Author: Wilfrid

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Movie Reviews Romance

The Last Kiss – A Portrait of Different Facets of Relationships

If you are a big fan of the OC girl Rachel Bilson and if you are a guy, I have good and bad news for you. Good news is, after the movie you will probably go to bed dreaming about that tastefully filmed sex scene of hers. Bad news is that she doesn’t have a lot of air time in this movie.

Jokes aside, “The Last Kiss” was written by Paul Haggis (“Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash”) that aimed to bring out the different facets of relationships through five couples – one who just couldn’t get over his last relationship, one who felt instantly in love with someone in a wedding party and realized that perhaps great sex by itself did not give him enough incentive to move onto the meet-the-parents phase, one who got stuck with a crying baby and a stressed up wife, and of course not to forget to mention Michael (played by Zach Braff from the TV series “Scrub”) who should be happy with his relationship with his girlfriend Jenna – recently pregnant with his baby – but yet he felt that being close to 30 meant that there would be no more surprises in his well-planned life and call it mistiming, he found this young college student Kim (played by none other than Rachel) simply irresistible. Did I mention five couples? Jenna’s parents – 30 years into a dull but not unblemished marriage – played a major role in the plot development as well.

What I really like about “The Last Kiss” is its seamless transition of what different couples have been going through in their relationships that portraits love, temptation, infidelity, forgiveness, marriage, and friendship. In another word, it is highly likely that you may identify yourself with the movie. If you choose to watch this movie, you will see lots of happy moments, sad moments, and heartwarming moments. “The Last Kiss” is not one of those typical Hollywood feel good movie so I suppose it may not be a movie for everyone. Overall, I enjoyed watching it.

What impacted me the most in the movie? If you are willing to give whatever it takes for the relationship to work, that means you should never give up. Because you can’t fail if you don’t give up.

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I See I Write

My First Day with Wireless@SG

You probably wish to ask what does the above picture got to do with Wireless@SG, yes? You will see the connection later on.

As an early adopter of this free seamless wireless broadband access initiated by IDA code name Wireless@SG, I have decided to test drive this wonderful service today. Picked up the phone and called up SingTel mainly to inquire how to activate the service that I have signed up a month ago. In retrospect, the customer service representative was not that helpful. The only thing I learned was how to retrieve my GPRS password for logging on purpose. I doubt if anyone can surf the net via a 3G Wi-fi mobile phone if you are not technologically inclined.

Just before lunch, I looked through a list of coverage areas and my first destination was of course the OUB Hello! Shop (owned by SingTel) right next door. I stood there for 5 minutes trying to figure out how to configure the connection using my Nokia N80. And then I stood there for another 5 minutes getting the “no reply from gateway” error time and time again. That was strange. Was it me or was the service down?
Next on my coverage list was Starbucks so I headed straight to Raffle City. Standing within the perimeter of Starbucks feeling like a spy, I made my second attempt to connect to Wireless@SG. After 5 minutes (yes, I have a stop watch), the log on form appeared. There was some log on options and intuitively I chose STM/Data3 (don’t ask me how I arrived at the decision or what that STM means), punched in my user ID and password, and voila!, my mobile phone started to load the SingTel Wireless@SG homepage. By the time I managed to open Google.com, 12 minutes has passed. I looked behind me and one of the customers who seated near to where I was when I started to surf has already finished his cup of coffee.

Happy with my little achievement, I headed into City Link Mall and according to the coverage list, I should be able to connect to Wireless@SG at all levels. So I turned on the hot spot searcher feeling like a scientist searching for the source of radioactivity or a solder with a land mine detector, I saw Wireless@SG appearing and disappearing and finding it hard to surf the net seamlessly at all.

All of a sudden, my phone has detected a strong signal. Feeling delighted I looked up and saw a Hello! Shop. That must be it, I said to myself, and I matched directly into this shop owned by SingTel. To my disappointment, the signal disappeared. Perplexed as I was, I retraced my steps and as I walked pass O’Briens, it suddenly struck me that all the O’Briens outlets are inside the coverage list. Ordered a meal at O’Briens and I started to surf the net.

