Tag: vblog

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Music Journal My YouTube

Hella Good Is Hella Tough! Here Is Our Voodoo Mix

I did not wake up this morning and went, “Ah, I am going to make a video blog today”.  Our new drummer Wieke has made a request to play No Doubt’s “Hella Good” as she wishes to – in her own words – implement some of the ideas or techniques into our band’s materials.  So I spent some time last week to learn the song.  Boy, I am really not good at playing cover songs at all.  But I guess it is one for all, all for one.

Cynthia, our talented bassist, has decided to put aside part of her Sunday to figure out how Tony Kanal plays the bass line.  And I said to myself, why not make a video out of this little insignificant day of ours?  And we did jam on the National Day holiday after all – though it was just the two of us.

OK.  This version you see is just a rough demo.  The original intend is to record our interpretation of “Hella Good”, shoot it over to Wieke and Jason to do their parts.  On a side note, recording the acoustic sound of the Indonesian Gendang was not easy.  I think it turns out OK.  We joke that this version should be named as the “Voodoo Mix”.  The sound is so tribal!

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My Favorite My YouTube

My First v-Blog: A History of Chips (That Matters to Me) – Season 1 Finale

Just how long this video remains public depends on how thick my skin is.  And you will be surprised how thick my skin is not.

PS: It is almost like a little miracle that this video sees the day of light.  This morning, my rather new computer died on me – like any of her predecessors who have a habit to throw a tantrum at me every so often – and there go all the working video files that are now in unknown status.  Fortunately, I have uploaded this video to the Internet during the weekend because I know in the name of technology, things always screw up as we draw nearer to the milestones.

This recorded material was initially made for podcast.  I got carried away, turned it into a video, and added an excerpt of an original song of mine -100% original materials from beginning to end.  Recently upgraded my computer, I was inspired by how technology has advanced since I was a little boy.  I did some research and attempted to match the number of transistors the computer processors that I have owned to the neuron counts of the animals in our planet.  It was no easy task as few scientists find counting the neurons of, say, a cat has is useful, set aside publishing the data on the Internet.

When I told my friends around me that I was making a video blog, most thought that I would be videoing myself talking in front of the camera.  Look, I am a more documentary kind of guy and I prefer to stay behind the camera.  Not all of my blog entries comes with a picture of me.  I merely apply the same mentality here.

Hope this video blog is not too horrible that you have to throw up halfway watching it.  It is helluva tedious journey and boy, I need some time to recuperate.  With this video as the end point, I wonder if this adds more texture to the mini-series blog entries that I have published.  It was meant to be another way round.

Oh well.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

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I See I Write

Little Mr. Sunshine: A Blog Is Not a Book Is Not a Movie – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 7

Yes, there is a video and you will get to watch how I humiliate myself later this week.  Think “Little Miss Sunshine”.

Ever since I have started this mini-series, the most common questions I have received from the people around me (whom I am grateful for their frankness) are: Is there a video? Where is the video? What is in the video?  And the most common feedback is: I don’t get it.

A Blog Is Not a Book

Recently – after I have started the series – I read somewhere that publishing a book that reads like a blogger’s website just won’t work.  People simply won’t read such a book.  I can’t recall the reasons why and I wonder if the reverse stands too.  My only rationalization is that online readers probably have the habit to sit in front of the computer and spend only a fraction of their time to read a post before they point-and-click onto something else.  Reading a magazine or a book in contrast captures a much dedicated attention and longer attention span from the readers.

And hence, perhaps online readers prefer a more upfront, direct statement (pretty much how this post begins) rather than to bury the answers of what-where-and-is-there somewhere towards the end the 1st episode of this mini-series.

Little Miss Sunshine

Recently – also after I have started the series – I watched “Little Miss Sunshine” on cable.  It’s an awesome film.  I am not saying this just because I am a big fan of the little girl Abigail Breslin.  The film talks to me.  It really does.

Throughout the film, we are all aware that the seven years old girl Olive has a performance to make, for a competition.  But what’s in that performance?  No one knows, until the very end.  For the benefit of those who have not watched “Little Miss Sunshine”, the little girl’s performance at the beauty pageant is borderline awkward, borderline embarrassing, and borderline obscene.  Her stage performance – that has been kept secret to her family till the very end of the movie – is taught by her grandpa who is a borderline pervert.

Imagine only watching that little girl’s performance on stage and not the rest of the movie, I highly doubt if you would think too highly of this critically acclaimed movie.  The important part of the story, I observe, is the journey itself less of the end goal.  “Little Miss Sunshine” is a touching story on how this courageous little girl Olive manages to move and change the people around her who are disillusioned about their lives.  That is the journey I am talking about.

This mini-series is meant to be a journey for me, the various little steps in getting there.  The video itself, much like Oliver’s final stage performance, is less important.  Maybe I ought to be less subtle next time.

