Talk about bad timing.

I guess tabloids will always be tabloids, always wanting to try and sell more copies the next day. Most of you would've known about the front page headlines that ran on Kosmo on 27 July 2009, a day after Yasmin Ahmad passed away. Just google it and you'll be able to find it, but apparently you won't find it on Kosmo's website.

Reading the article outraged me, as I found it terribly disrespectful, tasteless, and tactless. The headlines said something about Yasmin "mati sebagai wanita", went into detail about her upbringing as a boy and winning Bintang RTM, and ended with something along the lines of how most people know her as a talented filmmaker but this was her life that not many people knew about.

WELL CONGRATS TO YOU KOSMO FOR ENLIGHTENING ALL OF US, YOU FUCKING MORONS.

It's been long known in the advertising circle (and news eventually spilled out of that circle) that Yasmin was born as a hermaphrodite, or better known in BM as a "khunsa", which means that she was born with 2 genders. There is a difference between the dilemma and confusion of being born with 2 genders and being born as a man and wanting to become a woman. She wasn't born as a boy. She was RAISED as a boy, and over the course of her life she made her decision on which gender to become. You try being born with 2 genders and tell me it's easy.

Now that that part has been cleared up, then there begs the question: Isn't it more important what kind of person she was, rather than her gender history? Ohhhh so you and I were born with only 1 gender like any other normal humans, does that make us better people? Better than Yasmin?

Everyone talks about Yasmin's contribution to the film industry and her heartwarming commercials about being Malaysians. Yes, there are a lot of great filmmakers out there, but few are as down to earth and humble like her.

I regret that I was so shy to say hi to her personally when she came over to our studio for a VO recording, and only smiled at her. There were no airs about her, she came in, did the recording, and joked about how she deserves as Oscar. And the most amazing thing? That she, being legendary, being popular, being high in position, being Yasmin Ahmad herself, actually remembered our engineer's name after he introduced himself to her. And he only had to say his name once.

And from that day on, I had the highest of respect for her. Why? Because I can't tell you how many countless times we've had agency clients come over to our studios (and these are people who have been coming for years), who can't remember the engineer's name, and they'll keep asking me "What's his name?" while pointing to the engineer, and I'll have to answer sweetly when in my head I'm thinking "Man, this is the 100th time you've asked me". So it's a BIG DEAL, because obviously when someone remembers your name even when you're supposedly "just an engineer", they're actually seeing you as a person and not just some "supplier". (Yeah "supplier"'s a pretty dirty word in the industry, kinda like "servicing")

It just irks me that Kosmo chose such a timing to publish that "exposé", a day after her funeral. I hear that while she was alive, she was quite sensitive about the topic... what was Kosmo thinking? That she'd have a sense of humour and laugh about it if she saw the article? That her parents would feel proud and peaceful now that the truth about their child is not only gone, but is also now a tabloid hit?

sochews summed it up right when he twitted: "My 2 cents on Kosmo's expose: Cowards. Write your exclusives when she has a chance to respond. Now, your piece is irrelevant to her legacy."

Hemmer time

I hemmed my first jeans! Mom's been doing it for me all these years, but since she passed me her other sewing machine to take back to my apartment, I've been messing around with it. Found this tut on how to shorten your jeans without losing the original hem, it verks! Hurrahhh.

http://www.daciaray.com/?p=38

My shoes will make you hungry

FR: "How come it smells like BBQ here..."

CN: "Yea, do you smell that? It smells like smoked salmon..."

Me: "Sniff sniff... hmm.... OHH! It's my shoes! They're new, they have that new smell thing I guess.. sorry sorry... hurm they *do* smell like BBQ... hehehe........."

SJ: "I'm feeling very hungry now."

Back from Perhentian!


Will probably be busy catching up on work emails (darn you technology), so will post up this photo first. No beach holiday at Perhentian is complete without last minute hats from Kuala Besut!

Flying guitar


Been making some crazyass layered necklaces for the little shop lately, and finally put them on sale over the weekend. The boyfriend was working on Saturday, so when he came over for lunch I requested (without begging of course) "Please bring me some series to watch please please pleaseeeee or else I will be bored please pleaseeeeeeeplsplpslplsplsplsplsplss".

He brought me Heroes Season 3, so while making the necklaces I was watching non-stop. On Sunday he picked me up for lunch and I said:

"I had a nightmare!"

"What? Terminator was chasing you also?"

"Nooo... SYLER!!!!"

