Monday, March 20, 2006

15 seconds of fame...

Yesterday was the official opening of Serangoon CC. For those who doesnt noe, they have a jam studio there. Since they were expecting many visitors some of whom are MPs, they sort of hired my band to play in their jamming studio so that ppl wld so called noe the use of it or see that their rooms are being used. So they allowed us to jam there from 2pm to 8pm for free. Thats 6 hrs. But in the end we were given an hour more. Just imagine, 1 hr cost 12 bucks for students likee us. So 7 hrs add up to...u do the math.

Anyways, as all free things goes, there was a catch. we sort of had to lie haha we were told to tell ppl that we jam there weekly. Another thing was that Senior Minister Goh Chok Thong was gg to visit and the jam studio was one of his pit stop. So naturally we were asked to play a song for him. And after listening to our demo, the organizers requested Love is Blind...

But one thing abt the studio is tat the drums were bad. Especially the high-hat. So, luckily, upon request, we were given money to buy a new set of high-hat. So as fate wld have it, we came down last friday to set up the new high-hat. I brought my bass along as Donavan juz return it to me after his church performance. Like i've always said to my frens, my bass seems to have perform more tyms den me haha seriuzly...niways, fahmy brought along his guitar too as rif wanted to borrow for the following sunday, unfortunately he heard us wrongly n brought the wrong guitar.

Niways, after setting it up, we decided to try smth new that we juz discussed upon since we got the equipment there. So as we were abt to start, some indian guy came in and said he was the vice-something of the CC. We tot we were gg to get kicked out haha as it turns out he asked us, "R u guys the Reds?" NO! haha we r Left Turn On Red. "Oh turn on red, anyway we gg to have a rehearsal for this sun so i want u all to play smth wen the Minister of Something something something(din catch it, was too annoyed he got our name wrong) comes..." Our jaws were all dropping...how last minit can u get???? So he briefed us abit saying he will intro us this way,

"this is a band made up of cuzins, they kol themselves Red on turn. This is their leader Shan..."

"Erm, actually is Left Turn On Red and my name is Shad..."

"Pardon? Shark? Shan? Shag?"

"NO NO Shad"

"How u spell that?"

"S-H-A-D, Shad"

"oh ok..."

"erm sir, i dun think we can play cuz our drummer got to go off"

"nvm, juz anyhow play, its juz a rehearsal"

So come sunday, We came ard two, tuned our guitars arrange the amps n speakers to our liking, did checks n counter check of how we sound etc, etc, etc...So wen the big moment came...we felt more confident den on last fri...we actually played and instrumental version of Zombie wif fadhly on drums haha...

Niways, as 6 was approaching, to our dismay, the same indian guy came in n said that he was gg to intro us n not to correct any mistakes if he does any during SM Goh's visit. And soon, several ppl wif cameras and video cams cam in and started to set up their equipment...they cld have told us earlier that they will be media there...sheesh...

So the big moment came...A whole grp of MPs whom i recognise but duno their name came with SM Goh in tow. And the indian guy began...

"This is our jam studio...blah blah blah...this is a band of cuzins. They call themselves Left Turn On The Red..."

At this point we were all..."HUH!!!" Fadhly was gettin ready to tok in the mike but i signal him not to...

SM Goh: At my Marine Parade GRC there's a band called Traffic Police

Everyone Else: HAHAHA Good One....(suck ups...)

Indian guy,"So they gonna play a song for u..."

ME: Orite sir, we're gonna play an original of ours titled Love Is Blind...

SM Goh: Isnt it always...

Me: Well, yeah...so here it goes...

Unfortunately since he was bz we were told earlier to cut our 4 mins 22 secs song to 2 mins so we basically played 1 verse plus the bridge. We even had to cut out riff's solo...wat a drag...

Niways after that we continued playing among ourselves till abt 7.30 wen my sis came in wif some food...we sat down hungrily and eat like a couple of banglas by the roadside haha juz as we were finishing our food, fad got a kol from his dad, he had to go off for camp. His dad was sending him. So we slacked abit till ard 8.15 wen riff's parent surprised us by visiting...they wanted to hear smth from us so we end up playing again till abt 9.30 wen we packed up and leave...