According to SingTel, Wireless@SG has a (blazing) speed of 512kpbs. This is exactly the same speed I have at home. My personal website – content rich by the way – can be loaded by my phone within one minute at home. At O’Briens, even the signal was pretty strong (way better any other spots), it took forever to load any page with graphics. In the end, in between my sandwich time, I have managed to read a story about NASA building a moon base at one of the poles from Yahoo! News (very mobile phone friendly with no graphics, but wait, I do want the graphics!). And I have also managed to download a comic strip off CNN.com – a symbolic achievement of the day.

Now, that is the only connection between the picture and the subject of this article. It’s lame, I know.

Click here for the corresponding blog entry.

Categories
I See I Write

Wireless@SG – Love the Potential but Disappointed at the Delivery

Wireless@SG, an island-wide free wireless broadband service, was officially launched on December 1st. Excited as I was, I took out my Wi-fi enabled mobile phone and decided to give this baby a test drive. After all, able to surf the net free even in some designated areas at this initial phase is a dream comes true.

After an hour or two trying out the various locations, I must say I am disappointed by the quality of the network. It is still far from the vision of seamless wireless broadband that is supposed to have a speed of 512kpbs. Hence, application is limited. However, I am still excited by the potential of Wireless@SG.

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I See I Write

Battle of Sennheiser e845 Versus Shure SM58

When I first embarked on the music recording journey, Jason recommend the industry standard none other than the self-proclaimed-legendary Shure SM58 that is tuned to accentuate the warmth and clarity of vocals. For years, SM58 has served me well. I did many hours of recording using SM58 during our jamming sessions and songwriting.

Today, Jason told me that Sennheiser e845 is on sales in one of the shops at Sim Lim Square so during lunch I checked out this Sennhesier microphone priced at S$169. To be fair, e845 is supposed to be one notch above SM58. A high performance super-cardioid lead vocal microphone with a frequency response of 40Hz to 16kHz versus SM58’s unidirectional (cardioid) pattern with a frequency response of 50Hz to 15kHz. The difference is clear. While SM58 makes my voice sounded warm, e845 gives forth the details that potentially rivals condenser microphones (both SM58 and e845 are dynamic microphones for stage use). I have to be careful when pronouncing the P’s and B’s and any emphases when using e845. It is that sensitive.

Coupled my new microphone cable Whirlwind (priced at S$55, supposed to be one of the best and I have left it in my store room for months) with my new Sennhesier e845, the result is simply stunning. The clarity, the truer representation of my voice, the details, and right now, the e845 and Whirlwind combo has my vote. Time to put this to test with my band in the next jamming session.

Categories
Animation Movie Reviews

Happy Feet – An Entertaining Movie Short Of A Great One

Happy Feet has all the right ingredients: lovely dancing penguins, great music scores, beautiful sceneries, and a unique concept that attracting a soul mate in this land of penguins is through a heart song. Mumble, a penguin that cannot sing but loves to tap dance, is the hero of the movie. Being an outcast, it is a story of how Mumble sets out a journey in proving his worth to his society.

Happy Feet has some really great dance sequence and from the animation perspective, it is top notch. Totally realistic. From the script and storyline perspective, there are still rooms for improvement. I draw parallelism with the movie E.T. and I accept the story development as it is. My movie buddies find the ending a bit far fetch and unrealistic. Regardlessly, since I am a penguin lover myself, I find the movie entertaining to watch – especially the dancing baby penguin.

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Diary

Motor Show Singapore 2006

Every time when there is a motor show in Singapore, you know for sure that Robert and I will be there. Armed with our cameras (this time round I have my own), we took pictures of the cars that were worth photographing and models who are stunning. I have to admit that initially it was a bit uncomfortable to point my camera at the models (upon which the models would strike a pose). Towards the end, it was like a second nature. I don’t know how these models can sustain that sort of posture and photogenic smile throughout the show. It is a talent I suppose.

