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Diary

I Met Gayles + Other Random Encounters

At times, I would call in one of my usual restaurants and order dinner. And at times, I would pay a visit to the mini-mart besides the restaurant to grab some beers. Last week I bumped onto Gayles on the following day after she was voted out of the Singapore Idol. At first I was wondering why this girl took so long to make payment via NETS (she was with 2 young kids and a friend of hers). When she turned around, I was petrified. Okay, she is not exactly a celebrity as per se. But still, she was on TV and I have voted for her episode after episode.

Inspired by how John Maxwell defines charisma, I tried to get the people around me to talk about themselves more. So this guy making my Latte asked me if I was a local (my accent gave it away?) and I got him to tell me more about coffee. Well, did you know that Latte is created at 75 degree – the optimal temperature for making coffee? Ha!

Today while I pumped petrol, this attendant talked to me in Mandarin and I was trying to talk to him in English. After a while, I gave up and talked in Cantonese. Turned out that his Cantonese is better than his Mandarin (not sure if I can say the same about my Cantonese). So he talked non-stop. I learned that both Mobil petrol station and the one opposite the road, Exxon, are owned by the same (erm … unpleasant) boss. A petrol attendant’s job scope includes cleaning of the actual petrol pumping station, cleaning of the mini-store, as well as the toilets. Anyway, another attendant pulled him away before he could tell me more. Perhaps next time.

Categories
Diary

Love Being A Consultant?

I have always known that deep inside, I don’t want to be anything else but a consultant. Our morning meeting at the client site finished early (11am) and our next meeting was after lunch (2pm). We tried to bring the meeting forward but the interviewee was out-of-office. So, I have decided to take my team to lunch at Sentosa, the island resort, instead.

It was a bright and sunny day and I proposed to first have a drink at the bar (picture on top) and then drive to the “ferry” to have Mexican food (picture on bottom left) for lunch. After our wonderful meal (considering a S$10 lunch …), I suddenly saw this bright orange monorail train zoom passed us (objects seems to move a lot faster when near). I waited till it made its return trip to take a picture using my phone (bottom right). It is on testing stage and here you are. First look at what the new Sentosa offers.

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I See I Write

How Cynthia and I Judged the Contestants

We all know how frustrated we are with the Singapore Idols judges (at least I am). Their comments are like: you are holding back, this is not you, you look great tonight … etc. I personally find that the radio DJs at 98.7FM have a better sensing on the contestants’ performance.

After seeing Cynthia cringing and crumpled her face with such an unspoken pain, I offered her an therapetic advice: write down how you feel about each contestant and be the judge yourself! And she did.

On Gayle:

C: Star quality, but not hitting certain keys.
W: Fallen in love with her at first sight … erm … I mean show. Made my heart skips. Who care how she sings?!

On Rahimah:

C: The key is too low for her, but on the same time, she doesn’t hit high keys.
W: Never liked her look, never liked her voice. Sure, the vibrato was pretty good. Just not my cup of tea.

On Mathilda:

C: Powerful voice, but seems out of breath at times.
W: She is frightening. The song itself is aweful with no melody really. Please don’t kill me.

On Hady:

C: Confident singer, need to take songs out of his comfort zone, and improvise!
W: He is the dude. Love the lively performance. Made me wanna dance!

On Jay:

C: He gives contours to his songs, giving different depths to different parts. However, the music does not do him justice. I say, so far he is the best singer of the lot.
W: Dude, how did you to that?! That was fantastic! Show me the riff again please?!

On Emilee:

C: Need to learn a lot about techniques, seems to sing in a totally different key from the music.
W: I could easy cast a vote based on those boobs. Man … but I really don’t quite like her singing. Sigh.

On Joakim:

C: Weak singing, limited vocal range. If I were a judge, he won’t make it to even the top dunno what (unless other candidates are much worse?).
W: Who? Again? (Momentarily put down my magazine) He’s done?

On Nurul:

C: What an awful song to sing!
W: Oh God, my ears …

On Norman:

C: Not enough practice, problem with high keys.
W: (Put down my magazine) … Who’s next?

On Jonathan:

C: Good vocal material, commanding presence on stage, but weak in techniques.
W: I felt bad after his performance. Jon was supposed to be the “hope” of Singapore Idol. And he just not as God-like as I thought.

On Jasmine:

C: Good karaoke singer, but no star quality. Really forgettable performance.
W: Loved her since day one. A lively performance as always.

On Paul:

C: Hitting keys, but need to work on falsetto.
W: The first sentence came out perfect and wowed me. But it all went wrong from there.

