after posting about it and waiting in anticipation, finally i got my hands on a copy of selamat tinggal dunia (STD), the latest album of butterfingers. hahahaha.....maybe it's safe to say that i own the only copy in ireland. so, having nothing to blog about, i'm going to write my say on this groundbreaking album.

the first butterfingers tune i heard was girl friday from the butter worth pushful album years ago (that was when dead mushroom was top) and had been hooked to buttersound ever since and believe me STD is no butter worth pushful. if i want to really relate STD with any of butterfingers' previous albums, i would have to say that STD is the sequel to 'malayneum' with less psychedelic vibe. songs like taman tasik perdana and merpati sejoli give me the same tingling sensations as when i'm listening to pacific and antidotes.

in the interviews prior to the launching of std, butterfingers promised a different formula, a different listening experience for their fans and different did we get. first major difference? well, it's in malay. maybe some of you might remember that butterfingers had stated a long time ago that they won't do malay songs. heh, guess they didn't keep their word but so what. in fact, the first malay song they released was tahun 2001 in the 'underground tribute to sweet charity' almost half a decade ago. the malay music industry desperately needed salvation from the monotonous cintan-cintan jiwang formula and butterfingers came to the rescue. they gave a mention of this trend in the first line of their sharp and cynical tentang-tentang, "bukak radio di pagi hari, malam hari sama sahaja, cinta sana, cinta sini, aku gila geli".

some old butterfingers fans dislike the direction butterfingers are taking musically. you can refer to their opinions in the royalbutterfingers forum. they say that bf lost their grunginess. well, to me butterfingers had abandoned grunge long ago, starting from the hallmark album 'transcendence'. bf is not about grunge, they're about buttersound, they're about how the music is expressed, how it is conveyed. heck, if they can make dangdut sound good, then let them gelek!

to tell you the truth i already heard most of the songs in STD such as cuai, kabus ribut, ngilu, tentang-tentang and daulat tuanku months before it was launched, though not in their final mix. that's what you get when you have hardcore butterfans on the net. what's more is that you could download the video clip for kabus ribut and other butter videos here. moreover, songs like merpati sejoli was introduced to the public as early as new years day 2003, when they performed at rock the world III. you can even sample tracks of bf's supposedly next album, siaran tergendala and pancasona.

STD kicks off with ngilu, perfect intro for the album and powerful lyrically ("rongak gigi sendiri",heh). the tunes that'll surely attract the masses are cuai and kabus ribut. selamat tinggal dunia is another candidate, but i'm not so sure about the verses though, "pasir jerlus, litar pintas, jerangkap samar" maybe just too cryptic to be fully appreciated. maybe, it's their intentions, who knows? i'm not so sure about daulat tuanku getting regular airplay though. why? just see the lyrics and tell me how hot and spicy it is. my favourite track, probably is taman tasik perdana, though kabus ribut had been my song of choice in the shower for almost a week now. i don't know but something about it make me want to go to taman tasik perdana and see the flowers and butterflies. kudos to kadak for his excellent bass works in merpati sejoli and what can i say about hanyut except hmmm mmm mmm mmm. urusan seri paduka baginda is one song that's not really a song complete with gamelan and stuff that's somehow connected with cuai, the track before it.

if you don't understand what i'm talking about, then get the album, the ORIGINAL album published by EMI malaysia at only RM34.90. or if you're still not convinced then you can hear 30 seconds samples of all the tracks here.

if you need to see another (better) review you can visit the forum or here.

last evening at half past six, an interfaith dialogue which was organised by FOSIS ireland was held at trinity college dublin (TCD). due to a technical difficulty (heh, i slept actually), i came late and the edmund burke hall was filled almost to full capacity, most of them are students and the dialogue was already under way once i arrived. it is essentially a comparative religion dialogue discussing the similarities and differences between the two major religions, christianiaty and islam. the guest speakers were sheikh shabir ally of the islamic information centre and mr chawkat moucarry, lecturer of all nations christian college. the two speakers were very knowledgable on the two faiths and both studied the holy scriptures and both researched the historical properties of both beliefs, yet both have, most of the time, different interpretetations.

