Author: Wilfrid

Categories
Linguistic My Hobbies

Answer to That Quiz and My Spanish Class Continues with The World of Verbs And What Not

Thank you for all your creative answers for that little quiz of mine posted last Sunday.  It was a great fun just by reading them.  Darkspore and TK came really close to the answer of a reflection through a car (though I must say they have the advantage of knowing me in person) and therefore, dudes, I will cook that Cantonese meal I promise.  In the spirit of fun and charity, I will make them donate a handsome sum of money so that I can continue to fund this website and continue to delight you lovely readers out there.

I have a habit of taking random pictures as and when inspirations hit me.  I enjoy doing that because these pictures may come in handy in the future.  Like the one for my Sunday post on self-reflection, I thought it does suit the topic well (Cynthia did guess the association right).  This particular image was taken using my camera phone.  I did a rotation and crop the image to the right size.  And I surgically removed the dried leaf on top of the car.  Other than that, there isn’t much alternation to the original picture.

Spanish Class

I look forward to the Spanish class because after all the daily 9-to-5 bombardments in the office, the one thing I look forward to is my weekly 2 hours of dedicated time in learning a new skill.

Can passion be nurtured over time?  I hope so.

Cynthia has a natural talent in learning languages.  For me, I am going to once again deploy my hardcore repetitive drilling exercise.  I write, and write, till these foreign words are scribbled into my brain in black and white.

The variation of Spanish verb forms is just amazing and they have this concept of formal and casual,  permanent and temporary.  In English, we have “I am married” or “I am a man”.  In Spanish, the verb used for the former is different from the one used for the latter because to the Spanish, being married is temporary while being a man is permanent.  So, it is a little bit more complicated than “I am” in English.

And we have to learn by heart that shop, factory, and office for instance take in a feminine form while school, hospital, and farm take in a masculine form.  To introduce you as my friend if you are a guy, I would refer you as “un amigo mío” – literally means a friend of mine.  If you are a lady, all three words have to be switched to “una amiga mía”.  If I am to introduce you as a group of ladies, that would be “unas amigas mías”.  Otherwise, in a mixed gender or only men situation, “unos amigos míos”.

My 6th and 7th lessons are certainly more demanding than the previous one that we sang birthday song and what not.  But certainly we are expanding on what we can converse, in Spanish.

Below are samples of what I managed to squeeze into my brain before the lesson.

Categories
Party

Reigning Singapore DJ Champ Ate the Rest of the Contestants Alive at Zouk

So I was invited to attend the DJ Championship Singapore Finals at Zouk and took some rather exclusive photos on the lovely ladies from TDK Life on Record.  Gosh, I love my ”˜job’.

Now, why would I wish to spoil the photo with my mug shot?  So I deployed my humble assistant journalist, my de facto model to record the moment of “yes we were there”.  Right after the shots, Cynthia grabbed my camera in one swift motion.  I was shocked by her eagerness to view my quite-possibly-award-winning pictures of the evening.  She held up the camera asked me point-blank with a smile, “I don’t look too bad compared to these models, do I?”

Uh-oh.  Red alert.  It is like that “Am I fat?” question that we guys have to face constantly in our lifetime – from our girlfriends, or sisters, or sisters’ girl friends, or girl friends’ sisters.  If I could choose, going back in time, between …

… the TDK Life on Record headsets these models were holding and my Sennheiser …

As the music was blasting on the dance floor, we tried out the two (headphone) models – ST-200, the street style Hi-fi studio headphones that comes in 3 designs (S$29.90) and ST-Pro400, the Professional DJ studio headphones (S$59.90) – and I must say they are pretty value for money.  They shielded most of the noise out and I was happily bobbing my head up and down to the music these (TDK Life on Record) models were playing.

As for the event, I don’t know which one is more distractive – the constant smooching from the couple less than a few inches away from my face or the constant technical problems faced by the DJs.  Nevertheless, it was eye opening to see them (the contestants) in action.  The blending of sound from the vinyl records played from two different turntables, the control of volume and speed and the precise timing of two music sources that can either be identical or different, the creation of the mad scratching sound, and the stop and go of the turntable in fabricating a dramatic entrance and exit feel – all orchestrated by the magical hands of the DJs.  And that’s not all.  The good ones are those who come with a personality, a pair of calm hands, and the creativity to construct a musical piece that rallies the mood of the crowd.  It is a skill, for sure.  Even with the markings on the vinyl records, things can go wrong.

