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American Idol Final 3

American Idol Final 3 episode is probably the best episode to watch. Though I have a personal preference to Katherine McPhee, watching the performance from Elliot Yamin, Taylor Hicks, and Katherine herself, it is kind of hard to tell which one is the best. They are all so good in their own way. Elliot, the underdog, whom I believe he has the best male vocal and all the wonderful riffs best suit in singing blue songs which I love a lot. Taylor, with his soothing and effortless singing and his so loosen-up, so totally enjoy himself when he is on stage. And Katherine, probably the most charming of all, with her stage presence and wonderful range that many may not get to appreciate the difficulties in the songs (midway key switch and all). I hate to see any one of them going home.

From the performance last night, I gather that most probably Katherine would be safe. Between Taylor and Eliot, Taylor has the more electrifying performance in the end. Not sure how true are the voting figures when the show flashed them on the big screen, the differences between each three of them were within less than 1%. That is pretty darn close.

It is not until Elliot get voted out did I realized that how much I actually like that guy – his love to his family and his passion in life. If he ever comes up with a record (blue music please), I will definitely buy it (I said no to Cynthia last time and by the way, I think Cynthia will be much devastated when she learns that Elliot is out).

PS1. I still don’t think I will buy Taylor’s album should he releases one.
PS2. Why Elliot?! Why not Taylor?! Sigh.
PS3. Well, good news! For sure, Cynthia and I will be voting for the same person next week … that is Katherine of course … Duh?!

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Oh Dear Katherine …

How time flies. This is the third week I am blogging on American Idol and I can’t believe that Katherine McPhee has made me worried once and again. Well, since there are four left – 3 guys and 1 girl – if she doesn’t screw up at all, she can easily get to the final. Alright, we shall see. Personally, I thought her 2nd song Can’t Help Falling In Love moves me.

I am a geek, I am not a geek, I am a geek, I am not a geek. I don’t know. I reckon not to stress myself up and learn what my new phone can offer (catching up on 6 years of mobile phone technology as a couple of days ago, I still lived in 2000). Yesterday was on how to transfer media files using USB cable. Today, I tried using my home wireless network. I was so surprised that my mobile phone can “talk” to my computer after 101 steps of configuration. The WEP key itself felt like 101 characters.

Anyway, I am pleased with my new phone. Very pleased. I do recommend N80. Go get it!

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American Idol, Hooters, 6 Figures, and Power

Alright. The above was taken when Katherine performed last week in American Idol. Remember last week I was sort of upset that she was misjudged (and Simon did an apology on the result day). This week, she sort of messed up on the first song. Hope the second song saves her.

Met up with RC for lunch at Hooters – his beloved restaurant. Seriously, the standard of the waitresses have gone down real bad. While RC was still mesmerised from one of the DVD Chinese series (and he will lend to me while my wife Cynthia will be gone overseas next week), I was jaw dropped by his 6 figures leave encashment when he switched job and his ex-company paid him a performance bonus (or commission so as to say) in another 6 figures. Wow … that is a lot of money!

I was sharing with him how I have upgraded my PC and that I am considering getting a Plama TV. Our discussion went wild and if I am to upgrade my PC’s power supply (as a matter of time) and if I am to use my Hi-Fi and Plasma TV to play game … the power consumption would be … my PC (600W), Plasma TV (350W), and Hi-Fi (200W) … a total of closed to 1,200W of power! Well, to help you imagine, when the iron is on, it consumes 1,200W of power and the iron will go off once it is hot enough. My new entertainment system won’t.

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I saw Stefanie Sun in HMV Orchard!

It has been a long and hard day for me so I was in need of some destress. Retail therapy I did. After I made payment at HMV Orchard, I sensed that a lot of people were looking at my direction. I looked around and saw someone resembled Stefanie Sun. After some careful observation, it was her.

I texted my friends about this exciting discovery. Some of them wished to be there. Some of them asked me if I have bought a CD of hers and asked for an autograph (duh? why didn’t I?). Some of them asked me how she looked like.

Well, she is short, her skin is as what some may have already know – not that good, but she is sweetly adorable. I did a search at Yahoo! and found that she is even featured at an Encyclopedia.

And by the way, someone has told me that gold colour is the “in-thing”. Stefanie Sun was indeed carrying a big golden coloured handbag.

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Realplayer For Real?!

I came across an album by Miho Karasawa and wish to check out her materials in the Internet. Turned out that I needed to install a Realplayer. After launching the Realplayer, I was greeted with many interesting movie titles such as: Love for Sale, My Sister the Geisha, Favourite Body Parts, Why Men Pay For It.