the dialogue started off with the speakers conveying their arguments and points based on their understanding of the holy scriptures. interesting enough, the main focus of the session was, i think, about the T in TCD , the concept of the trinity. holy spirit, father, son and sins were among the recurring phrases yesterday. after a short break, the two speakers were asked to give out their conclusions. mr shabir ali concluded that islam are both rational and compatible with the old testament and the new testament while mr moucarry requested the audience to analyse the quran and the bible and understand these basis of these two beliefs.

the dialogue ended with a promo video of the next main event in the FOSIS EIRE calender, the end the occupation seminar that will take place in our beloved astra hall, university college dublin sometime in march.

this saturday, the 29th of january, shabir ally will visit cork for another interfaith debate with george hilliard at university college cork.

at around 10 o'clock everyone put on their jackets, exited the edmund burke hall and left the most famous university in ireland into the bitter coldness of the night, with something to ponder about.

here's some videos of shabir ally's past lectures.

it's not easy to change. sometimes we do everything in our power so to avoid it, even though the change is for the better. it's not easy to be in a strange environment, you'll not only be facing the new environment, you'll also be battling with yourself. doubts, regrets and what ifs will surface. but if you hang on just that little bit, having the end in mind, you'll go through it, and that's what i believe.

my sister's going to face this challenge very soon and i wish her good luck and be strong. i hope you'll do better than me and i hope you'll succeed. if not, then it's ok.

just remember we'll always be there for you. but also remember that change is inevitable, soon or later it will happen.

for those who'd visited my humble blog before, you may notice that i've altered a few things here and there. actually this is the fourth template since the early posts in around april of last year. i thought i need a blog with a simple and clean design, unlike the last template which was quite packed with jpegs all over the screen. once i got the idea to change the look, i spent about a few (almost) sleepless nights pondering about it. where to put the title? should i change the background colour? what's the main theme? during that time you can find me staring at the ceiling for long periods of time or walking the whole perimeter of the ucd campus alone or scribbling something on a jotter pad at 3 in the morning. i'm the kind of person who after stumbling across an exciting idea, will concentrate all his efforts and mind on fulfilling the idea, making it a reality, almost neglecting other things, including sleep and meals.

this template was designed by michael heilemann, ported by michael k pate and transformed by me. some features are not compatible with internet explorer so i recommend you to use mozilla firefox.

now the latest template is up and running and from here it looks fine, to me at least. a fine blog will need fine posts, not really a fine design. i'll try my best. so please come back again. and bring a friend along.

sorry for the lack of updates. i'm working on something.
so tungguuuuu....

england trip - part three


boxing day. the day after christmas. even before the winter break everybody was talking about the massive price reductions on the 26th of december and the place to be on that day was in london. the 'everyone' i'm talking about were the malaysians in dublin, ireland.

surely enough, once we got on oxford street, the premier shopping spot in london at about 10 in the morning, a lot of familiar faces were instantly recognised. even them. haha...it seemed that the whole malay community from ireland had gone to london to spend their hearts out. some of you might wonder whether there are no shops in dublin for us to shop. the reality is, things in ireland are generally much more expensive, sale or no sale.

sale posters were everywhere, promising reductions as much as 70%, all bright and big, enticing people to take a peek in their outlets and to come out with a bag in hand.

we also came there to witness the supposedly mile-long lines in front of store entrances starting the night before. however, the first long line that we saw was at half past ten, at the entrance of one gucci store.

being the young and active youths we are (heh!), we only concentrated on the sportswear stores, such as the nike and adidas outlets, jd sports, sportsworld among others. suffice to say, a lot of pound sterling notes were handed them british cashiers!

leaving the hectic oxford street behind, we went back to malaysia hall to get refreshed (and to store our newly-acquired stuffs) and hit the road once again.