"Har? But what powers did you have?"

"Erm..." (didn't think of THAT part)

"Hee hee... Power to make necklaces?"

"..."

"So he stole your power to make necklaces, and he made necklaces and sold them online? HEHEHEHEE"

".... -_- "

Best kid in the world!

Bring in the outdoors


Our new studio has astro turf!!! AM SO EXCITED!!! :D It's gonna be gorgeous... :D :D :D

Confessions while watching Star Trek


"Okay, just to let you know, I don't really know anything about Star Trek. Except that Spock has pointy ears."

"Well all I know about Spock is that he wrote a book about babies, and his name is Dr Spock."

Crowd Lu





Yeah stupid name, but I'm IN LOVE!!! :o)

Peeweeherman

Our office toilet got refurbished and the one big toilet was turned into a two-cubicle toilet (it's quite spacious). The two cubicles, however, are not individually sealed-- meaning you can hear each other, somewhat like how WK toilets were hehe, except that our toilet is unisex. Needless to say... it took a bit of getting used to.

Meng: (goes into cubicle 1)
Me: (hesitates... then goes into cubicle 2. keeps quiet for a bit.)

*silence...*

Me: Urm... are you taking a dump?
Meng: ......... Yes.
Me: OKAY let's not talk. (tries to pee)

*silence...*

Meng: Are you guys going for dinner?
Me: (kecut) ERrrr... can you not talk to me?? And, um, yes, we are.
Meng: Okay, where are you guys going?
Me: Chicken rice... um. You wanna come along?

*silence...*

Meng: Uh, nah, I gotta rush bac--
Me: (pees and flushes at the same time) OKAY GREAT LETS STOP TALKING, BYEEE! (runs out of the toilet)

It's really difficult peeing with an audience. I don't know how you men do it.

Curtain skirt & Inigo Montoya

Sau Fung showed me a couple of skirts that were all the rage in Singapore-- they had elastic waistbands, and were mostly vintage-inspired floral prints. My first reaction was "Ehhh! Looks like my curtain cloth!!" (My curtains are vintage-inspired florals lahh)

Turns out sewing elastic waistbands weren't that easy (or maybe I'm doing it the wrong way), but yesterday I made my own curtain skirt.


And here is a pic of the skirt with the bow. Bows are funny. I suppose it's a love/hate thing. Some of my friends can't accept the existence of bows, I suppose it's kinda like kimchi.


In other news, apparently walking on platform heels need practice. Damn.

OH! In more exciting news, there's loldogs! But.. not as funny as lolcats :-( But this cracked me up HEHEHE:

Bow wow wow yipee yo yipee yay, where my doggiez at


Made a bow yesterday, think I should've made it bigger. Oh well!



Then, got a bit carried away with Photo Booth... -_-"

Of buying things

Jean bought me a piece of printed cloth from Australia during her trip there, and I'm so psyched because she really knows what I'm into! It's a piece of aboriginal art fabric by the Worimi people from the Great Lakes region of coastal New South Wales. Yes I totally copied that 2nd half of the sentence straight from the packet inlay :P Hurrah for Jean's exellento taste! ;-)

My latest muse is Taman Paramount-- making a trip to this place is like travelling back in time. The boys will go there for the vinyl record store, and I will head to the sewing supply shops. Spending on raw sewing materials seem to make me feel satisfied hehe. Made a couple of vintage elastic belts for the little shop.

The boyfriend and I went to Daiso and had a field day putting together a craft box for Katrina's birthday. It had everything from stickers to felt cloth to origami paper to scotch tape to crayons with interchangeable tips to glue to coloured pipe cleaners to star charms to coloured marker pens to ribbons... She hugged it and kept saying "I love this!" Really made our day :-)


We had yong tau foo in Paramount for lunch yesterday (the porridge and the curry chee cheong fun is da bomb) and went to buy some plants for the office.

This is not it, though. We ended up buying soil to grow pandan leaves for our weekly slow-cooked tong sui sessions.

Hello blog! *HUGS*

Missed ya. Last Sunday our project band Like Silver played at the DTD Pre-Festival gig at MCPA Hall. Felt really nervous playing alongside Chinese indie greats like Dian Bang, Kokkamango and NAO, but I think overall we did better than our first Like Silver gig at Barsonic Zouk hehe.





These are also the coolest gig pics I've ever had of any band I've played in, and they're taken by Vanes and Champ. Like Silver is nothing like ATKK, because whilst ATKK is all about happy sunshiney goodness, Like Silver is all about cyborgs, super computers, time travel and death.