I clicked onto Love For Sale – L.A. Story and watched the trailer (to play the video, I will need a pass). Dialogue as follows:

Interviewee (girl) – “Women should be coming in no more than {paused} seven minutes. If you’re longer than seven minutes, you need my help. You need to come to me {pause}, ya. ”

Interviewer (girl) – “Where do you get seven minutes from?”

Interviewee – “That is about the point when you start to getting frustrated. If I am doing it, and I can’t come in a {paused}, I am usually like a two or three minutes girl. But if I can’t come in like seven minutes, for the first one, then I will get really frustrated. So I would {pause} say that, using me as the model, if I can, you know, if it takes you fourteen minutes to come, I can show you techniques that can cut that time in half.”

Now, I wonder what that technique is.

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Where Not to Buy Musical Equipment

Shop name: Sinamex
Address: Parklane Shopping Mall

Recently my wife and I have experienced some electric shock with our bass and electric guitar and after some first level troubleshooting, I suspected that it was the mixer that gave me the problem. Called Sinamex and the technical support asked me to bring the set back for diagnosis. Fine. I was so happy that the support was so helpful.

Bad luck for me, the support guy was not in. The boss was so totally cocky. After a very simplistic diagnosis and could not replicate the problem, here was some of the dialogues.

Poor Customer: (long explanation why I think it could due to a faulty mixer)
Cocky Boss: This is X-file.
Poor Customer: (felt like punching him on his face) X-file doesn’t exist man …
Cocky Boss: You bring it back and most likely it will be fine
Poor Customer: (tried once more to reason with him)
Cocky Boss: Do you play in church?
Poor Customer: (huh? does it matter?) No.

Poor Customer: Don’t you have some more sophisticated tools to diagnose the circuitary?
Cocky Boss: We have a set of diagnostic steps but I don’t see the problem.
Poor Customer: (ah, he is referring to the troubleshooting section in the manul … so much for their help) But I am really feeling the shock man …
Cocky Boss: It is impossible (giving me another X-file look)

And I walked away.

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Jap Restaurant + Rome (HBO)

I lived by inspiration and when it strikes, there is no stopping me from doing it. Just like that, I have braved the super traffic jam of Orchard to my destination at Taka. Well, before I go on, I must say the road planning in Singapore sucks. God knows how many cars travel from CBD to Taka and the number of vehicles changing lanes on that route is phenomenon. And you need to pay ERP somemore. Great brains we have in Singapore.

Anyway, Taka carpark was full so we, again, braved the traffic jam and parked at Wheelock Place. What did I want from Taka? No idea. My inspiration didn’t say. So we spent 75 mins on the road and had no idea what we were supposed to do.

We ended up in the same Japanese restaurant that TK has took us to a while back. Atmosphere was great with dim lighting and Japan-ish images projected onto white walls. The waitresses are efficient and … pretty. And the food quality is good. It is a fusion type. Worth a try. Price-wise, the menu has something relatively cheep (like S$11 for a bowl of chicken rice – Japanese style of course) to something I can’t afford. The Sake is pretty bad though by the way.

Restaurant Name: Sun with Moon
Tel: 6733-6636

Rushed home for the HBO original series ROME. Now, that is a great show. Half way through the show (each episode is 50 mins and we are onto the 6th-ish one), I said to my wife: hey, this show is less about Caesar and his war. And my wife – an avid reader of Life!, OK!, People! – told me that what so original about this movie is that it is presented from the commoners’ perspective.

The dialogue is very funny. Like a guy said to his fellow solder: my wife doesn’t couple with me anymore. Or … this one is the best … the mother asked her son: Son, have you penetrated anyone yet? Her son hesitated and replied: No. And the mother sent a solder to take the son to a whore house. How I wish I had a mother like that …

Kidding.

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2 Interesting Observations the Other Day

Yesterday as I was driving along the highway, my wife suddenly spoke up: Look! There is someone jogging along CTE (the highway in Singapore). I said: What? Are you sure? Is he in jogging attire? According to my wife, the jogger was an Indian man of age about forty-ish under bright daylight (really hot). Good luck to his lungs with all the pollutants and all.

When I arrived at the client site, I finally took up the honour to turn on the air-conditioner (all the time my colleague arrives before I do) and right after the air-conditioner kicked into action, I heard popping sound that resembled the popcorn making machine. How weird? Then, all of a sudden, I felt some particles hitting my face. And whatever hit my face has a chilling effect. Next, I began to see particles bouncing on the table top like marbles onto the floor. Soon, it was wetness everywhere.

Only then did I realise that the air-conditioner was shooting small ice particles. When I mentioned to my colleague later on, she told me that it is normal and happens all the time when she turned on the air-conditioner every morning.

