME Awards site. Winners will be unveiled on 25 February 2009.

Oasis - best or worst band?

Top selling albums in Taiwan in 2008

Sina reported Taiwan’s top selling albums of 2008 last week and Mayday are firmly placed at numero uno spot with President Chou trailing behind them. What’s interesting to note is that the 2 best selling albums of 2008 were both released in late 2008 [in October to be exact] i.e both albums have only been selling for 2+ months, yet they outsold their counterparts who had their albums released in early 2008.

Mayday managed to outsell everyone else in Taiwan cos they were crazy enough to give away free concerts to fans who had bought their albums with the promise of a 100 free concerts across Asia. The move turned out to be a huge success, with Mayday outselling Jay by almost 50% of their total sales colume.

Show Luo, Leehom and Fahrenheit managed a 9th, 16th and 12th spot respectively. Considering that the albums were only released in the last week of December, it’s quite an achievement for the artistes.

Babies don't sleep this well

CNY this year was anything but exciting. It’s been donkey years since I last celebrated CNY in KL. During the last few days off, I spent most of my time at home, juggled between playing sudoku on the DS, watching telly, food binging and recovering sleep debt.

Over the past weeks I’ve accumulated massive sleep debt. I managed to repay much of my mounting sleep debt by clocking in between 11-14 hours of sleep over the past few days. Babies don’t sleep this well LOL

The great return

There are a couple of things that I look forward to in the new year and amongst others, Blur making a comeback in 2009.

Britain's favourite indie band of the mid 90's is reforming and will be making performing live together this July at Hyde Park. Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon has put aside their differences (Coxon was sacked from Blur) behind them to reform. Even arch rivals Oasis' Noel Gallagher has recently buried his feud Blur after 13 years and confessed he is a fan of their music. Apparently, Noel reckons that "Beetlebum" is a great tune. Awww..

In an exclusive NME interview, Alex James joked about how regrouping is "gonna be a bit like putting the 'A-Team' back together for a job. We've gotta bust Rowntree out of law school!" Eh? Has Dave gone to law school??!

I like Blur =) Their songs sound so distinctly British and I love how Damon's cockney accent echoes through their songs and the feel of London shines through his voice.

Happy Niu Year

Wishing everyone a very Happy Chinese New Year!

May the year of the Ox be filled with prosperity, luck, happiness, love, good health and fortune.

Wasted Saturday

I asked a friend out yesterday cos I wanted to watch "Inkheart" at the cinema after reading about it in last week's paper. The article failed to mention how lame the movie is! It was a waste of my time (I should've stayed at home and napped) and money (that RM12 would've been better spent on something else)

I haven't read the book (nor do I plan to). Great storyline but it was poorly executed on screen. Andy Serkis played Gollum/Smeagol brilliantly in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy but he was awful playing Capricorn in this flick.

Jogoya coupons

Jogoya must be feeling the heat from its newest competitor, Tenji Japanese Buffet. Tenji opened just recently and is located at Solaris Mont'Kiara. Just a couple of weeks ago Tenji ran an opening promotion and offered a one hour buffet lunch at only RM29.90++! Looks like Jogoya is resorting to giving discounts and coupons.

Today I received Jogoya coupons in my mailbox - with free meals for 1 pax for each session - lunch, hi-tea, dinner and supper. Sounds like a pretty good deal - I'm looking forward to pigging out on tiramisu LOL

Dragon Rider

CNY is just around the corner and Jay Chou wants your angpow money LOL. President Chou has just released a double DVD MV set comprising MVs for his current and previous albums, 魔杰座 [Capricorn] and 我很忙 [On The Run].

Dragon Rider

Our resident President Chou fan bought a copy from Victoria Music Centre for a cool RM105. The DVD set is fully imported from Taiwan and comes with a necklace (which is probably why it costs so much)

hmm that's an odd looking necklace

Mighty Mayday

Pre-booking for Mayday's upcoming concert in Singapore on 29 August 2009 (that's 7 months away!) began on boxing day last year and as at tonight, all tickets for Category 1 (priced at $178) has been sold out. Only Category 2 ($148), Category 3 ($118) and Category 4 ($88) tickets are now left.

According to news report, some 70% of the tickets have been sold! O M G *faints*

Rock Records and the fanclubs who were all taking their own pre-orders for the concert had overbooked due to the overwhelming response and a majority of fans who had booked through them had their pre-booking cancelled as the fanclubs and Rock could not get enough tickets from Sistic!

Who would have thought Mayday would sell out so many tickets 7 months ahead of the concert??

