In as much as I wish to follow closely the exciting world news these days, I feel isolated working in a city out of my home country. Having to face a relatively large group of people – that if to double count the country of birth and of work, they whom literally come from all continents of the world – the interaction and the so-called rollercoaster politics is enough to make me forget about the third debate of Obama versus McCain. Almost.
Menara Axis – where our workshop is – is merely a stone throw away from the hotel I am staying in. Yet on the first day of work, my colleague and I were trying hard to figure out how to get to the other side of the highway. Very much like The Amazing Race (see pictures above or click here for the slideshow). Looking back, after spending the past four days trekking those concrete jungle trails, it is really not that harsh. Just that, there is no zebra crossing (actually I told my overseas friends not to trust the zebra crossing here with their lives), no traffic light for the pedestrians, and we simply have to watch out for the motorists as we enter the mini-intersection above the highway. The experience reminds me of that one time (and obviously last time) I was trying to take a public transport from PJ to KL via the new transit railway. No wonder there are so many cars here in Malaysia.
You know how it is like that you are aware that something big and exciting is coming you way and you thought with all that you have seen and done in the past, you can do it. Yet when that something big and exciting hits you, you have a challenging time trying to remain standing. Imagine yourself on the surfboard with the blue sky as the backdrop. Perhaps because no two waves are the same, the surfers love what they do waves after waves. Perhaps to those who sunbath by the beach, looking at the surfers and the waves, it is just another surfer, another wave. And to me, as the ”˜surfer’, in these couple of days, I see crucible moments. One day I may look back, at a particular juncture in life, and say, “I am who I am because of those particular days.”
Passed the halfway mark today and four more working days to go in help handling this workshop, I am so looking forward to a restful weekend. I wish to catch up on what I planned to do. And my plan has not been carried out as planned, yet.
Rarely our Movie Review Squad has such a long deliberation on which movie to watch. And we settled for “Twentieth Century Boys” after a 3-way split between Rocknrolla, the Bunny, and this Japanese one last week. I asked TK to give me an executive summary on what this show is about. It’s originated from a manga, yes I know that. I think TK didn’t have time get past the first few pages of the manga and Cynthia went in thinking that it is an animation. I read that “20th Century Boy” is a close to 2 and a half hours show. And I braced myself for a long part 1 of a trilogy.
I can see where does the money of this so-called most expensive Japanese film ever made have gone to. Some of the effects are pretty good (a sci-fi movie after all). The cast of 300 people is pretty intense. I have a hard time trying to remember who is who. TK seems to enjoy the film with the plot stepping forward and backward in time. Surprisingly Cynthia loves it too and calls it a very creative movie (that doesn’t jerk tear thank God, she said). As for me …
If you have already read the manga and love it, this action-mystery film is a must-watch. Now that I am reading the manga, I admire the filmmaker’s effort in recreating each scene in exact detail as the manga. The cast even matches with the look of the manga characters. That is impressive.
Maybe because of the relatively slow pace especially when the plot goes back in time and dwells on the childhood stories, maybe there are missing gaps in between scenes due to film adaptation that confuse me, maybe there are just not enough eye candies to keep me interested (shallow I know!), I was not jumping out of my chair.
Nevertheless, the effort is commendable and looks like “20th Century Boys” is one movie that up the standard of the Japanese production. Although I am not quite getting the idea of how a bunch kids’ role-playing game can turn into a disastrous future, I will be there when the 2nd installment arrives. Meanwhile, the manga looks pretty good and it is filling up the gaps I have from watching the film. Do check out the manga too when you have time.
I may as well be the last Singaporean on earth to have heard of Olivia Ong. You know what it is like when you turn on your radio and people would ask, “Who’s that singer”? I got that a lot (from non-Singaporeans) when I put on Olivia’s compilation album, in a positive way.
I confess that I am not that into local music talents. “Best Of” is my second Singaporean CD (read on to see what the first one is!) and I couldn’t resist such a crisp, soothing, and seemingly innocent voice. Who’s that girl?!
