Michael Yip | 叶志坚

Friday night, we celebrated Zai aka Mrs. Lebosse’s birthday by holding a Surprise Birthday party for her at Salsa Havana.

Must say that the organizers did a fine job in getting all the arrangement done with the cake specially made for her. The poem on the cake was written by Jacque himself for this special occasion. Now, what went on that night?

Stephanie and I along with Val went into Salsa Havana around 9.30pm to a quiet place, with only Derek and his ladies as well as Greg around to keep us entertained. Now, as the weekend is also the weekend of the Latin Congress in Port Dickson, 90% of the Salseras and Salseros of the Klang Valley is out of town so leaving Salsa Havana for us to be utilized to the max. With the congress being held elsewhere, one of the thing that went along with Martin (the owner of Salsa Havana) is his huge collection of Latin songs. After doing a quick check on the CDs that is left, I told Greg that, “We better get more CDs in as there’s not enough songs to go around or the crowd’s going to start hearing repeats of songs over and over again throughout the night.”

One thing to note, Deejay Xavier and Martin wasn’t around, so Greg as well as some of the staff who knew me told me to take to the Decks and do what I can with the CDs I got. So this is one of the rare nights in Salsa Havana that I didn’t dance a lot as I spend 70% of the time behind the Deejay console getting the songs cued and played depending on the crowd’s mood. To the people who was there that night and didn’t like some of the song selection I came up with, all I can say is … I’m sorry, I can only play with songs that is available to me at that time, if I knew in advance that there’s no deejays and not songs to play, I’d have brought more of my collection to be played there.

Around 11ish, in walks Mr. and Mrs. Lebosse and the guys start to reel Zai to the center of the dance floor with her not knowing what is going on. So with a loud Happy Birthday and a song, she finally realized that we were all there to celebrate her birthday. During her speech, she mentioned that she thought she was there for someone else’s birthday! So Jacque, you did well to pull it off. Up til the final minute she still didn’t know it was her birthday party. So with the cake cutting done with, the Must Have dance with the birthday girl was next, with Jacque having the first dance with her and all the other hungry wolves guys lining up to have a dance with her as well. 12min 34sec was the time it took Zai to dance with all the men in the club with the final dance being a show-piece of showmanship between JamesQ and Jacque battling it out to get be the last man dancing with Zai.

The dance floor opens up again after that with people dancing the night away until 2am and one by one, couple by couple, the crowd start to thin as people with tired legs start to head on home. I played the last song at 2pm and had my last dance of the night with Zai before packing up and heading home. Tired, legs aching but I had fun. For the people who has not seen me spin before, I hope you guys enjoyed the songs and yes, I don’t like to speak on the mic when I’m deejaying. I rather let the music speak to the crowd and watch people dance to the music I play.

Thanks to Hitz.fm, Stephanie and I get to be one of the first in Malaysia to watch Transformers the movie. Now, as a Transformers fan from my childhood years, this movie is an excellent showcase of technology that brings all my favourite characters to LIVE!

The plot of the movie is quite simple, the Decepticons has been scouring Earth for a map to find the AllSparks and Megatron by hacking into the United States military system, the AllSpark coincidentally is in the hand of a young man named Sam. Sam went with his dad to second hand car dealership and found himself a beat-up car which is actually Bumblebee in disguise. That’s basically the 1st quarter of the movie, the 2nd quarter of the movie introduce us to the Autobots that has landed on Earth to help protect Sam and his girl along with the search for the AllSparks. The antics of the Autobots in this quarter of the movie is quite nice, as the realism in the interaction of the bots and humans as well as it’s new surroundings was just fantastic. Hearing Peter Cullen’s voice as the "Real Life" Optimus Prime brings back good memories of his Prime days in the G1 Transformers.

