Ever since the end of AF3, the franchise has basically been under my radar, not helped by some forgettable performances by the so-called champions of the top reality show of the nation, one mosquito-slapping throughout the entire performance and the other’s vocal control getting worse and worse as the song went on.

But since last night’s theme was rock, my favourite genre, I thought I’d break a record of sorts and sit through the entire 90 minutes.

It was surprisingly worth it, as I was treated to two extremes: one whose performance could be the worst ever dished out by an AF student, a tone deaf monstrosity. Perhaps one could even say it’s a drug rehab type of performance. Is it any coincidence that his name is very similar to the name of AF4’s champion? This is not to say that anybody bearing that name can’t sing, as very well proven by the champion of OIAM in 2006.

And the other one is of course Mama Rina’s cover of Metallica’s magnum opus, Enter Sandman. It was not a perfect performance, but still it was so good that it brought the house down, and definitely made me dig up Metallica’s black album right after, and brought back memories of 17th August, 1991 when, a mere 5 days after the release of the black album, I saw Metallica in front of my eyes performing that song.

As for Mama Rina, how I wish she performed the real version and not the truncated 2:30 version, but I’m sure that ditty is going to be her signature song once AF6 ends.

In conclusion, at last a performance that restored, if only a little bit, my faith in AF.

Being a music fan, perhaps more seriously than most, one of the reasons I like going back to my house in a “kampung” in the district of Tuaran is that high quality, live, loud rock music is occasionally played in the living room.

A circle of friends is made up of serious rock musicians. And not the bad types at all. Their group Papier Mache’s main chilling out station is this place. My brother is the bass player, backing vocalist (can do a mean lead vocalist too), homestudio audio engineer and songwriter.

No need to go to a nightclub, here at “Firehouse Music and Recreation Club” one of the mottos is “Always Table Number One”.

Like this one time back in February, when, amongst others, they performed Maroon 5’s This Love.

Click here to see the video

Time sure flies so fast. It seemed only a short while ago that we went through our compliance audit. In fact it had been about 13 months.

So my time-management skills were stretched to the limit. Having been made the head of the new data centre effective February, there are many things that need urgent attention, but at the same time I also had to play my role as head of the internal audit team which is one of the critical elements of a successful quality program. I would never have been able to do both without the support of great teams in each camp. Thanks, teammates!

SIRIM QAS’ 2-day (yearly) surveillance audit of our department ended today. I think after the closing meeting, everybody could heave a collective sigh of relief: we did enough to maintain our MS ISO 9001:2000 certification.

Congratulations to all involved.

I expected a few minor nonconformances (NCs) and a bundle of opportunities for improvement (OFI) suggestions, and that’s what exactly happened. As is usually the case with surveillance audits, the scope was not as comprehensive as last years’ audit. The experience we had last year definitely helped, we were somewhat more prepared, at least mentally, this year.

I am also grateful to the auditors for allowing myself and another colleague to be in the interview room to observe how they conduct the audit. You can be sure I was furiously taking notes on my laptop.

Looking towards the future, the 2nd surveillance audit will take place a year from now, and the recertification audit the year after that. That last audit I expect to be a very tough one. But who knows, the audit team might be different that time…