The Profile Pics

The rainy season in Jkt is affecting all our daily activities. Roads are flooded, go anywhere also huge jam. Internet is always down if there's a storm. Making every single blog post is a real challenge in this country.
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If you've read the story of how we got together as a couple, we got close to each other while chatting on msn almost everyday. While chatting on msn, we only see of each other from the profile pic that we put up, obviously the profile pics that we used had a part in the attraction that we finally have for each other.

These are the pics we used on msn which finally got us together, we'll match them up and give points on whose profile pic looked nicer:

                                                                     Dave Vs Nez:

This was the 1st MSN pic we were using when we just knew each other and started chatting on the old msn.
Agnes says Dave looks cool with the shades, but actually it's someones glasses that I borrowed and there was a girl next to me that I cropped out.
Agnes here almost look like Gollum (The 'My precious' thingy from LOTR) except with hair.

Score: Dave +1

Dave trying to look cool, but Agnes say look like the Alien Workshop logo. Agnes with her bestie somewhere in Japan.

Score:  Agnes +1 for the nice background

Dave photo shopped a self photo into Santa for the year's Xmas holidays. While Agnes was vacationing in Bali. Goggles almost cover the entire face, can't even see the swim suit.

Score: Dave +1 for having a great Xmas mood.

These ones we used when we were already together
Dave posing with the pervert smile. Agnes looking hot.

Score: Agnes +1

The score tally: Dave 2 points, Agnes 2 points. Man and wife should be treated as equal so no biases here.

Morale of the story is: If you want to hitch up with someone on the Internet, your profile pic will definitely effect the outcome. If you put an ugly pic then people see also don't want to see. If you never put on your profile pic, people will think that you have no confidence in your own looks, will assume that you're most probably fugly. So according to experience always use the best looking picture you have to get as many fans as possible, lol.
This is a really pointless post :p

Just to make things clear, the photo that I'm currently using for my Blackberry Messenger is not part of our prewed photo shoot. It's taken at the Lunar Bar, Clarke Quay and that's not Agnes' a$$ so please don't mistake that as her.

The Casual Technical Meeting

We had our first non-formal technical meeting on Thursday 14th October.
The aim of the technical meeting is to get to know the Wedding Organisers and the MC.

Left to right: WO Lydia and Irene, MC Harlan, Auditioning MC and her husband, Dave and Agnes

We met to discuss the wedding schedule and the layout of the whole event. Discussed with the Male English MC Harlan on the method of presentation to fit into our wedding theme. His English is good and he has a sense of humor, clicked right on the spot.

We also met up with a candidate for the Chinese speaking female MC.
Had her auditioned. The judges were: Agnes, David, Harlan and Irene.

She had to make a presentation in Mandarin. Then we needed her to speak Mandarin with the Northern Chinese Accent, and she also had to pass the test of speaking in Mandarin with Singlish. Not easy I tell you.

Plus we had to see how she looks like in a dress, must at least be on par with one of the Miss Indonesia candidates.

The results: let's just say that the position for the Female Host is still available.

Side Note: We thought of using TV presenters for the hosts, but then on second thoughts later no one pay attention to the bride and groom, so we discarded the idea.

The Wedding Dance: Tango

Most couples if they decide to dance on their wedding day, would choose to do a slow dance or maybe waltz. For us we needed a bit more of a challenge, we're gonna do a Tango.
Ever since Agnes insisted on dancing on her wedding day to show off all the dance moves she's learned from young, I decided ok, lets go all out and do a really cool dance to wow the audience, not the simple 1,2,3 steps make a triangle that type of slow dance.

The first dance that came into my mind was was the ending scene of True Lies. Where Arnie (now the governator) and Jamie Lee Curtis (playing the boring bespectacled housewife) took centre stage of the dance floor and danced to Carlos Gardel's arrangement of Pur Una Cabeza. This scene was etched into my memory since childhood and I considered it to be my favourite dance I saw on TV (Arnie was my fave action star by the way), the whole dance felt sexy yet elegant.