When the reigning DMC Singapore champ, DJ Inquisitive, took the stage, he practically ate the rest of the contestants alive.  The crowd went wild.  Not surprisingly, he won the finals and will represent Singapore in the battling of the World Supremacy title in London.

Congratulations to all the contestants who made it out there on the stage.  And to DJ Inquisitive, best of luck in UK.  I will upload one video I have taken.  Perhaps on a Friday evening to get y’all in a party mood.

PS: Zouk cardholders get an S$10 discount off the TDK Life on Record headphones (ST-Pro400, ST-Pro300 and NC-100 models) at Cyberactive outlets.  Check them out if you are looking for one.

Related Post: Video Clip of DJ Inquisitive at Zouk, Singapore for the DMC World Championship Country Finals

Categories
Animation Movie Reviews

WALL·E – Quite Possibly A Must Watch Movie of 2008

I have high expectation on WALL·E.  Somewhat close to the level of anticipation I had with “Lilo & Stitch”.  And the movie delivers.  What a magical experience.  Don’t compromise.  Watch WALL·E in a digital format.

I walked into the theater with little knowledge of what the story is about beyond what I saw in the trailer.  What a lovely journey of discovery.  And I won’t spoil it for you here.  All I can say is that WALL·E is a timely movie talking about our environment and going green.

The jaw dropping budget of $180 million (equals to the budget of “The Dark Knight” and “The Golden Compass”) has the jaw dropping computer animation to match.  The beautiful scene of the galaxy, dust and explosion that appears so real, there are so much details that I wish I could slow down the frame rate and admire.  Beyond the eye candies is the characters’ ability to communicate feeling and emotion without words.  The filmmakers are able to mimic the essence of human body language and make the animated robotic characters alive.

I love sci-fi stories so naturally I love to watch this movie.  There are three nods from three of us in the Movie Review Squad.  So what are you waiting for?  And if you have time, check out the official site listed below.  It is quite possibly one of the most elaborated film website I have seen.  I can’t help but to marvel at the art of the animation.

Related Website: Disney Pixar WALL·E Office Site

Categories
Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 14 – Being Supportive, 500 Below, And Two Quizzes

A Quiz

To the first person who can tell me how the above picture was taken, I will cook you a very nice Cantonese meal.

A Self-Reflection

A recent insignificant episode prompted me to self-reflect: Why do I enjoy being supportive to others, especially to those who are passionate in what they do?  Random thoughts as follows.

  • Maybe I am easily excited by the good things I see and the potential of what things can be.
  • I feel touched when someone is willing to (interactively) share a slice of their private lives with me.  And to that extend, I respect that piece of privileged information.
  • How many gold medalists are there out there?  We can still add meaning and purpose to what we do, in our daily quest of bettering ourselves even though we may not be legends.
  • Whether I would have spent my time doing something other than what someone is doing neither means that I cannot relate to the passion involved, nor respect its importance to that someone.  One friend of mine loves to jog.  Day in day out he jogs.  I wish I could have his passion and he recently took home a “silver medal” for a 10km run in his age bracket.  Dude, you are my inspiration.

This little self-reflection has a part two: How shall I negatively opine against what others are passionately doing?

  • Normally I don’t, unless someone is soliciting frank opinion.  And unless I have a good intend.
  • If it is my own skeptic thought with no constructive follow-on suggestions, I will bite my tongue.  Raising doubts is easy, helping others to break through to the next level is hard.  Unless I am asking someone to give up of course.  Huh?  Why would I want to do that under normal circumstances?
  • But if I have something constructive to say, I will share with him or her.
  • And If I do care about that someone and worry that he or she may be veering to the wrong direction, I will also say it.  For example, I am blessed to have friends who keep me in check knowing how I may, for instance, be prone to obsession.  You guys rock!