You may have already known how much I am not into cover music, set aside oldies (I was however in love with oldies when I was really young, when MJ and Madonna ruled the chart). There isn’t much musical arrangement in her tracks, simple and sparse, but yet some of the songs captivate me. Seriously, if I have a friend who can sing like Olivia, I wouldn’t mind hearing her sings every day. And if someone has a voice like Olivia, it really doesn’t matter how simplistic the music is. Though it wouldn’t hurt if her further releases raise the level of sophistication in terms of music arrangement as well as perhaps to add more soul into the songs. Totally head to the Jazz direction and I could be a huge fan.
When I first listened to the opening track of “Best Of”, I thought Olivia is a Japanese. Half of “Sweet Memories” is in Japanese and I happen to like that a lot. Not sure about the authenticity of the pronunciation. But she sounds convincing enough to me. If you are a native Japanese, please tell me how off my observation is. Olivia is also the only Singaporean who is entering into the Japanese music scene. Impressive.
I love Simply Red‘s “For Your Babies” and her interpretation works for me. Probably one of the strong reason why I bought this album together with that half-Japanese-half-English song originally by Akiko Kobayashi (小林明子) called “Fall In Love”. And for some unknown reasons, I also love the upbeat and playful Jazz-feel track “Feelin So Good”. Does that bonus half-Chinese-half-English song “Butterfly” sound like a good old Shirley Wong (later known as Faye Wong) song? Certainly to me.
Now, back to the first Singaporean CD I have bought, it was recorded by Min Lee the classical violinist quite a number of years ago. I just realized that Min Lee has released her second album. I hope I can find it in a store nearby. Time to lend the local industry some support!
Update 07.01.2009
Since Oct, 2008, there has been lots of comments and keen inquiry on Olivia Ong. First of all, thanks for dropping by. Also through this blog entry, I managed to get in touch with one of her band O2Q member Alvin. And he has shared one set of the videos on their recent live performance in Singapore. Do check them out. Hope you enjoy as much as I do. The band is very professional too. Great stuff.
Update 2026 – Video no longer available, unfortunately.
I lost track of time waiting for the luggage to appear at the convey belt. The humdrum sound of the unseen rotors hidden underneath and the perpetual counterclockwise movement of the rubberized pieces stitched together for that one single purpose, it is as though even the mechanical being is waiting for something to happen. One airport staff wheeled out my Spanish classical guitar. The human being has won as I continued to wait for my luggage to appear.
I lost track of time waiting for my turn to purchase the taxi coupon and I lost track of time while driven in the dark from the airport to the hotel. The Malaysia airport seems so far away from town. Door-to-door from my home in the north to the Singapore airport in the east took 30 minutes. Add another 30 minutes, the bowl of warm Tom Yum soup appeared at the dinning table, in a restaurant inside the airport. 30 minutes later I was sitting on the plane, reviewing training pack that I am suppose to present.
I tipped the taxi driver and he was shocked at my tip; I was shocked by his reaction. At the hotel reception, I was told that there was a package waiting for me. What was the package about, naturally I asked. Over at the concierge you shall find out, he replied. Who sent it to me, I inquired. No idea, he replied. This is so double-o-seven. I like.
By the time I reached my room, it was near midnight. I felt hungry so I called for a light snack. The housekeeper arrived to take my shirts for pressing and before she left, she found that one of the windows was open. No wonder the street noise was so audible. I can’t imagine what a potential consequence would have been if I was a sleepwalker. Minutes later, the engineer arrived and fixed my floor-to-ceiling window.
Now feeling safe, warm, and well fed, it is time to go to sleep.
So I am bringing my Alhambra Spanish classical guitar for my overseas business trip, that surprises people around me – friends and colleagues. Maybe unlike golf, there is no association to business with music hobby. A golf set is bulkier, heavier, but not necessarily more expensive than my guitar, with case. I have to change the world. Business people should start to talk business over a music jamming session instead of playing with such a small ball in such a vast perimeter. One day if I do rise above my rank of a corporate coffee boy to a see-what-oh, I will only sign deals inside a music studio.
