Friday 31 August 2012

Metrovision - former TV station

Recently my younger brother has found two station identifications for the defunct TV station, Metrovision. I also have gathered some content about Metrovision too. Metrovision is the second commercial TV station in Malaysia, launched in July 1995. Until its closure in October 1999, Metrovision only reached its coverage to the Klang Valley area. Metrovision was later bought by Media Prima and became 8TV in 2004 with nationwide coverage.

The first one, starting with people beating Malay drums and the Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkPhkVnDwrA&feature=channel&list=UL

The second one which is Metrovision's logo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYjBofA5Uxk&feature=channel&list=UL

Experience of a staff formerly worked in the news division of Metrovision called Metrojuta (Metrojuta also produced Golden Teen Stuff for RTM's TV2 which can be seen in this video too)


The last one is a post on a blog website called "Arkib Negara X":

Arkib Negara X: MetroVision - TV4 (1995 & 1996): Stesen televisyen swasta kedua di Malaysia selepas TV3 ialah MetroVision yang memulakan siarannya di kawasan Lembah Kelang mulai hari Sabtu...

Hari Merdeka events

Good morning! Selamat Hari Merdeka! Today is a brand new day because today is the 55th anniversary of independence. The theme for national day celebrations is "Janji Ditepati" (promises fulfiled). Media Prima is the company that initiated this theme where it is first used for the "Karnival Janji Ditepati" where the carnival promotes how Malaysia has achieved with the 1Malaysia spirit. Speaking about Media Prima, one of Media Prima's personalities who appears on 8TV, Baki Zainal, a Malay, can speak fluently in Mandarin and interacts well with people of different races. He can speak fluently in the language because he had experienced studying at a Chinese school in Johor Bahru. You can see him in "Step Forward" and other local programmes in Chinese produced by Primeworks for 8TV. Adibah Noor also speaks Mandarin fluently in a commercial for Libresse, a sanitary pad brand. You can see her commercial on Youtube.

This morning, there will be a national day parade at Dataran Merdeka. My school has sent 100 students for a choral speaking performance in Malay for the parade. My Perdagangan teacher in my class is assisting the students for the performance. They have been practicing this for a month. Choral speaking in Malay, which is called "bicara berirama" is a whole new thing for the Malay language, influenced from the English choral speaking which was started many years ago. I'm not sure whether "choral speaking" is a really unique Malaysian thing because I haven't seen any historical information about this. 

Tonight there will be a national day gathering at Stadium Nasional Bukit Jalil. It reminds me of a similar thing, which is the national day rally in Singapore. It is named "Himpunan Janji Ditepati". The event will use Twitter as its social media tool. The national day gathering will set the world record of having one million tweets with messages of independence hashtaged #Merdeka55 between 8:15 and 9:15 pm. I'm sure this event will make my country proud!

In the past, national day songs were mostly made by RTM, but nowadays, we can see national day songs and patriotic songs made by Limkokwing and others.  For example, "Kita 1Malaysia" which is sung by Limkokwing students.

Before concluding this blogpost, I would like to express my feelings about my country. I am proud to be a Malaysian because I can interact with people of different races and experience other people's culture. Learning the history of my country has helped me to realise that the people in the past have struggled to make our country free from the colonials. I can feel the uniqueness of my country because my country has the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as the head of the government selected from the nine sultans of Malay states and the cusine of different cultures such as roti canai and char kuay teow. I can also feel the peace of my country because my country is stable.

More blogposts soon!

Thursday 30 August 2012

Communication has changed a lot

I'm blogging at the moment just minutes before the stroke of midnight. Tomorrow will be the 55th anniversary of independence in Malaysia. It will also be the 15th anniversary of TV3 started doing 24-hour broadcasting in 1997.

For me, my mindset has changed a lot since my 18th birthday. I started to think more like how adults do. I've started to realise that the world has changed a lot, especially for the type of communication that we use. I didn't really know a lot and use many of the communication devices except for telephone and the internet. I began to compare how people did 10 years ago and 10 years later, that is, 2002 and 2012 respectively, in my opinion.

What I think the things that have changed the most are mobile phones. 10 years ago, the Nokia-branded ones are popular. The screens are not in colour and have only three screen colours, green, light yellow and black. Mobile phones have contributed to the start of SMS services where users can send messages by using short-formed words. Users can compose ringtones on their mobile phone by referring to magazines where they list out popular songs of the time. 10 years later, mobile phone users later use more state-of-the-art touch screen mobile phones. They are called smart phones. Many smart phones are sold nowadays, such as Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and HTC. Smart phones have many useful apps that we can purchase from app stores.

