Summer! Sea! Stupidity!

State of mind:
Current soundtrack: Playlist name - series - song title (artist)

I—buh. Ultramanland is INSANE. (taken from their official site)

★Shoowatch Stage★

Dates: 19/7 - 31/8
Time: 1230 (until 31/7), 1300 (whole of August), 1500 (13-15/8), 1330 (16, 17/8)

For the summer holidays, we're having a daily special show!
There's the cheerful presentation by the Ultra Warriors of 'Ultra Manzai'
The earnest battle of 'Ultra Kaijuu Pro Sumo'
Heroes fighting to a jaunty beat in 'Ultra Stomp'
A slightly different type of souvenir photo session, the 'Memorial Photo Battle'
And on top of all that, a fun stage show you can sing and dance to with the Ultras and aliens 'Ultra Feature Band'!
All this and more at the daily special show!!

Somehow, I THINK I see where some of the really cracky fanon characterisations come from. This seems like fun; I'd be crying with laughter over there at almost everything. Ultra Stomp sounds like great fun! And ZOMG, the band. Song, dance AND Ultraman? YES YES DO WANT. I probably expose my geekery (and fujoshidom) when I say that a stage show where the audience *sings* the hero back onto his feet would be for the win. Especially since if I were able to attend one, one loud female voice would rise above all others—and if it was one of the post-Heisei Ultras, the words might even be English. (Note that I never said 'melodious'. I've had several opinions on that the past few years.)

Anyone going to Kumamoto come summer? Want a translator? I will work very hard. :D;;;

But let us all remember; Ultraman isn't just manzai and songs and sumo; it is the glory of victory and the light of day; the bitterness of sorrow and the sharpness of defeat; the sweetness of belonging and the strength of connection. It's that and this and a little bit of that other stuff over there, and THAT'S UM. :3

There's also mention of some kind of Japanese Matsuri-ish thing, AND Ultra Bon Odori, but if I go on talking about those, my brain will explode out of my skull and go to Kumamoto itself.

Deep breath. Close eyes.

State of mind: resigned
Current soundtrack: Shadow Skill - Hyoumon

While this blogger was off angsting, two street demonstrations occured. One was a walk for clean elections. One was a protest on behalf of the hardcore-poor Indians of the country (ostensibly).

After much yeses and noes, it's finally come down to this. Five Hindraf leaders have been detained under the ISA. You may want to get a local paper and look very closely at those faces. I highly doubt you'll be seeing them again in two years.

(Also, this is my perplexed rebuttal to those who keep saying demonstration is not part of our culture. Not that I approve of people biting police officers, but I don't approve of tear-gas fired into a crowd containing children, either. Good gods, y'all, peaceful resistance! PEACEFUL RESISTANCE!)

(the pic comes from Rob Cockerham, and a rather mysterious 'Josh'. Thanks dude.)

Of Field Trips and Kengchows

State of mind: ...decidedly emo. o_O

This year's first Exploration Week has come and gone - much of it spent in the trusty arms of Morpheus (read: Zzzzz...). I had some personal victories when it came to work—second Motion Graphics idea approved without too much sweat, similarly for Multimedia Production—but am still soul-searching over a few other things (Online Media 3 being one of them...).

Anyway, this is not the place for pure unbridled emo - yet. The foundations will hold a little while longer, be they shaken—and I bring news of Islamic art and Jason Grove's visit to our college!

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Islamic Art Museum outing, or We Drive All Over KL: 15/3/07

Make no mistake: the Islamic Art Museum of Malaysia is PRETTY. The art is pretty. The fountains are pretty. The whole second floor, with its high ceiling, glass walls and tall pillars, is sheer beauty. I wanted to lie on the floor in that space of light and air and just stare at the ceiling and its inverted dome.

We were, however, on a tight schedule, and no pictures were allowed. (You can see a small part of the second floor on the website's main page, though.)

Let's go back a bit. There were six of us: me, JL, Cons, YM, James and WY. The plan for the day was quite simple, and had two steps:
- everyone meets up between 9-9.30
- hitch a ride from James' mum to museum and back

The plan instead morphed into THIS:
- 9.30 comes, and WY's missing
- long discussion on whether to keep waiting, or sod it for a lark and just go
- James' mum can't take us all to KL
- JL decides to drive, following James' mum from behind
- James' mum ninja-speeds off and we lose her
- decide to go to KL on own
- become hopelessly lost between streets
- arrive at museum in various stages of pissiness, sweatiness and relief, swearing the museum had better be worth the trip.

There's actually quite a bit to see in here: little (and large) models of famous mosques, matchlock rifles longer than we were tall, the most fantastic traditional robes, Chinese Muslim calligraphy, little books illuminated with gold leaf and beard combs that you could fill with rosewater so your wonderful chin tresses would smell sweet AND look spiffy. They had a special exhibition connected with spices around that time, and JL and Cons were VERY interested in the coffee section. >_>;

There's also one thing and one thing only you can take pictures of in the IAMM: the domes. They're very proud of their lovely lovely domes.

The museum has a little open courtyard with some fountains, so I would strongly recommend packing a lunch and taking a day trip. The food's EXPENSIVE, and if you don't like Middle Eastern cuisine, you may be pretty much screwed. The day we went, a la carte was not available and we had to have the RM38++ set lunch. All the appetizer and dessert you can eat (and they had some GOOD desserts, milk pudding yum), but see the comment about Middle Eastern cuisine. I'm still wondering how my baked chicken tasted like tandoori chicken. Good tandoori chicken, but still...

Souvenir shop has a lot of selection. I ended up buying a canvas bag and a postcard to send to Delilah. :D They have books for the kiddies, too, and I read through one. Somehow it amuses me to think of Moses/Musa flying into a rage and grabbing Aaron/Harun by the hair. By the hair. *giggles*

One thing that threw me for a bit of a loop was how nobody could seem to realise I was Malaysian. Some snack seller outside the museum thought me to be Korean; a guard inside was genuinely surprised to find I was a local. @_@ I wasn't even dressed that outlandishly - just a bit of layered T-shirts is all. I wonder what would have happened had I wore my cheongsam out...:D

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UK Antenna: Shynola's Jason Groves does TOA 16/3/07

Thank you, British Council, and thank you, o Multimedia Lecturers of Awe, for getting this guy to come in. The talk wasn't superbly formal, but it was quite funny. Jason Groves presents a lot like me—runs on for a bit and sputters to a stop. ;) He did have a lot of stuff to show, much of it incredible levels of pretty. And there was a 'documentary' about one of the first live action music videos they shot, which was amusing beyond all compare. I would love to be the King of Siam...

He even had fangirls. Quite a few of them. One of them me. *flees*

Kengchows all in a row: Mr. Groves, BC lady #1, our MMD head and BC Lady #2. Thanks for coming, guys!

In other news, I'm still learning how to drive.