For the happiness of your wife

In the mist of their presidential election, this photo made me smile. A guy with french moustache wearing a helmet and holding a huge spanner with a caption above saying 'for the happiness of your wife' or 'to make your wife happy' (mind my arabic) is something that amazes me. Im not sure if we have an ad like this in Malaysia, we ought to spray 'ubat kuat lelaki' under the bridge or at the bus stop, but this, is amazing.

Sildin, or Sildenafil, you can choose either 100mg or 50mg. Its basically - viagra.

Malaysians, we have that same urge to use it im sure, but because we are all wrapped up in the taboo effect of it, we tend to utilize 'ubat herba untuk lelaki' or 'kopi kuat' masking it with 'tongkat ali dan ginseng'. If you actually research what they put in all that, you'll be suprised to find Sildenafil in all of them, without the precautions and specific dose.

So, erm. Thats all. The moral of the story, everytime you want to take a medicine, even its 'herbal', please consult a pharmacist or doctor near you. Thank you.

*Orang balik mesir asyik jual pil baraka je, aku rasa ada potensi aku jadi dealer sildenafil pulak.

The Berjaya Project

Creating a video is hard, it's not like taking a picture where we just have to snap the shutter button and and few seconds later its done. Your hands need to be steady if you're recording a movement, you need to find ways to record a better audio because a RM1000 external dslr microphone is just out of the question for an amateur filmmaker like me (unless we win!). People will stare, at you and the person you are recording, especially in public spaces, and I'm not comfortable of being stared at, and if you're carrying a DIY camera rig which looks really weird, it worsens the situation. I've learnt a lot while making my friend's pre-wedding video, and it truly reflects on this one. The berjaya project is like something that I have to do, to remind myself that I must learn from my mistakes. Previously, the audio was horrible, with winds whooshing around, we could barely hear the dialogue, although after I enhanced it by 500% after editing. I made wrong choices in lens selection, never use a f1.4 50mm lens with autofocus on while recording a movement, it destroys everything. Do not use autofocus while recording a conversation if you are using a dslr for recording, because you'll hear the focusing motor thingy turning. Do more than 3 takes per scene, because it will not only help your actors to rehearse and practice, but it will give you a hand-full of videos you could choose during editing, just imagine that your actors nailed a scene but later you found out that you accidentally touched the microphone jack and it makes that rushhghfsshh sound. It happened to me.

It took me several long showers, unimaginable amount of caffein, and countless hours of staring at people to come up with the video concept. All I could think about is I need to create some shocking moments in this video, and I won't tell you what it is because it will just ruin the viewing experience. So I called up my friend; ilmi. I presented my storyline, he added more ideas. We put together a storyboard, a shooting schedule, he tweeted about anyone who's interested of being apart of the project, and we got our actors, very talented actors. That was it, the beginning of our journey through the Berjaya youth short film competition.

Operation: Tampal
Location: KL sentral, KLCC.

The very next day, we rendezvous with our actors at KL sentral. We were late because we got lost on our way to the sentral, my bad. I did became more nervous than the actors before we started recording in the middle of KL sentral because people will stare and have like 'what the hack are you guys doing' faces but then when we started recording, and people started to smile, I got into the rhythm. It was a fun day, and because we did actually continue the It's not over theme, we decided that each time a stranger came and asked for help, we will help. A makcik working at mcdonalds came by and started to ask if we could translate a latter into english for her relative, saying it was really important and he will loose his visa or something, I didn't really get the whole story though, but I gave her my email saying that I will try to help, but she didn't email me the latter, so what to do.  

The whole crew

Recording in public areas, especially when we started to involve people we never met, thought me one thing; smile. It makes them comfortable and you can actually ask them to wave or something, and never forget to say thank you. The only thing that ruined the day was when a security guard at KLCC park approached us and said 'sorreey dik, tak boleh pegang pegang kad ni'. Ingat orang buat rally bersih 3.0 ke apa. Being apart of the Egyptian Revolution had thought me to fight, but we didn't, it was KLCC not Tahrir square. So we improvised the last scene, we didn't use the cards. Thank you pak cik guard. We should do a story about you someday.

Operation: Budak sekolah
Location: Sekolah Alam Megah, Subang Alam.

I never knew that morning school ends at 2pm, we did actually waited outside for about 2 hours worrying if that day was a school holiday because we could't see anyone with school uniforms. Recording infront of a school went alright. My fear is that a teacher or the school's security guard will chase us away, fearing us to be peadobears or something, as our actor did really look like  school girls (this is a compliment zana and fiqah). Doing a scene along a busy street was quite dangerous, we have to wait until the road was clear and quickly take the shot and do it again and again. Credits should go to our talented actors, who never whine about the heat and such, just don't change if someday you guys made it to the A-list alright. After all scenes were successfully recorded, we went straight to upstairs, subang for our lunch/tea/dinner. Excellent food plus great company is a good way to end a day.

You can see the rig, and budak sekolah yang ilmi kidnaped 

Operation: Deliver

I just hate editing. If you're great in sony vegas or adobe premiere or any other video editing software, do give me a tweet. I rather be under the heat shooting videos than sitting on a chair editing stuff, it's time consuming, it's dreadful, it's horrible. But I have to do it, with limited editing. iMovie is great, but for future videos, I'm thinking of explosions, fire, lightsabers and all those cool stuff.

