Mrs. Lebosse’s Birthday

Friday night, we celebrated Zai aka Mrs. Lebosse’s birthday by holding a Surprise Birthday party for her at Salsa Havana.

Must say that the organizers did a fine job in getting all the arrangement done with the cake specially made for her. The poem on the cake was written by Jacque himself for this special occasion. Now, what went on that night?

Stephanie and I along with Val went into Salsa Havana around 9.30pm to a quiet place, with only Derek and his ladies as well as Greg around to keep us entertained. Now, as the weekend is also the weekend of the Latin Congress in Port Dickson, 90% of the Salseras and Salseros of the Klang Valley is out of town so leaving Salsa Havana for us to be utilized to the max. With the congress being held elsewhere, one of the thing that went along with Martin (the owner of Salsa Havana) is his huge collection of Latin songs. After doing a quick check on the CDs that is left, I told Greg that, "We better get more CDs in as there’s not enough songs to go around or the crowd’s going to start hearing repeats of songs over and over again throughout the night."

One thing to note, Deejay Xavier and Martin wasn’t around, so Greg as well as some of the staff who knew me told me to take to the Decks and do what I can with the CDs I got. So this is one of the rare nights in Salsa Havana that I didn’t dance a lot as I spend 70% of the time behind the Deejay console getting the songs cued and played depending on the crowd’s mood. To the people who was there that night and didn’t like some of the song selection I came up with, all I can say is … I’m sorry, I can only play with songs that is available to me at that time, if I knew in advance that there’s no deejays and not songs to play, I’d have brought more of my collection to be played there.

Around 11ish, in walks Mr. and Mrs. Lebosse and the guys start to reel Zai to the center of the dance floor with her not knowing what is going on. So with a loud Happy Birthday and a song, she finally realized that we were all there to celebrate her birthday. During her speech, she mentioned that she thought she was there for someone else’s birthday! So Jacque, you did well to pull it off. Up til the final minute she still didn’t know it was her birthday party. So with the cake cutting done with, the Must Have dance with the birthday girl was next, with Jacque having the first dance with her and all the other hungry wolves guys lining up to have a dance with her as well. 12min 34sec was the time it took Zai to dance with all the men in the club with the final dance being a show-piece of showmanship between JamesQ and Jacque battling it out to get be the last man dancing with Zai.

The dance floor opens up again after that with people dancing the night away until 2am and one by one, couple by couple, the crowd start to thin as people with tired legs start to head on home. I played the last song at 2pm and had my last dance of the night with Zai before packing up and heading home. Tired, legs aching but I had fun. For the people who has not seen me spin before, I hope you guys enjoyed the songs and yes, I don’t like to speak on the mic when I’m deejaying. I rather let the music speak to the crowd and watch people dance to the music I play.

Movie: Transformers The Movie

 

Thanks to Hitz.fm, Stephanie and I get to be one of the first in Malaysia to watch Transformers the movie. Now, as a Transformers fan from my childhood years, this movie is an excellent showcase of technology that brings all my favourite characters to LIVE!

 

The plot of the movie is quite simple, the Decepticons has been scouring Earth for a map to find the AllSparks and Megatron by hacking into the United States military system, the AllSpark coincidentally is in the hand of a young man named Sam. Sam went with his dad to second hand car dealership and found himself a beat-up car which is actually Bumblebee in disguise. That’s basically the 1st quarter of the movie, the 2nd quarter of the movie introduce us to the Autobots that has landed on Earth to help protect Sam and his girl along with the search for the AllSparks. The antics of the Autobots in this quarter of the movie is quite nice, as the realism in the interaction of the bots and humans as well as it’s new surroundings was just fantastic. Hearing Peter Cullen’s voice as the "Real Life" Optimus Prime brings back good memories of his Prime days in the G1 Transformers.

The 3rd Quarter of the movie introduce us to Megatron as well as the rest of the Decepticons just before the battle royale starts between the Autobots and the Decepticons. One thing I didn’t like in here is Megatron, it just felt wrong even though the Megatron in this movie looks cool and realistic, I somehow missed the Megatron that I used to watch in the G1 cartoon.

The 4th Quarter of the movie is the battle royale pitting the Autobots and the Decepticons in a fight to the death and basically the humans you see in this part are just fillers inbetween 1 fight sequence and another. This here also has another part that I didn’t like, the fight scene looks very … rushed and confusing at times, you just does not know what you are looking at in between all those helpless screaming humans and cars being flung from road to the side of buildings. Of course, all comes to an end when Sam stuff the AllSparks into Megatron’s heart and ended the war (oops did I just give the ending away?).

Now, what did I learn from this movie?

1. I still love Transformers

2. Optimus Prime in his new look is awesome, in fact, he looks better compared to it’s boxy G1 version.

3. Bumblebee as the Chevy Camaro looks cool compared to the VW Beetle in G1.

4. Hearing Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime in this movie brings back good memories of the original cartoon.