This year has not been a productive year for me, in terms of my music creation journey. 12 is my target and I only have written one song this year. Maybe I have been busy practicing for our live performance, maybe this year has been a busy years for me with these extra-extra-curriculum-activities, maybe I am less artistically inspired this year. No more excuses. I am bringing my guitar to PJ Malaysia as well as my handheld recording device for songwriting. As an added bonus, I am going to meet with our drummer now guitarist to practice our set over the weekend. She too is bringing her Yamaha guitar for her business trip.
When life hands you a durian, you hit people with it. I wish I could as I have to sacrifice my Wednesday Spanish class for this trip. Argh! On a more positive note as in what to do with this lemon durian, I am going to …
Catch up with my old friends in Malaysia
Finish reading a non-fiction book
Write a book review for another non-fiction book (McGraw-Hill)
Read a fiction (yay … good to have indulgence at times)
Write a few music reviews that have been delayed for a long time
Complete that few blog ideas that have been in my mind for so long
Dream of what else to do within the 4 walls of PJ Hilton
Stay tuned friends. It is business as usual here in my webbie. Now, back to packing!
If there is a center theme to “Burn After Reading”, to me, that would be idiocy. There is no hero, only idiots. And that is exactly what the award winning director-writer duo Joel and Ethan Coen wanted it to be, I reckon.
Knowing that I will be heading for an overseas business trip in Malaysia, I spent the last few days trying to do as much as I can in Singapore. I can’t live without Singapore, I really can’t. Not entirely the country as per se, but all these dependencies I have built over the years. Gosh, I will even miss my über computer where I spend much time blogging with. And so, before I head north, I caught up with my Movie Review Squad.
There are so many big stars in “Burn After Reading”. I am such a big fan of John Malkovich. I especially enjoy his acting in “Being John Malkovich (1999)”. But he looks quite old in this film. OK, he is old. 54, he is. I really wish to see him taking home an Oscar one day.
Then there is the old partners George Clooney and Tilda Swinton. They didn’t get along in “Michael Clayton (2007)”, they didn’t get along in “Burn After Reading” either. Both are such talented actors. While George Clooney is not exactly the guy I used to love watching in this film – a bit too jittering to my liking – I bet you have not seen this side of a Brad Pitt at all. Who is this Brad Pitt?! Borderline childish, borderline uncool, and totally an idiot.
I can relate 100% on how the filmmakers depict a typical working environment, and that is not even funny. Gosh, when was the last time I witness something outrageously intelligent at work? Hmmm. If I may pick a few favorite scenes from “Burn After Reading”, I simply love to watch the conversations between an official played by David Rasche and his director (J. K. Simmons) inside the the CIA’s headquarters. The director’s comments are so random in situations of life and death. J. K. Simmons’s acting makes me laugh out loud, and I want more. He gives me ideas to reply to a common asked question in the corporate world: what is our lesson learnt?
Not necessarily the most entertaining film of the year. But if you do like to watch dark comedy and in love with watching some of the stars on big screen, “Burn After Reading” is a good option.
By now, you must have read 101 ways on how to cut back on this and that to save $$. But do we have to go down that path? All we need are some workable innovative ideas. Something sustainable, something … fun.
What triggered my thought is probably this. I have done what I can comfortably do (and no, I still love my air con) and yet I am slammed with this new 20%+ hike that cancels out all my effort. If you are new to Singapore, our utility board actually charts our usage for us and tells us how far off we are from the national average. As you can see, my usage has a downward trend, sort of.
#1 Office Electricity is Free (Duh!)
As duh as it sounds, we don’t pay for the electricity bill in the office. It is already factored into the reduction of our salaries. Most people I reckon reach home at 7pm, sleep at midnight. So there is a window of 5 hours worth of light and air-con bills you have to pay for. Imagine this. Why not stay in the office for an extra hour to enjoy the air-con and light and pretend to work while browsing WilfridWong.com? Your boss may even promote you for your dedication to work. That is a 20% saving my friend.