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I See I Write

Channel [V] Rocks!

When I first heard that Channel [V] was going to be available in Singapore, I was ecstatic. I miss the old MTV that played music videos and not those teen programs like today. When I first heard that Channel [V] is only available with a digital cable box, I headed straight to StarHub and swapped my old analogue box with the digital one. Face it, the digital box was out for many months but I just did not bother (though it is free).

At the customer servicing center, I was staring at the not-too-customer-centric product offering menu. Ended up have to pay S$12 for Channel [V] and a bunch of others that I most probably will not watch. I looked at the sales person and asked, “You mean I have to pay for Channel [V]? I swap the box because of Channel [V] only!”. Eyes watery and all … then the sales person looked at me sympathetically and said, “Look, I can offer you a half price trial plan for 3 months” and I replied, “Deal!”.

Took me hours to get the new box to work with my arcane system (turned out that my VCR interferes with the RF output of the new box) but it was all worth it. The image is much clearer and now I have Channel [V]! And of course, Cynthia is very delighted by the new TV experience. She just loves TV.

Categories
Action & Thriller Movie Reviews

Casino Royale – My Favourite Bond Movie

casino_royale.jpg

When it was first announced that Daniel Craig would be the new Bond, I was grossly disappointed. Not that I am an enthusiast towards the 007 franchise. To me, a Bond movie is one that is full of explosions, actions with James Bond surrounded by beautiful women driving beautiful cars. Easily forgettable plots with not much to get out from the acting department. What was the last three Bond movies about? I have not got a clue.

Daniel Craig played a different Bond. Probably that has to do with the plot as well because Craig is supposed to play the very first Bond character and that set the difference (coincidentally Batman Begins is also my favorite one amongst all the Batman franchise). Throughout the movie, we see a Bond who was still learning his way, making mistakes, and we get to see a Bond who really sweat it out throughout the movies inflicted with wounds and not to forget to mention, that near death experience. Not only that, we see a vulnerable side of Bond who fell in love, outplayed by opponents, and finally a Bond with character – arrogance and courage. And hat off to Craig, he played a darn good Bond.

Even the Bond girl played by Eva Green was so unlike any other Bond girls I have seen (I adore her the most). Her appeal was the inner beauty and her intelligence and the wittiness that radiated from her dialogs.

Casino Royale is definitely my favorite Bond movies out of all that I have seen.

Categories
Diary

Gosh … This Is Gonna Take Long

Ideas are dangerous. Not long ago, my band-mate Jason suggested that I shall start recording all the songs that I have written since 95 and make it a historical compilation. If I am to spend just 1 hour to record each song, that would be a 150 man-hours little project of mine. Truth been told, last night took me about 4 hours to record the first 3 songs. It is actually quite a lot of work. I need to readjust the key, drop the parts that I don’t like, rewrite the chorus, rewrite some of the lyrics so that I can, believe it or not, breath in between the sentences, and on top of that, I have to record each song in a state that at least it is pleasing to the ears.

I joked to Jason that if I am to produce songs faster than I record my own songs in this “historical compilation”, I may never get to finish this project in my lifetime.

PS. Photo taken in one of the restaurants in Orchard … a lovely picture as the wallpaper for mobile phones.

Categories
Travel Blog

Road Trip to Cameron Highland

The Smokehouse

I thought I was taking my mom and sister to Fraser Hill, Malaysia but Cynthia has booked us into Cameron Highland for a night instead. Sticking to the speed limit took us nine hours to reach the hotel. Heavy rain and road work slowed us down a bit. Just imagine, a mere 10% increased in traveling speed can easily shave off close to an hour of traveling time. It is mind boggling to imagine if I was to go another 10% …