In the end, I gathered that when the air-conditioner is turned off, the blower is off but the motor that circulates the coolant is not. The end result is that the part near the blower became very cold and ice is formed. When the air-conditioner is turned on every morning, the blower blows the ice particles out from the air-conditioner.

Interesting observations I have for a day.

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Kids Are Annoying Creatures

We know what nature’s beauties are. The sound of gentle breeze, the morning chirping of the birds, the sound of the ocean, the sound of the trees under slow wind, and etc. We prefer to see a blossoming flower to a dying one, a healthy penguin to one that suffers from oil spill, a clear blue sky to a polluted one, etc. In short, we human beings do know what nature’s beauties are.

What happens when some of us develop crooked teeth? There comes the invention of brace. What happens when some of us develop shortsightedness? There comes the invention of spectacles. What happens when some of us develop depression? There comes the invention of Prozac. When happens when some of us develop erectile dysfunction? There comes the invention of Viagra.

Look around you the next time you visit the park or watch the animal channels on cable, observe the baby animals, aren’t they all look pleasant to be with? I don’t mind to be that Papa Tiger when I have Baby Tigers like that.

These are the thoughts that zigzaged my mind when I was greatly disturbed by the kids playing at the corridor. Seems to me that they have been playing at that corridor same time everyday. High frequency screaming, running around, banging doors, dropping items onto the floor, and etc. We all know what nature’s beauties are and I fail to see that as one.

We have got brace to cure crooked teeth, spectacles to cure shortsightedness, Prozac to cure depression, Viagra to cure erectile dysfunction. It is about time to find a cure to the hypertension of a kid. Look at the creatures around us, our kids are just not one of them. Something must have gone wrong with the evolution process.

Admit it, these annoying kids are not nature’s beauties. Time to fix it.

We know what nature’s beauties are. The sound of gentle breeze, the morning chirping of the birds, the sound of the ocean, the sound of the trees under slow wind, and etc. We prefer to see a blossoming flower to a dying one, a healthy penguin to one that suffers from oil spill, a clear blue sky to a polluted one, etc. In short, we human beings do know what nature’s beauties are.

What happens when some of us develop crooked teeth? There comes the invention of brace. What happens when some of us develop shortsightedness? There comes the invention of spectacles. What happens when some of us develop depression? There comes the invention of Prozac. When happens when some of us develop erectile dysfunction? There comes the invention of Viagra.

Look around you the next time you visit the park or watch the animal channels on cable, observe the baby animals, aren’t they all look pleasant to be with? I don’t mind to be that Papa Tiger when I have Baby Tigers like that.

These are the thoughts that zigzaged my mind when I was greatly disturbed by the kids playing at the corridor. Seems to me that they have been playing at that corridor same time everyday. High frequency screaming, running around, banging doors, dropping items onto the floor, and etc. We all know what nature’s beauties are and I fail to see that as one.

We have got brace to cure crooked teeth, spectacles to cure shortsightedness, Prozac to cure depression, Viagra to cure erectile dysfunction. It is about time to find a cure to the hypertension of a kid. Look at the creatures around us, our kids are just not one of them. Something must have gone wrong with the evolution process.

Admit it, these annoying kids are not nature’s beauties. Time to fix it.

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Tong Kiat, This Is My Shopping List

One good thing about having my own website is that I can officially use this site for my own personal purpose. Here is my friend Tong Kiat going for his Japan business trip and here is my Japanese DVD or CD list for him.

Go get it mate. I am counting on you! Check out my site if you forget what I want from Japan (including some cute Japanese). Click here to read more.

First thing first is Ayumi Hamasaki’s DVD Arena Tour 2002. The picture of the DVD is as above.

Next is Ayumi’s DVD Stadium Tour 2002. Again, picture as such …

I also want Love Psychedelico’s DVD called The Film 1999.12 – 2002-05. I have no clue what’s inside but I don’t mind taking the risk.

Speaking as such, Love Psychedelico is coming out a new album called Early Time 4th Album that will be released on 2005.2.9. Not sure if you are still in Japan by then.

Last but not the least, I want Aikawa Nanase’s DVD Live Emotion 2004 Seven.

To summarise, 4 DVDs and 1 CD. They are:

Ayumi Hamasaki’s Arena Tour 2002 (DVD)
Ayumi Hamasaki’s Stadium Tour 2002 (DVD)
Love Psychedelico’s The Film 1999.12-2002 (DVD)
Love Psychedelico’s Early Time 4th Album (CD)
Aikawa Nanase’s Live Emotion 2004 Seven (DVD)