For my birthday tomorrow, I have decided to take an early weekend. I am off both today and tomorrow but spent the whole day sorting out things for my maid. She is flying home tomorrow for a 10-day break. I went to the Indonesian embassy this afternoon since I was told that there are special forms needed to be filled and I needed to get her passport chopped. Otherwise she will need to pay a levy on returning to Malaysia later.
I arrived there around 12.45 since I was busy with both Idlan and Irfan going to school in the morning. When we arrived, I was told that the office is closed for lunch and will only be opened after 2 pm. Then I will need to queue to pick up a form and take a number before meeting the officer. The line then was already 150 people long. I decided that I would rather pay the levy instead. I also did not have a spare N95 mask on me. Catching TB is not nice from what I've seen in hospital .... hehehe. The queue was full of migrant workers.
Since I'm off today, I said yes to the invite to join the KLickrs (KL flickr) for a photoshoot on top of one of my friend's condo in Bukit Bintang. It overlooks the twin tower and KL tower. We first met up for dinner, and started filing up the stairs by 9. We took the lift to the 33rd floor, then climbed a few flights of stairs to the rooftop at 37th. Weather was pretty clear. We brought with us the lighting equipments for the shoot.
View at the rooftop
Jav doing the rigging for the strobesWhen we were about to unload our gear, the security guard came up. Apparently, our mate that is a resident there did not ask for permission to climb up the roof. For security reasons, they did not want us there. Luckily, he is English and you know how Malaysians treat 'Mat Salleh'. The can get away scott-free even if they murder somebody, let alone climb up to the roof. We offered to take their pictures ... hehehe! Anyway, he gave us 5 minutes, and the 5 minute stretched from 9.30 to just after 10.
Shafina starting the solo photoshootWe got our group shot, and then we went down to street level for our individual pix. We wrapped just before 11. Organising pictures in group is not easy, but luckily there were a few pros in the group. I left the setting up to them, and I just took my LX3 along rather than my EOS. The shoot is for next month's Junk magazine. For some reason they wanted to feature the KLickr group. So, we'll wait and watch.
Yes! We went up this building for the shoot!
The end result of the solo shoots. That's me, second row, second from the left. Picture courtesy of Javad Tizmaghz and Prakash Daniel.You can also see Javad's and Prakash's pictures by following the link.
Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 9:52AM 
Harimau Malaya Reflection
It has almost been a week since the nation was hit by the Harimau Malaya fever. A very potent strain this, and no antibiotics can keep the heat down. TwitterJaya was abuzz, the mass media was in full swing, and of course, the politicians put their own spin on things. I was in PD during the first leg, and couldn’t believe it when we scored the third. All the fuss then was about the laser-gate! With the return leg in Senayan coming just three nights after, one can expect retribution from the Indonesian. Everybody was anxious on how things would play out.
Yes, it was a great night for the nation. So much so that the power that be thought that the nation deserved a day off. That reminded me of the time in school, when the headmaster in his closing speech during the annual Sports Day, would announce that the day after would be a holiday. And everyone rejoiced!
I had different take though on things. Well, a couple of things. The first being the underestimated togetherness amongst Bangsa Malaysia. Or at least on twitter. The majority of the players were Malay. Despite this, most of the buzz on TwitterJaya were coming from my non-Malay friends. How I wished that this phenomenon can be studied and formulated into a plan to garner in the new era in Bangsa Malaysia. Should Najib wanted to take credit for it, I would be sure he will name it Bangsa 1Malaysia, but that was irrelevant.
Similar spirit was observed when we were playing at the Thomas Cup. Imagine if we were to beat China and got into the Finals - another public holiday I was sure. But I was sure, members of the fairer sex would complain, as should Chong Wei won the match, they would denied the sight of Lin Dan doing the half-naked dance in the middle of the court!
Malaysians love their sports, and when it come to sports, everyone forget if they were Malay, Chinese, Indian, Punjabi, Iban etc. We all become one Bangsa.
Another thing I observed was how sporting the Indonesian were. Some of them even saluted our players and stayed behind during the prize-giving ceremony. Would we have reciprocated? Instead, all the news were about some Indonesian supporters camping outside the Malaysian hotel, interrupting their planned training session. Even during the games, at certain point it could have turned nasty, but all the players seemed to manage to put their emotions in check. Considering the stakes, the game as played with great sportsmanship. I think the Indonesian deserve some credit for this.
Well, that’s my two sen. All this got me thinking about what would happened should we made it into the World Cup Finals. Will it be a whole month holiday?