The 3rd Quarter of the movie introduce us to Megatron as well as the rest of the Decepticons just before the battle royale starts between the Autobots and the Decepticons. One thing I didn’t like in here is Megatron, it just felt wrong even though the Megatron in this movie looks cool and realistic, I somehow missed the Megatron that I used to watch in the G1 cartoon.

The 4th Quarter of the movie is the battle royale pitting the Autobots and the Decepticons in a fight to the death and basically the humans you see in this part are just fillers inbetween 1 fight sequence and another. This here also has another part that I didn’t like, the fight scene looks very … rushed and confusing at times, you just does not know what you are looking at in between all those helpless screaming humans and cars being flung from road to the side of buildings. Of course, all comes to an end when Sam stuff the AllSparks into Megatron’s heart and ended the war (oops did I just give the ending away?).

Now, what did I learn from this movie?

1. I still love Transformers

2. Optimus Prime in his new look is awesome, in fact, he looks better compared to it’s boxy G1 version.

3. Bumblebee as the Chevy Camaro looks cool compared to the VW Beetle in G1.

4. Hearing Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime in this movie brings back good memories of the original cartoon.

5. I still have no idea who the small Decepticon is, is he supposed to be Soundwave?

6. I don’t like Michael Bay’s style of filming fight scene. Not when you’re talking about a 20ft Robot, that 5 – 10min battle in the city was actually boring to me cause I can’t see much details of the fight, only things falling around and people screaming.

7. I didn’t like the "Real Life" Megatron even though the design is really cool, I kinda miss the G1 Megatron.

8. Autobots can pee when the need arises.

9. Asking a girl to sit on your lap at the front passenger seat cause you have a seat belt works.

10. I heard from Wilson that there’ll be a Sequal for Transformers The Movie so that is another movie sequal to look forward to. 

I am suspecting the 101 in the Salsa 101, is representing the number of hours you’d be spending in bed trying to recover from your sore leg, after the event.

The whole event was amazing! For a person who has never attended a Salsa Festival or Latin Congress, this first time experience was a real eye-opener. Arriving KL Hilton at 5.30pm, Stephanie and I met up with the rest of the SalsaJayers at the registration counter, collected our goodie bags consisting T-shirts, pamphlets, a small bottle of sampled perfume (tried it on Rueben) and some drink coupons. The next task after registering is to find a ‘camping spot’ to keep our bags.

A good 15 minutes later and we heard Gupson (Attitude Dance) announcing over the sound system that the first workshop was about to begin. The first workshop taught us body isolations and styling. Boy, we got down “dirtayyy” and “naughtayyy” (Our fellow english salsaman would be delighted to show you how …), it was a good laugh with him telling us the best way to remember the sequence … “Just make loads of grunting sounds like these … UHHHH… AHHHH….. OOOH…. wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Patricia from Ritmo Latino KL was up next and taught us the Casino Rueda on Salsa Timba. She mentioned the word “SETEH” (not sure if I recalled it correctly) meaning Seven and Coca Cola. Unfortunately I can’t really remember the sequence.

The 3rd instructor was Salsa Sam who gave us tips on 3 sexy moves and a dip called Rumba Wena. Among the 3 moves, my favorites were the 2nd and the 3rd (this also means I forgot the 1st…). In the 2nd move, you wrap your hands around the lady while the 3rd is to get the girl to caress you while both if you go around in a circle. And the last thing he shared was the Slow Dip.

At the end of the workshop, the played a movie about the birth of Salsa … from Son to Salsa … and eventually it was dinner time. We went to KFC … excellent choice with excellent selection of food. Bon Appétit !

By 9.20pm we’re already back at the ballroom, dancing shoes back on and hitting the dance floor to DANCE! Oh yeah … all SalsaJayers take note. You might appear on Channel [V] as the crews were trailing us all night long .. from the workshops to the dance floor. (Eddy from Channel [V] ... thanks for your coverage).

