Digital Fugue - Random Thots

8th Cigar Dinner

The food was excellent!

Cigar Buffet!

We painted the town red!

Cultural Bridge

Some people say music is a great tool for bridging cultures. But even music have been a victim of segregation a long time ago. What we now know as R&B, is a by product of the segregation of music during the days of slavery and civil war in America.

In Malaysia, with vast cultures and races intermixing the society, there need to be numerous cultural bridges that would eventually bind the society together and create a unique cultural identity. Music is one, as seen by the recent success and popularity of a musically inclined reality game show.

While trying to find the common denominator about being Malaysian, The Malaysiana Digests have uncovered another cultural bridge among Malaysians... food.
I couldn't agree more with the masses.

Social marathon

The weekend started off with one of our random impropmtu cigar meet. It was a small meet with just me, Aizuddin and Baizura, Rehman and Tengku Shahrizan. We would expect a bigger crowd, but i guess the rain and the infamous friday night jam detered the attendance of our members.
But we had fun alright. With Henry Clay, El Credito and Davidoff fuming the night away a midst conversation on politics, human rights, scuba diving, travelling, publicity etc. Pictures at Aizuddin's My Cigar Blog.

After the cigar meet, I made my way to Hard Rock Cafe for an impromptu birthday celebration. Surprisingly there were a lot of familiar faces around. Apparently everybody's at the right place at the right time.

Eight hours later found me having breakfast with a bunch of bloggers.... a sort of mini blog meet kind of thing. Yes, another impromtu thinggy...
There are a few random meets in between... but i guess the first documented one was about eight months ago. Yes, we should have a proper meet.
Nevertheless, breakfast (which consist of sunny side up, sausages and hash browns and coffee) was good, the company was even better! Thank you, Meesh for organizing.

More pics here

Phewwh... What a weekend!

Citroen/Peugeot TechTalk

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to join a group of citroen enthusiast in their monthly tech talk meetup. The meetup was scheduled at 4:30pm at the parking lot of Giant Shah Alam. Apparently, this month's meetup was a joint effort by the Citroen Enthusiasts Group and My Peugeot Network. It was aptly named "The French Connection", although it was more of a "PSA Connection" (There were no Renault around).

I reached the venue at about 5pm. There were already cars lined up, almost 30 of them. However most of them are either ZXs and Xantias. No new models like the C3, C5 (Abedib should have joined :)), C8 or even the Xsara.
I miggled with the crowd, trying to find some familiar faces, most of them i remember only by their nick names; spygame, katmai, silver16v. Yes, we know each other from the internet (you know, one of those internet buddies thinggy) through an online forum. Indeed I do not know most of the folks who attended the tech talk.

The Peugeot team had close to about 20 cars on their side, which consists of the 206,306 405 and 406. Both sides brought their mechanics to talk about the technical details and trouble shooting. They even did what they called as ELITE test and DIY demos on the cars. Preety cool.

Despite the on-off drizzle, we had close to about 50 cars lined up all together. After which we gather to pose for a photo session for Traffic Magazine. Preety cool eh? So look up for our pics in next month's issue of the magazine.

After the meet up, we adjourned to Restoran Kampung Pandan for buka puasa. All and all it was an exciting meetup. Surely I dont mind attending more meetups in the future. The next meet is scheduled on 13th December.

More pics here and here.

4th Cigar Meet

To keep the tradition going, we succesfully organized the 4th cigar meet last friday at Starbucks, Plaza Mont Kiara. The meet was done in a relaxed manner as we anticipated less participation during the fasting month. I reached the venue a little late as it was raining cats and dogs that night. Aizuddin and Alex was already there, happily chatting away. Aiz got himself a Limited Edition Selection Robustos, which came in a nice package.

A few moments later Nur joined us. I was told that Fahroe was stuck in the rain and couldnt make it. We then ordered our drinks and all of us light up our cigars.

I brought a te Amo with me but i didnt smoke it. Instead, I bought a JL Piedra Cazadores from Aizuddin and smoked that instead. The cigar was in a very good condition and well humidified. Lighting up was easy and throughout the course it required about three relighting. The ash was dark but it managed to grow to about an inch before it crumbled on my Dockers. The taste was, however, a little harsh for my liking. It starts off cool, then the spiciness build up and towards the end, it becomes smooth little. The smoke however came in generous volume. I didn't quite finish it to the stub as lighting was quite difficult towards the end. It was definitely a Cuban but i wont put my money on it. It could pass as something you smoke on the go rather than something to chillout with (a quickie rather than a candlelight dinner thinggy).

Appearance and Presentation: 16/20
Lighting and Burning Properties: 13/15
Construction:19/30
Taste: 29/35
Total Score: 77/100

At around midnight, Sharizal came over with Nazrin. Sharizal lighted up the Arturo Fuentes and was rather intrigued by it (He was expecting it to taste like RyJ No.2 :)). We concluded that it was the wasabi he had for dinner earlier. Finally, after one and a half hour Nur finished his cigar with a happy smile, after which we all packed up and left the place. During the session we had brilliant discussion on the cigar co-op. I guess we just need a little tuning up before we could commence a trial run perhaps in a month or two.