While packing up tho, some gal name annice from nyp student unioun called me to invite The Tinnitus Effect (my bandzout band) to audition for some jam hop comp. With auditions in 2 days...sheesh so little time...

So off we went downstairs to store fad's amp temporarily at my sis office. While waiting for her to come out and take the amp, we were slacking and toking nonsense wen i receive a sms from Kai Ting...thats a surprise, she dun usually contact me...this is wat she said...

"Shad saw u in channel 8 news sia... Lol... Wah on tv sia..."

I was like WTH!!!! Everyone was surprised by my reactionand grab my fone to read and all their jaws kinda drop...we really din expect this. Den i tot mebi she's pulling my leg but then again, she din noe abt this event. N y wld she lie??? SO i called her up to cfm n yeah...we were on tv...Unfortunately, due to the drums positioning, Roma was omitted...

Feeling kinda 'malu' yet happy i went home tired...wif shoulder aching due to lugging the heavy bass ard for 7 hrs...

The next morning, or rather noon, i reach sch and logged on to my msn...without hesitation Wen Chun msged me...and said...

"wah shad, cool ah...i saw u on tv this morning...singing and playing guitar..."

I was like wth...again???? and having kaypoh grp mates, both donavan and jun jie read the window and both said "WAH..."

SHEESH....

And now as im blogging me, Zombie msged me saying "yo" haha that is strange cuz we hardly chat at all, even wen in class... so i replied, "yoz, wassup?" n he said

"u appear on tv ah?"

me: How u noe????

Zomb: "i watch..."

Haiz...guess i cant hide it...sheesh...so i guess i finally got my 15 seconds of fame along wif Fad and rif...pity for roma who was that but not in view and fahmy who cldnt make it due to him being in KL...

Anyways, juz for the record...MY NAME IS SHAD AND MY BAND NAME IS LEFT TURN ON RED...

OUTZ....

Shad checked in on...Monday, March 20, 2006

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Condolences....

The past week was my 1st week of fypj. Kinda bored there in the lab. Been wanting to blog abt lots of stuff for the past 2-3 weeks but the moment i get to the com, my desire to blog seems to go away n my mind turns blank. I duno y lah...even wen im free during my fyp, i juz no mood to blog...

Aniways, luckily my project doesnt involve any programming at all. Its all documentation. Couple of my frens who i got to noe this past week say im lucky but everything got their pros and cons rite....

Tho documentation is fairly easy, its tedious. Our job is to turn a use-case into a test-case and finally into a test-data. For those who noe wat im toking abt, its fairly easy rite? Well, the thing is, there are abt more den 300+ use-cases altogether to be finished in 2 mths tym. And some use-cases can have up to 30-40 alternate flows....To do one successful conversion, we actually need to understand a use-case first. And without the aid of the actual application-which we dun have- its fairly difficult to understand. The only thing we have is the user-interface to help us out....but damn tedious, have to keep on scrolling and scrolling or flipping and flipping the pages we printed out...luckily our room got a printer. Furthermore, the content of this project is confidential and they actually specially selected the 13 of us...as if i really believe that haha...no one can enter our lab which explains the boring part...

Aniways, now to some sad news. I wld like to give my concolences to Fadhly and family. For those who doesnt noe, his grandfather passed away last thurs. It came as a shock for me as it was his grandmother who was seriuzly ill. Knowing fadhly, he dun usually show his emotion but i noe for a fact how sad he really is. I hope he's coping well especially since he's without any family in camp now. What a thing to happen on his 1st week of NS. I noe his dad is sad. In fact my mom told me tat wen she n my dad went to the funeral, fadhly's dad whom i call mamuni, confided to my dad saying that his father-in-law(the on who passed away) called him the nite before complaining of some discomfort or some sort. Mamuni offered to bring him to the clinic but he rejected saying it was oredy late and he wld prefer to go the next day and dismiss any insitance from mamuni. So wen news got to mamuni that he passed away the next morning, mamuni was dumbfounded. I guess i was shocked to wen i got the news...

Fad, manage to get excuse from camp to go to the funeral that day. Wen i got there wif riff, he seemed very cheery but i knew better. N i was proven rite wen later we were somewat alone he told me that he had juz finished footdrill wen his officer called him into the office. His 1st tot was that he did smth wrong but wen he was told the bad news, he started to tear...he told me he really cldnt control it. I guess that shows how well i noe him. Later, rauf, fad's younger cousin, approached me n told me how he breakdown in front of his officer wen he was asking to be excused for that day. I guess it shows how well loved their grandfather was...