Another Quiz

Has anyone realized a common theme for all the August 2008 entries?  I won’t keep you in suspense: 500 Below.

All the entries published this month are having a word count of 500 and below.  Perhaps next month, I shall aim lower.  What do you think?

Related Post: Answer to That Quiz and My Spanish Class Continues with The World of Verbs And What Not

Categories
Memorable Events

HBO Asia Premiere of Flight of the Conchords – A Blogger Event

I was invited to a blogger event hosted by HBO Asia.  And I grabbed Cynthia along to keep me away from the distraction of so many beautiful celebrity bloggers at the party.  It was a memorable evening, eye-opening to say the least, to tour the HBO compound from production to live broadcast.  Before we get into that, let’s talk about this new HBO TV series “Flight of the Conchords” premiering next Wednesday at 10.30pm.

Is there such a genre as comedy rock?  Apparently there is.  A New Zealand award wining comedy duo – Bret and Jemaine – that brings laughter to the audience through their witty observation and music, I find their new TV series much fun to watch.  Having New York City as the backdrop, “Flight of the Conchords” tells a story of two New Zealanders trying hard to achieve success in America.  The comedy materials are original, interlaced with hilariously over-the-top music videos, and beyond all these never-would-have-expected human behaviors, there is certain level of rawness and honestly from the comedian team and from the set.  Nothing is over-produced; it is what it is. 

Now, back to the blogger event, Cynthia and I had the opportunity to see the various processes involved in creating a promo clip.  How talented and specialized the crew members are in creating all those extra stuff you see on the HBO channel.  I for sure will not watch the channel the same way as before.  Since I too enjoy creating videos and recording music of my band in my leisure time, seeing how the pros do it is indeed inspiring.

The most dramatic part of the tour – besides viewing two episodes of “Flight of the Conchords” – is the dark control room that does the satellite broadcast to the countries in the Asia region (top right picture above).  TV programs are transmitted live with subtitles catered for different geographies, real time access of 120 TB worth of movies (I did ask if I could make a copy) – all monitored by one single person.  I don’t watch that much TV but for the TV loving Cynthia, I could only imagine what this tour means to her.

In a (secret) room somewhere I saw two huge flat panel TVs broadcasting HD signal.  Wow … HD testing!  Dear HBO Asia, if you need volunteers at home to test your HD signal, I would kindly sacrifice my living room to be the HBO HD test center.  I would even buy a flat panel TV for that purpose.

Big thanks to Karen and her team from HBO in giving us such a memorable experience, a wonderful host with such great hospitality.  And also cheers to the folks from Text100.  Stay tuned for more updates!

Related site: HBO Asia Flight of the Conchords Blog

Categories
I See I Write

2008 DMC World DJ Championship Singapore Finals Sponsored by TDK Life on Record – See Y’all There!

Beijing Olympic may be over but the DMC World DJ Championship is heating up.  Cynthia and I will be heading to Zouk this Saturday (heats at 9pm, final at 11pm) and see who is going to represent Singapore to battle for the World Supremacy title at London this September.  Sounds exciting?  Damn right it’s going to be!

DJ Kid Fresh – 3 times World Champion – from Germany will be there to rock the house.  I’ve checked out his MySpace and he does have some pretty cool stuff.  I am told that the sponsor TDK Life on Record has commissioned DJ Perplex (2006, 2007 DMC Australian Champ) to mix a CD of up-and-coming artists from around the globe and the CD will be distributed during the show!  His music direction is more into a mesh of hip-hop, electro, and experimental.  Wanna download a sample (I heard it, it is good stuff)?

The rule is pretty simple.  Each contestant will be given 3 minutes at the elimination round to “bring it on”.  Final round will last for 6 minutes.  What the contestants allow to use are two turntables and one mixer as well as any stylus in the Ortofon range.  What this setup does is simply allowing the DJ to creatively mix the music from two different sources.  And because effects and modifications to the setup is not allow in this competition, it is really back to basic and put every DJ on the same ground.

