My New Year Resolutions

The clock is ticking and as of now it's only a day away from the big 2011. bye bye in advance to 2010, lots of good memories and made a ton of new friends but I'm really excited about the coming 2011.

I have finally thought about my New Years Resolution and here it is.

1)Finish my album - Yeah things didn't go as planned when my band split up but now that I'm going solo I guess I have alot more room to experiment and reshape myself as a musician. As I've mentioned in my moenasrul.com post . 

2)Finish up the Social Networking part of my website- not many people know that I am building my website on my own. I mean not to say that I can't hire a web designer to do the hard parts (which I do when I hit a brick wall) but I believe if it's your passion then you should get your hands dirty. Quite a while back I've been toying with the idea of turning my moenasrul.com E-team and members area into a social network of sorts so my friends and fans can do other things while being stuck in my vain Universe.

3)Finish reading two books- yup I used to be a heavy reader but now all I read are blogs and wikipedia articles. Time to hit the old school reading material.

4)Finish writing the musical score for my Musical- You see I tend to do alot of creative things and one of them was writing a musical. I have finally finished the script but I haven't yet written the music for it. What's a musical without music right?

5)Finish the Graphic Novel- this one is for my own personal satisfaction. You see before I discovered music I was really into comic books and graphic novels along with Magic The Gathering Trading cards and Warhammer 40k. I started a graphic novel complete with written script and all. I just never finished drawing it. I recently found my old drawings and that old feeling just came back. 2011 you might be the year I finish it finally.

What are your New Years Resolutions?

OMG these videos really inspired me.

Ok I know people assume that watching videos on youtube is a waste of time or is a sign that I'm wasting my time. I beg to differ, it really depends on what you watch and how it affects your daily life.

So these videos below inspired me today and in fact lifted the sort of slightly downward emotional slop that I've been facing lately.

Paintball makes you a real man!

ok maybe it's a bold statement but it is true to an extent. I mean yesterday I was playing paintball with a few friends and my younger sisters as you'd know if you'd been keeping tabs on me via facebook and twitter, and here I am covered in bruises and scratches from running through the wonderful rainforest of Malaysia while an array of flying balls zoom through the air.

It was an amazingly exhilarating experience. I mean it actually felt like a real life battle and no 3D pixelated game could ever come close. Even as i'm typing this I'm a talking to my house mate Sashi C. Loco about the whole experience as well as about the whole idea I had about making a social network on my website moenasrul.com. You can read the post by clicking this

http://www.moenasrul.com/projectblog.cfm?feature=1883238&postid=649577

But back to the topic of paintball. Nothing makes you feel more alive than running around getting shot. I wanna do it again sometime :D Anyone wanna join me?

TLC "Promise Me Campaign"--Izzul and Genting Highlands

Let me recount my weekend.

On Friday, I was in Penang as i was invited by my girlfriend to attend "Altera Family Day"--the place where she works. I have lots of fun where i was given a girlfriend-guided tour of the facilities.

It was my first time chilling in her cubicle... 

Check it out. She has dual monitor for her to do her job.

I rock out at the game room..

The game room is equipped with a digital electronic drum set, a keyboard, and a mic for employees to sing the work blues away.

I showed off my button-mashing skills to a bunch of seven year olds...

"Now press this button to run away from my combos..."

I checked out the skills of other employees at pool and air hockey...

and i checked out my girlfriend's flirting skill...

She still has it!

and had lunch like a king at the cafeteria....

*droooolllll*

 

 

 

It was a great Family Day organized by Altera. With soaring spirit, i head back to KL in preparation for the great outing i have been waiting for--fulfilling Izzul's wish to ride the cable car at Genting Highlands.

Thanks Altera!

With less than five hours of sleep, i woke up feeling energized and ready for a full day of fun with the most cheerful boy I have ever met. Encik Azam gave my friends a tour of the orphanage and i was glad to know that children are very well taken care of.

30 children! A glance on Rumah Aman website shows that the kids aspires to be teacher, firemen, and mostly (you guessed it WRONG!) army and navy.

Are you ready Izzul? Urfah (in black) is the guardian and makes sure that there is nothing wrong going on in this trip.

At 10 am, we head out to One Utama to buy tickets to the cable car ride and to have lunch as we were all famished. "Prince for the day" Izzul chose MacDonald's.