One week to CNY

Chinese New Year is exactly a week away. I'm not particularly excited about CNY as I'm not celebrating it this year (cos my gran passed away last year). We're also not allowed to do any spring cleaning so no major house cleaning this year! :D

I haven't really done much shopping for CNY clothes though I did manage to buy something for work. I still have a couple of Stay Real tees that I haven't worn, so I'll be saving them for CNY

Since I'm not taking any leave for CNY this year, whatever am I gonna do for 4 days? It's probably high time for me to watch the "Cruel Love" series. Abby lent me the DVD boxset and it's been sitting gathering dust for the last 2 months.

starring Mr Face Shop - Kwon Sang Woo

Band of gamers

When Mayday aren't busy touring, they're busy slaying baddies online. They've been appointed spokesperson for a new online game "十二之天貳online"

The lads are also spokesperson for Xbox 360 and have endorsed numerous games including Halo 3 and Blue Dragon. What a bunch of fanboys.. By the time Baby Rock is old enough to play video games, Papa Stone probably has enough games to fill up his entire bedroom LOL

band of gamers

is the sword mightier than the guitar?

my fav demon slayer XDD

Mom's birthday lunch

My mom shares the same birthday as the king of mandopop Jay Chou, i.e 18 January. This year we celebrated her birthday at Duck King restaurant at Jaya One, my second time dining there in less than a month. For some reason my mom loves that restaurant..

Duck King restaurant at Jaya One

You can probably tell from the restaurant's name that their specialty is duck. We had the peking duck the last time we were there, it wasn't that spectacular.

They have a very extensive menu with duck, chicken, abalone and all sorts of seafood and vegetable cooked in a variety of different ways.

abalone anyone?


yee sang.. my favourite CNY dish


"liu sha bao" ..ai qing hao xiang liu sha

dim sum

The dim sum wasn't too bad but the xiao loong bao (recommended by the waitress) can't compare to the Dragon-i or Din Tai Fung ones. They don't even look or taste like anything xiao loong baos :P

I ordered the fried seafood udon in black pepper but it was not as good as Din Tai Fung's spicy fried seafood udon

Jason Mraz on sale

I was at Sungei Wang earlier this afternoon and cos my friend was late, I ended up joining the queue for the Jason Mraz early bird ticket sale (though I didn't buy any tickets for myself :P) Much to my surprise, when I arrived at Sungei Wang concourse at about 12:20PM, there was already a fairly long Q. We ended up Q-ing up for about half an hour or so..

Jason Mraz concert ticketing booth

15% discount on tickets for all ticket price range

Stay Real upcoming 2009 catalogue

Of late Stay Real has branched out of its usual tshirt catalogue with the release of their brand new military shirt, vest, Min-Mouse jacket and suit jacket.

The new items would normally be previewed a couple of months in advance by Ashin (just keep a close eye on his clothing whenever he appears in public events) The Min-Mouse jacket was previewed during the Taipei countdown concert and at a very recent event this week, Ashin appeared in a new suit jacket over his Blue S tee.

So far I'm eyeing the vest (which costs NT$2280) cos I can wear it to work :) And possibkly the other jackets too if the price is right. Gosh I'm gonna be so skint...

Jason Mraz live in KL

Details of Jason Mraz's first ever concert in KL on 4 March 2009 at Stadium Negara has just been unveiled. It's about time considering that Sistic has already started selling tickets for Jason Mraz's Singapore concert on 5 March 2009 a long time ago!

Ticket prices range from RM258 to RM68 and there are two free standing zones. If you purchase the tickets this Saturday at Sungei Wang at between 12 noon to 3PM, there's an early bird discount of 15%.

I'm still undecided if I should attend.. does anyone know if I'll be able to see anything onstage from the RM68 seats? I've never been to Stadium Negara and the last concert I attended at Stadium Merdeka was Mayday's Final Home concert 3 years ago *gasp* I should make effort to attend more local concerts

Jake Hunter is pants

In between my last Taipei and Singapore trip I found some time to start a new game on the DS. Because the new Harvest Moon wouldn’t work on the old R4 (time to update it!) I ended up playing Jack Hunter Detective Chronicles and it turned out to be one of the most boring game I’ve ever played on the DS.

Gameplay is downright tedious with way too many controls, the graphics is anything but impressive (with a cast of ugly looking characters in the game!) Both the storyline and plot of the game are equally unimpressive.

Korean black rice cracker

My colleague who was away on a month long vacation in South Korea returned to work today with a bag full of black rice crackers and ginseng sweets. Eugh I've never liked ginseng sweets - they taste like medicinal sweets. I love rice crackers, but have never tasted black ones.

As I expected, they taste like they were made of brown rice.. not to my liking - I like the white ones better

it looks like purple rice cracker

Pigged out

I had 6 Tiramisu at Jogoya today afternoon, narrowly beating my last record but did not quite hit my target of 10 LOL

yum yum..Tiramisu

more Tiramisu!

Be Happy tiramisu

3 hours after our pigging out session at Jogoya, we ended up at Finnegan's for a round of drinks, before ending the night with dinner at Din Tai Fung (actually I had planned on skipping dinner tonight... :P)

Xiao Loong Bao at Din Tai Fung

Wonder if I'll be able to fit into my clothes tomorrow?

Mayday in Macau

Mayday are having a concert at Macau's Venetian on 21 February 2009 alongside other fellow label mates Fish, Ping Guan etc

Unfortunately as it's held the weekend before my Bangkok trip, looks like I won't be able to make it!! :(( *cries*

Bangkok trip rescheduled

Planning for my Bangkok trip has been a pain in the arse. I made the flight booking way back in October last year for a late November trip, in time to catch the Bangkok Rock Festival right after the Lee Guitars All-Star concert in Singapore.