10 years ago, people can exchange their messages of people far away with e-mails. Sending letters was still relevant for those who do not have internet access. 10 years later, people connect each other with Facebook and Twitter.

Blogging is still relevant too, even after 10 years because of rapid development of blogging. There are many more people who start to blog about things happening around them. Bloggers can also integrate with social media sites.

In conclusion, the many communication devices helped people to express their feelings. I need to know more about these things to avoid being left out. I don't want to miss anything about it.

To conclude this blogpost, I would like to say Selamat Hari Merdeka ke-55. 

More blogposts sooon!





"Saranghae" - Korean movie slot on TV9

While TV Alhijrah has a special timeslot for foreign movies every Sunday at 9:00 pm (I'll check the TV guide to see whether the timeslot has changed), TV9 has a new movie slot which is called "Saranghae", a movie timeslot dedicated for Korean movies. The movie timeslot targets K-POP or Korean movie lovers. The movies are aired in Korean with Malay subtitles. This is the first time TV9 has aired Korean content programmes, although they had aired foreign content such as from Japan (anime dubbed in Malay) and American (subtitled in Malay).

The first movie aired in the timeslot is "Lost and Found" on August 26. The next movie scheduled to be broadcast is "My Boyfriend is Type B" on September 2.

Korean content programmes are already common in Malaysia since the start of the Korean drama wave with Winter Sonata on TV3 in August 2002. Korean content has been aired on some free-to-air channels such as NTV7 (re-ran old Korean dramas in Korean, subtitled in Malay), 8TV (Korean dramas are dubbed in Mandarin with Malay subtitles, also airs a variety show called "Let's Go! Dream Team" with Chinese and Malay subtitles), TV2 and pay TV channels such as Astro Citra, Animax (at one time in 2010), KBS World, SET One and TVN Asia.

PS: I've almost forgot that I've seen similarities between TV9's "Saranghae" and 8TV and One FM's "Sarang K-POP"! The Sarang K-POP branding started a bit earlier before Saranghae! 
 

Sunday 26 August 2012

Birthday greetings from my Twitter friends

On August 23 I received some birthday greetings from my Japanese twitter friends. The first two are replying to my tweet.

1. from @PAT_I_SUMER in English

2. from @yoneemon, with the rest of the message in Japanese. He says, "today is brand new day, I wish that you have a big happy moment".

3. from @cherry_drops123 with a Perman-themed greeting card drawn by herself!


Thanks to everyone who sent my birthday greetings to me!

(Revised on August 30)

Perman goods that I saw in real life

I don't have any Perman goods as at the time of writing this blogposts, however I saw a couple of Perman goods in my country. I don't think there are many Perman goods in my country.

The first time I saw a Perman-related goods was when I saw a man wearing a Perman-themed T-shirt (with the drawing in the below picture) at the Himpunan Jutaan Belia 2012 in Putrajaya in May. The man wears the T-shirt with yellow background. In July I found this fashion website from Thailand where they sell this but the background colour is different which is green.

The second one was a Perman-themed action figure released in 2011 by SH Figurarts and Bandai in Japan. I've seen some of this on the internet but this is the first time I saw this in real life. It is kept at Fantasy Toys store, located at Low Yat Plaza at Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. Low Yat Plaza is a shopping mall where many IT related goods are sold.


The following links below are about the pictures that I saw in the internet (Flickr) regarding about the action figure:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eddiewong/5944165476/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eddiewong/5944163132/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eddiewong/5944159278/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparebutton/5878585799/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51940189@N04/6633752253/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peco_occ/5767925300/

Improvements in my blog

My blog website has changed many times. When I started my blog in March 2012, it looks like this:


If you see at the main page of my blog, you will see that I've made some changes (as of August 2012), five months after the picture above. I added a "labels" section to organize which subject I'm talking about in my posts. This was inspired from how Japanese bloggers especially @ootayasuko in her blog "Parmania no hibi" who organizes their blogposts using "categories". I've also added a section on my Twitter tweets located below the "labels" section. The last section after "My past blogpost" and "about  me" is the "total pageviews" section where the number viewing hits on my blog are counted.