this time we headed for stamford bridge, chelsea's home ground to get a taste of a premiership match atmosphere. it was chelsea vs aston villa. one thing though, none of us is a chelsea fan, but who cares. once we arrived, the game had already ended with chelsea winning 1-0 and the only people there were autograph-hunting fans, waiting for their admired stars to come out of the stadium. after joining them for about 5 minutes we decided the players had left already and went inside the chelsea store. i, a man utd fan for more than a decade, bought a chelsea shirt. heck, it was cheap, five pounds.

just as we're about to leave, suddenly the whole place was filled with shouts and cheers. that was when we realized that there were still some players in the stadium. they were in their expensive cars which were blocked by die-hard fans. some of them stopped to sign a few shirts. we saw frank lampard, and one guy, and one guy (heh... i only recognize a handful of their players). chelsea's gaffer, maurinho, was last and he stopped a while to entertain the people. oh... we also bumped into a dubliner and fellow blogger, bro rizal.

not wanting to waste our unlimited tube travelcard, we headed for the london tower and the famous tower bridge. beautiful.

the next day, we checked out of malaysia hall and visited the stadium of another famous london club, arsenal. then we stopped by baker street before heading to victoria coach station. our next destination was leeds.

more pictures of boxing day in london here.


next on [are we there yet?] - more shopping?

Al-Mughirah bin Shu'bah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported:
Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) worshipped so much that his feet were swollen. It was said to him: Why do you undergo so much hardship despite the fact that Allah has pardoned you for your earlier and later sins? Thereupon he said: May I not (prove myself) to be a grateful servant (of Allah)?

Hadith number in Sahih Muslim : 5044

i usually just delete the forwarded e-mails people sent me. but this time i opened one sent by ka and my heart sank after seeing this picture. it's amazing how a collection of colourful pixels can spark a realisation. i need to be grateful of what i have.

i don't know the origin of this powerful picture, so sorry for any breaking of copyrights.

the england trip series will continue after this.

just a quick entry. there was no tube service on christmas day. because of the thorough planning the night before and nothing interesting to do in malaysia hall, we decided to walk our way to the big ben, walking through the royal gardens and visiting buckingham palace. along the way we past by trafalgar square and 10 downing street. great day for walking despite the cold temperature. the whole journey and back took us more than 5 hours. but we came back with contented hearts and a lot of photos. below are some of them.

start walking

birds

malaya

buckhingham palace guards

rainbow

london eye

much more images here.

next on [are we there yet?] - boxing on boxing day.

england trip - part one


so here i am back in dublin. surprisingly, i find this irish capital much colder than the cities i visited in england due to regular gale-force winds.


what you are about to read in the following paragraphs are my review of my trip to england last week with two of my friends, kimin of ucd and syed nabil of nui, galway.


but don't forget my other travel companion throughout the journey, dan brown's the da vinci code. i bought it at eason the day before take off and found it as an interesting read to keep me company while waiting in the victoria bus station for seven hours or during flight delays due to bad weather conditions. a senior recommended me this book and after hearing all the hype about it and seeing it on the bestseller's shelves in every bookstore i just got to get my hands on it. all in all, it's a great, suspense-filled thriller. it would make a great movie. the subject matter is pretty deep for me though, but good knowledge nevertheless.

so, we flew to bristol international from dublin airport at around noon on the 23rd of december. after touch down, we headed to the heart of bristol to reach aidi's on-campus accommodation in bristol university. the student's hostel was on top of a steep hill and what a workout we had. we only stayed there overnight because our bus to london was scheduled early the next morning.

one interesting incident happened that night. i'm not going to type about it here but it does involved four fire trucks and onion rings.


the next morning, after barely caught up with the coach, we headed for the capital city of england, london. arrived in victoria coach station around 10am, we went to the new malaysia hall at queensborough terrace via tube.

first thing we did after checking in? went to the cafeteria of course for some nasi lemak and teh tarik (ahh...the first nasi lemak in four months that was not self-made. :p).

after that, we went to london central mosque near regent's park.

then we checked out picaddily circus and surveyed oxford street and we went to chinatown.

to be continued... check out the pictures of bristol and london here.


next on [are we there yet?] - no tube on christmas day, so what to do?