Thoughts.

You know that it's true.
(Every time I see your face I miss you baby)
You know that it's you.
(I want to let you know you're driving me crazy.)
I'd do anything to help you to see, I don't think you understand what you're doing to me.
You know that it's true.
(Every now and then I want to call you baby.)
You know that it's you.
(I say a prayer that you'll come back to me lady.)
Oh yeah.
Life ain't anything alone can't you see you're an angel in my eyes,
everyday you're closer to me.

Come What May, Andy Timmons!

Delicious.

You Know It..

.. When a customer compliments that you're quick on the cash-register system in Starbucks.
.. When a customer gets their drinks, change, receipt, and foodstuff right after the printer prints out your order.
.. When a customer sees that you hold quite a bit of knowledge (where the senior partners definitely know more.) and they enjoy sharing it with you.
.. When people sees the passion you have towards your work.
.. When people knows you're particular about a certain procedure being done.

It definitely marks the 1-year milestone in my life. Until today, I can't believe that I'm still holding onto this job consistently without complains (Well, except for a few), and of course, Creating the Starbucks Experience.

I am constantly reminded and tempted to go through my Barista Training Programme to ensure that I am reminded of what they taught me in class to ensure that it is practised everyday.

It's simple.

• When a customer compliments you that you man-handle the POS quickly, it shows that you were put on shift on every weekend - whenever it's busy.
• When a customer also compliements that you work quickly and get their stuff done before s/he could even lay out the exact change, it means that you have proper time management to serve the customer (e.g. reading body language - using CDR.)
• When a customer knows you know your stuff; it shows that you were too used to the store and you read upon the magical resource manuals that nobody bothers to read nowadays.
• When people see that you are passionate towards the things you do. It's more to like, you worship coffee and have a shrine at home.
• When your partners notice that you're particular about procedures, unless if there's a special reason and excuse to break it. Just think about it - Do a customer's beverage like you're doing your own. I'm sure you wouldn't like it when someone else spits into your employee beverage or someone else screws up your beverage whenever you purchased it regardless under discount or at full price, right?

As some of my partners heard regarding my departure from Starbucks Ikano this coming September, I have no idea if I have a proper store to work in,or not.

.. or maybe just slack around, and play the guitar until I'm musically inclined once again..

Heh.







I lap you, Gajah boolat ;)

Mike heal?

For no odd reason, I'm having this bunch of melodies being played in my head. It's the intro to Dream Theater's "Learning to Live".

Where the keyboardist plays one time signature.
Where Mike Portnoy comes in and plays another.
Then John Petrucci takes over what Mike plays,
whereas Mike and John Myung plays another different time signature.

Or another bunch of melodies.

Beauty in its music.

But today, my late post, shall be dedicated to Michael Jackson, the late King of Pop. One of the persons that I highly respect in music due to his adaptability in various genres - and making it big at the same time.

Of course, I must admit that Beat It, Bad, Billie Jean, The Way You Make Me Feel, Remember The Time, made me listen to Michael Jackson.

But then again, I had a good laugh on the day of his death. Simple. The radio stations and news channels who once condemned him of being a pedophile, a non-human being who hung a child over the balcony, and plenty of his other mistakes that jeopardised his career, fame and personality, were mourning over his death.

Way to go, you fuckin' cash cows. Pick on the biggest news, and make it even more enourmous.

I can bet my flat white bottoms if John Petrucci or Steve Vai (Who happens to be everybody's guitar hero) were to pass away one day, all of you would be focusing on plain idiotic jokes about how a boyfriend proposed to his girlfriend, but only later did she know, was an April Fool's joke.

That, was definitely worth a laugh. Later did the boyfriend know that the girlfriend dumped him and that wasn't an April Fool's joke.

Of course I would definitely mourn over Michael Jackson, but for someone to criticise a person, then mourn over his death, is not a true fan of any sort.

Nor does the person has any real respect towards him.

So, it made me sick that most radio stations, like usual, were playing several tributes of his biggest hits to remember the unholiest day in his life.

Of course, respect goes out to those radio stations that randomly played Michael Jackson's songs; only because he was remembered to pull off his dance moves that inspired so many.

Like who? Girls, your oo-lala dance choreographer Wade Robson, of course.

The fact is simple. If you were to fight with your parents, and wait till the day they die, then apologise, it's not going to make a difference because you never know when they'd forgive you. Either when you're still alive, or being successful, or when you're tapping on heaven's door, or when you're in the midst getting kicked out of heaven, taking a huge fall towards hell.

I know I'm going to hell for what I've done. I don't ask for any forgiveness because I know that my mistakes were mine.






RIP Michael Jackson.

[Poem] Prancing Emotions.

Even if the skies were firery red,
The world coming to an end.
The vision we see is the same,
And even if our bodies are distances away.

When I sing for people,
I'd use a mic.
So everybody can hear,
Hoping you'd be there.

And as you sleep,
I'd call upon the angels of the night,
The one that smiles,
Them big, fat, happy, jolly ones.

I'd be staying home, rotting my organs away,
Knowing that you'd be there, one day.
I'll be on wheechairs and in bandages,
You'd be there take me everywhere.

Just because I'm distant,
Doesn't mean I love you less.
Could only mean I'd love you more,
And I wouldn't miss you any less.

