Month: August 2008

Categories
J Pop Music Reviews

Anna Tsuchiya – Strip Me? Where Do You Draw the Lines?

I thought long and hard before buying the new album by a Russian/American/Japanese singer, model, and actress Anna Tsuchiya (土屋アンナ).  Exactly how do you draw the line between a good rock abum and a not so good vocalist (*ahem* I am looking at my band)?  Call it a Japanese album when 98% of the lyrics are in English?  A half Japanese who is not fluent in English but yet deliver an album not in Japanese? It’s hard to draw the lines.

One thing for sure though: She is hot!

“Strip Me?” is a rock album, no doubt.  And since I love the rock genre, I can overlook the vocal ability of Anna Tsuchiya.  Her opening track “Zero” does remind me of one of my favorite Japanese star Aikawa Nanase.  Where is Aikawa these days?  I have no idea.

Japanese artists these days like to cover English songs.  Mai Kuraki (倉木麻衣) does “Over the Rainbow”; BoA does “Last Christmas”; Yuna Ito does “My Heart Will Go On”; Mika Nakashima does “What A Wonderful World”.  They all stick to the original arrangement.  Mika Nakashima does create an offbeat version of  “My Way” that is not necessarily pleasing to the ears, but it’s fun to listen to.  And what about Anna Tsuchiya?

Some may say she (and her band) murders the song “True Colors”.  OK.  At first listen, you may not like it.  I thought the arrangement is pretty refreshing.  A lot noiser I suppose.  But she is a rock star, no?

I have been listening to the slow song “Forever” on repeat for many times.  It’s just Anna and the piano and the song is so, sad.  Below is the video clip for “Rose”.  Now come I am not surprised to find out that this song is related to the Nana amime series?  “Strip Me?” comes with a 15 tracks CD and a DVD of 4 songs – one of which is from her previous album I suppose.  OK, the song “Slap That Naughty Body” is so so but video is anything but.

Categories
My YouTube

1st Random Video Filmed During Band Practice

This is for you, my loyal readers, my undying fans.  Erm.  I hope nothing will change after this broadcast.

The fact is, for the past number of days, my mind has been spinning as though I was mind-plucking the invisible flower petals murmuring “I show you”, “I show you not”.  And.

I did show this video to some friends of mine.  To see what the reaction is like.  Thank you for your brutal honestly and your encouragement.  My favorite constructive feedback is to pump some irons.  That, I can gladly do.  And it is very doable too!  Results not guaranteed.

OK.  The choice is yours.  Wanna have a peep?

Categories
Linguistic My Hobbies

Hard Work Pays Off, Sort Off – And My Degree in Spanish Is Ingeniería y Ciencias Informáticas

I hope none of my colleagues at my office reads this.

Anyways.  I know I have been massively lagging behind in my Spanish class.  But I was inspired by Women’s 400m Butterfly.  Never mind trailing behind in the initial three laps.  It is how much burst energy you have in the last lap that counts.

This morning, I was determined to practice how to write the number 0 to 20 in Spanish.  Cynthia can memorize the spelling in two runs.  My first language is Chinese.  And I learn the language by memorizing the pattern of the character construct, not the sound of the word.  So, I am in for the brutal repetitive drilling exercise to get it.

This morning, I was summoned by my director at another office building.  To sit with him to go through something.  Before we even began, he was summoned by his boss for a brief meeting.  I could …

  1. Space out and look stupid.
  2. Feverishly texting my friends and look busy.
  3. Take over my director’s computer and Google the latest Olympic results.
  4. Or I could …

I opened my laptop, created an Excel spreadsheet that generated random numbers between 0 to 20, pasted these random numbers to a Word document, set the language to Spanish, and started to type the numbers in Spanish (see picture above).  The first set was slow.  By the time I reached the 100th number – I kid you not – I typed like a native.

From 0 to 20 that is.

My effort sort of paid off.  Anna, our Spanish teacher, asked me to write some Spanish on the white board.  Guess what I wrote?  OK.  You get the drift.

