tried. tired

The problem with most events is that they usually come with hundreds of photographs that you would have to go through to pick out the ones that fancied your eyes.

Then uploading them will take forever because the files are so large.

So what does one do?

Simple load what you can and leave the rest for days that you would rather do something remote more challenging that watching paint dry.

Look, I tried and now I am tired, so... be patient and Wait for my post of Thomas Pink's Project Peace. Lots of good looking men and women to look at.

project peace

What started as a little discussion soon took over our daily schedule with coordination and liaison with a multitude of people to make this happen. In addition to the different activities requiring our immediate attention, we have to manoeuvre through land mines hoping that we wont be blown into pieces.

Project Peace was an expansion of a similar concept which Thomas Pink London came up with many years ago profiting the starving children in Africa.

We wanted to make it more topical and so we steered it towards Mercy Malaysia's fund for Gaza.

Project Peace kick started with identifying the designers/creative personalities and pinning them down with the concept as well as the deadlines as the 6 weeks given for them to complete the garment was right smacked at the beginning of fashion week. So sorry about that you guys but having said that, those who were torn between designing, appearing and endorsing did amazing work!

We managed to gather an outstanding list of luminaries from the design arena and they were Khoon Hooi, Sonny San, Chris Yong, Shahril Nizam, Nurita Harith, Alexandrea Yeo, Bernie Chan, Iman Aznan, Alex Koh, Will Quah, Charlz Chan and Daniel Boey. OK so some of them are not fashion designers but they are definitely involved in design one way or the other.

As they toiled over the concept and the garments, we had to do the same with finding the space for the exhibition as well as the final event where we would auction the garments. Also press opportunities and the list goes on.

As the dateline drew to a close, the garment were collected one by one and as we oohed and aahed, we soon discovered that we had to now make sure that each garment was styled correctly and 'sold' during the auction. Quite a daunting task if you think about it.

The fundraiser event went as planned and ended early as hoped for.

I want the pictures to speak for themselves and all in all, we raised RM20,000 from the sale of the 11 garments. Thanks to all the kind bidders, designers and everyone else who came to support the project. Also a shout out to Gillian who tirelessly agreed to model for Sonny right after Fashion Week and Henry for saying yes without even thinking about what he was getting himself into.

Anyway he looked great in that outfit, maybe a tad uncomfortable...

All in all we managed to raise RM20,000 for those in need and kudos to all those who lent a hand.

honey glazed ham

I was back at Le Deli at the shoplet at Mont Kiara after a long time thanks to Jarrod & Rawlins and Mr. Ho sprouting around town.

In my household, I adhere to a certain routine when making dinner. Certain days were meant for more elaborate cooking while others were simple but satisfying meals.

You see, every weekend I shop for groceries which means making a mental note of the week's menu. Armed with that I storm the supermarket to make my purchase.

However last weekend was different. I was just not in the mood so I had to resort to find the simplest food to make for my hungry man after his golfing game.

So off to Le Deli I went a picked up the Honey Glazed Bacon to make a simple ham sandwich.

All I did was grill the bread (coz I love those charred marks) and pan fry the bacon, sliced some tomatoes and voila, yummy tummy filler.

This is as much as I can bring myself to blog about now with a headache. Maybe more later when it starts to pour coz that was what my friend the weather man told me last night.

One can only hope and pray.

schokolart

After our rather disappointing start to the day, we headed over to Solaris hoping to salvage the rest of our Sunday with lunch.

Remembering an article a certain friend by the initials of KHC featuring Schokolart, we decided to check it out and lo and behold, another major disappointment.

Located on the same floor as Tenji, Schokolart is located close to the escalators one floor up from Haagen Daaz. We were instantly excited about the prospect of lunching there especially when escaping the horrid heat into this pretty cafe.

What greeted us was promising. The large glass showcase of chocolate, praline and ganache instantly made us crave for the fix of the day.

Most of the tables were reserved for groups celebrating Mother's Day so we were ushered to be seated on a raised platform behind curtains. I must say that the chairs were very funky with a high arch back for one to lean back and enjoy.

The service was bad, completely inadequate although they have only a few tables occupied then and many more waiters milling around. They did seem busy but doing what, this remains to be a mystery. Anyway, our service was bad.

Next came our food. The Caesar was badly made. The salad was yellow, there were no croutons but the only saving grace was the grilled chicken and the hard boiled egg (seriously how can one screw this up). The sauce was horrible and it had some weird stale oil taste to it.