Showed the youtube clip of the whole dance to Agnes dance instructor, and we're gonna do dance practices until we can emulate the whole routine. It's been two lessons now, it's not as easy as it seems and let's just say that we really do need more practice, lol.

Watch the video of the dance:


The dialogue isn't in English but it's the one with the best picture and sound quality on youtube.

So what do you say, do you guys think we can pull this off?

The Storm

Woah..the weather these few days in Jakarta is pretty terrible, its usually hot as hell in the morning then in the evening there's usually a heavy downpour.
When it rains in my work area, Parung (In Bogor), most of the time it is a storm. Just last week lightning struck the telephone line, the surge went through the phone line through the ADSL modem into the PC and surged the monitor. I was uploading a few pictures in my spare (work) time and then, boom accompanied with a flash of light and the LCD monitor was in smoke (really can smell the burn and see the smoke). T_T
I had to use a backup 15 inch CRT monitor while the LCD one is in repair. I didn't know how I survived with CRT monitors before but the round screen and the glare, is making me go blind! ahh my poor eyes!!

Just yesterday the storm felt like a real thunderstorm. I can understand thunderstorms happening in countries like Hong Kong or Taiwan, but in Jakarta, this is the first time I saw roof tops being blown away.
The wind huffed and puffed (like the big bad wolf) and blew off the roof tiles of my office T_T
And there I was singing 'Raindrops falling on my head"

There isn't much left of the worker's parking lot

The roof tile fell 5cm away from the car, thanks God, anything but the car

Water coming thru the ceiling, the ceiling was coming down as well

The office looked like the Titanic when it wrecked

I was in the office staring at the wind, you know when wind blows heavily it seems to take a shape, I was like cooool. While the workers were huddled together and praying for dear life, lol.

Will undergo repairs when the weather starts to get sunny, in the meantime while its still raining its buckets everywhere.

When I got home, surprise surprise my room which has just been renovated is spotting a leak as well. Double face palm! Indonesian construction workers never seem to get anything done right the first time, you have to make one complain, then they come and do the repairs, then the repairs still not right you make another complain threaten not to pay them then they can finally put their effort into making it right.
I'll have to make sure that there will be no more leaks before we get married. If not how to make babies when the bedroom is flooded with rain water T_T

The Physicals: Agnes' Dance Practice

In anticipation to the wedding, Dave is going to the gym 3 times a week, while Agnes having completed her 10 gym sessions with a private trainer is now being forced to take up dancing again with her Dance Instructor, Taufik.
She bo pian (no choice) kena paksa (forced) to take up some physical activiy in the midst of all the wedding preparations because her backside is starting to sag, to keep fit.

Agnes and the dance instructor, Taufik

She kena complain move like worm

Doing a salsa

Watch the video of the dance practice, have to admit that she dances quite well.



Check out the ending move on this one:



Cool ah, next time if she naughty I leave her upside down like that also.

The Wedding Checklist (100 Days to go)

100 days left to go till the wedding as shown on the countdown.

The Wedding Checklist:

1.   Venue of Wedding (Settled)
2.   Wedding Decorations (Layout has been finalised)
3.   The wedding schedule (Still at draft, yet to be finalised)
4.   The music (Got most of the songs we want, leave it to the music team for the arrangement)
5.   The food (Need to go food testing)
6.   The Wedding Clothes (Still in design phase)
7.   The Dance team (Not yet confirmed)
8.   The performances (Still need to go for practice)
9.   The Hosts (Got the male host, still in search of a female host with the following criteria:
       Must look like TV show presenter, must look good in a dress, must be able to speak fluent Mandarin)
10. The Wedding Video (Finished Shooting, left editing and compiling)
11. Prewedding Pictures (The photography team should be done with it by this month)
12. The brides makeup (Booked)
13. Preacher for Holy Matrimony (We have someone but we need to pass Wedding Counselling Sessions with him 1st)
14. The guest list (not yet done)
15. The ushers and receptionist (already appointed)

Don't feel like want to write anymore ready, see all haven't done can cry.
The amount of planning put into the wedding can organise a National Day Parade already.