I take back everything I said about Katy Perry...



Before she become all sexed up for her album release, she could really perform well live huh? Some of her songs are too overly processed in her album, and I hate her first 2 gimmicky singles, but the overall pop production on the album is pretty good. I like her much better in this video. Now she just doesn't like to wear pants like Lady Gaga. Sighhh.

Reconstructing the bag

So on Wednesday I received the parcel! It was a vintage hard-framed bag that I saw online in a vintage blogshop specializing mostly in vintage bags. When I saw the pic of the bag online, I saw some stains, so I asked the sellers if it could be cleaned... they were honest and told me no, and they found other stains as well :-( So they made an offer I couldn't resist... RM18 for the bag including postage. The original price would be almost RM30 including postage. So I took it!

I got back from work around 10pm, and tore the package open to inspect the bag. Yes the stains were very obvious (though you can't see it in the pics below coz the flash just makes everything clean hahaha), and doubt it could be cleaned :-( ... but the frame was in really good condition. So my itchy fingers decided to tear the bag apart and put it together again.

Catherine holding my glue gun for me, God bless her soul.

Jiggybees


These photos of Jiggybees were taken last year, and backed up, and recently dug up. :-P They were taken using ze N78 with ze jelly fish eye lens, and it was my first time using them jelly lens so that's why you can spot some green outline on some pics heh heh.

Sew yea, I finally finished it!

When I was in secondary school, we had to take Kemahiran Hidup, and I always looked forward to the sewing classes. First we sewed an apron, and then erm I forgot what else we sewed in class, but I started sewing pencil cases and bags. Once I pinjamed Huei Weun's bag coz it was nice and I copied the design (as closely as I could anyway) and made my own version. I wonder where is that bag now. I did enjoy sewing a lot. (On a side note, one of my friend accidentally got her thumb poked right down with the needle on the machine during Kemahiran Hidup. The needle went right through the thumb and until today when I think about it, it still makes me go @_@)

Lately, I've been picking up sewing again. My first project was a reversible mini grocery bag, then I sewed a pillow for the boyfriend (with 100% original cotton stuffing, chewahh), then I made curtains for my room (a bit senget HEH HEH), and my latest (and toughest) project was reconstructing a tube dress into a high-waisted skirt!

The tube dress - ribboned bust, empire kinda cutting that makes me look like a sack.

Actually I bought the tube dress impulsively at a bazaar without trying it on (the usual woman excuse), and when I went back, I realised the the dress didn't fit me well :-( Was gonna sell it off on my preloved blog, but then I liked the dark preppy chekered print, so I decided to experiment with the scissors! (Ohhh I bought the sewing kit from Ikea, it's my prized possession now, I beam at the sight of the big scissors!)

As usual, when you're lazy to draw out your own blueprint for the sewing pattern, just copy and modify la HAHA. I hate drawing out sewing patterns -_-" I think I should try to like it.

So I copied the pattern of a dress that I had, and got to work with the skirt. So yay, I have my own high waisted skirt now.


It's got 3 panels in the front, and an attached sash. The back is smocked (thanks to the smocking that came with the tube dress). And the sash can be tied in more than one way.

Sorry for the bad pic and the bad bow tying skills. If the skirt looks crumpled, it's not because I didn't iron it Eevon!! :-P I promise I did. The night before. Sorta.

I like shopping for fabric, Kamdar and Ikea are my new favourite hangouts. Does that make me sad. HAHAHAAH

Goodness, another blog???

I remember Lobak calling me "Miss-I'm-Going-To-Start-Another-Blog-Again" on Facebook, because it was true.. I had like a gazillion blogs running at the same time.

Well here's one more to add to the list! :-P

OK it's not a personal blog, it's a review blog by a group of us that are into thrifting, vintage fashion, and refashions! Basically we rummage through the bazillion blogshops in KL and report the best preloved and vintage finds. It's great fun, and I think it helps me control my online shopping habits. Then again I may be speaking too soon. *nervous laughter*

*twiddles thumbs*

Marimo




This is the story of Marimo the doggie, from my favourite dog movie "All About My Dog". I can't watch this now, because I might just cry in the office. Although I'm still stealing a few glances at a few scenes, but I really can't. Will watch this at home.

Beautifully shot, edited, and written. One of my absolute favourites.

For everyone who's ever had a doggie in their life :-)