Pesky Kids / Para-no more

I'm going to talk about two things in one post this time, so that I don't have to make two posts, it's better this way.

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Yesterday morning, I was at my favourite restaurant having my breakfast. Near my table was a large family of six, which included two kids and one servant. The younger kid, a little girl who was about three years old, had an empty plate in front of her and a pair of eating fork and spoon. She used the fork and spoon like they were drumsticks and started hammering away on the plate. (I've seen this before actually, kids being given cutlery and then they start misusing them) After a while, the servant took the plate away from the girl, which subsequently made the girl dump the cutlery violently on the floor. Her parents put everything right back in front of her and told her to be quiet.

But of course, like all kids her age, that is NOT going to work. She went back at it again, hammering away like she was Phil Collins on crack. So this time they took the cutlery out of her hands, and she promptly took the plate and dumped it violently on the floor. And yes, that got everyone's attention, including the 20 other people there trying to eat. So they took everything away from her. The she started to cry. Loudly.

And this is where I thought "Oh, this is actually an improvement, because now she's making noise for not getting what she wants, instead of making noise because she got what she wanted." And for every moment she spent bawling her lungs out, I was celebrating inside, even though I hate it when kids do that.

I know this girl can't understand me right now, but I got this to say to you: I don't care if you think you're the next Zac Farro, Tre Cool or Rob Bourdon. You suck at drumming, and if you were my kid, you'd never leave the house again.

But I don't blame her, not really. I blame her stupid parents. Newsflash to you parents: if you have a kid below two, take them out by all means. They'd probably spend it sitting in their pram drinking their milk, or sleeping the whole time. But if your child is above two and not old enough to feed themselves, please for the love of God, keep them at home. Hire a babysitter, get your in-laws or a trustworthy friend to watch over them, just don't take them out. Don't you get it yet??? They don't know any better. They'll just do what they like, and they won't listen to you because they don't care. Why would you take them to places like the shopping mall, or the restaurant, or the cinema? Why? Especially the cinema. You think they'd actually fathom what they see on screen? I challenge you to prove that! You wanna shop for them? You can do it without them. You wanna feed them? Do it at home. Don't take them out. Please.

Later that afternoon, I saw this woman holding her crying son in one hand, and her cellphone in the other. He was crying because she wouldn't give him the phone, and he kept reaching for it. He cried over and over and over, but she refused to budge. Deep down I kept thinking "Yeah, you go girl. Don't give it to him. Let him cry till he's out of breath. Better that than him dropping the phone and you gotta get a new one." Yeah, I sound mean. But I don't want to abuse any kid, I just want them to shut up.

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Earlier this week I received news that Josh and Zac Farro decided to leave Paramore. That felt really surreal, since it was just two months ago that I saw them in action, live. And from the looks of it then, they never looked like they had any trouble within.

But I did remember Josh saying in an interview that he and Zac were tired of touring, so I thought maybe that was why. But then I dug up some dirt on the real reasons behind their departure. You can read them here: http://joshnfarro.blogspot.com/2010/12/josh-and-zacs-exit-statement.html

And well, it is rather shocking. To think that Paramore were always on the brink of splitting up because their formation was never smooth to begin with. I wonder now if Hayley is guilty of whatever Josh is accusing her of, or all this is just backstage politics that got out of hand. Either way, it's sad. It's sad because Paramore had plenty of potential. I didn't love them as much as M2M, but I still had hopes for them.

According to Hayley, she will go on with Jeremy and Taylor, but will it be the same without the Farros? Who knows. This shouldn't have happened, and now the fans will suffer. But I still wanna wish all five of them good luck, and hopefully things will work out better as time goes by.

Look Who's In Town

For those of you who have known me since the existence of the M2M online community, you'd know Silvia Violante, or Silvy as we all call her. She was in KL for the past three days, and we had an opportunity to meet up today.

The first few things that I can tell you about her after meeting her in person are:
- she has a pair of really pretty brown eyes
- she loves playing with her hair
- she loves talking, and she admitted it too :p

But the best thing about her is that she's cool with most things. As I took her around KL a bit today, we did a lot of walking. We were both tired, but she never complained. At one point, I wanted to pay for her train ticket, but she wouldn't let me.

