Saturday, June 28, 2008

Great night out at Aliyaa

A few of us went for dinner at Mama's Kitchen in TTDI last night. Since Zlynn had just come back from 6 months in London, we thought she should have some good ol' local Chinese coffee shop food. I guess the food was okay, but I can't say that the so-called famous loh shee fun lived up to its name.

Chia was so dressed and ready to club last night! Poor him had been deceived, as we'd only planned to do a bar night. After a brief session at some old fart place in Plaza TTDI (where we watched some wrestling... yes, it was that kind of old buggery place), we shipped off to Aliyaa in Damansara Heights. This was more like it!

Eager to shake the dust off my feet, the three of us who were there earliest sat down for some wine while waiting for the others to arrive. Friends kept trickling in and it was so great to be able to actually sit and talk with these people who I'm usually shouting nonsense at on Saturday nights. Took some wacky photos (which I don't have... yet) and wined all night. All in all, just a great session in a very nice place.

Looking forward to tonight! :P

Monday, June 23, 2008

Knowing your limits hurts

All of a sudden, I feel really depressed. The day started out fine, with me turning my Mac on and starting work with a nice cup of tea. Then I got a call from Slavedriver, saying that one of my clients wants to see me because I sent her a brochure that I was apparently supposed to redesign, but which looks like the old one. I got confused and called her directly to ask her what she meant. It was just a misunderstanding, and we worked it out in the end. Still have to see her tomorrow morning, but to sort out other work.

That episode kind of shocked my system a little, as clients don't usually have problems with my work.

Then in the afternoon, I got a reply from another potential client about a website design. She'd emailed me for a quote last month, and then didn't reply, so I followed up last week, asking what the situation was. Today she replied saying that her friend loved my fee but was looking for stronger, more conceptual designs that's specific and unique to her start-up company, instead of general designs like what I have done so far. She was very friendly about it, and I thanked her for coming back to me.

However, I'm getting depressed. I just took a look at my web portfolio and started to feel quite down. One of the reasons I don't create very conceptual website designs is that I don't have the skill to produce on web what I can do in print. I am, after all, a graphic designer, not a web designer. My forte is print. Although most people are happy with the website designs I create for them because I tell them in advance what they should expect.

Of course that lady had the right to look elsewhere for more advanced web design skills, but I guess it's the rejection and realisation of my limits that hurts.

I thought I'd done quite okay so far. But I guess this jolted me and made my pedestal shake a bit, nearly throwing me off. In fact, I think I have been thrown off. Now I'm just trying to hang on and climb back up again :(

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Goodputty::Paperie

My studio has just started a side project called Goodputty::Paperie. You can order customisable stationery, cards or invites there. It's still being developed, so prices will be on a case-by-case basis until the kinks are worked out.



Do give your support and visit the site to order a little something for yourself or your friends :D

Friday, June 20, 2008

PHOTOS: Being a KLite

I don't often drive to town at night, especially at dinnertime, unless G is here. But tonight happened to be Teng's birthday dinner at Olé Cafe on Changkat Bukit Bintang. Please don't go there. Crap service, crap food. Nuff said.

Anyway, I was kinda lazy to drive so decided to take the Smart Tunnel. Nice and easy drive. Until I reached the exit. Wow, what a jam! I guess I shoulda known, but it's been so long since I've actually driven to town at dinnertime that I didn't know it had become such a bad place for traffic. What with all the new highways, byways and flyways, it should have improved!


View from my car waiting for the traffic lights.

I love hanging out with my friends but boy, am I doing a lot of second hand smoking! And a perfectly good top was ruined because it smelt so smoky. Damn. If restaurants allow smoking inside, they should have better ventilation. I'm not a fan of Singapore, but they do have the no smoking in public rule down pat. Very good.

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Another joy of living in KL is the art scene that's getting more exposure. Sometimes I don't know if some of them are just wannabes or if they're genuine. Nevertheless, like theatre, you start to see the same faces everywhere. I think the problem is that these artsy people think they're so unique and special that they want to keep their own clique to themselves, but at the same time, want to bring the KL art scene to another level. Maybe if they stopped being so cliquey it'd help.

Art and design markets like the Lapsap/Kraftgrafik Junkyard Sales and other marts hosted by Kraftgrafik are great, but you tend to see the same sellers at each one and the prices are not very buyer-friendly. Artists (I believe) are, by nature, quite stingy. We don't have a lot of money, and oftentimes we look at something and think to ourselves: "I could do/make that", which is usually true - and so we end up not buying anything unless the seller is a friend, or the price is really low. Artists love buying crap for low prices: "Oh, I could use this to bohemia-fy/junk up my home".