Izzul ordered Ayam Goreng MacD. The good boy only ate one and kept another piece for dinner. He even threw away his empty coke cup and fries box. According to Urfah, the boys are thought to not over eat and clean up after themselves. The boys are independent from a very young age. I think it is a valuable lifelong lesson and character building in the world of naughty brats!

After lunch, we decided to take a little "detour" and test out Daytona first.

"I just overtook you dude..."

We arrived at the Sky Park lower station around 1pm. Because it was a weekend AND a school holiday, the cable car queue was out of this world. It was pure madness.

We waited for over 45 minutes....

Izzul's wish: FULFILLED!

I wanted Izzul to feel the blast of cold fog and enjoyed the view. We were at 6,000 feet above sea level! It was a moment Izzul would cherish as we sit and have a nice cup of hot cocoa with a slice of strawberry pie while enjoying the view and feel the cold almost winter-like breeze.

Izzul also had the fun of his young life--going for thrilling rides. We're talking crazy swings and pirate ships!

But it was a shame that we could not ride the roller coaster as Izzul wanted to ride it, but it was already closed. Nevertheless, Izzul head home safe and sound. Oh did i mention that Izzul vomited on the way down from Genting because of the steep road? We stopped by a gas station to buy some minyak angin and a piece of sandwich to hold the stomach, and for Izzul to clean up. Such a brave independent Navy-to-be!

After excluding the expenses for the trip, we managed to make a donation of RM358.00 (out of RM470.00) to Rumah Aman.

I then rushed off to an event at Sunway Giza. At 11.45pm, off i went to Sri Pentas to host 8TV Nite Live from 12:45am to 1:45am.

It was a long, long weekend. But i was happy that i get to go beyond Izzul's  innocent wish of soaring 6,000 feet above sea level. To see his face lights up when he rode the cable car for the first time was totally priceless. To this day, i still recounts his expression as we had our hot cocoa and light refreshment and gazed at the  magnificent mountainview and the rainforest scenery. And how about seeing Izzul's face flushed with happiness after riding the rides at Genting Theme Park? Unforgettable.


A heap of thanks to my manager Julian Lee, my PA Cheryl, and my friends Emily, Alex, Elaine, Danyal, and Ben for your support and time to make the Genting trip more exciting. Thank you TLC for the opportunity to get to know the staffs and children at Rumah Aman, Izzul, and this wonderful life changing experience. With God's blessing, i hope to continue on this selfless journey.

Metal Family Tree!!!

I was randomly searching online because I was helping a friend look for material for her assignment on the Heavy Metal Genre.

I recommended that she watch Global Metal and Metal: A Headbangers Journey by Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen. Both give really good insights into the world of Heavy Metal.

But What I really thought was awesome was the fact that in the documentary Metal they had a family tree for the Metal Genre. I finally found it and here is it is!

Rock on!!!

My Sister showed me this video and I thought it was cool :D

My sister Nasirah or Irah as she would like to be referred to had shown me this video via her phone during a random family dinner. I thought it was cool cause it seems that all Asian groups are hitting the USA market. Hope for Asians all over the world :)

From Moenasrul.com:" Recording Sessions: The Book"

 

You know it has been said that musicians now a days have to be Business men or women. I mean we are all in the business of entertaining people and getting our music out there for all to hear.

So to increase my range of influence for my music I have decided to by the above book. I've been to a few forums and apparently there have been alot of praise for this book. I'll Keep you guys updated week by week on my progress.

When would I start? well how about starting from the week commencing on the 13th onwards. they say that the number 13 is a lucky number... for Vikings graaaaaahhh!!

 

Two bloggers, One relationship.

What happens when you have to bloggers sit down and talk about blogging? Well first off, they both start off with a thorough analysis of each others writing styles, then they both defend their own respective writing styles, which then proceeds to become a nuclear explosion which sends the world into darkness and chaos... or just absolute silence.

Fine maybe that was over dramatic but that's what it felt like earlier tonight when Emily, the love of my life and I started re-reading each others blog and commenting. We didn't plan to go on such a warpath but like all things in this life, it just happened.

We were originally discussing our wedding plans and we were looking through some of Emily's blog posts on A Journal For Two for some ideas to resurrect because believe me we've had tons of ideas that we've shelved or rejected which was well documented in Emily's blog. I have to say I enjoyed reading her blog and it was a nice walk down memory lane.