As we spent time together, she spoke about a lot of things, like meeting Patty (another one of our friends) in Monterrey, her life in Australia for the past several months, her family, her hometown, the guy she's dating now and travelling. She's just amazing, in the sense that she's very down to earth and very easy to get along with.

So now officially, she is the third M2M friend I've met in person, and the first one from beyond my borders. ;) Thank you Silvy, for your generous time.

For Anouk

In 25 minutes, my dear friend Anouk will be celebrating her 22nd birthday.

I feel that out of all my friends, she is the most unique, and she cares about me more than I had realized. So Anouk, thank you for your kindness ;)

This song is for you. Happy Birthday!

Para-MORE!

I'm about 24 hours removed from one of the best concerts I've ever been to.

As some of you know, I attended Paramore's live concert yesterday, and the first word that comes to mind is 'Wow', and the second word is 'awesome'. I gotta hand it to Hayley and company, they sure know how to put on a great show.

The crowd was massive, even Hayley was impressed. She said that she didn't expect such a huge reception, and that the band should have come to KL a long time ago ;) Not only was the crowd huge, they were very loud and loving every single moment of the show.

I got to the stadium just before 7 p.m., and everyone was already lining up to get in. It took me 20 minutes just to get past the gate. Then after a toilet break, I took a seat. It wasn't the best seat, but it sufficed. About 7.30, the opening act started. A local band called Y2K (never heard of them) took the stage and did about 5 songs. They were okay though.

Then at 8.25 p.m., everyone saw three MPVs drive into the stadium grounds and the screaming began. The lights went out, a big curtain came down on stage, a light came on behind it, and we saw shadows of the band taking their places (the screaming got louder and louder, I swear I was going deaf haha). Finally the curtain came down, and Paramore began with Ignorance.

Embarrassingly I must admit I didn't know some of the songs they performed, but it didn't matter. Hayley was awesome, even when the crowd drowned out her vocals many times. They also belted out Emergency, That's What You Get, Crushcrushcrush, Playing God and Where The Lines Overlap.

After 30 minutes, Hayley and Josh decided to slow things down and do acoustic. They performed Never Let This Go. Then Hayley got this huge sofa in the middle of the stage (saying she stole it backstage :P) and performed a few more slow numbers. One of my favourite moments finally came when they did Decode ;) I almost thought they wouldn't do this song.

Then halfway through Pressure, Hayley did the introductions: first the keyboardist (couldn't get his name with all the noise), then Jeremy, then Taylor (Hayley calls him the Justin Timberlake of Paramore :P), then Zac and finally Josh. Josh takes the mic and introduces Hayley (though it wasn't necessary because at that moment, everyone was screaming her name).

The best part of the concert came when Hayley asked all of us to take out our cellphones or anything that lights up, and hold it in the air, and wave it. Then they did The Only Exception, and EVERYONE sang along. It was a surreal moment, and I loved it.

For the encore, the band performed Brick By Boring Brick, before ending with Misery Business. The latter song had Hayley getting a guy from the audience to come on stage, and she got the opening act earlier to dance with her as well. They shot confetti in the air as the song ended. I tried videoing this on my cellphone, but the sound was bad because the people around me screamed a lot. (Rhea, I think you know what I mean :P)

Overall it was a great show indeed. Hayley has great showmanship throughout. She was like this big ball of energy that never burns out. She just kept moving and jumping all over stage, clearly enjoying herself and getting us to do the same. A couple of times she laid back on the floor speakers on stage and got big reactions for that. She's just awesome, what can I say?

I did try taking some pictures, but my camera phone can only zoom for a distance, and the pics don't look great. I haven't uploaded any yet, so when I do, and if I find any good ones, you'll see them. Unfortunately, I wasn't on ground level, I was one floor up at a distance, so yeah, that sucks.

I do have a few complaints, none of them are related to Paramore of course. There were smokers (why in God's name would you smoke when the band is performing? Get lost!) around. There was this girl behind me that kept screaming 'We love you Paramore!' at the top of her lungs, and when I turned to her she would look embarrassed haha. And then there were people selling Paramore T-shirts outside, they cost RM90! It had to be imported, I think. I wanted them badly, but decided not to buy any. I think there were cheaper ones made locally, but missed them.


Thank you Paramore, for coming and being awesome.