I've also embeded some social media links to my blogposts to accompany what subject I'm talking about. The blogpost that I've made yesterday which is "Really interesting Raya commercials!" uses Youtube embeded links. This is my first time I'm experimenting the use of embeded links. I'll try using this technology for my future blogposts. 

(Revised on August 30)

Saturday 25 August 2012

A review of Danny Choo's "Culture Japan"

This morning I had the opportunity to watch the Culture Japan Season 1 TV series airing on 8TV every Saturday between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm. It is aired in double back-to-back episodes. The episodes are separated with a break in-between. The original broadcaster is Tokyo MX. The presenter of the programme is Danny Choo, a young Chinese Malaysian who lives in Japan. He is the son of Jimmy Choo, a famous shoe designer who is based in London. That's why he has a British accent when he speaks in English while I was watching the programme. He has his own blog called "Culture Japan" and designed his own anime character called Mirai Suenaga for Mirai Millenium. 

The programme starts off with an animated intro of Mirai walking around futuristic Tokyo. The outro encourages us to learn Japanese words by looking at the first hiragana character of each word. Danny also reminded to buy Mirai-themed karuta cards like those in the outro. Throughout the programme, Danny is accompanied by another person, usually a Japanese. Sometimes, an animated Mirai comes in to explain detalis of where Danny is going in Japanese. Unlike other documentaries, Culture Japan in my opinion targets teenagers and youths who have an interest in Japan, especially me. The programme is informal in nature.

The episode I first saw was Danny and her Japanese friend visting Edo Wonderland. Another episode that I saw later was a short interview in his studio with Sekai no Yumi, another Japanese at the start and the end of the episode. She speaks English in this episode. The episode also brings us to an animated studio called J.C. Staff. Danny was there with his Canon camera and met with the manager of the studio. The interesting part of the episode was the rushing room. The director had no idea where the name came out, but the room was used for editing the final product to video tape. They have to check the CRT monitor because the colour that came out from the monitor differs from the main monitor.

I wish I can watch more episodes of Danny Choo soon.  

You can visit his blog at http://www.dannychoo.com/.

Really interesting Hari Raya commercials!

This week, I've seen some Hari Raya Aidilfitri commercials on local TV.

Not all commercials I've seen are good, many of them are cliches, reusing the same Hari Raya songs, same Hari Raya feeling, especially for public service announcements. This may because of the lack of directors who can do such commercials like how the late Yasmin Ahmad did with her festive Petronas commercials. But I think several ones that I saw are interesting and creative. And they're also available on Youtube for those who want watch on the internet or going overseas. That's why I decided to add links to these videos to accompany the commercials that I'm talking about.

The first one is one of the commercials by TV3 for Hari Raya. This commercial is part of TV3's Hari Raya branding which is called "Terbaik Raya" where characters from local 3D action animated series Boboiboy come in. Yaya from Boboiboy reminds viewers to lock your doors when leaving for "balik kampung". Before going out, Yaya met Ling and reminded the same. When Yaya's family are on the highway, Ling calls her every time and keep reminding that Yaya's house is safe. What a creative way to make a commercial!


The second one is a commercial by Maxis. The commercial uses shots of people celebrating Hari Raya from different places in Malaysia including one from Melbourne, Australia. Their lips are synched to a cover of "Suasana Hari Raya" by Anuar Zain accompanied by a woman called Atilia, a voice talent who had also made a theme song for Radio 24, Bernama's radio station during its launch in September 2007. This also interestingly includes a shot of people from Bukit Jalil (in Astro's headquarters, because Maxis owns Astro) with a rather fake Hari Raya-themed news set in the studio designed for the commercial! Here is the full version uploaded to Youtube.

The third one is rather interesting. TM uses social media elements for this commercial. These teenagers use Facebook to convey their feelings about Hari Raya while they're talking about Asri who furthers their education in Australia and worried about his life there. The background music is from a song by Sheila Majid with a 1980's feel that I've never heard, maybe. At the end, viewers are reminded to choose the definite ending for the commercial by visiting http://www.everyoneconnects.net. Reminds me of how Bunkface (an indie band) made a song called "Through My Window" for TM's social media campaign called "Everyone Connects" with the collaboration of social media users and made a flash mob of the song near Pavilion Kuala Lumpur which was later shown on a TV commercial. That was in 2009.