Note: Feel free to replace the word office with library if that makes more sense to you.
#2 Make Love Not Waste Electricity
You may consider this if #1 has a negative impact to your work life balance. And in conjunction, you can even achieve a 40% saving! Unless you are the type who prefer to spend your romantic moments with your partner in your bedroom as bright as the F1 circuit in Singapore, chances are you will be able to save an hour worth of light and TV electricity bills on a near-daily basis. If you need advice on how to extend your performance, there is even a book titled “How to Make Love All Night: And Drive a Woman Wild!” – 4 stars in Amazon.com.
Note: If #2 is not feasible for you, think of some candle light activities (perhaps get more sleep?)
#3 Blog (or Read) 20% Faster
Like it or not, our computers consume a lot of electricity. My PC at full load consumes 650W of power – more than half of an electrical iron’s consumption. And if you are busy procreating (#2), you may need to speed up your time with the Internet anyway.
#4 Buy a HDD Recorder
Asking you to cut down on watching TV is just duh. I know. So I am not going to. Instead, buy a hard disk TV recorder especially if you happen to win that 60″ plasma TV from EastCoastLife. Your favorite “Desperate Housewives” may take up 1 hour of air time but if you filter out the commercials, it is only a 45 mins entertainment. Time-shift the program and fast forward all the commercials! Viola. This shortens the time you are in front of the TV while getting the same amount of entertainment.
#5 Fly Budget
I know, this tip seems a bit out of place but I do wish to earn some spare $$. Besides, if I do win the Tiger Airways contest, I will have a pair of free tickets to a destination of my pick. Every saving counts.
So I need to write about my most memorable holiday. That is easy. It has got to be my trip to Mount Kinabalu last March. If you haven’t read my all time highest hit article, here is the chance. I have included some pictures to share below.
Tiger Airways is currently celebrating its 4th anniversary by having a special birthday fares starting from S$0.04 to various destinations.
Tiger Airways is Asia Pacific’s true low fare airline. It offers passengers not only one of the lowest possible airfares in the market, but safe, reliable and convenient point-to-point air travel as well. Tiger Airways now flies to more than 27 destinations across 9 countries in Asia-Pacific on a fleet of brand new Airbus A320 aircraft.
PS. The proceeds from this ad (as well as any lucky draw wins if any) will be donate to a Charity of my choice – Christ the King at AMK.
Will the new Nokia touch screen phone that comes with one year unlimited music download and more redefine what a phone can be? I was holding one last Friday and I was thrilled by its potential. And there is no event like a Nokia event. Lifehouse was in the house, together with the local bands and my favorite radio DJs “The Muttons” too. I took a picture with them. It’s priceless.
I couldn’t attend the press conference during the day due to work commitment. But the Nokia team was kind enough to give me a 1-hour personal demonstration on the upcoming Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Again, I tried to distract them and see if I could slip one into my pocket. Again, I failed like the last time.
Come With Music
When it comes down to functionalities and user-friendliness, Nokia is king. No doubt about it. What the world has been silently waiting for is Nokia’s answer to Apple’s iPhone and its clones. I certainly do. While Apple threatened to shutdown iTunes early this month due to royalties dispute (current model is 61-29-9 cents split between the record industry, iTunes, and artists respectively), Nokia has worked out a deal with four major labels – EMI, Universal, Sony, and Warner – and more to give Nokia users one year unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue across a range of devices. Is this new service “Come With Music” too good to be true? Looking at how Nokia gives away free maps to the users, I am pretty sure that the only catch is “go buy a Nokia phone”. Allowing users to unlimitedly and legally download music is as close to the Internet user behavior as it can get. I am holding my breath on what the cost structure may be.