I like today’s lesson.  We all shared with each other what we studied and what our professions are.  Overloaded with Spanish words, certainly.  But it was fun not in a Bingo sense like the last lesson.  But getting to know some new friends that is.  There were four of us working in the banking industry!  Amazing.  Time to pass the CV around!

Now, why do the nouns ”˜office’, ‘restaurant’, and ‘factory’ take the feminine word form while ‘hospital’, ‘supermarket’, and ‘hotel’ take the masculine word form?  I still haven’t got the hang of it.  To further illustrate, a female architect is arquitecta.  A male architect is arquitecto.  When Anna taught us that a male lawyer in Spanish is abogado, I couldn’t help but screamed ‘avocado’ as a reflect action.  That got everyone laughing.

Oh well.  Baby steps.  I know I can do this!  ¡Adiós!

Categories
Travel Blog

Speed Touring Chennai Pt 2 – Pictures by the Sea (Mamallapuram)

If you recall, last month I shared with you the pictures from the city of Chennai.  Today, I wish to share wiith you the pictures I have taken during my visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Site – Mamallapuram.  Since last year, I have attempted to track all the World Heritage Sites I have visited.  And I certainly wish to visit as many as I can.

To view the picture collections, please click onto the links below.  I do enjoy visiting these historical sites.  Kind of make me ponder what would someone’s life be like hundreds of years ago.

Related Article: Speed Touring Chennai India

Categories
Music Journal My YouTube

Hella Good Is Hella Tough! Here Is Our Voodoo Mix

I did not wake up this morning and went, “Ah, I am going to make a video blog today”.  Our new drummer Wieke has made a request to play No Doubt’s “Hella Good” as she wishes to – in her own words – implement some of the ideas or techniques into our band’s materials.  So I spent some time last week to learn the song.  Boy, I am really not good at playing cover songs at all.  But I guess it is one for all, all for one.

Cynthia, our talented bassist, has decided to put aside part of her Sunday to figure out how Tony Kanal plays the bass line.  And I said to myself, why not make a video out of this little insignificant day of ours?  And we did jam on the National Day holiday after all – though it was just the two of us.

OK.  This version you see is just a rough demo.  The original intend is to record our interpretation of “Hella Good”, shoot it over to Wieke and Jason to do their parts.  On a side note, recording the acoustic sound of the Indonesian Gendang was not easy.  I think it turns out OK.  We joke that this version should be named as the “Voodoo Mix”.  The sound is so tribal!

Categories
Everyday News

Singapore Needs More Good News, Perhaps? Happy National Day, and Others

OK.  It’s the first time in my life seeing a Singapore flag sticking up from someone’s head.  Cynthia couldn’t resist to take a picture; I can’t resist not to share.

One great thing about having your website is that you can almost trace back on what you’ve done the same day last year, the year before, and etc.  This year there is no jamming session for me.  Instead, I am glued to the TV watching the Beijing Olympics.  Weightlifting games (Women’s 48kg today) captivate me, move me to tears.  The tearful joy of the Turk (silver), the fighting spirit of the Taiwanese (bronze), and the celebrity-like entrance of Chen Xiexia (China) whose first lifts placed her wide ahead of her opponents.  One moment I was wondering if China was going to participate, another moment Xiexia came in and grabbed the gold medal, unchallenged.

And that is precisely my dilemma here.  The Beijing Olympics seems like a bigger event to me today rather than our National Day Parade.  The Obama versus Hilary race seems like a more entertaining piece of news to follow than our local news.  Even our neighbor’s how-many-times-a-man-can-be-charged-with-sodomy is certainly juicer than anything we have here.  Go Anwar, go!  Reformasi!

Change, we can believe in.  That, is one helluva tag line from Obama’s presidential campaign.  Give the polar bears back their homes.  That, is from my recent video blog.  Thank you for not hating it.  End of commercial messages.

So, in this fierce competition of global news squeezing its way into my radar of current affairs, what sort of local news sticks to my mind?  Mas Selamat?  Certainly.  The rise in the price of a bowl of rice and the arrays of electronic road pricing (ERP) gantries added in around the city center?  That too.  And to quote from a gas station attendant in my area: our oil price goes up in a lift and comes down by stairs. 

But there must be some news worth celebrating, right?  After years of dispute with Malaysia, the tiny faraway island Pedra Branca belongs to Singapore.  The catch is, it is not final, awaiting for new evidents to be uncovered.  From this episode, I have learned a new Latin expression: terra nullius.  It means nobody’s land.  Actually, there is one more for you: a titre de souverain.  Go figure.

Now, back to the Beijing Olympics.  I don’t think it is an understatement that the Chinese has waited for hundreds of years to have a moment like this.  Sure, it is the pride of a nation, pride of a race.  And why the Western’s negative media coverage day after day?  Like my African boss said: If you watch CNN and believe that that is Africa, you are so wrong.

Face it.  There is a reason why the smart ones from the West are moving into Asia for a better career and financial opportunity.  The world is changing; China is rising; not even the Western propaganda is going to reverse that.

Anyways, happy birthday Singapore.  What talking me in this post?!

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

After Dark by Haruki Murakami – A Dark Beauty of Novelette Filled With Dualism

After reading the short story collection of “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman“, I was left with the feeling of wanting more.  The synopsis of “After Dark” (paperback 201 pages) intrigues me.  It is midnight hour when Mari sips coffee, a young musician walks in, and they have a conversation.  Later, as Mari is alone again, a girl from a love hotel walks in, and they both head to the hotel.  A Chinese prostitute is hurt badly by her client.  Meanwhile, parallel to the main story, Mari’s sister Eri is at home, sleeping so perfectly pure.  Something is subtly wrong with this picture.  The world of imagery meets with the world of reality and how these two concepts morph into something so beautifully, something so surreal, and something so dark in the ending chapter.

Each chapter begins with a clock that tells the time spinning a story that lasts from 11:56pm to 6:52am.  The main story of Mari is engaging and the side story of Eri is surreal.  I mention dualism because if carefully observed, most characters have a two-side.  The story has the light and the dark running side by side too.  The dialogues are lively and when it comes to words that describe the vision.  They are beautiful.  An excerpt as follows (the beginning chapter).

Eyes mark the shape of the city.

Through the eyes of a high-flying night bird, we take in the scene from midair.  In our broad sweep, the city looks like a single gigantic creature – or more like a single collective entity created by many intertwining organisms.  Countless arteries stretch to the ends of its elusive body, circulating a continuous supply of fresh blood cells, sending out new data and collecting the old, sending out new consumables and collecting the old, sending out new contradictions and collecting the old.  To the rhythm of its pulsing, all parts of the body flicker and flare up and squirm.  Midnight is approaching, and while the peak of the activity has passed, the basal metabolism that maintains life continues undiminished, producing the basso continuo of the city’s moan, a monotonous sound that neither rises nor falls but is pregnant with foreboding.

The influence of the Western culture, particularly Western music and literature, continues to exhibit in Haruki Murakami’s work.  It is full of vision and sound and a worthwhile book to read if you enjoy stories that are dark and artistic.  At times, you will find yourself living inside the story, short of interacting with the characters.  Almost read like watching a short film.  For best result, start reading “After Dark” at 11:56pm – the exact time when the story begins.

Categories
Linguistic My Hobbies

Bingo, Played In Spanish

If I was single and in Spain, by the end of lesson three, I shall be able to go beyond hi-how-are-you, what’s-your-name, where’re-you-from, when’s-your-birthday, to … what’s your telephone number?

Except, I wouldn’t be able catch 100% what her number would be.  D’oh!

The reality is this: Last evening, Cynthia and I have spent an hour or so to do the Spanish homework.  One activity was to listen to a recorded track and learn how to speak 0 to 20 in Spanish.  I swear by the second repeat, Cynthia was able to memorize all the words and started to speak.  I was like … wait, what is after uno again?!  Actually I do know the answer.  Simply because it spells like DOS – disk operating system.  D’oh!

Again, what excited me today was when our teacher Anna talked about the origin of Spanish language, how it evolves from Latin and Greek.  As for the rest of the lesson, I was doodling most of the time.  I didn’t get the whole class feeling hungry like the previous time.  Someone asked our Japanese classmate in Spanish on how to say the word ‘chicken’ in Japanese.  We ended up talking about Chicken (Tori) Teriyaki.  Everyone was suddenly very animated.  I think we shall forget about the number 0 to 20 and go straight to ordering food in Spanish.