The trouble came about when I said " I'm going to have a look at my blog and just see how my own writing style looks like."

To which she replied "Yours is so candid and all over the place."

huh? candid? All over the place? Ok I know it sounds like an insult in black and white but her tone was more of a professor analyzing a thesis or something of the like.

So I proceeded to defend my writing style and I said " well yours seem kind of rigid then."
I didn't really mean that and like most arguments the one that is caught off guard is always the one left to scramble and see what blanks they can turn into bullets.

"It's not rigid, it's well thought out! I actually think about what message I'm trying to get across." I have to admit she looks so cute when she's angry. kind of like a pink angry teddy bear. See all over the place!

" Yeah I tend to write from the heart" very cliche I know but like I said I was trying to turn blanks into bullets. I'm crap at arguments with a girl, I'll tell you that. "what's in my head goes straight through my lovely fingers and tap, tap, tap... oh look a post! And it's real thoughts."

"And my stories aren't real? It's about us most of the time, just tell it cleanly and present well."

So as you can tell we went back and forth for a good ten minutes. We weren't really angry at each other or neither were we yelling. Just two artistic individuals defending their craft. So we actually ended with a pretty good conclusion.

Our verdict was that she writes like a novelist. The focus is on the story and how it flows. As well the facts are easily identifiable. In short, She should write a book and make millions one day.

I, on the other hand write my blog like how a TV host/Emcee type of person would write a blog. I tend to want to interact with people rather than convey a story. Not that I don't want to convey a story but I want to interact with people more than I do with the story. My posts become a sort of conversation and thank god for the invention of the comment box, it's not a one sided conversation.

Then we proceeded to agree that our styles are completely different and so is our approach. I guess opposites to kind of attract, hence why love is so explosive.
 
Oh yeah and she mentioned that I was long winded........................ Am I?

"Recording Session: The Beginning" blog post extracted from Moe Nasrul.com

Alright so the band split and I guess when all the members told me they wanted to venture off and do their other projects it did throw all my plans into a blender. Then it dawned on me that I have been wanting to do a solo project for a very long time. There was just a lot of things I wanted to try and experiment with from a musical stand point, that I just could not do with a straight up Hard Rock band. As much as I love the screeching vocals of Axl Rose and Bob Halford along with the riffs of Agnus and Slash, I wanted to see what would happen if an unlikely marriage were to take place. What kind of baby would pop out? Metaphorically speaking from a musical stand point of course.

Another problem came about when I was thinking about the studio bill that would follow such an experiement of sounds. I mean in Malaysia recording an album is not cheap especially if you want to spend hours and hours just playing around with effects or lack of effects and see what would happen if you stuck a microphone down a toilet and flush it down while singing in D minor... not that I would actually do that but you get what I mean.

The solution came about when I was just standing in my room and just standing in front of my Behringer Mixer with it's mesh of wires going all over the place and my two microphones just sitting on top a my computer table. You see I've had purchased this exact mixer with a fantastic external sound card which allows me to hook up to my laptop with the intention of using it for my podcasts on my blog, Moenasrul.blogspot.com. But that idea faded quite quickly and I decided to make the best of a situation and use it for live recordings of my band jamming or record our live performances at gigs. I was practically the only vocalist who always brought around a huge bag of wires and what most people would call "gear". Guitarists and Bassists were notorious for lugging around huge cases of effect pedals and other funky devices but vocalists were free radicals so to speak. All they had to bring was themselves and at most a bottle of water. I guess you can say I was the odd one out. However it had it's advantages, I made friends alot easier than most vocalists with the sound guys. Mainly because I was usually the guy asking if I could share a multi-power plug point with their system or if they could help me hook up my mixer to their main board or if I could place the mics near their deck cause that happened to be the sweet spot and so on and so forth.

There I was just staring at this boxy apparatus with multi-colored buttons, I had decided to experiment in my room. That lasted only a few days. I mean there was only so much screaming that I could do in my room at 3AM in the morning before my house mate sends me an SMS saying "Dude... Too loud."

It was pretty obvious that my experiment with sound was going to be loud and I needed a place where the volume wouldn't be a problem. This actually took awhile.

