First Hand Update From My Instagram

Thursday, December 26, 2013

My 2 cents on Disney Princess after watching Frozen

Just my 2 cents after watching Frozen.
[Note: 2 cent is equivalent to 7 cents in Malaysia Ringgit if you are talking about U.S dollar. Click HERE for reference. You wouldn't regret, not some boring currency exchange stuff ;)]

I found a short click on YouTube regarding Merida's coronation in Disneyland.

After watching the video, my first thought was : Can't wait to see Elsa and Anna's coronation. But I am not too sure they will add them in, not every Disney princess has coronation like Merida. (Example: Tinkerbell, Esmeralda, Lilo, Alice etc. Maybe because they are not Royalty and never marry into a Royal Family?) Reading the video's comment and I am so agree of one of the comment, it's like speaking my mind.
The older generation of princess is slowly overlook and I am not upset by it even a bit. The older generation of princess, like Cinderella,Aurora,Ariel,Belle,Jasmin need someone to complete them (a Prince, duh...) but on recent years, might be due to the feminism's uprising, the new princess are carrying different value. Instead of waiting for someone to save them, these Princess (Mulan,Rapunzel,and finally Merida) carries an independent value. It's clear that the society's value towards girls has changed so much over the years; or is it only Disney? It took two hands to clap, if the society is not accepting the value convey by Disney, these Disney Princess movies will not get as popular as it always be.  If i have a daughter, I will prefer them to take after these new Princess rather than the stereotypical older generation of Princess.

For say, in Frozen, to cure Anna (protagonist), she need an act of love. Every character in the movie assume it is the "True Love Kiss". I was really angry during this scene. I thought "blah... boring true love kiss plot, which can never happen in real life. Meh... I can expect what will happen next~" . However, it turns out, it's her sister, Elsa (deuteragonist) the Queen saved her by hugging her and crying. I am not saying this is anywhere near to reality compare to "True Love Kiss" , but the moral value is very different. Instead of waiting for someone (typically a guy) to save them, love of sister (or family) is just as significant; instead of waiting for God to drop you a guy, family 's love is as magical as opposite sex's love. However, Disney still arrange a guy over to help these princesses. Perhaps they are worry that w/o the Prince, Disney movie will lost support from romantics fans? As for Frozen, the Prince has become the villain, which reflect real life situation, whereby not all love is true and loyal.

Compare to 40-50 years ago, viewers can never imagine this kind of plot twist. I wonder if they will be one day a Lesbian Princess?  Just saying... something that usual now was impossible back then.


Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Heineken Thirst 2013

There's only less than two weeks before we bid goodbye to 2013. Last weekend, I concluded the last rave party of the year at the Heineken Thirst held at the Sepang International Circuit, an usual venue for most of the prominent raves in Malaysia. My first proper taste of a rave was at Heineken Thirst exactly a year ago featuring the likes of Above & Beyond and Avicii.


I had so much fun and had never looked back since, constantly keeping an eye on the next DJ line up due to perform in Malaysia. Thanks to Heineken, Thirst was back again to end 2013 with a bang.

This year, Thirst has brought some of the great house DJs of current times for us Malaysians ravers featuring Australian female duo Nervo, Afrojack, the upcoming teenage DJ sensation Madeon, R3hab, Dutch trance and big room progressive electro house DJ W&W and French DJ David Guetta.

What really triggered me to purchase the early bird tickets immediately was the announcement of W&W in the lineup. Having miss edtheir awesome set during ASOT600 due to traffic congestion was a huge disappointment for me so when I heard that they're coming back, there was no need to think twice anymore.

Fast forward to the day itself, we arrived just in time to see Nervo on the decks entertaining us with their big room house set. It was their first time performing in Malaysia and they gave us ravers their best. There were two stages and the set times were a little off the schedule so we had no choice but to give the teenage DJ sensation, Madeon, a skip unfortunately. Nervo's set was followed by the Thirst Green Moment where multi-level visuals, choreographed lasers and pyrotechnics set to a specially commissioned music track sent the crowd cheering hard.


Afrojack took over and started his set with an epic intro. Despite the epic intro, the set didn't do enough to make us stay that long. Perhaps it was Ben, who wanted to catch R3hab at the Star Arena, who made the us move and triggered the rest to follow suit. Most of us aren't a big fan of David Guetta anyway. R3hab gave the smaller but still very enthusiastic crowd a lot of reason to jump and rave with his energetic set. Then came a pleasant surprise to lift the crowd even further:

Nervo "set-jacked" R3hab to join the crowd and party from the decks.

The moment that we were waiting all night for and the main reason that brought us there that night: W&W.


Willem and Ward played their 2012 big hit Thunder to open their set which sent the crowd absolutely crazy. Their 1.5 hours long crowd lifting big room music includes some of the biggest tracks they've produced in recent years such as The Code, D# Fat, their bootleg of Armin's famous This is What It Feels Like, Lift Off and Jumper. Martin Garrix's Animal(which was played by almost every DJ that night), Zedd's Clarity was also played and I was caught by surprised by their remix of Avicii's latest top hit Wake me Up.


In short, the experience can be summarized in one word: AWESOME!

And it wouldn't be the same without the awesome company:

One of them, Kar Mern, came all the way back from Singapore just for Thirst. 

 It was my girlfriend's first rave as well. Her verdict: She loved it! 

2011 saw Tiesto performing in Thirst. It was Avicii 2012 and this year David Guetta. Who next, I wonder? Could it Hardwell? *hunting hard* ;)

What a great rave to end 2013! Looking forward to more in 2014!


Know your guest blogger:
Gary aka Ken is a long time friend of mine who I know from the blogspere. Although he has not blog too much recently, this jolly guy never missed any chance to party. Amateur photographer that can easily impresses you with his landscape.
URL: http://cwken.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CWKen87/


Saturday, December 21, 2013

Andes Facelift 2013 [Teaser]

Not my first attempt and definitely not my last one, unless I got into an accident, crash and die...in fact I already blog about this place like 2 times. First was with our pork lovers friends, HERE and another time was a blogger gathering, HERE. I have a love hate relationship to this place, before I knew it, they ave closed. I thought they were closed for like REAL, but I was soon surprised with new news, they were just undergoing a uplift progress.

From a family home style warm cottage to a open door hanging out place.

Their menu is pretty much similar, prices might fluctuate, but at this time, they are still working out the last bit to finalize everything, so it's not approprite for me to disclose too much, until another proper session of food review.

Of course, they still have soup. Teaser: it'll be full when they are fullly operate, but hope they will not water down the chunky mushroom. OH my... it was soo good. >.<

Instead of fried, this pork serving place is going to another level of fries.

To make their food comfortable, they have to tuck them in.

Not to forget their signature meat balls. But it's server on a bun, maybe it's not a meat ball afterall, who knows?

Alongside with that, I discovered the juiciest grill chicken in my life.

But I was not too please by the rubbery "THING"

Andes sure have lot more to improve since it's take over by these bunch of energetic youngters. Do give them a chance and revisit them since they have reopen the shop by now.

But please lah, don't tell them "I want your meat balls", or your "juicy chicken" or "rubbery thing". These is just a teaser post before they invite me to a proper Food Review when they are truly ready for a critic. Promise me, do hop on and help them to improve ya!

Andes BYO
K-G-11, Jalan PJU1/43
47301 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia