2 posts tagged “kam raslan”

I know that a sizeable percentage of my microscopic pool of readers are wondering whatever happened to myself. You can say that I have been lazy, or busy, or ran out of ideas, or becoming a boring person, or others. Work [a word not to be taken literally] has taken most of my time and attention, until I had to forget about everything else. Receiving a MacBook Pro out of the blue and not having an internet connection in my room made things worse.

But I love my MBP. I still have not decided what to name it. It won't be talked about in this post; it'll go into a 'My MacBook Pro' special.

How about a review of April 2008?

On the eleventh, my father took my brother and me to a supper buffet at Hotel Equatorial. This hotel can be considered as my family's number one hangout back in the 1990s, for Saturday night dinners. This night was the last night for the Scandinavian cuisine promotion, happening at Etoile Bistro. The sight of Scandinavian country flags make everything almost better.

Nothing much was to be seen, because the Swedish chef has packed up everything. So we headed to the coffee house downstairs and ate several dishes from curry mee to samosas to nasi beryani to baguettes.

Just a few days after I received my MBP, my brother came back from Frankfurt with an issue of Fantastic Man. Sadly to say, HE magazine was nowhere to be found. And since that I will be gifting Fantastic Man to JK, I made a copy for myself at the photocopy shop.

... and had a Photo Booth-aided shoot.

There was one day when I had to bring my mother to Sooka Sentral to meet someone, and while they had their discussion, I toured the complex to find food outlets, appealing young Caucasian office workers and a brand-new but incomplete fitness centre called Synar, which has a rock-climbing wall.

And on the seventeenth, I went to UiTM Shah Alam to see my mother giving a speech to graduate design students. It was a very hot day. There is something about this corridor that reminded me of a retro movie called Ali Setan.

On the twenty-forth, I hung out at Borders at The Gardens to make use of Starbucks' free WiFi. The speed was perfect to hold a video IM with one of my e-friends. Now my iSight is truly devirginised.

Oh, on the same day, I was having lunch with my mother at Nyonya Colors. I took pictures of the cafe when this guy [said to be a police officer] went ballistic over me and grabbed my camera away. I thought he was going to crush it as he explained how paranoid he was to have his picture taken. Luckily my mother was there to defend me.

Haha, on the 27th I participated in a creative writing workshop guided by Kam Raslan, the It author of the season. I expected a group of young secondary school kids but in reality, it was mostly people from the aged group, the kind who frequents Silverfish and thebookaholic.

Kam was very selamba in his speech. He was telling us about the techniques of... writing well [I don't have his notes right now]. After the free sandwiches, tea and coffee, I asked Kam to sign my journal. He chirped, "Oooh! A Moleskine!" [the way he said it was 'mowl-less-keen']. I said, "I thought it was pronounced as 'mo-luss-kee-na'". Then Kam made his trademark ambivalent face. It followed quickly by a photo session. I did an array of facial expressions, which confused him a little. Though in this picture, I'm the one who's looking confused.

A mystery was solved. Kam Raslan is NOT Karim Raslan. So for the past few months, I have been admiring two different men whom I thought was the same person. Remember, Kam writes stories, while Karim writes political stuff [meaning that that guy I saw at The Star election forum was NOT Kam].

Um, I guess that is it for April.

A visit to Bangsar Baru on the twenty-second where a fashion bazaar, known as 'Fashionistas Secret Meeting' was held at a shop which I have featured before...

The shop was filled with trendy shoes and accessories, old clothes [some would call them 'vintage'], new clothes that were made to look like they are old clothes, one-off shirts and dresses from brands that are not available here [like Roberto Cavalli and H&M], and stock clearance.

Many of the stuff that are on sale were very cheap; if you're smart enough, you'll get an outfit for less than RM 100. Although there were some nice things, it wasn't my kind of scene because my fashion tendencies lean towards high street stuff, whereas what you may find at this bazaar were folk-thrift store-DIY things.

Of course, for events like this, half the fun comes from the people who showed up. And just like every place hipsters are found, electronic-indie music and cigarette smoke will be there, too.

One of the main people behind this shop is Ethan, seen giving away tiny cream icing-laden cupcakes [probably sponsored by a certain graphic design firm] to everyone present.

My former classmate during my days in cenfad, Bee, was there to shop some stuff. He is very into DIY and street clothing, and was infamous for wearing a ridiculously-expensive hat with two naked girls kissing each other. Nowadays, his Japanese LED wristwatch becomes the priciest item he wears [which you won't get to see].

A few cupcakes later I was seen shooting more people, before the place evolved into a Lapsap night at Palate Palette. Many online celebrities dropped by to show face, but left quickly probably because there was no free booze.

The only thing I bought was a Libertine for Target shirt.

Fast forward to 9 p.m. Somewhere near Subang airport is a popular seafood restaurant called South Sea Seafood.

My mother had a wonderful idea to tell my father to bring the whole family out on a dinner. This was the first time in a decade [or more; I seriously can't remember the last time we had dinner when all of us were present]. We all sat at a big round table, in a sea of dining families of all races. We took one dish for each seafood - butter prawns, sweet & sour crabs, lala special, steamed siakap fish and venison cooked with peppery sauce.

While waiting for the food to arrive, I checked out other tables and the aquariums.

See the photo frames hung on the structure? They were photographs of celebrities and VIPs who have patronised the restaurant.

You can't miss their shark's fin collection which disgusted me out. Were they for display only, or is that the way they store their supply?

I found a tank full of Mantis prawns. They look unbelievably scary, like cockroaches, complete with antennae, segmented abdomen, needly legs and furry wing-like thingies hanging from their mouth. Argh!

The water the animals live in magnifies the details on their scales... even worse when some of them are already belly-up. Jikes!

I have discovered seafood to be very freaky. Luckily they live in the sea, and not in places like my attic, or creeping up my neck while I am driving in the car.

A lobster was trying to terrorise me as it cautiously creep up from its tank. Go away, lobster!

Ah, back to the safety of the dining table. Time to eat!

I avoided the crabs because I don't want to get my hands messy and be hitting around with a meat-tenderising hammer. While waiting for others to finish their meals, I took out my first Kam Raslan book, purchased in Bangsar earlier, called 'Confessions of an Old Boy'. On the way back to our houses, my mother told me that he knows Kam [or Karim] way back, and that got me excited, asking if he's married. Then my mother gave me a disappointing answer. Haha! But the book is easy to read, and it tells me some stuff that I wish to be a part of [like living in Kenny Hills, for example].

I think that's enough story for this post. I will cover two more outings in the next post. I must make sure to have ten posts by the end of this month!