Melissa and bride-to-Bea having a discussion at Palate Palette.


The other half of Melissa and Kraftgrafik - Aaron.

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G and I took a road trip up to Scotland this March and marked a few places to stopover. One of them was Glasgow. Before we went, everyone was telling us about what a rough place it was and how rundown and ghetto it would be. When we got there, I was pretty impressed. Money had been poured into the city and it was almost as beautiful as Edinburgh... okay, I exaggerate. Edinburgh is awesome. But Glasgow is really excellent as well. The nightlife, restaurants, cafes... very sophisticated yet welcoming. It was somewhat like Melbourne and London put together.


G at Mamasan.

The restaurants near our hotel - Novotel, which incidentally is a really good hotel! - were really cool because they were located in either the basements or ground levels of 5-storey buildings lining the street going downhill. The menus would be on the pavement and you could just walk up and down or across the street looking for something interesting. It was cool!

We finally picked a place called Mamasan which serves Asian food. I won't say much more about the place because G wants to keep it secret. But I just have to say the atmosphere was amazing, the waiters were all hunky, capable and efficient, and the food was the best of all.

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Okay, so I have been jumping about from topic to topic in this post. Could you tell I did it to clear the photos in my phone? :D

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

It's what time?

Okay, honestly, it's already nearly 10am now so I shouldn't call this early. However, I DID wake up at 8.15am today because I had to deliver a document to a client by 9am. Thank God for Daddy's driver.

It was so very hectic yesterday because the client only gave me ONE day to amend a 24-page newsletter AND print a mockup. I told her I would give it to her on Thursday, she says okay, then emails to say that she's on leave Thursday, so can I give it to her on Wednesday? What the...? But because I'd messed something up in the first draft, I felt obligated to do better this round.

And I achieved it!

Not without lots of panicking, rushing around to the other studio with the big A3 printer, then finding out that Mac didn't have the fonts I was using, so I had to call poor Mumsy Bumsy to go over to mine and teach her how to find the things I needed and email them over. I finished just in the nick of time because I also had to go to Actor's Studio Bangsar to watch Sybil, which, incidentally, is a very good production. The two lead actors for Sybil and Yoshimura were brilliant.

Was a bit skeptical about watching "100 minutes of relentless torture", but it turned out alright (although I did wish the story would move on after about 60 minutes).

Loving the Chronicles of Narnia Part 1 soundtrack, by the way... need to get Prince Caspian next time I go to Victoria.

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On another note, last weekend I had planned to launch Operation Tidy Up at home, but it didn't work out. Can't remember why. I've already taken some "before" pictures, but the "after" scenario isn't quite ready yet (an understatement if there ever was one). Let's aim for this weekend.

And I fell down again at BarClub last Saturday. It's starting to be a very embarrassing trademark of mine.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Post #300!

To honour this momentous occasion of my 300th post, here's a picture that reveals something about myself.



G took a picture of this picture (heh) from the newspaper about a little piglet who absolutely refused to walk in the mud! And so the farmer had to make little piggylet booties for it, and wearing them, the piggylet's happily romping around in the mud now! How amazing is that?

Yup, I'm a piggy zodiac sign and I hate getting my feet dirty.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Stingy ain't good

A plumber came over today to check out all the problems with my... plumbing, of course... and to give me a quote for work that needs doing.

He quoted me RM600 for half a day's work! That nearly got me fainting, cuz I didn't expect the quote to be so high. Just leaking taps here and there and a blocked toilet bowl.

After that, I thought to myself, if a plumber can charge RM600 for half a day's work, why can't I? Why do people make noise if I give them a quote that is probably lower than a plumber's quote, hour for hour? I don't understand the mindset of these people who want nice things, nicely designed, nice stationery for their company, nice websites, nice everything... and yet can't bear to pay out for it.

Just remember... you get what you pay for.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Jonathan Strange casting

To anyone who has anything to do with the Jonathan Strange film:

Tom Hollander for the gentleman with the thistle down hair!
Tom Hollander for the gentleman with the thistle down hair!
Tom Hollander for the gentleman with the thistle down hair!
Tom Hollander for the gentleman with the thistle down hair!
Tom Hollander for the gentleman with the thistle down hair!
Tom Hollander for the gentleman with the thistle down hair!
Tom Hollander for the gentleman with the thistle down hair!

Monday, June 02, 2008

Can't stop the music!

I'm going crazy with Mark Mancina's Blood+ soundtracks! The music is driving me insane with its haunting beauty and emotion. Plus, I've just finished watching Blood+ till the end, and to say I can't stop thinking about it is an understatement. I'm traumatised by all that's happened. I'm going mad, I tell you. And I can't stop the music! I can't stop it!