There were also dance competitions in the mix with 3 couples performing with each performing a number with their own dance partner and another number with a different dance partner. The winning prizes were given to the best individual male and female dancers. At the party, we also managed to watch performances by Gavin and Sally as well as Gupson and Patricia. The crowds were practically cheering their heart out at the couples. Besides these couples, Fahmy and gang also performed a Casino Rueda piece which was excellent !

After 6 glasses of Mojito (double shots), 2 Perriers later and countless number of dance, we ended the night on a high at 3am by heading off to the mamak for some drinks. With this over, there’s the Latin Congress and MSF coming up. For those that has attended this Salsa101 and is going for the Congress or MSF for the first time, well, imagine, you’d be doing this same thing over and over again for a few nights and yes, the next day, your legs will feel like it has run 3 ironman events back to back and you just want to stay in bed the next one week. I can’t wait to do this again.

It finally happened, my blog’s celebrating it’s 1 year Anniversary.

I never knew my blog would have grown so far. My first post for this blog was created exactly a year ago at this time. Now, after 600++ post, my blog finally reached it’s 1st year of blogging experience.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you to the friends who have supported my blog by linking me as well as you readers who came by my blog by chance or through word-of-mouth. From having ZERO readers on my blog when I first started off to having an average of 160 to 200 odd readers a day. It truly has gone far. Of course, having 160 to 200 odd readers a day reading my blog is nothing to shout about compared to some of the blogs out there, but, it’s still an achievement for me.

One thing that suprises me is that, I never knew I’d get readers from all over the world, I would think that most of my readers are my own family and friends within Malaysia but I was wrong. I guess writing about something I’ve started to grow passionate about like salsa dancing has a wide reach. Looking back at the statistics, I see that my post about Salsa & Super Mario (the dancer) garnered the most post with my post on Manchester United coming in a close second and a post I did for PayPerPost on Desibaba came in 3rd, since posting that post, I was informed by some of the readers that it’s desibaba is actually an indian porn site, well, I didn’t know that until you guys told me, but hey, I got paid for it, so … I’ll just leave it there.  also discovering the world of PayPerPost is the first time I learn about such a thing call being paid for blogging, the concept of it is just .. awesome. I’m thankful for PayPerPost even though it’s irritating to some readers with all this sponsored postings. So a big SORRY to you if you don’t like to all this "advertisements" I write for all this brands you’ve never heard before, especially in Malaysia. But hey, I get paid for it.

Of course, I can’t thank you guys enough for supporting my blog, so a big big big Thank you for your kind support and for everything.

USA Network’s Burn Notice is an upcoming series about the trials and tribulations of a CIA agent’s life after he got fired from the Agency. Now, what’s the reason behind him getting the Burn Notice?

Here’s my theory, Michael was involved with a series of cases that leads to a major coup dealing with a drug cartel based in Miami. He was given a specific task of bringing this cartel down with one exception, 2 person in the cartel must not be harmed, they are to be brought out alive upon the end of the operation.

With a series of planning and observation, Michael finally have enough evidence to set up a team to storm the home of the cartel’s master mind and with the plans locked down, Michael and his team proceed to execute the plans. One problem that they did not plan for is that the 2 person they are not to harm starts to attack them as well, and in the cross-fire, the 2 person who shall remain anonymous to us was gunned down towards the final show down. With the arrest of the cartel’s master mind, the operation has reached to an end with most of the casualties coming from the drug lord’s men including the 2 who was not to be harmed.

2 days after the operation, Michael stepped into the office to great reception with congratulations from all over with the exception of his superior. He was asked to enter the office of his superior, go through the de-brief and was subsequently handed the Burn Notice and was told that his service is not needed anymore. Shocked with disbelief, Michael tries to get an answer but none was given. Now, as he pack his stuff and leave the organization he has served so well, he decides to find out for himself, what happened and why.

How’s that for a theory of what goes on in the series. Are you curious? Then don’t forget to tune in to USA Network’s Burn Notice to find out what actually happened.