The Invitation: Logo (Trophy) Design

For our invitation cards, we will be working with Annie and Sunny from Cleon & Irish.
In the process of designing our invitation, we wanted to have a logo of a trophy on the cover. The trophy is to be a silhoute of a dancing couple to fit the theme of our wedding (Still under wraps at the moment).
The process of designing the logo is as follows:

1. It started with a random picture of dancing couple that has been obtained somewhere.

2. We decided to change it with a picture of us in a dance pose, to make it feel more personal.

3. Our picture is then silhouetted, the last thing we want is for people to throw our pictures away after the wedding is done, so we just used the outline from our photo.

4. The silhouetted picture is designed into a picture of a trophy.

This trophy design will be used and printed on the cover and the important pages of our wedding invitation.

The Video Shoot: Editing Phase

Having wrapped up shooting for our video Entitled: My Wife is Powerful. It's in the editing and compilation phase, where the Ian Photography team will put together all our shoots and make it into a 4-5 minute video.

An example of what the cover shot for the video will look like:

'Jet Lee' teams up with 'Michelle Yeo'

If you're wondering how we're the same height, heres the same photo taken from further away.

To catch the full video, you will have to come to our wedding on 29th January 2011, where it will be aired on stage. See you there.

Note: For those who can't make it to the wedding, I'll post the video on youtube after the wedding, so you all can view it too!

The Video Shoot: Bound & Bruised

I know there's quite a few people who'd love to see me get beaten up, lol. Here's one for fan service.
This is our take on the scene where I'm bound to a chair and getting beaten up.
Laugh your heart out.

Note: If you're wondering why I'm beaten up like this, read up the comic for the story line of the video we're making.

All beaten up

 To achieve the look, Irene from Ian Photography had to add some of her special touches:

Start off looking like Thai Akua (Transvestite) 

The panda eye

Still not bad enough

Adding in more 'bruises'

Don't try this at home, it won't make you look good 

Almost there

The finishing touches

On the set

The 3 Baddies (Don't know whose car that is on the background) 

oh...oh...I think I'm in trouble. 

Looks like a real punch 

Behind the scenes

 Yeah, they're having fun alright.

Looking like this at the end of the day

The Video Shoot: Harass Scene

Here's the 1st scene of our video Entitled: My Wife is Powerful!
In this scene, Agnes who is alone is harassed by a perv (Andrew) and his buddies.
David comes along to help the damsel in distress and they run away from the gang who starts to give chase.

Andrew: Eh Leng Mui spotted!

Andrew: Come2 lets go make fren wif her

Agnes tries to push Andrew away, David comes to the rescue

Dave: Run!! Andrew: Don't run!!

The Video Shoot: Kidnap Scene

It was bright and sunny, a perfect day to be Kidnapped!

The Getaway Car

The victim unaware of what's going to happen

Out comes the kidnappers

Grabs the victim

Straight in to the car

An efficient kidnapping doesn't take more than 5 minutes

The Video Shoot: Ending Scene

The ending scene we shot in Grand Harbour Hotel's top floor lounge, which is a cozy place with live piano performance.

Dave: Let me smell if you washed your hand clean

Dave: Yeah ok, its clean enough

Dave: I'm gonna check your breath now

In this scene, we were actually so tired already from 3 days of photo and video shoot. So I just grabbed Agnes' hand and wiped off all the oil from my nose with it :p

The Video Shoot: Chase Scene

We started the video shoot in Hong Kong for the chase scene. We shot in Causeway bay, which is the key locations of the Hung Hing vs Tung Sing Society fights in the Young & Dangerous movies.

Initially, we wanted to request a few 'Hongky' passerby to act as the gang chasing after us, however there were more women in the shoot location than men, mainly because its a shopping district. The few groups of men that passed by refused to take part in the video, they'd rather stand and watch instead -_-
We had a lot of fun running through the busy streets while the locals stared at us wondering what type of low budget movie we're filming.

Dave: Run, Decepticons are after us!

Agnes: OK, I'm running like Megan Fox!

Panting: When will those gangster give up?!

Hang on director, we need a break...