The last one is by PNB (Permodalan Nasional Berhad). Rather unique because not many commercials are shot in remote places far away from Peninsular Malaysia and other races are rarely shown. This commercial was shot in Ba'kelalan, Sarawak. This commercial is about Mail who is a Bumiputra Muslim who wore a red baju melayu and a Bumiputra non-Muslim boy named Agan who lives in the deep jungle. They are good friends. He wants to give his Hari Raya feeling to Mail because he was always suffering from going to school and doing work very often. The last part is also interesting where Agan's father showed off many of the PNB account books.



More blogposts soon!

PS: I've just updated this blogpost by going to the HTML section where I embeded Youtube links. I've also edited some sentences in this blogpost. I'm planning to make a blogpost about social media later.

Correction on August 30: The late film director that I mentioned was Yasmin Ahmad, not Yasmin Yusuf as I thought. Also made some corrections about the TM commercial. Sincere apologies.



Thursday 23 August 2012

Photo blogpost (August 2012)

This blogpost and the further ones that have pictures and descriptions only will be named "Photo blogposts". These will include pictures taken by myself on my Panasonic Lumix camera or on some occasions, other cameras.


The first picture below is the school that I went in early 2005. It's called SK Taman Bunga Raya. I went there to take photos by myself while being guided by my father who is waiting in the car. I only took pictures outside the school compound. I went there while my family driving around Bukit Beruntung, Rawang on August 20, the second day of Hari Raya. Heavy rainfall occur sometime after I took pictures and the sky went cloudy throughout the afternoon.


This is the AEON Rawang Anggun shopping centre that I went sometime after we drive along Bukit Beruntung. It was new when I took this picture.


This is the Giant supermarket which was formerly Bintang supermarket in Rawang where Bintang supermarket no longer exists today. Bintang moved to this building in 2003. Before this, Bintang supermarket operated at the nearby shoplots.


The last one below is rather interesting - Telekom Malaysia announces in this bill letter that they are going to have three service numbers in 2005. 101 for domestic services, 103 for directory services and 100 for TM's other services. Before that, TM customers will need to dial 1050 for TM's telephony services. Another thing, TM uses 1051 for its speaking clock service where a woman announces time every 15 seconds. I found this in my grandma's house in Bukit Sentosa, Rawang.

PS: I've just received a birthday card from @cherry_drops_123 after I write this blogpost!

(This post title was changed on 13.7.2013 because there were no further continuations after this post was published)

I'm turning 18!

Good morning! Today I'm turning 18 and reaching adulthood! I'm feeling unusual today because my birthday occurs just around the Hari Raya celebrations! Speaking about adulthood, 18 is the legal age for me in Malaysia as an adult and also for most countries in the world. The legal age for being an adult for South Korea is 19 while for Japan is 20.

But I still need to go to school because I started studying at secondary school late at the age of 14 and I need to do my Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examinations next year! Speaking about school, I'm currently studying optional subjects such as Tasawwur Islam (in-depth study of Islam), Information Communication and Technology, Perdagangan (Commerce studies) beside the mandatory subjects such as Mathematics and Sejarah (History). Next year I will be busy with school. I will need to do assignments for the subjects that I took, revisions for the exam and do the SPM examinations in November. After the period I will no longer be at school. I will get the SPM results by March 2014. I will be 19 during that time.

After I get my SPM results, I would like to go for a course on Information Technology at any university because I'm more interested in knowing more about the world of Information Technology. That's what I want to do in the future.

More blogposts soon!

Monday 20 August 2012

My illustration for Hari Raya

Today is the second day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri. I'm doing this blogpost from my grandparents house at Bukit Sentosa, Rawang, Selangor. Two days before Hari Raya, I've decided to change my Twitter icon as it will be the Hari Raya celebrations and I'm turning 18 on August 23. So I made this illustration at my home in Kuala Lumpur. I've coloured them as well using colour pencils.

This is the illustration that I've made. The people inside this illustration are Mitsuo and Sumire, the characters in Perman. I've drawn them wearing Malay clothing, that is, baju melayu and baju kurung. Just fit for the Hari Raya celebrations. In fact, they're actually Japanese while they wearing the clothes.