So lets fast forward to a few days ago. I was discussing with Matt who is my Personal Assistant/Best Friend/"Substitute mother when I'm acting like a 5 year old"'s cousin who is the guitarist for a Metal Band called A Ruthless Cleansing about our individual solo projects. Matt wanted to do a solo album as well because just like me there was alot of material which he had that he couldn't play with the band because it had a different sound or style that just didn't mesh with the bands sound. During this extensive conversation that lasted close to 8 hours and involved alot of shuffling back and forth on his iTunes and discussing the different styles of mixing and mastering done by various bands from U2 to White Snake, to Meatloaf to Van Halen, we decided that we could use Cheryl's vacant guest room which was on the third floor of her place. After imitating a yoddling Ricola advert we found out that the room had good acoustics and was relatively sound proof due to the amount of stuff stored in the room and the thick curtains that lined the windows. We instantly asked Cheryl in the most adorable way inclusive of baby language, if we could use the room to which she agreed. As long as we cleaned up... to which we had no intention of doing right away but figured that we would settle it all someday in the distant future to fulfill our end of the bargain.

Two nights later, the room was filled with miles and miles of cable, Speakers, Amps, Effects pedals, Microphones and two guys jumping around belting out random riffs and tunes. I'd have to say it was a very productive night. We even had occasions where Cheryl and my other Personal Assistant/Friend Shiela come in and take photos and videos of us recording to which I would never post online. If your curious why, well... lets just say the air condition in the room wasn't all that powerful and at one point Matt and I had to strip down to our boxers to continue our experiments. That and my boxers happened to be pink... yes Pink, like the song by Aerosmith. Maybe one day when I have the courage, I may just post it up, but for now it will forever remain in a memory card buried deep into the earth in some random vacant graveyard where it will never see the light of day.

If you want to know all that goes on during Moe Nasrul's Solo project check out Moe's blog on Moe Nasrul.com

If you want to know what goes on behind the scenes during Moe Nasrul's Solo Project Check out the dedicated blog on Moenasrul.com

Empty Roads, The Gym and the idea of celebrating Raya in the Klang Valley.

Having spent the whole day doing a billion and one things work related and personal errands related I had the sudden urge to go to the gym and work out. Well more like I realized it was Tuesday which was core muscle and back work out day.

I sent out what I like to call a beacon out into the world via facebook pondering the possibility of being stuck in a jam and being put off from going to the gym. A friend once told me that when comes to working out getting there is the hardest battle. It's always that voice in your head that says "ah screw it, I'm gonna watch a movie." or "my god this bed is so comfortable...I'm gonna take a nap." It's always the voice and the voice is the main obstacles.

So I headed out to the gym and I was surprised to find that the roads were amazingly clear around 6:30pm which is usually the apex of the rush hour.

So there I was at the gym and the thought of tomorrow being Hari Raya Haji hit me. Funny how random thoughts hit you at random times. Does that happen to you?

Well anyways, I realized that I will be spending Raya here in the Klang Valley because my grandmother and aunties decided to come to KL and celebrate the festive holiday due to a sudden need for a change in  scenery. I'm completely cool with that because it means less traveling for me and I get to sleep in my own comfortable bed the night before raya instead of the usual guest bedroom which have become a stable standard for the last ten years of celebrating Raya in Malaysia.


So here I am with aching muscles and so far a very good night on my plate... I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings :D

Donation Update for My Pledge

Hi all,

I'm so sorry I've been away from blogging for so long. I know, I know, the word "Busy" is just too over-rated.

As you can recall, the official date for me to bring Izzul to ride the Cable Car at Genting Highlands were October 23rd, two days after the closing period for the donation (October 21). Unfortunately,  the Genting Highlands cable cars were closed to public due to maintainence from seven weeks and would only be available for rides from November 21st onwards.

A little hiccup there. Therefore, the pledge were postponed to December 11th 2010.

So as promised, here is the list of donors and the amount donated. A huge thank you to my friends and family who sharing my pledge and to make it come true :)

Donors:

1. The charitable Ismail sisters--Alina, Emily and Emilia Ismail: RM 150
2. Ong Bee Kim: RM 50
3. Martin Chew: RM 50
4. Gooi Yi Ling: RM 50
5. Alex Ooi Beng Keat: RM 20
6. Urbane Ethos: RM 100
7. Arif Alias: RM 50

The grand total for this pledge is RM 470, that was collected within 14 days.  The collection will go to Izzul's Genting Trip. After the trip, I will blog about my day of fulfilling the pledge and how the money was spent. The rest of the donation will then be channeled to Rumah Aman through TLC.