Touch, Play, Share
The new phone is a beauty. If you are familiar with the XpressMusic series, the design of 5800 is a big leap ahead. Weighted less than an iPhone, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic comes with a touch screen that supports wide-screen format and has an impressive resolution – best in its class. I checked out a video clip played and the color is stunningly vibrant. Another surprise is the quality of the internal speakers. The music played out loud, really loud, and the sound is crisp clear. These features alone are enough to put my beloved N95 to shame. Can you visualize how badly I would drool to play the Ayumi music videos on this?
Unable to resist poking at this new baby, I am delighted that everything is literally at my fingertips including being able to put 4 of my top hot looking female contacts (with profile picture) onto the home-screen. Maybe a bit too convenience. Imagine one day Cynthia gets hold of my new 5800 while I was away and is able to track down my past communication and their respective blog updates with just a touch onto their profile pictures?! Disastrous.
To be honest, I was skeptic on how this new touch screen phone handles my obsessive love in sending short messages, jotting down new blogging ideas, and drafting blog entries anytime, anywhere. I asked for a demonstration and the enthusiastic product manager casually rotated the phone and the screen switched to landscape mode automatically. Nice! He then brought up the virtual QWERTY keyboard and I was like: though my fingers are not that fat, no way I can type a message with that! Like a magician, he pulled out a stylus from nowhere (actually from behind the phone) and started typing. Not bad. Being a difficult consumer, I complained that QWERTY is not my cup of tea.
No problem at all, he said. He then switched to a handwriting recognition mode that if you are from the Palm era, you would probably leap in joy (not to forget to mention the copy-and-paste function this new baby has). Not bad. But I am the type of guy who loves the old way of doing things. The product manager did something to the phone and all of a sudden, I saw a life-size virtual alphanumeric keypad! I pressed onto the virtual buttons and the phone vibrated in response. Neat! Lastly, for the musicians, the phone comes with a plectrum (see picture above … in my language, I call it a guitar pick) as an alternative to interact with the touch screen. I know. Who would have thought?
Final Thought
This entry is more like a preview than a review due to my limited time with the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. There are tons of other cool functionalities I am running out of space to write including the synchronization to the social networking sites such as Ovi by Nokia, Facebook, YouTube, and etc. I would like to leave you with this final thought. Towards the end of “Sex and the City” movie, Carrie wanted to call her missing groom and she asked for a phone. Someone passed her a touch screen phone (that looked like an iPhone). Her immediate response was like: don’t give me that, give me something I can use. I can relate to her. And I don’t think I will have a problem with this new Nokia phone. It is that easy.
Below are some of the pictures I have taken during the Nokia Remix: Singapore event with Lifehouse in the house with my point-and-shoot camera. Enjoy!
PS. A big thanks to the Nokia team and the TEXT100 team!
Note: If you still have problem with Hotmail, click here to install a client-based Mail beta – Windows Live.
I have a love hate relationship with IAHGames. As an avid online gamer, I love the idea of having a game server hosted in Asia. And that the server maintenance observes the Asia’s off peak hours, unlike the World of Warcraft (WoW) server that goes down almost all the Tuesday evenings here in Asia. It may be foreign to some of you but believe me when I say this, millions of WoW fans in Asia are lost every Tuesday. If I had a business, I would have targeted these lost souls and created some ease-your-WoW-withdrawal-syndrome themes to my business. And I would have earned big bucks, since 2004.
I sort of hated (strong word, sorry, but thanks for the closed beta test invite!) IAHGames because of the way they handled the hosting of Hellgate London (HG:L). OK, the parent company Infocomm Asia Holdings did the right marketing and financing (how can you miss the signage and the decorated jeep outside Funan IT Mall?) but fell short on technology and management. Our Asian server went live before IAHGames could apply the crucial patch and from then on, our patch updates were horribly late compared to the American counterparts leading to Asian online gamers having to suffer from the bugs for weeks and months. In the end, IAHGames found a solution to apply the subsequent patches without wiping the game progress; in the end, I quited HG:L because playing a buggy game is really no fun.