I've drawn Mitsuo's hair just like how Kaos-san had done where Kaos-san had drawn his hair a bit longer at the back of his head. This is Kaos-san's impression of how Mitsuo would look like when he is a teenager.  Kaos-san draws illustrations for a fan fiction novel series based on Perman which is "Perman Parody World". It is written by @cherry_drops_123 in Japanese and posted on her blog. No changes for Sumire but I forgot to colour her hair clip. I've coloured her mouth red.

To add the finishing touches of my illustration, I've add some common things that are seen during Hari Raya such as lemang and ketupat foldings.

More blogposts soon!

Friday 17 August 2012

Animes that I have watched as far as I can remember

This is the continuation of the earlier blogpost that I've made in June. (not the animes authored by Fujiko F. Fujio and Fujiko Fujio A). I've managed to list out animes that I've watched as far as I can remember.

1. Hatsumei Boy Kanipan
I was about 7 or 8 years old when I watched this. It was aired on TV3 on a weekend morning. What I can only remember is the protagonists in the anime are a boy and his own egg-shaped robot. The anime's story setting was in a distant future in a city. He shows off his invention to people in a gathering in a hall, as seen in each episode. The people in a gathering evaluated his inventions. At the end of most of the episodes, the people in the hall disagree on his inventions because of many factors, although in one episode the people in the hall agree on his invention which appeared in the episode. This is the main factor which causes me to remember this anime.

2. Cho Hatsumei Boy Kanipan
Continuation of Hatsumei Boy Kanipan. The protagonists are the same as mentioned in the earlier paragraph, but the boy in this anime has become a teenager. He also lives in space.

3. Digimon Season 1, 2 and 3
This anime series was my favourite when I was a child. The first season of Digimon consists of seven children, each of them with their own digital monsters. The second season is a continuation of the earlier season with new characters but the seven children in the first season of Digimon have grown up. The new characters along with the characters from the first season often collaborate together in later episodes. I also like the music, especially the songs in the anime series.

The third season is different than the first two seasons. It has three new characters who are separate from the first two season and a totally different story arc. This would go on for later seasons that I'm not looking forward to.

4. Mirmo Zibang

5. Crayon Shin Chan
The anime introduces me to the real life town of Kasukabe in Saitama prefecture, the town where this anime is set and also the birthplace of the author of this anime and Akita in the northwestern part of Japan, the place where Shin Chan's grandparents live.

Many changes were made in the anime series. Shin Chan's sister Himawari was born and their house was destroyed by a storm that causes the Nohara family to move to a two-storey apartment until a new house was constructed.

6. Atashinchi
This anime is about the daily life of the Tachibana family. The interesting part in this anime series is there are some episodes that concentrate only on a certain family member's life with his or her friends, which is, episodes that have only either Mrs. Tachibana, Mikan or Yuzuhiko. My favourite characters in the anime are Mikan and Yuzuhiko.

7. Fukuchan
This is the anime that I really loved, like Digimon that I mentioned earlier. I started watching this in late 2009 until Astro Ceria stopped broadcasting this. The protagonist is a young, active-looking 5-year-old boy who wears a school cap, a blue shirt and a white apron. He has his friends such as Kumichan and Kiyochan. Some episodes that I like are about Japanese culture like the Bon Festival, Children's Day celebrated on May 5 with fish carps, a minor New Year celebration on January 15 and Tanabata.

8. Nonochan
 (I have a review about this anime after I watched that while my mind was still fresh about the anime)

9. My Three Daughters (Uchi no 3 shimai)
Watched a few episodes of the anime.

10. Black Jack (the 2003 series)
Based on a manga by Osamu Tezuka. The characters in the anime are Black Jack and Pinoko, his child sized wife!

11. Spooky Kitaro

12. Hagemaru

Updated on 20.8.2012 at Bukit Sentosa, Rawang, Selangor

Wednesday 15 August 2012

"100 years before the birth of Doraemon" exhibition in Hong Kong

http://blog.yahoo.com/100doraemon/articles/643503

The website above is the link a blog about 100 years before the birth of Doraemon exhibition in Harbour City, Hong Kong which is going to be held for a month between August 14 and September 16. The exhibition is much bigger than what I saw in the Doraemon World fair in Arena of Stars, Genting Highlands in February.

Parts of the exhibition include one with a mobile phone can scan the QR code at any of the exhibits in the exhibition to get something, a group of many Doraemon statues where each of them carry their own Doraemon instruments from their pockets and a cafe serving Doraemon-themed tiramisu and other kinds of foods and beverages!