Category: Announcement

I got shocked out of my socks when Sylv dropped me a comment that one of my reviews has been nominated for the Best Review Post.  Wow, how did that happen?  OK, please vote for me only if you think that I am worthy of the title and it’s not too much of a hassle for you.  I don’t wish this to be a popularity contest and I know some of you value privacy, not wanting to leave digital footprints in the Internet.  In this gigantic blogosphere of Singapore, I am certainly very humbled even by getting nominated especially by this lovely community called Ping.sg.  And here is the post that you may have come across back in June.

• So This is Sex and the City (A Guy’s Perspective)

I have been procrastinating for years when it comes down to writing a few paragraphs on “About Me”.  “About Me” is very commonly found in almost all the blogging sites.  I can write posts that consist thousands of words but yet when it comes down to “About Me”, I don’t know what to write.  Ever since I have created the “About Me” page temporarily with my email address and my mugshot, statistics tell me that more and more readers click onto that page.  It has become so significant that I have decided to write something about me over the weekend in under 250 words, which is kind of impossible if you know my style.  The final version has a 330 word count.  Quite an achievement for a start.

I reckon in recent years, one third of my posts are reviews of some sort, be it as books, or music, or movies.  And hence, I have been pondering if I shall include my review philosophy into “About Me”.  Right now, probably not as I wish to keep that low word count.

If you notice, I don’t give rating for all my recent reviews.  My philosophy is very simple: just because I give a perfect ten to a book or a movie or a music album doesn’t mean that you would love it.  Because I am me and you are you and you are not me.  What I can do though is to highlight the good and the not-too-good and you then decide if it is a zero or a ten, if the good works for you, and if the not-too-good is the deal breaker.  You rate it, not I rate it for you.  The most I can do is to categorize the reviews because I am aware that there are genres that some people may not be interested in.

And as careful as I can be, I try not to publish any spoilers for the movies.  Non-fictional book reviews are OK, I think, to read like book summaries because for those who may not have the time to read, it is good for them to learn something.  And if the readers have decided to read the non-fictional books I reviewed, I hope that my reviews act as a reinforcement to what they are going to read, a challenge for them to think ahead.  I personally am torn when it comes to fictional books.  On one hand, I shall not give out any spoilers.  On the other hand, some do visit my site to, as an illustration, research on how best to position a certain book to the students (such as “The Fifth Child By Doris Lessing – Horror Or Tragedy? You Decide”).  Hence, the for fictional books, my style is in as much as possible, highlight the themes and not too much on the storyline.

Writing music reviews is both easy and tough.  Easy in a sense that I have no holding back on what I can write.  Spoiler restriction does not apply to music albums.  Tough because it is hard to describe sound.  And more often than not, I have to hunt for music videos to complete my reviews and they are not easy to maintain either.

I learn that some reviews have hit rates far beyond my own domain’s hit rate.  Some topics are time sensitive, some are not.  Some are popular, some ain’t.  Till today, I am still learning on how to write a good review.

And I am so glad to have you readers to be with me on this journey of mine.  This nomination of mine is for you!

Instead of the usual wishing all my readers a prosperous Chinese New Year and a Happy Holiday message, this year I have picked a few rather unusual red couplets (揮春 / 春貼) for you … see picture below.  To those who are new to red couplets, they are usually displayed on the door frames and contain auspicious words or phrases (吉祥話). Maybe you are not familiar with the Chinese characters, maybe traditional Chinese is too much for you.  Here I am attempting to translate them using my 唔鹹唔淡 Chinese knowledge (literally translated to neither-salty-nor-bland that loosely means … not so good … ha ha ha).

The first one from the left is great for the ladies.  It literally means (1) to move people’s heart with striking beauty.  Don’t we all secretly want to stop traffic and to dazzle the opposite sex (don’t bluff!)?  And there is a guy version too!  Right next to it is (2) handsome and cool.  While (3) an obedient husband is definitely something for the wives to stick everywhere from PC gaming room to bedroom, I have difficulty in pondering if (4) a prosperous wife is for the husbands or the wives.  I personally think that if mine is rich and successful, I can stay at home and shake legs the whole day.  Hence, sure, I would love to stick red couplet #4 everywhere from laundry room to kitchen.

Looks and family politics aside, of course all of us want a (5) wallet or purse bulging with money and for the investors, (6) a bull market for both share and property.  What to do with all these money and good fortune?  For the available ones, (7) happy love affairs.  For the rest of us?  Perhaps (8) dreams come true.  People say beauty is only skin deep.  But it certainly wouldn’t harm to have (9) a lifelong beauty.

Okay, there you go!  I hope I have done a reasonable job in translating these interesting red couplets.  Picture above is produced by courtesy of Cynthia.  It was one of the MMS she sent to me while we did remote red couplets shopping.

OK. It has been a real painful experience migrating the blog entries. It is even a more painful experience migrating the articles. What is the difference between blog entries and articles you may ask. To me, articles are not time sensitive, don’t have to be arranged chronologically, may contains a great number of words and pictures, and hence, not suitable to be put onto the front page. If you notice the header of my site, there is one link to the blog and I have just added another link to the article section today.

My previous blog engine was a proper content management system. To replicate that in this blog engine, it was tough. Try pick one random article, say Our Mount Kinabalu Experience and scroll to the bottom of the article. See that drop-down list box? I have to code that myself and link all the sub-pages together! Cool thing, eh?