OUTZ....

Shad checked in on...Saturday, March 18, 2006

Condolences....

The past week was my 1st week of fypj. Kinda bored there in the lab. Been wanting to blog abt lots of stuff for the past 2-3 weeks but the moment i get to the com, my desire to blog seems to go away n my mind turns blank. I duno y lah...even wen im free during my fyp, i juz no mood to blog...

Aniways, luckily my project doesnt involve any programming at all. Its all documentation. Couple of my frens who i got to noe this past week say im lucky but everything got their pros and cons rite....

Tho documentation is fairly easy, its tedious. Our job is to turn a use-case into a test-case and finally into a test-data. For those who noe wat im toking abt, its fairly easy rite? Well, the thing is, there are abt more den 300+ use-cases altogether to be finished in 2 mths tym. And some use-cases can have up to 30-40 alternate flows....To do one successful conversion, we actually need to understand a use-case first. And without the aid of the actual application-which we dun have- its fairly difficult to understand. The only thing we have is the user-interface to help us out....but damn tedious, have to keep on scrolling and scrolling or flipping and flipping the pages we printed out...luckily our room got a printer. Furthermore, the content of this project is confidential and they actually specially selected the 13 of us...as if i really believe that haha...no one can enter our lab which explains the boring part...

Aniways, now to some sad news. I wld like to give my concolences to Fadhly and family. For those who doesnt noe, his grandfather passed away last thurs. It came as a shock for me as it was his grandmother who was seriuzly ill. Knowing fadhly, he dun usually show his emotion but i noe for a fact how sad he really is. I hope he's coping well especially since he's without any family in camp now. What a thing to happen on his 1st week of NS. I noe his dad is sad. In fact my mom told me tat wen she n my dad went to the funeral, fadhly's dad whom i call mamuni, confided to my dad saying that his father-in-law(the on who passed away) called him the nite before complaining of some discomfort or some sort. Mamuni offered to bring him to the clinic but he rejected saying it was oredy late and he wld prefer to go the next day and dismiss any insitance from mamuni. So wen news got to mamuni that he passed away the next morning, mamuni was dumbfounded. I guess i was shocked to wen i got the news...

Fad, manage to get excuse from camp to go to the funeral that day. Wen i got there wif riff, he seemed very cheery but i knew better. N i was proven rite wen later we were somewat alone he told me that he had juz finished footdrill wen his officer called him into the office. His 1st tot was that he did smth wrong but wen he was told the bad news, he started to tear...he told me he really cldnt control it. I guess that shows how well i noe him. Later, rauf, fad's younger cousin, approached me n told me how he breakdown in front of his officer wen he was asking to be excused for that day. I guess it shows how well loved their grandfather was...

OUTZ....

Shad checked in on...Saturday, March 18, 2006

Monday, March 06, 2006

Have u ever???

Have u ever experienced a mixed feeling of happiness n sadness at the same tym? As in, feeling so happy that u feel like u'r on top of the world, like nuthing bad cld happen to dampen ur spirit but at the same tym, somewhere inside u, u juz feel so down, so out, like u wish u din have to continue living or mebi not sure of how to go on and face each and everyday of ur life anymore. Like ur world has cam crumbling down n there's no way u cld pull urself up again?

Well thats how i feel now. I duno y. Cant explain it. I can understand the joy. Most prob its cuz of the encouraging remarks my band is getting for our demo. Things have been happening fast since we recorded our 1st ever demo last monday, 27th feb 2006. Suddenly, ppl want copies of our demo and listening to our song over n over again according to dem. Suddenly our band profile is up at pure-rock.net as my fren manage to convince us to put our profile there. Suddenly there's a request for us to correct our mistakes on our demo, produce more songs as ppl want to send to a radio station...suddenly, suddenly, suddenly...

I duno abt the sadness part tho...haiz...i wish i knew....

PS-Want to listen to our demo, juz ask from me. N btw, we're looking for ppl to help create website for us. Currently, onli one volunteer. Anyone interested juz msg me....

OUTZ....

Shad checked in on...Monday, March 06, 2006