VERDICT:

C: Candidates for elimination = Emilee, Joakim, Nurul or Jasmine.
W: Don’t care who get eliminated. Just don’t let it be Gayle, Jay, or Jasmine.

Categories
I See I Write

My Take on the Next Singapore Idol Episode

The contestants are now able to blog in the Singapore Idol official site. It is sort of interesting to read each of their blogs and sort of learn their real life styles. Some are pretty childish (in a positive cute way), some are pretty angst filled and choatic, and some are very properly written. If I am to simply judge on the amount of support these contestants have based on the amount of comments posted, Mathilda will be the next one out.

Jon, Paul, and Rahimah seems to have a strong fan support. I won’t be surprised if they can go far. Now, the next coming few episodes will justify the theory of how many of those voters actually vote purely based on performance or more.

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I See I Write

Don’t we all speak … football?

Over this couple of weeks of World Cup fever, I have come across people whom I have met but not talked to in random occasions and out of nowhere, they would start dumping their soccer related opinions to me and without really listening to what I have to offer in return, they would disappear back into their own worlds and literally disappeared. Today’s occasion was different.

I don’t even know this gentleman’s name. He has won some long service award of 25 or 30 years, worked in the same department as me, but I have not talk to him for the 3 years of so of my employment in the very same department. I blame it on the age gap. Anyway, today I bumped onto him in the restroom and all of a sudden, at the washing basin, he looked at me in this radiance smile and a level of energy that I have never discovered from our brief encounters over the years. He spoke and talked about the World Cup final. I threw in a few insights – after all, I was an avid audience of the World Cup tournament – and that triggered him into an even livelier speech on the controversy that happened during the final.

Towards the end of the conversation, or rather his long speech (as I seldom interjected, just offering insights), I gently pointed out to him that it is the same referee who sent off Rooney (of course we were in topic of the send-off of Zindane). Rather than just taking my words for it, he silenced for a moment, pondered, then exclaimed, “Yes, the Argentine!”. And I saw that he suddenly saw me in a different light, felt that he has discovered something important, and disappeared back into his own world … and again, literally disappeared.

Don’t we all speak “football”?

Categories
Memorable Events

A Birthday Treat – World Cup Final

One of my best friend once complimented my passion I find in life. That’s true. Once I find a new passion, I hook onto it, savor it, and persist all the way through. I am not a big fan of football. My father supports Brazil and I simply follow the World Cup – especially my father’s favorite team – ever since I was young.

I have not quite watched the World Cup like I did this year. I have nearly watched each and every matches. It was almost like an obsession. I wanted to know every team, all the players, how they played, how they progressed, and what their strategies were like. And matches after matches, I was thoroughly entertained. It was like the whole season of American Idol cramped into a month. The problem, of course, is that I am now living in the European time zone instead (time now is three in the morning).

Categories
I See I Write

Ghost Whisperer (TV Series)

There are many reasons to watch Ghost Whisperer that is currently airing in our National TV. It is a story based on a young girl who is able to see and talk to dead people. I watched the show with open mind as I did not know what to expect (what I did know was the young girl is played by Jennifer Love Lewitt). It turned out that based on just the premier episode, I would give my five stars on filming, scripting, and acting in each separate category. In the realm of TV series – movies aside – Ghost Whisperer has an element of horror (it does make my heart skipped from time to time) and has an element of strong emotion. Cynthia cried five times during the premier episode and I felt the same way too.

Now of course, I have to shamelessly say that I have been a big fan of Jennifer Love Lewitt (who has a body to die for and a face to fall in love with … duh!). Catch the series and you got to see her in all the fashionable clothes as well as all sort of pajamas.

Categories
Diary

We Met This Pretty Relationship Manager from MayBank

I met up with my good old friend of 10 years RC and he suggested having hawker food at Amoy Street (pretty rare of him as our favorite lunch outings are usually some fancy places such as … erm … Hooters). After our meal, RC needed my company to visit MayBank for the refinancing of his housing loan. I pondered for a while and heck, I need to refinance my loan too.

MayBank is famous for its low interest rate but also notorious for its customer service department. Since both RC and I needed to inquire about the same thing, we took one queue number and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited what seemed like an eternity (30 minutes does seems like an eternity during office hours). Finally our number was flashed and we matched to the counter.

The young, attractive, and pleasant looking relationship manager greeted us and I told her that we wished to inquire about housing loan. I knew how weird it must have sounded (since RC and I don’t look like blood brothers) and I reassured her that we are looking at two properties here – one for my friend and one for me. She laughed and asked if we knew what she was thinking. Oh well. Put RC and I together and a conversation is sure to be lively.