On a side note, I know it is long overdue to release the personal journals of our Mount Kinabalu trip. The fact is, we have been waiting for our friend TK to write his. However, our hope diminishes as time goes by. So, it is a high time to release ours. Cynthia’s journal is her first article contribution to my site. You can read our personal journals through our Mount Kinabalu article.

Enjoy.

PS. Cynthia and I will be flying to Hong Kong / Macau coming this Saturday till the end of the year. I will try to keep up with your blogs and to post something in mine from time to time.

PS. Why only 95%? Ain’t you done? Not quite my friend. I intend to write a proper profile page and perhaps, find a way to construct a site-map. Besides, I wish to tidy up the side bars. Seems a bit too crowded, eh?

Since I have been handed this golden opportunity by the hackers to re-organize the contents of my site, I have taken the liberty to re-think most of the entries I have written and to come up with a new set of category. After all, we are unable to migrate the old category structure into the new one. One friend of mine told me that I should have classified my movie reviews into different genres because those who don’t like horror movies for instance, will never watch another horror movie no matter how good I think it is.

There are still lots of things to be done. Of course the folks at Osbob.com will continue to find ways to improve my site or at least offer the similar level of functionality like I used to have. While for me, I shall go through each and every blogs, to examine and update the internal links accordingly and to re-link all the images.

Certainly sounds like a new job. Hopeful there will be enough investors to show me the money.

After my site has been hacked three days in a roll, the team at Osbob.com and I have decided to adopt a different strategy and go for a more robust blogging focused engine rather that the content management system we used to have. We are still in the mist to try out new things and certainly, by the look of my site now, there are still plenty to be done such as the look-and-feel, the article section, the categorization of the hundreds of blog entries, the re-linking of all the content items, and etc. Hopefully by Christmas this year, we will return to normalcy with a fresh look. We thank you for your patience over this episode and support over the years. Please do return from time to time to see the exciting features coming your way.

Meanwhile, if you could drop in a few comments and suggestions on what this site has been doing well in the past and what can be improved, we would greatly appreciate that.

Yours,
Wilfrid + The Osbob.com Team

So my site got hacked again. One of my friends texted me and asked, “End of your blogging career?” I am tired of this daily battle against the unknown hackers and the way things are going, I am not sure when I will start focusing on writing something fun rather than worrying that my site is passing virus to the loyal readers. I am frustrated that I have to hassle my friend for help in a daily basis. Thank you for your visit and your comments over the years. I know at least one of you has been putting up with my nonsense since 1996. If there is a way to continue, I will let you know. See you whenever we see next.

PS. We are shutting down the blog engine till we find a safe way ahead

Note: The Music Review Page is now taken down due�to a change�of blog engine.�

Ever since the beginning of 2007, as suggested by one of my buddies, I have tried to write a small music review on each of the music album purchased. Initially I did it for some selected music albums I have bought and in some occasions, from my friends’ feedback, I realise that I may have helped them in their decisions in some way or have uncovered some artists whom they were not aware of. And that was also the time when I was inspired to re-brand my website to “Where Good Things Are Meant To Be Shared” as I consolidated the meanings behind the sharing of the new movies I have watched, good restaurants I have visited, books that I read, and etc – all brought together under one cohesive theme. These days I try to write a review on all my album purchases religiously.

After written over 30 reviews on music alone, I realise that unlike movies whereby people have more overlapping genres they are interested in, music preference can be quite unique to some. I know friends who listen to mostly jazz. Some enjoy chill-out music. I know friends who particularly don’t enjoy listening to pop music. I can rarely find friends who like metal music. Even harder to find those who have a passion for Japanese music. But of course, when it comes to pop and rock, majority enjoy the instant gratification these artists offer.

In view of that, lately I have added a new sub-category for music genres. My thinking is, if someone enjoy reading my review on one particular genre, he or she may wish to see what other reviews I have written for that genre.

From time to time, I do listen to suggestions. A buddy of mine suggested that I shall add a scoring system for my reviews. So a 5-star would be a music album or a movie that should not be missed. I have considered for quite a while and decided against it. It is because I don’t think any reviewer or critic can tell anyone what to do without either generalising all people as having the same preference or thinking that his or her own preferences count for something that the public should follow. I am talking in the domain of art whereby an apple to apple comparison is almost impossible. So what I do is to highlight the highs and lows of each album or movie and let the reader decides if the lows can be overlooked or the highs are enough to tilt the balance of decision. My rating may not mean anything to you because I am not you.

In anticipation that readers are making the purchase ahead of my reviews, I always try to release the reviews for the “most-wanted” artists before others. But it is still not ideal. If you take a look at my “Music Review” page, there are still 11 albums outstanding under “Coming Soon”. I seldom buy albums that I immensely regret so in a way, if you see some albums that you wish to purchase and I have them, most likely they are worth your time to check them out (that is if your music taste is not totally opposite of mine). Better still, you can MSN me (info on banner of this site) and I am more than happy to give you my 5-cent.

It is because of all of the above (and you as the readers of my site) that I have created a “Music Reviews” page that houses most of my recent reviews. You are welcome to check this page out from time to time to see what are coming soon and to catch up on some reviews that you may have missed. Just a click of a link on the main menu to the left.

In case if you are not aware of, my site has the build-in search functionality for all the contents – articles, blogs, forum, and etc. Thank you for dropping by from time to time. Happy surfing. All suggestions are welcome.