Again, thank you Alina, the twins Emily and Emilia, Mrs. Ong, Martin, Yi Ling, Alex, Arif and Urbane Ethos for sharing this pledge to fulfill Izzul's wish to ride the cable car.

The Boy Who Gets to Go Genting!!

Izzul Isam Hairul Azeman

(Taken from Rumah Aman website )

Izzul is 9 years old. He came to Rumah Aman on January 15, 2006 at the age of 4. His father has passed away. He has a mother, two sisters and two brothers. His hometown is in Batu Kurau, Perak. He is in Year 3 at Sekolah Rendah Seksyen 6, in Shah Alam.

He loves to eat hot dogs, play football and aspires to become a navy officer. His favourite colour is black.

Dragon Red Resureksi Album Launch

Time is ticking. The Velvet Aces are itching to get up on stage at Map (Black Box) @ Solaris Dutamas tomorrow at the Dragon Red Resureksi Album Launch.

Check out the details below:

Time : 3PM till 5PM (Press Launch); 7PM till 11PM (Album Showcase)
Artists Performance (7PM till 11PM) :
Dragon Red
Deja Voodoo Spells
Naked Breed
Wakaka Crew
K Town Clan
Sashi C.Loco
Two Sides To A Story
The Velvet Aces
Oracle
Endzeil
Beat The System
Rollin Sixers
Cover Charge : FREE

If you are around town tomorrow, drop by to watch us and all the best performers to rock Dragon Red's Album Launch.

Estetik estetik estetik :D

How Can You Help in This Pledge?

How do you share this pledge?
You can make your donation via fund transfer to:

MAYBANK
Account Number: 157139662563
Account holder name: MOHAMMAD NASRULLAH BIN ZULKIFLI

After making a fund transfer, I urge you to send me a screenshot of the transaction at moe.nasrul@gmail.com. If you could not send me the screen shot, drop me an email about your contribution (and reference number) so that i can do the screenshot for you. All donations are made public (let me know if you do not want to be mentioned and prefer to be anonymous) and are recorded in here, Moe's Blog Dedicated to This Pledge.

Also, remember to forward this email to your own network of friends, family and colleagues so that they can share in this pledge too.

We will close all pledge on October 21st 2010.

Alternatively, you can directly donate to Rumah Aman at:

RUMAH AMAN
Donations by cheques should be crossed and made payable to :

RUMAH AMAN (SHAH ALAM) BERHAD
BANK ISLAM CURRENT ACCOUNT NO. : 1203 8010 0638 19
Address: Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB)
Cawangan Shah Alam
Ground Floor
Wisma Perbadanan Kemajuan Pertanian Selangor (PKPS)
Seksyen 14, Persiaran Perbadanan
406755 Shah Alam
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
Tel : 603 – 5510 1481
Fax : 603 – 5510 1497
SWIFT Code: BIMBMYKL

Thank you so much for your generous support. I am truly touched by all your generosity =)

Share in this pledge and together we can achieve more!

Cable Car Rides!

If you have read my previous post, you will know that i have pledged to fulfill the wish of an orphan boy from Sri Aman to ride the cable car in Genting Highlands. I spoke to my manager Julian Lee and we concur that we should try to go that extra distance beyond my original pledge!

My original pledge to the TLC "Promise Me" Campaign is to take the orphan boy (I would like to disclose the name of my beneficiary, but before i get any 'go-ahead' from the orphanage, further details will be disclosed in my future post. As for now, let us call my beneficiary Adik) to ride the cable car in Genting Highlands.

Let's go beyond Adik's innocent wish of soaring 6,000 feet above sea level. Let's bring Adik for a day tour of Genting Highlands and be amazed at the magnificent mountainview and the rainforest scenery. And how about seeing Adik's face flush with happiness after riding the many attraction of the indoor and outdoor theme park Genting Highland is famous for?

I would like to involve the participation of my network of friends and family to share in this pledge. Together we can soon see how easy it is to make a huge difference.

Coming soon: How to Donate.

Mic Test One Two

My band, The Velvet Aces, is rigorously jamming for this gig.

A huge THANK YOU to my brothers from Dragon Red for this exciting opportunity.

Are we ready? Heck yes!

If you are passionate about K Pop...