Enough of history. Is FIFA Online 2 fun to play? It has some elements of Championship Manager as you play the manager role in managing your team. Each of your player has a set of stats and as your players level up, you get to customize your players by enhancing their stats the way you want them to be. And you gain level as you play the matches too – be it as win or lose (wining has more points than losing). There are football players and items you can trade with other online gamers (I have yet to find out how) so all these elements play like a typical MMORPG. And unlike Championship Manager, you get to play the match too!
I have to admit that using the keyboard to play the match is less than ideal. I failed to use my XBox 360 Controller that works with other PC games. Anyway, playing with the keyboard does make in-game text chatting a lot easier with other gamers. I always like the social aspect of the online games. Because the game pace is usually fast, you can’t really chat that much. But still, the game is much alive. And I have to say, the online gamers are a lot tougher to beat than playing against the computer team. I guess that is where the fun is.
Each online game lasts for a couple of minutes and joining a “World Tour” 1×1 match with another online gamer picked by the server seems fast (“League” is you against the computer), thanks to the Asia timezone. There is 2×2 match too that you can form a team with your buddy. But the waiting time was too long so we gave up.
Graphically, it does support wide screen format with the football players look 3D enough from a distance. The replay is fun to watch too. The close-up on the players tend to look cartoon-ish but that doesn’t bother me. The voice commentary does seem to follow the game well, sarcastic at times (maybe I suck badly). But of course, if you are to play for hours, some of the lines may appear repetitive to you. The game does feel random in nature, which is good. One time, one of my players was fouled due to hand ball. I was like … what?! Then there was a close-up replay to see how the ball did bounce off my player’s hand as he tackled the ball. Amazing. And some of the goals look so random that got me marvelled at my own virtual ingenuity.
FIFA Online 2 seems like a stripped- down version of the established football related games out there. But if fast pace online game with character progression is your cup of tea, you may wish to give it a try. I reckon they may give out free trial period like most of the online games out there. Who knows, FIFA Online 2 may be one of those subscription free games.
I have yet another theory. Ordinary events don’t get stuck in my mind. Extraordinary events do. I love to seek out opportunities to do something crazy, if circumstances permit. To make my life a bit more memorable. For instance, that one time after my buddy Sam and I got our miserable laughable bonus, we impulsively headed for our breakfast at The Fullerton and spent what seemed like more than S$40 for a hotel breakfast in our home land. The power breakfast, as we called it. No local does that. Unless you are very rich. At least we weren’t. At least I am not (can’t say the same for my friend now that he is a big shot). And that probably is the most memorable breakfast I had ever had to date. It is out of proportion. It is laughably ironic.
When I told my band manager Selrol that I was planning to bring along all the band equipment from Singapore and practice with Wieke in Malaysia over the weekend, her response was, “No shit!”. Uh-huh. Everyone thinks that I am nuts. OK. I can be nuts some time, because I can. So I have weighed my gears. Close to 70kg of equipment that filled up the entire car boot. And I had to align them carefully so that they all fitted nicely. So what exactly did I bring to PJ Malaysia with my car (in the order of importance)?
A laptop to store recorded materials from the handheld device
After that horrifying experience with the Malaysian Custom, I was worried that they would tax my close to S$10k worth of used gears. But they didn’t inspect my car. Phew! At the hotel lobby, I was asked twice: Are you the wedding singer?
I love Facebook. I really do. Thanks to Facebook, my two long lost friends Kah Lok and Kenneth turned up at my hotel room (last seen more than a decade ago with zero contact since then … I remember that one bus terminal scene with tears in my eyes). And we performed for them, inside our PJ Hilton hotel room, with the studio set up. Like real! Like how we are going to perform in The Heeren this November. We played a song, we took a break and chatted. I love the intimacy between our band and the audience. I am inspired. While Jason is aspired for online broadcast, Cynthia is aspired for public performance, I think I have found my own aspiration: private performance.
All five of us surprisingly got along really well. We’ve had so much fun. And that is another story to tell.
Mental note: Write to Ovi by Nokia and suggest that they should display the captions and titles within the slide show.