Edit: My insider source tells me that there will be lovely ladies from TDK Life on Record to demo the TDK headphones.  They will be in around the area so do try them out when you have a chance (erm … the headphones)!  Zouk members will receive a discount over these headphones at Cyberactive.  Now, who is kind enough to lend me a Zouk card?!

Note: Zouk admission on Aug 30 for non-members (incl. 2 drinks) – S$18 before 10pm, S$25, S$30 after.

Categories
Whacky Thoughts

My New “It’s So Strange” Movement / And I Started Swimming Again

This is me, swimming in Backstroke.  It’s a strange drawing of mine, isn’t it?

Maybe I tend to influence people around me with my quirks and twists; maybe everybody is influencing everybody else with his or her quirks and twists.  Last year, I started the “Do It” movement.  Some colleague of mine told me that they have even started saying “do it” outside their work.  This year, I am starting the “It’s So Strange” movement.  I bumped onto my colleague this morning and he ended his comment with “it’s so strange”.  Uh oh.  What have I done?

“It’s So Strange” is a wonderful comment.  It could mean I-don’t-like-it-but-hey-who-am-I-to-comment?  Or it-is-crap-but-there-is-nothing-we-can-do.  How about OK-we’ve-tried-our-best-and-it’s-beyond-us?  Or simply, I-can’t-explain.  By saying “it’s so strange”, I find that people become less defensive and more curious about what makes me think that way.  Instead of hating me, they empathize or sympathize my puzzlement.  And for those who truly understand why I say “it’s so strange”, we all laugh at the dark side of the humor.

Today is a strange day.  I woke up this morning still having this backache.  Maybe I spent too much time at Azeroth over the weekend; maybe I spent too much time hunting mouse at Facebook.  I must have sat too straight, or stood too straight, I got a lousy backache.  Usually the backache would go away with my morning stretching ritual, but it didn’t.

On my way home I said to Cynthia, “I should go for swimming or jogging”.  Why did I say that?  Maybe I am inspired by some new blogger friends who are into sport; maybe I am inspired by so many friends out there who are suddenly into all kinds of sports.  Almost like a conspiracy.  It’s so strange.

So Cynthia offered to cook dinner while I headed for a swim.  Ah, the beautiful blue swimming pool.  I dived slided into the pool, inspired by Michael Phelps, I tried to rotate my shoulders while doing Breaststroke.  Breaststroke used to be a walk-in-the-park style for me but I was panting hard after one lap.  That’s no good.  Then I switched to Freestyle.  Couldn’t last the entire lap (small pool at my condo some more).  Uh oh.  I couldn’t even got my arms completely off the water with my Butterfly style.

Damn.

What I could do though, was Backstroke – one of my weakest styles besides Butterfly.  It was dark and I have to count my stroke in order to avoid hitting the wall.  By the time I got out of the pool, water droplets all over my body, there were ladies siting around the pool, young girls walking around the condo, businesswomen returning from work.  There I was hardly able to walk feeling all naked with my six …

Anyway, once I made it home, Cynthia greeted me and said, “So you feel like a rock star right?”  She always feels great after the exercise.  I was panting, my head was pounding.  Duh!

Good thing is, my backache is gone, for now.

Categories
Foreign Movie Reviews Romance

Cyborg She (僕の彼女はサイボーグ) – How Many Times Can You Alter Your Past?

I really love this Japanese film.  I am so feeling her heart  – an expression I learn from the film to describe a strong affection in a cyborg-human relationship: I feel your heart!  While the Americans are remaking the Korean success “My Sassy Girl”, the director of the aforementioned movie, Kwak Jae-yong, has created “Cyborg She”.

Let’s not look into the technical details of the paradox of time travel.  Besides, that would give out spoiler, which I don’t normally do without warning.  There are enough twists in “Cyborg She” that keep the audience in suspense all the way to the end.  The special effect of the Cyborg looks convincing, so are the scenes from a Japanese small town in the old days as well as ‘that disaster’.  The acting of the main actress Haruka Ayase (綾瀬 はるか) looks convincing too.  She is so pretty.  I read somewhere that she acted in that Japanese movie “Hero”.  She has certainly left a deeper impression this time.  If I may add, the soundtrack is great too.

