Ijah's Gig - The Poster
Great poster. Thanks to Samson for doing this! Click image to see poster in its entirety.
Great poster. Thanks to Samson for doing this! Click image to see poster in its entirety.
CELEBRATE THE LEAP YEAR WITH THE
"NIGHT WITH THE COVER GIRLS"
featuring Ijah and Awa
29 February 2008, 9.00pm
Rahsia Bistro & Wine Bar
13, Jalan Damai, 55000 Kuala Lumpur.
Phone: 03 - 2142 5555
Website: www.rahsia-kl.com
ABOUT THE GIRLS
Ijah has been playing the guitar for more than 15 years although her skills are limited to the 7 major chords. Despite that she unashamedly proclaimed herself a rock chick and have busked along Medan Mara and Bangsar, played open mics and billed gigs and even written many a-cheesy love songs for friends' girlfriends in exchange for free meals. She likes rainy days and black dresses and anything Japanese and at last count, had exactly 11 fans. Her only known weaknesses are kryptonite and cupcakes.
Awa had written one song and transliterated another. By extreme good luck, her warbled rendition of the English version of "TOKYO", originally sung by Japanese singer YUI, was chosen for broadcast by YUI herself in the radio show YUI LOCKS. Awa has sung many times in chat rooms, but this would be her first ever 'live' appearance. Her guitar is bought especially for this occassion. Awa counts Zamani of Slam as one of her favourite singers and thinks CJ7 is a one hella funny movie.
Together, Ijah and Awa will be playing an acoustic set at Rahsia to celebrate the leap year on Feb 29, 2008. Billed as "Night with the Cover Girls", they will not be singing their own songs but rather each others, together with a selection of pop ditties that holds special significance in their lives (for e.g Ijah will sing "Baby, One More Time" to remind us that Britney Spears was once hot and used to wear panties to help Ijah get over her trauma of seeing pictures of Britney's vajayjay on "Pink Is The New Blog"). Audience is encouraged to sing along, lyrics sheet will be provided.
The acoustic set starts at 9pm and will end with an open mic session. If you would like to participate, feel free to sign up at the door. You can play the girls' guitars or bring your own so long as you play 'em.
Rahsia is an eclectic little restaurant located in Jalan Damai. There is no cover charge but seats are limited so come early or make reservations to ensure you get a good seat since both girls are short. Both of them would like it very much if you could come and clap or whistle or both to fool them into a false sense of celebritydom so please help to share this around.
For more information on the gig and open mic please email Ijah at ijah@email.com.
For reservations, please call: 03 - 2142 5555
Apparently, you can suffer from a broken heart that you didn’t even know you had.Last night, I was asked what I had been up to for the past ten years. I smiled, said something non-committal about work and travelling and living life.
He said, “You’ve been lucky,”
I started to protest and said, “But I’ve worked damn hard,”
and then realised midway that yes, I have been lucky. It can’t be all just a series of coincidences or good karma. I knew that all along.
I asked, “What about you? What have you been up to these last 10 years?”
Without looking at me, he simply said.
“I died.”
Even thinking about it now makes me want to cry.
I am sorry.
I am sorry.
I am sorry.
Sometimes I can be so cruel without meaning to be so.
More: http://killingtimewithijahamran.wordpress.com/
My Long Vacation(s). Have you ever felt that you just woke up from a long, long vacation?
The Best CV Ever (really, it's an ACTUAL, living and breathing human being). I didn't make this stuff up.
For some reason, today when I click the "Update Blog" button, the new post dashboard loads perfectly without making a detour to some amateur porn website. O(&@EUT@&^@%HSQ!$%@#$
*koff*
I digress. After 2 months trying unsuccessfully to un-blind my eyes from the various wide open beavers that assaulted my vision whenever I try to update this blog, I have decided to migrate to Wordpress. So, Killing Time version 2.0 can be found here: http://killingtimewithijahamran.wordpress.com/
This time I wrote about my sad and lonely life. You'll like it. Go there, read it and pay me some sympathy.
What I learned:
Yes it is the dreaded tagging game. I have managed to successfully avoid being tagged for the past month but looks like I am finally caught.
