BMW Sauber F1 Pit Lane Party

It's party time again in sunny Malaysia as the country prepares to host this season's F1 with the big boys in the 'Hottest race circuit in the world' Last year I got one one invite, this year I got three invites to two night's of partying and 1 afternoon with the Motorrad boys. Feeling no motivation to go as it probably would be more of the same as last year, I settled for showing up to hob nob. Somehow being in the company of the rich and pretentious wasn't exactly thrilling. It's just mind numbing and downright dull. I only went to two events, both on Saturday, the afternoon Motorrad session where I connected with my biker buddies including Matthias and the night event where we partied with champagne and lychee-martinis till late with my wife, who was a last minute surprise inclusion. We bumped into a lot of good friends whom we haven't seen for a long time. It was nice.... Agnes didn't drink but the atmosphere got to her head and she got nauseous and giddy, so we had to make a quick but necessary exit at midnite! T'was quite a nite of good fun with good friends! Surprisingly...hic!

The Day After our Anniversary

The 8th of March was the nation's 12th General Elections where the 3-partied opposition took 6 states, 82 seats in Parliament out of 222 denying the Barisan of 2/3 majority.

Never in my wildest dreams nor the opposition's that such a shift of power could take place so resoundingly and so soon. The people have spoken and rather loudly, enough is enough!
No thanks to the mainstream papers, but from news culled from the internet, the people are more accurately informed as there was disclosure on the arrogance, misconduct, blatant corruption and plundering of the nation's coffers by the present administration.

It wasn't so much the people voting the opposition but more the people voting AGAINST the government that decided the outcome. For the first time, racial lines were blurred when the Chinese and Indians voted PAS and PKR while the Malays in the cities voted DAP. As long as you vote for anyone but the government.

Never mind the uncertainties that lie ahead, never mind the plummeting stock market, never mind the endless blame the Barisan is going to shovel on each other, all that will come to pass but for now I stand proud knowing my fellow Malaysians care to take action and take action we did!...the feeling is EUPHORIC! What a difference a day makes.....

Harry Connick Jr.

We had the entire Rebana Suite at the MPO for the length of the concert on the fourth of March. Looking down at the concert from the second floor balcony accorded us a special status though we felt a bit cut off from the main proceedings that were taking place on the ground. (I suppose, sometimes one gets the urge to stay close to the action rather than merely spectate). I had a rollicking good time having been thoroughly hit squarely between the eyes (and groin) with a heavy dose of New Orleans music. And big swinging jazz at that! Harry was a real charmer. The actor in him couldn't be possibly suppressed and it just oozed on stage. It was put to good use I thought and perhaps a touch too much. But what an accomplished musician he is. His touch on the ivory keys was nothing short of a seasoned professional. The bonus for me was his Big Band. They literally blew me away with just; 3 trombones, 3 trumpets and 3 saxaphones, 1 drummer and 1 double bassist. They were coordinated like a hand in a well worn glove. Music never sounded so good and so big to me. My other guests Ann and Wendy were equally thrilled. Ann was rocking in her seat, finger snapping and foot tapping while Wendy sat riveted obviously mesmerised with the Connick charm. She described him as 'yummy'. The usually cool and restraint Zane, who was the reason for all this to happen, was moved to clapping so hard for the encore for him to reemerge. Ah...the encore alone was worth the price of the entire Rebana Suite! He went into his famed delivery of the Academy Award winning song; 'It had to be you' from the movie 'When Harry met Sally'. His short but utterly smooth delivery of the song brought a fitting end to a brilliant concert for me. The post concert autograph session was a highly restricted affair with the security dogs snapping at any attempts at photography. So we headed to our favourite bar,Chinoz for post concert drinks. And guess who we bumped in to? Yup. Sean Ghazi. Zane's favourite local star. This young singing sensation, whose current Malay jazz album is mine and Zane's favourite, is also an accomplished stage actor having starred in the recent P.Ramlee musical at Istana Budaya. Zane finally meet up with Sean who, apparently has heard of the near missed attempts to meet him earlier and he insists on taking photos and for us to put on my blog, which he has read. Well, here to you Sean and Harry! What a night...

16 Roses

Summer made frequent reminders to me throughout the day to not forget the Roses! 

So, to make sure I got it absolutely right, I brought her along to choose the flowers all 16 of them from Floristika, Bangsar. 

The huge, rosy red, succulent looking roses cost a pretty penny "...but they're from China" says the florist. True enough they do look pretty alien. We made the order and hung around for a long while, while one of the foreign looking arrangers in the back room made the arrangement under our watchful and intruding eyes! 

The alien roses in itself were, to me quite sufficient, but the simple bouquet arrangement that was subsequently presented to us was even more breathtaking! 

And that was quite an appropriate word to describe and celebrate our sixteen years together. 

Happy 16th Anniversary Darling. What a ride it has been! Stick around! After what we've been through, it's bound to get better, I am sure. 

 Here's to Sixteen more. Cheers!

Jakarta

Imagine the entire population of Malaysia living in one city. That's Jakarta. In the daytime the population escalates to about 24 million, in the nighttime it shrinks to 18 million. From the 14th floor balcony of the apartment where we stayed, the vibrant energy, sights and sounds of the city resonates. The city is very much alive, every single square inch of it. On every street corner, vendors sell their wares trying to eke out a living. As if there weren't enough street corner vendors, mobile street vendors on foot peddle anything from cigarettes to carbonated drinks. The sheer numbers of people in the city, let alone the entire country poses a major problem for the government to create jobs for a lot of its people. Hence the lax laws on street vendors and peddlers. There are even stalls that sell gasoline and diesel in plastic bottles. Anything to make that few thousand rupiahs to survive the day. On the other side of the fence, the economy of Indonesia seem to be chugging along at a very healthy pace, the GDP growth for 2007 has been forcasted at a 10-year high of 6.1-6.4%. Although the pre-financial crisis level was at 7.8% in 1996. Forecast for 2008 is at 6.8% From the look of things, what's definite is that there will be growth coming from the world's fourth most populous nation. The question is whether the super rich will spread it around to benefit its people or they continue to indulge in themselves in uptown Jakarta.