yesterday's outing

The Meeting Place
meet up with chyn and sook kwan at KLCC in the morning. sook kwan wanted to go for a karaoke session. asked whether dave was interested to join us a day before, but he can't. NKS again... so only the three of us were there. after i met up with them, we walk quite a distance to the karaoke place (Red-Box) at Jalan Raja Chulan. it was in some shopping mall. can't remember it's name.

The Session
we registered at the counter, the attendant told us to go to room 25. the waiter asked us to order our F&B. all of us ordered tomato fried rice. why?? coz it's the cheapest in the set-lunch menu. haha!! chyn started the first session. sang some chinese song, i really don't know what's the title. never into solo chinese artiste. majority of them are merely singer/musicians. they are just marketing tool for recording company to rake money. i knew some new pop boy/girl group. twins, boyz etc... when i was watching astro, i scrolled throught the chinese channel "wah lai toi". it was some charity "live" concert. the 2 bands that i mentioned just now appeared on stage. they sang, i listened, and i booed their damn miserable vocals. if the don't have the capabilites to sing live onstage, better the lip-synch. at least it "sounds" better. i can't say that i can sing really well, but it's better than those so-called-artiste. i have to admit that i have an unofficial vocal training "teacher". he was Wong Ka Kui (the departed frontman/rhythm guitarist of Beyond). when i was a teenager, i used to listen to their songs. i often tries to imitated his vocal, the way he sings it, the way he scream etc. it was some gruelling session, the off-pitch which occur quite often enough. with lots of practice, i succeed. it was quite difficult to imitated him, but glad to say, i can do it like 80%. and i can imitate other vocalist as well. but it's not a good thing when u played in band. when i sang in the band, i can't really get my own "voice". too much influence from others. i really need to find my own "voice". i started off with coldplay's "the scientist". need to something more easier to sing. i knew that my voice is not quite good that day, and i was right. with a bit of running nose and some mild sore throat, i can handle most of the vocal part except the ones that required me to scream. so i "kantoied". i have this attitude whenever i went to karaoke session with friends. i cant let go of my self and have fun like other people do. i had this mentality problem that i often remind myself that i must sing every songs to perfection. and i approach each song too seriously, like a professional vocalist performing his own composition/song. maybe i'm too self conscious. need to really let my hair down and enjoy, even though i was off-pitch. there's one person that i would respect whenever i went to some karaoke session with. my friend/former coursemate Kok Wai. he's not a very good singer (i'm not trying to 'kutuk' him here..let me finish) and sometimes his singing was even close to "talking". BUT, i do respect his openness and guts to sing it out loud and have fun. he's not self conscious at all. even if he's off-pitch, he just don't give a damn. REMEMBER, it's just a karaoke session. it's a place to have fun. you go dude!!! my utmost respect for you!!

i still remember last time, during one of my last session in Red-Box in penang with chyn. both of us had chosen "always" and "i don't wanna lose a thing" from bon jovi and aerosmith respectively. after that two song, we can't hard breathe, heart was pounding like a locomotive and my head fell like exploding and i think we even lacked oxygens in our head. hahah.... in this recent session i did choose other set list that i'm familiar with. last time, it was just beyond and bee gees and some other songs, but this time it was different. coldplay, beatles (one of my favourite band), metallica, beyond and some background vocals for chyn, even a malay song "belaian jiwa". but just quarter way past the song, sook kwan accidently or "intentionally" skipped the song. cisss.....damn kejam. and one thing i had notice of sook kwan whenever she's singing, she would always look out the room for people who passed out room. i'm pretty sure she was not looking for some handsome hunk, but i think she's kinda self-conscious too. she was looking if somebody was watching her sing.

Post-session
after the session at Red-Box, we went to Sg Wang plaza. we didnt shop around coz me and chyn were jobless now, sook kwan was also not in the "condition" to shop either. financial problems..... we just walk around, and i showed them basheer bookshop where they would sell a lot of art, design books. spent some time there. need to get some color studies books in the future. spent about an hour or so there. after that we went to the food court. ordered penang laksa (it was the spicest and hottest penang laksa that i ever put in my mouth. i can really tolerate hot and spicy food:it's my favourite kind of food, yesterday's laksa was too hot for me) and sea coconut drinks. the other 2 didn't ordered any food, just 2 cups of sugar cane. after finishing my food, i need to order another cup of sugar cane. too hot to handle....phewww!!! have some pretty decent chat with them for a few hours. need to wait for brenda. she will be there around 6pm. she's working at saito now in PJ. when she finally arrived, we went to McD. chyn ordered chicken burger adn brenda ordered 2 pieces of chicken. i had nothing, just sit there and eat chyn's french fries. and i was right about my hunch bout brenda. she's kinda different when i saw her. hmm...she's not as cheerful as she was last time. she's kinda serious now. so we crack some jokes bout her saying that she had change.