Lyna's Wedding

I would like to wish Lyna and Hafiz "Selamat Pengantin Baru".
While at the function I had the chance to meet up with fellow bloggers Zack, Zero, Rocket, Ewin, Aiza, Shuq and Redzuan. It was a pleasure meeting you guys, finally! :)
Now, was I at a blogger meet-up or a wedding function?

Absolute Chillout

The 3rd Cigar Meet was a smash! The meet was held at Bon Ton last Friday, where we managed to get a private room. Sharizal was there first, followed by me and then Aiz, Tone and Fahroe.

Background music was a mix of jazz, classical and chillout lounge, provided by moi, le musical thinker :)
We started off with the jazzy tunes of John Scofield - Works For Me. Dinner was accompanied by tunes of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the Amadeus Sountrack and finally, the cigar chillout session hit the spot with Zero7 - Simple Things. For the finale, there were two bonus tracks from Hotel Costes: Quatre; Sous le Soleil (Cuba Acoustic Mix) by The Major Boys, and Café de Flore (Charles Webster's Latin Lovers Mix)

The food was marvellous... sinfully marvellous! I stuffed myself to the max i felt like a python. Let's save that for the next post shall we?

Good company, good music, good food, good cigar.... the only thing missing is the company of the opposite sex. :)
Other than that, what else could you ask for? Life is beautiful.

More pics available at Aiz's Visuals.

2nd Cigar Blog Meet

The second cigar blog meet was held last Friday night at Havana Club Concorde hotel. It was a smash as Aizuddin had organized a PS2 party to go with the meet as well. A funny concoction, but yes, cigars and games can somehow find a meeting point somewhere... I guess the nicotine makes the adrenaline flow more fluidly and improve the thumb and eye coordination ;)

I traded two cigars with Aiz, my Private Stock Robusto and Avo Uvezian Puritos Classico with his Private Stock Long Filler and Macanudo Miniatures. I smoked a Don Diego Coronas Major at Havana Club and then the Macanudo Miniatures at Hard Rock Cafe later that night.

Sharizal, on the other hand was happy with his romeo y julliet. According to him, it was the first time he smoked a cigar to the stub. We hope to see him again in our next meet :)

Head on to the extended entry for pictures

Meeting "The Reader"

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet The Reader or Abedib as he is fondly known by his circle of friends. Abedib wanted to include his Tag-Board on his blog at Typepad. Failing to attach the HTML code to typepad interface, he created a weblog on blogspot called Wakaf to host his Tag-Board.

I was finding ways to include my Tag-Board and some webrings on my blog. After a bit of googling I found a comment this site, with instructions to include HTML codes on TypePad's Typelist. One attempt later and voila!, I have my tagboard and my webrings on my blog.

Mnemosyne Fugue - Digital Fugue does a Racheal

Mnemosyne Fugue - Digital Fugue does a Racheal

{ Begin mnenosyne
Friday nite!

Traffic Jam Bangsar Nightmare.

These are words to describe Racheal's farewell Party - WWW
Wonderful
Wild
Wicked!

A Hungarian Restaurant, full of Malaysians, bidding farewell to Racheal, who is leaving for the US of A, and Alex leaving for Switzerland... did I smell Cuban cigars? And not to mention the French kiss as well...

The sexy, kinky ladies... Racheal, Meesh, Hani, Gracie poo, Empress...

And the Gentlemen... Khalilur, Ash, Aizuddin, Dinesh, Vladimir, Alex, Haris... who else did i miss?

The conversations... the screams... the curses... the profanities

The laughing... the drinking... the smoking...

The sweet talk... the naughty talk... the cuddling... bordering foreplay

Dim lights, cameras... and we are all in the glitterring almost celebrity-like action in the glamour soaked party.

Cameras flashed, lomo clicked and video rolled...

Non stop pouring... multiple shots... enough alchy to light a bulb for seven days...

The peck on the cheek... the kiss... the smooch... almost orgasmic...

Ash said, "It's like Christmas in August..."

Hani said, "you are turning me on..."

Meesh asked, "Would you date me?"

Haris screamed, "Show your tits!"

The authorities... the enforcers... under 18, get out... under 21, hide... 2am is just too early to leave...

The mamak... the parking ticket... the ride back home...

The night... the party... the magic

Bangsar was red... heads rolled... we now attend to our battle wounds...

Goodnight...

Wake up! wake up! It was not a dream....

Delete the pictures!! Delete the videos! If the media got hold of them, there goes my chance of running for govenor of California in 30 years time!

Stop the press...!! For a limited time only, we got the pictures here, here and here!
Unfortunately, none of the juicy pics reached the media....

End mnemosyne}

Rachael.... we gonna miss you. Make sure you come back next year. We'll have another bash for you!
This post is dedicated to you.
*Hugs and kisses*

"Into the night we shine
Lighting the way we glide by
Catch me if i get to high
When I come down
I'll be coming home next year"
Next Year, Foo Fighters