I was tagged by Zulfa , former senior in hell school, I mean high school, and current friend (though he is skating on really thin ice at the moment).
So, the rules:
People who are tagged should write a blog post of 6 weird things about them as well as state these rules clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names at the bottom of your post. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their comments and tell them to read your blog.
Oh so many weird things to confess and so few allowed confessions! Here goes:
The people that I have tagged are:
Ijah's done, peace out.
Another friend filed for divorce in Syariah Court, KL last Thursday. Before he made the decision to do so, he had dinner with us at Madam Kwan in KLCC where I could not resist but blurted, "I told you so!" and smacked him in the shoulders; to which he replied indignantly, "But I was ready [for marriage]."
He told us he has been wanting a divorce for a long time. But he held on because they have a 2-year old son. He thought, maybe, just maybe, next year things will be better. But it didn't. So, last Thursday he sent me an sms to say the deed was done and that they would fight the [potentially ugly] custody battle in court.
He is not the first of my band of friends who decided that marriage was no longer an option. I am sure he won't be the last. I may be laughing when I said I am expecting another divorce to happen soon. I didn't say that to make him feel better. I can feel another divorce brewing violently in the air. That'd make it the third this year, and we are only in February. 10 more months to go. Heck, we are only 32! Way too young for a mid-life crisis. What the h*** happened to us?
Let me tell you a story. When I was in [a] boarding school, there were 3 of us who shared the same name. One of them happened to be a child of a broken marriage. A lot of people thought this was tragic and treated her with reverence and awe. That was the thing that I remembered about her. Not the fact that we shared the same name, but that of her parents being divorced. It was such a huge deal that was treated in a hush hush manner -- which was ironic since she was famous for THE divorce than for anything else.
There was another girl in our batch, who was born with a hole-in-heart and was under medication all the time. We were classmates. We hung out several times, in fact we were even room mates once. There was her condition and then there was her over-eager attitude to prove that she was normal. She was athletic, perhaps too athletic at times, trying very hard to dismiss her hole-in-heart thing. It was no big deal. In a short time, we too thought that it was no big deal. She was just another kid. We loved her, hated her, laughed with her, laughed at her. When we were in form 5, she moved to another school in Kota Bharu to be nearer to her parents (or was it relatives, I don't remember anymore). That was the last time I ever saw her.
In 1995, on one cold hard winter's day, she collapsed in the streets of London while waiting for the bus and passed away. The other? She is now happily married with three kids.
My point is, a child of divorce is seen as more fragile, more in need of protection and love and attention than a child who was born with a congenital condition. But that's not true. Children are resilient. They grow up. They learn. They understand. And perhaps, in time, they forgive.
So I told this friend of mine, if you are hanging on for the sake of a child, then you're an idiot. Better to raise a child by two separate parents where each can provide him with a loving and nurturing environment; than raising him together in a house full of hate and distrust. A child should not be allowed to grow up in a household thinking it is okay for two persons in a relationship not to talk to each other for months; or that it is okay to yell and call each other names when you don't get your way; or that this brand of f*cked-up relationship is normal. If anything, we the so-called responsible adults owe it our children to remove them from such a poisonous place.
I view divorces with the same nonchalance that I view marriages. It is just another phase in a relationship. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. If it does - great. Just because once you loved each other very much and took an oath before men and God, it doesn't mean the relationship could, or must be, salvaged at whatever cost. Especially true if you can no longer bear to talk or look at each other without spitting venom.
But that night, I couldn't put my thoughts together or tell him something useful. We laughed nervously, shared desserts and then went back to our separate homes.
This is what I wished I had told him. That when the situation calls for it, cut your losses*. If you are just going to lose more and more, stop and remove yourself from the situation. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can recoup this. You never can. Learn from the accountants. They may be geeks, but they know a thing or two about losses and gains.
[*from Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms: cut your losses: to stop wasting time or money on something by ending your connection to it. E.g. when a project is failing, you've got to learn to cut your losses and move on.
from MSN Encarta: cut your losses to withdraw from a situation in which there is no possibility of winning]
On a less depressing news (or is that more depressing news?), Siti and hubby left for LA today to attend the Grammys. If you remember my last post, that hideous, beaded mermaid dress that she wore to some event won her a best-dressed contest and the prize was the red carpet walk at the Grammy's. Unbelieveable. I know.