...then you MUST bookmark, stalk, follow, and like this website that brings you the hottest K-pop news online.

Ladies, thank you very much for the exclusive :)

TLC "Promise Me" Campaign

Truly Loving Compay (TLC) Promise Me campaign. Pledgers thrive to fulfill wishes from those in need.

Although it had been a busy September, I'm ushering in October steadfastly. I have good good good news to share with you guys.

I received good news Jonathan Teoh from the TLC "Promise Me" campaign, asking me whether i would like to pledge myself to fulfill the wish of a child from the Sri Aman orphanage. I said "yes" without hesitation.

The kid's wish was simple--to ride the cable car at Genting Highlands. All i have to do is just bring the kid to Genting Highlands and ride the cable car. It touches my heart because this kid, who could wish for almost everything in the world, is so selfless that all he wanted is to ride the cable car.

My play date with the kid is set on this October 23rd :)

I'm so psyched! The last time i did charity project was  in 2008 where a group of my closest friends collected donations, clothes, and food for St. Joseph Children's Home in Penang and spent a sunday there.

Let's play limbo. That's me at the foreground wearing a stripe shirt.

My friend, Alex thought the kids to play paintball.This game  proved to be a crowd puller as the kids were eager to test their aim and play 'Counter Strike".

All of us before we bid goodbyes :(

Raya, The website and Future wedding plans.

  That's right I have finally completed a whole list of to do's. why is this such an achievement? well considering that getting back into top gear after a major holiday such as Hari Raya or Eid ul-Fitri takes great will and discipline. I was so tempted to just laze around and... eat. Oh my waste line, oh!

First and foremost, my fiancee and I have started planning for our wedding which would take place next year. To be frankly honest, I enjoyed it! I mean I guess guys are brainwashed into thinking that planning for your wedding is this torturous affair but nothing felt so right for me. I mean I guess my years in the world of entertainment and events made planning my wedding just a little easier because I knew where to look for certain things like decorations, tents, venues, etc. I guess the pain for other men come from a Bridezilla type fiancee... If that is the case I would like to thank my dearest Boo for not being such a Bridezilla and making the wedding planning process a dream. I mean I feel like I'm getting my dream wedding too! Ok... I realise how that sounds... oh heck bring on the tutu and pink glittered wand!

Thirdly, I have registered a domain name and bought hosting services for my band the velvet aces. I have also put together a team of people to help me build the website and soon it would be up and running. If your wondering the website is www.thevelvetaces.com . It's currently under construction now so when you go there all you'll see is the bands cool logo and a short sincere, personally letter from me saying that the site is under construction. Yup as you can tell I am involved every step of the way and I am going to make the website as personal as possible, no air of "I'm a celebrity, get me outta here!" attitude.

Click!!!!

What's next on my to do list? hmmmmm, let me see...I'm writing a musical...Shhhhhhhh it's our little secret :D

Logo for The Velvet Aces

  I Realised that the band needed a simpler logo to be used for our profile that we were planning to send out to event organizers and I had once again burned the midnight oil to produce a simpler logo.


If you were curious what the logo looks like now, feel free to star at it's wonder below.

The Original Design

The Second Evolution

The Final One

A thank you to Angela and band website options :)

  I would like to start of this blog by saying thanks Angela for her comment on my previous post about how to solve my little Myspace background problem :)

Gotta love the internet and the people on it :)

I have yet to implement what she suggested doing which was to design a logo or design then tile it. This would solve the problem of the pixelated background effect the new Myspace profile is doing to my nicely designed background.

If your wondering what it's supposed to look like you can log on to my band's twitter page at www.twitter.com/thevelvetaces

or you can view it here hehehehe :D

Further more I'm currently looking for away to build my band website. At the moment I'm considering two options which was to purchase the domain name, hosting and use wordpress to build my website.

My second option is to go on bandzoogle.com and create my band website. I've been thinking about this for over a week now and the reason being that bandzoogle.com is an all in one website creater for bands. It has a merchandising store where people can buy your music and merchadises via credit card or paypal, a free domain name and hosting, it allows you to make custom e-mail addresses, and it gives a billion and one things to manage your fanbase. The catch is that you gotta pay a monthly subscription of $9 to $19, which is roughly RM50 to RM60 a month.