The Rosti with bacon was great but not good enough for me to get rid of the taste of the Caesar. The salad accompanying the dish was not fresh and I would have preferred them not to include that in the dish.

Being adventurous and hungry, we also ordered the tea set for two (if we had known that the quality was this bad, trust me, we would have bolted soon after the Rosti).

The set came with 3 pieces of chocolate from the counter, 2 scones, 4 biscuit, 2 sandwiches and a piece of cake also from the counter. Drinks, either coffee or tea was also included.

The chocolate was stale (why am I not surprised), the biscuits were ordinary and so were the scones. The sandwiches - turkey ham with cheese and chicken mayo were ordinary bordering on bad coz the salad was bordering on going bad.

We were given two cups of chocolate drink in addition to our tea as compensation but wasn't good enough to compel us to come back.

It is sad that a place with so much promise failed so miserably but it was pretty damn good that my friend decided NOT to take his mum to Schokolart for Mother's Day coz he would have killed me!

art for grabs

My girlfriend and I decided to check out Art for Grabs at Central Market over the weekend despite the very hot weather but much to my dismay, it was rather disappointing; it was more like the art community in Malaysia seeking to form a network above ground.

We came and left in less than 10 minutes but good thing was the traffic was good and parking in Central Market was strangely a breezeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

So I hope the next Art for Grabs will be better than this coz local talents like Shahril Nizam are pretty damn good!

malacca calling

We were recently commissioned to shoot a pilot for a new TV show and had to write a list featuring the places of interest in Malacca as preparation before the actual shoot takes place.

BLANK. Absolutely nothing came up. NOTHING + BLANK = HUH??

Being Malaysian, I was utterly embarrassed. Yes, I grew up south of Malaysia, in a land where Malaysian history was not taught instead we embraced the history, geography as well as the civic responsibility of this little island.

I grew up being able to recite the Rukun Negara (I actually have no idea but have faint memories of this at the back of all the school notebooks) equivalent in Malay, Mandarin and of course English, each to represent the different races and oh yes, the National Anthem is in Malay. Most of my classmates had no idea what they were singing but anyway...

Sorry I digressed.

So anyway, back to Malacca. My last visit there was probably a decade ago with my then 'common' friend, DG, now a 'celebrity' and a prolific DJ spinning under the name Twilight Action Girl who brought us to visit his hometown.

There wasn't anything memorable about the trip except for perhaps how DG behaved when his family was around him; normal was the word.

Anyway, as I googled Malacca and tried to locate the road less traveled in Malacca, I found none. Was it futile for me to be searching for the less obvious? Is it because we prefer to blog about Paris or Rome than Kuala Kangsar? Do Malaysians rather travel outside to gather new experiences or is visiting neighbouring states too close for comfort. Or are we just afraid to be disappointed.

Whatever it is, the pilot needs to be shot so the places need to be identified. maybe it is not about the road less traveled but the road to be traveled again to revisit the charm of Malacca that attracted the Portuguese in the first place.

Whatever it is, it must be PRETTY DAMN GOOD!

homegrown SPACE

Yesterday was a hot day. The trees at home were parched. People were seeking refuge in malls where air conditioning was free. I was neither home nor at the mall yesterday. I was at a HOT location yesterday witnessing the opening of Homegrown SPACE, a space dedicated to local talents to showcase their passion.

Be it singing, dancing, reciting poetry or flaunting fashion, Homegrown SPACE is for all you talented individuals. And because it is dedicated towards helping the new talents, there is no charge at all.

The launch saw Izham Omar, CEO of 8TV and an advocate for local talent joining Michael Simon, the MD of Homegrown and a visionary, to officially introduce the space to the media and friends of Homegrown.

Ok, call me a skeptic or whatever... but let the truth be told, I was no advocate for local talent. What is 'Love Me Butch' or 'They Will Kill Us All' ? And 'One Buck Short' or 'Furniture' ? Or rather who are they?

As of 4pm, yesterday, I was totally converted. After checking out the Beat Box act with this little, unassuming guy called Jin Hackman doing his rap number, my perception that all foreign acts are superior was questionable. The scale continued to tip when Bo, this guy with crazy hair sang his own composition only with the most sultry and soulful voice I have heard live for some time already. Then this Reza Salleh guy confirmed that their acts will now join the ranks of John Legend and Jason Mraz on many playlist, most definitely mine.

Trust me when I say even the very JADED media who attended the event yesterday was blown away.

So let me say here, whether they are called LapSap or Meet Uncle Hussien, they are all PRETTY DAMN GOOD! and quite original with their name pickings.