On this 20th Anniversary of batch '87, my thoughts and prayers go out to the late Shahriza Shaharun (rest in peace, room mate), Saiful Amri my bro in Damai and one of the earliest faces I got to know in school, and Hanaz Hazlin, who was my classmate for 2 straight years -- all of whom I knew personally and had been close to, at some point of our lives. It's been many years, but I can still recall your faces without having to open up the old photo album. May all of you rest peacefully under the grace of God.
And to Emi, I got your back. I always do.
It has been a very long time since I have written a song or played the guitar. Some time in mid-2006 I was seized by an intense desire to play a lot of piano so I have been transposing my songs from guitar to piano with little success. Mostly because I get bored of it every few days or so.
Thus, 2006 passed as another year where I did not write a single song (2005 was the other one). I don't feel bad about it, only maybe slightly guilty whenever asked when I am going to upload new stuff onto my archive in Bolt.com.
Two days ago I saw a tabloid cover that screamed "Siti's sexier after marriage" with a black bar covering her bosom. If that is considered sexy then I put the entire Kelantan state on fire. I wish this Siti circus would be over. She is an okay singer with an okay voice and an okay image. A lot of people dig her but to me she is bland and uninteresting. The old man once speculated that the reason I dislike Siti is because I am jealous of her which got me laughing milk was coming out of my nose. I would love to trade lives with Angelina Jolie. But Siti's? Pass. I asked him, would you rather sit here talking to me or Siti? He made a face and said "I would have nothing to talk about with her." I rest my case.
So, in the spirit of Grudge Match (Electronic Gaming Monthly @ www.1UP.com), here is the blow by blow take of Ijah vs Siti Nurhaliza. You can vote if you want but (obviously) since this is my blog, your views don't count.
*Team pink: Ijah
*Team blue: Siti
Postscript: If, for some reason the photos won't load, just use your imaginations.
The Grand Cheese Crown Award
Category: Animal-Inspired Fashion
Leopard print strappy top by FENDI vs
Mermaid dress by Radzuan Radziwill: She won a best dress award for THIS! Honest.
Winner: Siti
Category: Best Known For
Boobies - these ain't mine but I can guarantee you my girls are just as awesome vs
Miss goody two shoes
Winner: Ijah
Category: Creepy Factor
Telling fortunes (..though I am slightly younger and a tad more fashionable than this uncle) vs
Eating raw whole eggs in the bathroom before going onstage
Winner: Siti
Category: Love
The very married, very talented, very yummylicious mister Sakurai Kazutoshi vs
The (then) very married mister Khalid Jiwa sir.
Winner: Siti
Category: Reading Material
Electronic Gaming Monthly vs
Vogue (pronounced VO-GOO-EH, I kid you not)
Winner: Siti, on the strength of her pronunciation alone
Category: Favourite Body Part (photo is NSFW - not safe for work)
See 'Best Known For' vs
Nipple, I mean, Dimple. Siti, a nipple is what you can see through Ms L Lo's deliberately obscene dress.
Winner: Siti, for the slip.
Category: Catfights
Some lame-a**, stupid bimbo up on the 1st Floor of Amcorp Tower vs
The spectacular Siti-Tok Pah-Misha b*tchfest. How can I beat this, ever?
Winner: Siti
Ijah: 1; Siti: 6
Looks like Ijah can't beat the awesome cheesiness that is Siti. Oh well.
This is what I hate most about the weekend. All I have eaten today is a plate of fried mihun that I cooked myself, a cup of (very thick) coffee and two (very small) slices of layer cake. Yet I feel like I overate. Somehow this feeling of being overly full ALWAYS, ALWAYS happen to me over the weekends... although I eat considerably less than what I would have during weekdays. It's uncomfortable and it is annoying.
Does anyone get this way or is it just me? Is there a scientific explanation for this?
o·ver·eat 
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v
r-
t
)
t), o·ver·eat·en (-tn), o·ver·eat·ing, o·ver·eats ver·eater n.