Alot to consider. Maybe I'll try bandzoogle's 30 day trial and let you guys know :D

P.s. Thanks again Angela :) I'll post up my progress :)

and feel free to like my band page on facebook :D

The Velvet Aces Online

One of the things I never foresee myself doing was starring at a whole stack of code until five in the morning. That was exactly what I did during the weekend Saturday and Sunday.

why? Well I recently have been trying to increase the internet presence of my project The Velvet Aces and had registered for every social network I could think of and designed the new logo, background and any other graphic design work needed.

The strange thing was everyone who saw some of the things I'd done graphic design wise all said the same thing. "You can Draw?". That really caught me of guard because I've been drawing artistically since was 8 years old. Another thing that surprised me was at how apt I was in figuring out Photoshop and turning my real world artwork into a digital form usable on the various social sites.

The Graphic Design was the easy part, the hard part was figuring how each social platform worked and I spent hours figuring out the code to get the look just right. I have to admit the one I had the most trouble with was MySpace because they have this new profile system which makes it look a billion times better than before but not as customizable. It looks like MySpace is trying really hard to look just as sleek as Facebook.

I Swear I spent nearly all of Sunday to figure out how not to make my background look so pixelated. No before you get all "you gotta play around with the resolution blah blah blah" on me, I have tried everything in the book. The problem was that to have an image used as the background you'd have to upload it as a picture in your account first and then set it as a background. The problem is that when MySpace uploads it the site they alter your picture to fit their site, which tend to mean they make it smaller and a lower resolution. It's alright if you want people just to look at it and say "oh so that's what he's been working on." but if you want it to be a kick @$$ background that says "my band is the most rocking band out there." it's not enough. If you know how I could fix this please, please do let me know.

Feel free to check out my work though.


www.twitter.com/thevelvetaces
www.myspace.com/thevelvetacesonline

and feel free to like The Velvet Aces Facebook fanpage :D

I'm Joining the National Broadband Awareness & Promotional Programme--BB Trail

Yesterday i had an event at our Ministry of Information Communications and Culture (MCMC) at Cyberjaya where the MCMC flagged off the Broadband Trail (BB Trail) that will have the BB squads travel in 4WD vehicle across the nation to raise awareness on broadband and increase users. And guess what? I've been picked to appear during the BB trail to promote the use of Broadband in Malaysia!!

As a 8TV Nite Live host--where a show that talks about technology and gadgets, I'm excited to start the campaign to raise broadband awareness for the government. The BB Trail launch yesterday have already raised my adrenaline level and I will do as much as i can to make this campaign a success.

Me getting down from the BB Squad 4WD vehicle to receive goodies from YB Dato' Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim, the Minister of Information Communications and Culture at the Flag Off of the BB Trail 4WD vehicle.

The five-and-a-half months road show that will begin in July 15 will have the BB trail driving four specifically designed and fitted four-wheel drive vehicles covering more than 500 locations across the length and breadth of the Peninsula including Sabah and Sarawak.

The BB Trail will have the local entertainers and corporate personalities interacting with the Rakyat and also participating in many interactive activities and games. I'm not certain of which BB trail I'll be appearing yet, but I'll post an update when it is confirmed.

Other celebs at the BB Trail launch--Yasmin, Atilia, Sazzy, and Hannah Tan.

Brian Joo on 8tv Nite Live

  Last night I had the greatest opportunity in the world; to interview Korean Pop Artist Brian Joo on 8tv Nite Live.

I'd have to say Mike and I found that he was one of the most Down to Earth person we have ever met. The moment he got to the studio the three of us started talking as if we were old friends that haven't each other for ages.

I was very surprised to find that we were very similar and have many of the same experiences growing up in the USA and moving back to our respective ethnic home country both at the age of 17.

If you had not know Brian Joo was born in Los Angeles ,California and grew up in New Jersey. He later at the age of 17 or 18 had gone one to make his mark in the Korean music scene as one half of Fly to the Sky. Similar to my experience of being born in New York and raised in Hawaii, returning to Malaysia and being the frontman of the Six String Samurais although I have to admit that Brian has had greater success in the music department.


The moment he came on the show it was electrifying. we practically cancelled all of our usual format and stories for that one show so that we could focus on Brian for the show. Which never happens until the Brian invaded 8tv Nite Live. In fact in my opinion it was all worth because last nites show was the best show we have ever done. Thanks Brian for making the night a memorable awesome one and wish you all the best in your music career.