Arguably one of the more original movies based on the concept of time, “Cyborg She” is my favorite romance story that involves time travel.  Exactly why the director Kwak Jae-yong likes to create female characters that are so overpowering, I have no clue.  But I always enjoy watching or reading stories that involve heroines.

If I must pick something to critic, some scenes appear to be repetitive and a bit too lengthy.  Then again, with such an eye candy, who really cares?

I have been pondering why titled as such.  “I, Robot” came into my mind.  If I think along that line, “Cyborg She” seems fine.  Time to wait for the DVD to be out!  Below is the trailer, with Chinese subtitles.

Categories
Blu-ray / DVD Review

Ayumi Hamasaki Countdown Live 2007-08 Anniversary (DVD) – Raising the Bar Once Again

Foreign as it may sound to you, Ayumi has been a great inspiration to me.  It is a pity that many find language a barrier that is too high to cross.  Even if you are not into Ayumi’s music, watching her concert recordings will certainly open your eyes to what a live performance can be: the innovation, the overall production quality, and the superb entertainment value. 

So, what is so great about this particular indoor recording?

A large stage with moving platforms, fountains, and fireworks, a crane that takes Ayumi closer to the crowd, a talented band and a group of equally talented dancers are all attributes that we have seen before in her previous concerts.  Hence, it is a given, something you would expect to see from any Ayumi concerts.  Beyond these, here is how Ayumi celebrated her 10 years of music career.

The Stage

If how well an artist performs live is judged by how well he or she covers the stage area, Ayumi has certainly up the challenge by extending the front stage all the way to the back via a runway as well as a side stage.  Ayumi, her dancers, and her band members moved from one end of the stage to another.  In one of the bonus clips, there is a split screen on how she tunneled (via a trolley pushed by two men!) from one stage into another and ‘magically appeared’ from nowhere.

The Choreography

I may not know what the songs are about without reading the Chinese translation.  However, the choreography is so great that it communicates the stories.  One highlight is the lyrical dance on one of the slow songs.  It moves me.  And for this concert, the lead choreographer did something different: he involved the audience to practice the upper body dance moves.  During one part of a song that came much later, he gave the clue and suddenly, the entire stadium danced in unison.  The emotion is intense, even as I was siting in front of my TV.

The Personality

Inside the bonus clips, viewers get to see Ayumi’s glamor side, her humble side, and her determined side.  She is so driven in all areas though she may not be great in all.  But her quest for superb quality and bringing out the best in the people around her is just amazing.  Whatever she demands from others, I can only imagine that she demands much more from herself.

Closing Thoughts

Politically incorrect as it may sound, this image sticks in my mind.  When the Crusaders first arrived at Jerusalem, they were shocked by how advance the culture of the people in the Middle East was.  The quality of Ayumi’s production is certainly unseen of, for those who take the Western production as a benchmark.

Another image that sticks in my mind is this.  At the end of the concert, in one dramatic moment, Ayumi silenced the entire stadium, took a moment of silence, and screamed out words of thanks – without a mic.  You are my inspiration, Ayu.

Categories
My YouTube

Video of Hella Good, 1st Session

OK.  This video is dedicated to our friends who have been so supportive for my home made Voodoo Mix of No Doubt’s “Hella Good” and eager to watch what it is like with drums and guitars.  To set the expectation right, this recording is our band’s first session playing this cover song (and very rarely we do so as we prefer to play our original songs).  If it was that good, I would be making a living at the club “Insomnia” instead of being a 9-to-5 arguable one of the fastest value-adding electronic postmen of the world.

We didn’t get a decent studio room this time so pardon the sound quality.  I did the best I can from the sound engineering point of view.  Hardly could I hear what I played or sang that day.

On a more positive note, Wieke did merge the essence of the “Hella Good” drum beats with that famous One Republic track and implemented into our original song “Kids From The Park”.  It was pretty funky.  Hope to share with y’all some time in the future.

PS: A big thanks to Selrol who took our video.

Related Post: Hella Good Is Hella Tough! Here Is Our Voodoo Mix