Oh well.

We played Bingo in Spanish and need not to say, I was utterly lost.  Cynthia won two games as I suspect that most of us were kind of lost too.  Anna gave us a preview of the various verb forms and I went uh-oh.  Here is an example for you.  ‘I speak’ is yo hablo, ‘you speak’ is tú hablas, and ‘he/she speaks’ is él/ella habla.  The fun begins with nosotros hablamos (we speak), vosotros hablais (you [in plural] speak), ellos hablan (they [men or a mix of men and women] speak), and ellas hablan (they [women] speak).

On a lighter note, my pair of Avril Lavigne tickets has arrived!  It’ll be on el siete de Septiembre.  Fun time it will be in exactly one month’s time.

OK.  Time to go to bed and dream of … cero, uno, dos, tres … tori, teri, yaki …

Categories
Jamming Session

Montage of Our Studio Jamming Session – Aug 1st

OK.  I shall let the pictures do the talking.  Though we named our band as “No Eye Candy”, I am pretty sure the reality is far from what it literally means – with me as the exception of course.  A big thanks to our ‘band manager’ Selrol for taking these great pictures.  Enjoy!

PS. For the new readers of my site, we have Cynthia the bassist, Jason the lead guitarist, and Wieke the drummer.  I am the man in black a.k.a the songwriter, vocalist, and rhythm guitarist.  We love jamming at Stone Jamz.

Categories
Diary Drama Foreign Movie Reviews

Under the Same Moon – Who Wouldn’t Want This Boy As One of Your Own?

A less than ordinary day of mine began with Cynthia’s facial appointment at Vivocity.  Armed with a book and my music collection, my plan was to sit down at a cafe somewhere and space out, which is what I am good at doing when I am alone – spacing out.  So I was at Coffee Bean – a local cafe – with my glass of coffee looking for a table.  Full house.  I turned to an old Chinese couple who, I supposed, have more or less finished their drinks.  My plan B was to quietly hide at one side of the round table, listen to my music, and read my book.

We ended up chatting for forty-five minutes, maybe an hour.  I seriously have no idea that I can actually speak Mandarin!  And certainly have no idea that I can understand that much Mandarin either given my Cantonese root from Hong Kong.  Amazing.

But that is not the end of the story.  Soon, this old couple’s son arrived, together with wife and a baby.  Now, for a brief moment, faced with a family of three generations at a cafe with me being a total stranger, it was kind of awkward.  I looked around, full house still.  OK.  I had a hearty chat with mainly the old couple’s son, for another forty-five minutes, maybe an hour.  We exchanged contacts before we parted.  I am no Owen Wilson.  But I swear I was thinking of the movie “Wedding Crasher”.  A truly enjoyable chat; way better than spacing out on my own.

Some human emotions do melt hearts.

The Mexican movie “Under the Same Moon” (Spanish title “La Misma Luna”) that we watched later in Vivocity melts hearts too.  I didn’t have a high expectation.  In fact, I chose to watch this because Cynthia and I are currently learning Spanish.

Several video editing glitches and slight over-dramatized plot aside (seriously who really think that stories by, say, Sophie Kinsella is realistic but yet we all love the plots), the emotions and the dilemmas people faced are as real as it gets.  The acting by and large is admirable.  And I wish to single out the acting of the little boy Adrian Alonso here.  There is a whole array of despair, determination, and delight for Adrian to act out in tears and in laughter.  Cynthia did cry and the film got my eyes watered.  It’s so easy to love this character – for his street smart approach and genuine devotion to the people around him.

This movie is a journey of a little boy finding his way to his mother separated by a country border.  The plot is well paced with the stories from the two sides of the border well gelled with one another.  Certainly a pleasant movie to watch and one that most can relate to.

PS. I recognized the little boy from the big screen but couldn’t pinpoint who he is.  Only Cynthia can recall such a detail: he has acted in “The Legend of Zorro”.  Now I know.