5. I still have no idea who the small Decepticon is, is he supposed to be Soundwave?

6. I don’t like Michael Bay’s style of filming fight scene. Not when you’re talking about a 20ft Robot, that 5 – 10min battle in the city was actually boring to me cause I can’t see much details of the fight, only things falling around and people screaming.

7. I didn’t like the "Real Life" Megatron even though the design is really cool, I kinda miss the G1 Megatron.

8. Autobots can pee when the need arises.

9. Asking a girl to sit on your lap at the front passenger seat cause you have a seat belt works.

10. I heard from Wilson that there’ll be a Sequal for Transformers The Movie so that is another movie sequal to look forward to. 

 

Salsa 101 @ KL Hilton

I am suspecting the 101 in the Salsa 101, is representing the number of hours you’d be spending in bed trying to recover from your sore leg, after the event.

The whole event was amazing! For a person who has never attended a Salsa Festival or Latin Congress, this first time experience was a real eye-opener. Arriving KL Hilton at 5.30pm, Stephanie and I met up with the rest of the SalsaJayers at the registration counter, collected our goodie bags consisting T-shirts, pamphlets, a small bottle of sampled perfume (tried it on Rueben) and some drink coupons. The next task after registering is to find a ‘camping spot‘ to keep our bags.

A good 15 minutes later and we heard Gupson (Attitude Dance) announcing over the sound system that the first workshop was about to begin. The first workshop taught us body isolations and styling. Boy, we got down "dirtayyy" and "naughtayyy" (Our fellow english salsaman would be delighted to show you how …), it was a good laugh with him telling us the best way to remember the sequence … "Just make loads of grunting sounds like these … UHHHH… AHHHH….. OOOH…. wasn’t so hard, was it?"

Patricia from Ritmo Latino KL was up next and taught us the Casino Rueda on Salsa Timba. She mentioned the word "SETEH" (not sure if I recalled it correctly) meaning Seven and Coca Cola. Unfortunately I can’t really remember the sequence.

The 3rd instructor was Salsa Sam who gave us tips on 3 sexy moves and a dip called Rumba Wena. Among the 3 moves, my favorites were the 2nd and the 3rd (this also means I forgot the 1st…). In the 2nd move, you wrap your hands around the lady while the 3rd is to get the girl to caress you while both if you go around in a circle. And the last thing he shared was the Slow Dip.

At the end of the workshop, the played a movie about the birth of Salsa … from Son to Salsa … and eventually it was dinner time. We went to KFC … excellent choice with excellent selection of food. Bon Appétit !

By 9.20pm we’re already back at the ballroom, dancing shoes back on and hitting the dance floor to DANCE! Oh yeah … all SalsaJayers take note. You might appear on Channel [V] as the crews were trailing us all night long .. from the workshops to the dance floor. (Eddy from Channel [V] … thanks for your coverage).

There were also dance competitions in the mix with 3 couples performing with each performing a number with their own dance partner and another number with a different dance partner. The winning prizes were given to the best individual male and female dancers. At the party, we also managed to watch performances by Gavin and Sally as well as Gupson and Patricia. The crowds were practically cheering their heart out at the couples. Besides these couples, Fahmy and gang also performed a Casino Rueda piece which was excellent !

After 6 glasses of Mojito (double shots), 2 Perriers later and countless number of dance, we ended the night on a high at 3am by heading off to the mamak for some drinks. With this over, there’s the Latin Congress and MSF coming up. For those that has attended this Salsa101 and is going for the Congress or MSF for the first time, well, imagine, you’d be doing this same thing over and over again for a few nights and yes, the next day, your legs will feel like it has run 3 ironman events back to back and you just want to stay in bed the next one week. I can’t wait to do this again.

Salsa 101 was an eye opener for me in terms of experience (as well as a great night for me as I met up with quite a number of my ex colleagues from ASTRO as well as from my freelance TV days)

Stefanie Sun Yanzi @ The Curve

This is a Make People Jealous Post. Read on at your own risk.

OK lah, it’s not really that great. Not like people will get jealous about it. It’s 1am, just came back from a late dinner and my food is still being digested. Since I’m still wide awake… just thought that I post this up and then get to bed. Anyway, Thanks to Stephanie Looi, I get to go watch Stefanie Sun perform, even though it’s only for 2 songs. Dax and Shirlene came along as well to make it a double date (?).

Arrived at The Curve around 6ish and it was raining cats and dogs. By 7.00pm, it was still raining. So we met up with Dax and Shirlene at Rojak Rojak. I was told by them to write about the service there. Well, the service there is practically non-existance, I have to stand up several times and wave in front of their face in order for them to take notice. By 7.45pm, we head over to the stage area and it’s still raining! Stefanie Sun only came out around 8ish, performed 2 songs and then have autograph session before ending the night. As for Stephanie and I, we head off to TGIF for our dinner party. But that’s another story all together. Anyway, here’s some pictures to make whoever that cares jealous.

The pictures abit crappy cause i was fiddling with some settings on this old computer and I get this result.

more here: http://zique76.multiply.com/photos/album/63