Being the man, who's known to be a beast,
Only the purest of hearts could understand.
Only the purest of hearts would love,
Only the purest of hearts would accept.

Even if the words don't come out,
Don't question yourself of what's your way.
More than words is something I can not say.
Saying "I love you" can't mean everything, anyway.

So we dance in the moonlit park,
Hand in hand, we'd prance through the grass.
Like Cinderella and her prince, only without the castle.
But with the heart, and with the love.

iSpeak.

Sometimes, approaching others with open ideas are the worst thing to do.

In fact, there's no such thing as being nice, explaining why something's not in proper order, or being..nice.

Most of the time, you need to get it into their thick skull about what's right and what's wrong; even if you were to use a hammer to crack their skull.

The funniest method would still be sarcasm, not through jokes.

I think some people are just plain idiots.

Guess Who's Coming To Town?

Although I don't follow up on Andy Timmons' stuff, but hey, he's coming to KL! Noted to have very strong blues-y background, I think I'm able to fit in very well.

He's going to hold his clinic at the Wisma Bentley Auditorium, 18th July 2009, 8pm onwards.

;)

Okay, I'm a late-comer.

... Shit.

The Other Motivator.

This morning, I received an SMS from my all-time guitar instructor, Kelvyn Yeang, requesting if I could help him out on this track of his.

With low confidence, I replied saying that I would love to give it a shot, but I can't assure that it would meet his expectations.

Currently, I'm working on one of his songs, to add some flashy stuff around. Just that while I was explaining about how he messed around with certain time signatures, which he didn't even bother about.

In fact, what he said was, "as long as it sounds good, jalan d"

For someone who goes "sounds good, and jalan d", he had a few time signature changes in between, and his rhythms were all over the place of skipping certain beats and stuff.

Although he doesn't take note about these minor details. Little does he know that this artistic song of his is giving me a MAJOR headache.

Tip learnt for the day: Make sure that you get as many detailled information regarding the clients you're working with.

+.=

And he made me realise that I didn't open my damned Reason since I received my laptop back after it dieded. Hurrah.

Adobe LightRoom, Anyone?

I haven't been blogging due to the fact that I've been busy once again.

But in between of my work periods, I managed to escape to Borders, where I recently got my Angels & Demons, and checked out some Digital-Photography-based programmes.

Adobe LightRoom's one of them.

So here are some test shots compared to the old ones. The brighter toned ones are the editted ones:






A fool-proof programme certified by a fool. ;)

Another Point of View.

Some of you may notice that I'm entirely biased towards some music, especially when it has a little bit of modernised ideas in it. Eventually, it infused with me and came Break Free, Seasons of Heartbreaks (which is a blend of Japanese-pop influence and typical Rock), Worthwhile (Pop in a classical aspect with some wee-wee effects here and there) so on and so forth.

But being who I am, I decided to force myself to watch something like this. A "typical, modern, overrated, appreciated, commercialised" song which was made into an acoustic version.

Don't mind me saying this.

But she HAS ideas.

Reminds me that not all musicians are doing what they're doing, just doing music for the money, and not showing how creative they can be.

Lady GaGa reminded me of this.

Which also led me to my confusion regarding of my musical orientation.

Well, let us look at things on a positive side, I suppose? :)

Hmm.

My concept is simple. If you hate me, or whatever that makes me who I am, that's your problem because that's who I am.

And if you were to have an issue with me, it's better for you to approach a hungry tiger than to stab it whilst it sleeps.

If you happen to stab me when I least expect it, and when I will find out about it eventually, you're fucked.

You know how I can turn the tide around. You watching it, you fucking custard.

A Couple of Random Thoughts.

Only because I am unable to think straight for my stupid Corporate Governance tutorial.

• Reinforcement/Behaviour Change Feedback. Ability to identify what are the learner's good behaviours, and providing a reinforcement feedback to show that what the learner had done is good, and he should do it in the near future to ensure satisfaction (if it is service-based performance). Behaviour change would result to something the learner had done wrong, and the coach would need to take action to change the learner's behaviour. To state out the mistake, then what is supposed to be right, and then give a reason why it was supposed to be right to ensure certain progress.
• Brazil may be the largest exporter of coffee. But that doesn't mean that Starbucks purchase most of it, because most of Brazil's exported coffees would be Robusta beans, due to Brazil's geographical condition (being less than 450m above sea-level) of it being unable to produce high quality Arabica beans.
• Asia/Pacific coffees are interesting. Like the Starbucks Anniversary Blend, the only blend created to go against Dark Roast Blends, and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Starbucks in 1998.
• Peaberry Blend - One of a kind. Because 5% of most tree's coffee cherries only contain a peaberry, it could be a multi-region blend. And for it to have ascertained complementary flavours would be theoretically impossible as it comes from Asia/Pacific, Latin America, and Africa/Arabia.
• 85% of the beans are purchased from.. Latin America. And Guatemala supplies most of these beans because Guatemala grows the highest-quality and highly consistent Arabica beans in Latin America.

Studying the basics of the coffee may be a stale subject. But if you were to venture more off to like, why does Columbia Narino Supremo have House Blend or Guatemala Antigua as a similar coffee to present towards customers, you'll approach coffee in a different aspect.

That is a key learning - a term for us to use when we learn something new.

The Beginning of The Next Revolution.

A year has passed.

It's about time that I do what I'm supposed to do.

Watch out..