Towards the end of our lively inquiry, she asked if any of us worked in a bank so that we can get a better interest rate. I replied no and RC replied likewise and both of us made some jokes out of it. In the mist of the laughter, she casually said that we could marry one instead. Now, I was wearing my wedding band and RC didn’t … so … erm … lucky man he is?

As I walked out of MayBank, I commented to RC that our relationship manager is pretty. RC’s reply was that she is too thin. I starred back at him and asked what is wrong with thin people (well, I am certainly not fat).

Perhaps the title should be “I met this pretty relationship manager from MayBank but RC found her too thin”. (Damn you RC, thin people can be attractive too! Hahaha!)

Categories
I See I Write

Singapore Idol – Wildcard Episode

Latest Update: This time round, the judge would pick 2 contestants for the next round while people’s votes would save 2 more contestants. Turned out that the judges picked Gayle (wasted all my votes!) and the people picked Jay. There are two more but not worth mentioning at the moment.

Last night, I landed 3 votes to Gayles and 2 votes to Jay. This morning, I pumped another 2 votes to Gayles just in case. As of today, 15 votes have been submited (S$9 damage so far).

On my way back home, the radio was playing Lindsay Lohan’s “Confession Of A Broken Heart”. Avoid at all cost. The lyrics and the terrible melody of “Daughter to Father … I Love You” still rang inside my head right now. Very agonising.

Now, back to the Singapore Idol, happy that the judges picked Gayle and Jay into the Wildcard episode of 7 resurrected contestants. I knew Jay has potential and he did shine. I sense that Gayle may have had a flu and did not perform well. Gayle sort of reminded me of Katherine Mcphee, one of the American Idol contestants. Gayle tends to crack under pressure I guess but she has the X-factor.

Well, time to send tons of SMS’s to save someone’s music career.

Categories
Fragments of My Dreams

So I Folded A Boy’s Head

(During my 3 hours of sleep after watching the controversial football match of Holland versus Portugal, I had a nightmare. I can’t decipher the dream at all. Can you? Note: The picture on the left was drawn by me.)
In my house that seemed a bit dark and rundown, I have a large family gathering. The old and the young all appeared to have a great time full of laughters and joy. Was it a festive event or a celebration of someone’s birthday? I have no idea. All of a sudden, the unthinkable happened.

The neck of a young boy chipped off like a piece of old wooden furniture and felt onto the ground together with his head. Suddenly, everyone was screaming and yelling. We all agreed that calling an ambulance may take too long so I took up the piece of the neck and the head and headed to the hospital.

Stepped outside my house, I met my colleagues and explained to them the dire situation. Carefully, I folded the head twice into a flat piece of shall I say “thing” and placed the head and the neck into my briefcase. Off I went as I have a client meeting to attend to as well.

My colleagues and I met my boss at some random location inside a sheltered bridge and I explained to her why we needed to rush to our client site as soon as possible. We were lost for a while and when we found our destinations, the hospital was on the third floor while the business meeting was on the fourth floor. So I asked them to go ahead while I made a detour to the hospital.

Once I reached the hospital – sort of a bit rundown as well, I grabbed a nurse and explained the emergency to her. She asked me to show her the boy’s head and so I took this flat piece of “thing” out and unfolded it back into the shape of a head. She gasped and asked me where the rest of the body was. I told her that I have left it at home. The nurse then paged for the doctor and together with the boy’s head and the piece of neck, they disappeared.

I climbed the stairs and joined my colleagues. In the center of a large room, there was a live recording of an executive interview. Apparently, our business meeting was inside one of the rooms. We took the time and watched the interview for a long while before heading into the meeting room. After what seemed to be a lapse of memory, we emerged out of the meeting room and took the chance to chat with the celebrities who have just finished the interview. My colleagues left the building but I did not.

I headed one stair down and entered the hospital that had quite a crowd inside the waiting area. I asked for the nurse again and she led me to the doctor. The doctor asked me where the body was and I gave the same reply as I did to the nurse. He took me into a lab and showed me the head that was now opened into two halves. I was starring at the layer of white and slimy gel-like matter and the doctor told me that even if he could cure the boy, the boy would suffer 75 percent brain damage.

Grievingly, I agreed with the doctor and someone has to carry the bad news home. At the entrance of the hospital, the nurse stopped me and told me that a police investigation was now underwent and I was one of the suspects.

I knew I needed to runaway. I knew I needed to deal with the body at home. I knew the police would be all over me. I wish I knew what to do next.