After sleepless nights, and days. We managed to put together a video. Uploaded it to their website the night of the dateline. But considering I had to compress a HD video which was 800mb into a small quality 40mb video as a requirement from the officials, I was really concerned about the quality drop. So together with ilmi, we decided to drive all the way to hartamas, well ilmi was the one driving, I happened to be a sleepy GPS beside him, we didn't get any sleep the night before, so both were quite in the air. Nearly had an accident, but we survive. 

All we can do now, is to pray that Afdlin shauki, Aniu, and Gayatri Pillai will have a soft spot towards our video and list it among the top ten list! After that, it's up to you to vote, WAJIB undi!

Will keep you guys posted on the competition, your vote means 40 000 ringgit to me.

  

"salah Ibu mengandung" - Ayah tak salah?

Bila dah hampir Seminggu kita berpuasa, dan hampir seminggu-lah juga kita cuba Istiqamah untuk Tarawikh. (bak kata baby "jom solat taWarikh!") Biarlah selipar jepun kena kebas dekat Surau, berkat gandaan pahala ibadah, kita redah tanpa kisah. Sama-sama kita doakan Hamba Allah yang terambil selipar tu banyak langkahnya ke Masjid. Masuk jugak akaun pahala kita kan.

Dan bila masuk bulan Ramadhan, bagi kanak-kanak sekolah rendah, inilah masa yang ditunggu-tunggu sepanjang tahun. Bulan yang membolehkan mereka bergerak bebas sepanjang malam atas tiket bersolat Tarawikh padahal meliar satu kampung satu taman bermain seribu macam jenis benda yang meletup-letup. (fakta berdasarkan pengalaman). Waktu zaman kegemilangan dulu, inilah masanya kita jadi hero mercun. siapa lagi berani? siapa ada mercun paling best? siapa boleh letupkan meriam tin kabat Anlene paling kuat? Biarlah keluar berita "Pihak Kastam rampas mercun bernilai dua juta", waktu tu mesti akan ada stok punya, tak payah risau.

Bila dah seminggu main mercun, maksudnya dah seminngu kita bakar mercun dan menikmati letupannya secara normal, dan keadaan begini meneybabkan kita mula bosan. Maka keluarlah idea untuk masukkan mercun kedalam telefon awam, dalam paip kosong, dalam segala ruang yang membolehkan bunyi letupan menjadi lebih menarik. Macam yang diceritakan akhbar tempatan dua-tiga hari lepas, seorang kanak-kanak dari bukit bunga, ingin memasukkan mercun ke dalam lubang najis, (ini memang idea paling kreatif yang dulu kita tak pernah buat), tapi membatalkan hasratnya kerana terjumpa bayi yang terapung meniarap di dalamnya.(Berita Harian, 13/8/2010)  Subhanallah.

Bak kata mak, "sekarang ni musim baby kene buang, semua baby 'New Year'" Faham?

kita petik apa kata Zainul Arifin dalam New Sunday Times, 

It is not a coincidence that the overwhelming majority of cases of children being abandoned after birth occur among Malay Muslims.

Kita rancang hukuman mandatori, kita rancang sekolah khas, kita wujudkan rumah pelindungan khas. Semua memberi reaksi setelah anak-anak tak bersalah ni dibuang tak kira tempat. Kalau kita anggap masalah ni sebagai satu penyakit, semua yang cuba kita lakukan sekarang ni hanya akan mengubati symptom yang wujud, 'underlying cause' masih belum kita selesaikan. Dan kalau kita rujuk kolum komen dalam NST hari ni, (16/8/2010). Artikel "Focus on saving the life of the foundling" oleh Eric Winkel. Ia merupakan Panadol terbaik yang dapat kita guna untuk ubati penyakit 'baby-dumping' ini. Dari kita fokus untuk menghukum sana-sini, adakan usaha untuk membuka ruang supaya bayi-bayi ini ada peluang untuk hidup, ada peluang nak rasa indahya siang dan malam, lebih baik dari diletak bersama sampah dan najis.

Tapi jangan kita lupa, antibiotik harus dicari! kalau tidak 'infection' tidak akan hilang. Ubat paling mujarab pada pandangan saya adalah halang sama sekali 'baby-new year' atau 'baby-merdeka' atau baby sepanjang masa daripada berlaku. (mudah ditulis dari dilaksanakan). kita perlu usaha.

Dan saya cukup setuju dengan pandangan Lily Fu, dari Ampang yang juga disiarkan dalam NST hari ini, dalam kita mencari penyelesaian, semua jawapan yang kita hasilkan berpusat kepada pihak wanita, pihak yang terpaksa menangung beban dosa sementara selama 9 bulan. Tapi masakan proses 'fertelization' hanya melibatkan ovum? mana pergi tuan punya sperma? kenapa tiada program "duhai warga Adam, anda ada tanggungjawab melindungi wanita!". Dasar lelaki, saya pun lelaki. ada yang memang suka lari. sungguh memalukan kami.

Kita merupakan generasi yang akan mengubah dunia.  Ya, Kita. Jangan biarkan perkara sebegini memusnahkan impian tersebut.

saya dedikasikan gambar penuh simbolik ini kepada dunia.

Bila ditanya, "Salah siapa bayi-bayi meninggal dalam pembentung najis, longkang dan tong sampah?"

Jawab: Salah SAYA, salah AWAK, salah KITA.