Bangkok's international airport was closed by anti-government protestors that weekend, the Rock Festival ended up being cancelled thus I couldn’t fly to Bangkok.

Airasia then issued a statement on their website for affected passengers to re-book their Bangkok flights within 3 months at the departure airport. Stupidly, their system didn’t allow us to re-book the flights online.

So last weekend when I was in Singapore, I had to make a trip all the way to Changi Airport to rebook my Bangkok flight. After all the hassle in booking, cancelling and re-booking flight and hotel, I think this may well be my last trip to Bangkok.

We sing. We dance. We blog =]

Jason Mraz is coming to town for a concert on 4 March 2009 at Stadium Negara. I haven't been able to find out ticket details as yet. I'm thinking of attending but seeing that it's on a weekday night and I'm only arriving home from my impending Bangkok trip on 3 March 2009, I might be too knackered..

Maybe I'll just grab the cheapest ticket, sit back and enjoy the songs ;) I wanna hear him sing "Love For A Child" live!

20090106 後青春期的詩簽名會 新加坡站

Mayday had their 後青春期的詩 autograph signing session the day after the concert at Central, a quiet mall in Clarke Quay.

We weren't expecting a large Q in the morning as the 後青春期的詩 autograph session was held on Monday and I was hoping that most fans would still be at work or school. Much to my surprise, when I arrived in the morning there were 13 people ahead of me!

the Q at noon

Mayday turned up at 7ish PM after their interview at 933FM looking rather weary and tired. Ashin looked totally spaced out but still charming nevertheless :)

did anyone notice that they are all wearing the same clothes from the album photoshoot except Masa

These guys have been doing so many free/campus concerts in Taiwan that 後青春期的詩 is still sitting comfortably in the top 3 in the album chart in their homeland. Last week they were in the no 2 spot, beating Leehom's newly released Heartbeat album which was at no 3!!

Mayday 真正的快樂 Singapore concert

Mayday's 真正的快樂 Singapore concert was held last Sunday at Stadium Green. About 6,500 tickets were given away during the concert ticket redemption on 28 December 2008. If you had purchased the Singapore version of 後青春期的詩, you'd be entitled to redeem one concert ticket. How generous of Mayday to perform free concerts for their fans.

We managed to secure ourselves a good spot at the concert (thanks to friends who queued overnight at the stadium!)

By about 5ish PM, Mayday appeared on stage to rehearse/soundcheck for about an hour or so. All except Ashin were present - so Jay did the vocals and his singing was bad if you ask me

i see Stone!

The gates opened at 6:30PM after Mayday had finished their rehearsal. The area in front of the stage was packed like sardines cos everyone wanted to get to the front. Weather was so humid that everyone was sweating bucketloads!

the stage

Once again, Mayday delivered a spectacular performance. They deliver their shows with so much passion & energy and it's always a joy to watch them live. They sang for 2 and a half hours and brought in a guest artiste, Ding Dang. Just too bad they didn't sing 走火入魔 together.

It was good to see Ashin back in form again. The poor guy was slammed for singing badly at the recent Taipei countdown concert. Ashin explained that he was down with flu at that time and was really nervous before taking stage in Singapore. Aww...

Ashin waving his fist at his critics LOL

Sadly, Guan You was absent as he had to attend his late father-in-law's funeral and was replaced by A Gu from Magic Power, whom Ashin said "look like Guan You from Time Machine" LOL. I actually didn't realise that Guan You was absent till Jennifer pointed out to me about 2-3 songs into the concert 

I liked how they kicked off the set with Ashin playing the guitar singing 瘋狂世界, then continued to play a song from each of their previous album in chronological order (almost like a greatest hits concert) It was a different set from the Taipei 出頭天concerts :)

I was a little disappointed that they left out a few songs from 後青春期的詩 sang and only an edit version of 笑忘歌. Wish they had sang OMG...

"thank you Impact sugar free mints..."

Fahrenheit redeemed

I admit that I've never really liked Fahrenheit. I didn't like how they 'butchered' Mayday's "Wen Rou" and I thought they were just another pretty boyband who couldn't really sing.

When Jia Yu sent me "留下来" this morning (thank you so much dear!), I wasn't sure if I was gonna like it.

Well, much to my amazement - I actually really like the song! Not sure if it's because subconsciously I know that Monster composed that song :P Who knows if Mayday might sing it at one of their 2009 concert?

Fahrenheit X Mayday

(Ashin noticeably missing - obviously embarassed to be associated with Fahrenheit LOL)

Tokidoki

All is quiet on new year's day. After a scrumptious lunch, I took some time to finish up packing for my weekend trip. I bought a (knock-off) Tokidoki bag on my last trip to Taipei and planned to use it then but in the end I had way too many luggage so now I finally get to use it.

There's a range of Tokidoki X Hello Kitty which is totally kawaii!!! I would've bought it if they had it in Taipei...

Tokidoki X Hello Kitty