Or perhaps I need to remind myself that it is hard to make a blog to read like a movie.

The Closing of a Little Chapter

This episode marks the end of the prelude series and I know I have been confusing the living soul out of you.  My apologies.  Well, it’s absolutely not my intend.  I have a lot of fun writing this series.  Something different, something slightly more serious yet random, something closer to my heart.

PS. This hand drawn whale by me as seen at the beginning of the post carries a subtle message of “Save the Planet” in my upcoming video blog.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

Categories
Music Journal

Stripping My Own Song into Just Four Lines and an Orange Lit Valve That Glows Within – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 6

If you still don’t get it, don’t be concerned.  Most don’t.  I am terrible in communication.  Next week the video should be out – baring any unexpected exciting events that may appear from nowhere, that I am compelled to blog about, that push my most-don’t-get-it mini-series schedule to yet another week.

After I finished working on the 3 minutes video, I wanted to make a small video clip of simple end credits that is completely different from the video itself.  And I found just what I wanted – an old song of mine written back in 2004 called “Mind Control”.

You know how it is like when you pour your heart and soul and hundreds of hours into making something – ironically may well be applicable to this mini-series – and you think out loud: This is a genius piece of work!  I picked up my electric guitar one day, trashed out some heavy, raw, original power chords, and I was screaming my heart out, screaming my brain out.  I really thought I was the next Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd.  So full of explosive randomness, so full of chaos, so full of madness.  Did my fingers bleed on that one day recording while home alone?  You bet.

Clicked send and the demo song was digitally finding its way to my lead guitarist’s mailbox.  Holding my breath I was, dying for some form of acknowledgement, and his reply was …

“It’s too intense.”

I don’t think my bassist got it either.

4 years have passed and I am supposed to be wiser.  “Fit for Public Consumption?” should now be part of my vocabulary.  But yet I still have this nostalgic affection towards “Mind Control”.  The Boss Metal Zone pedal sound is out and the sweet sound of my Les Paul guitar is in.  Most of the song is out and the excerpt is left with what I love most – 4 lines.

We want the truth, we want the fact
Overrule the media, destroy the rats
It’s mind control, stripping our rights
It’s mind control, running our lives

I had so much fun recording it.  OK, pain too.  You would have thought how tough it is to record a 1 minute excerpt of just 4 lines?  I spent the first entire night trying to get my 10 years old drums programming equipment to work; I spent the second entire night recording in the wrong key; I spent the third trying to get my new toy working (see picture above … and yes, there is a valve inside my new guitar and amp effect processor); I spent the fourth trying to remember the lyrics (I know, just 4 lines right?).  By the time I got a rather decent take, I couldn’t be bothered any more.

“Fit for Public Consumption?” should now be part of my vocabulary.  But yet I am releasing my video next week.  How ironic that some good things don’t change over time.

Neither are the bad ones.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

Categories
I See I Write

Storyboarding at 24 Frames per Second – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 5

“There is no point in teaching a young one to choose his battle.  He is going to fight every single one, refuse to relinquish his power, and only experience can teach him such thing: There is no ultimate victory and there is no absolute righteousness.  As his eyes are cast upon the rain of fire, in this bloody ground of the many fallen, down to his last man …”

OK.  I am not that imaginative and I certainly can’t dream of stories with such depth.  My new story is going to be short and sweet.  Animals, lots of animals, from worm to whale, from human to elephant.  And there are brains too, lots of brains.  It is when technology meets biology, from my childhood to my adulthood, and onto my hood that says, “It’s my birthday tomorrow and I can write whatever I want!”.  Numbers, plenty of numbers.  But none is going to tell you how old I am, ha!

I want to challenge your senses in this multi-tasking, short attention span pop culture.  The theme is the same but what you are going to hear will be different from the words you read and will be different from the animations you see.

The first decision I made for my video blog was the number of frames per second.  The rest, is history.  I still need time to touch up on the video.  Time, we all need more time!

PS. Majority of the images you see above were taken in Taman Safari Indonesia back in January this year.  Then there was me, and my family’s dog in Hong Kong.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

Categories
Experience Sharing

The Cycle of Learning and Sharing: Why Be a Caterpillar When You Can be a Butterfly? – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 3

I love to learn; I love finding something new to learn; more so, I love to share what I’ve learned.

In my upcoming video blog, I talk about one memorable childhood moment I had with my dad.  I thought I only had one.  But I was wrong.  There are more.

We bred butterflies, inside a glass container.  A container of a pair of Japanese dolls – one of my parents’ wedding gifts.  Once in a while, my dad would bring home a caterpillar found at the rooftop of the cinema he worked at.  And we would see how a caterpillar turned into a pupa, and finally a beautiful butterfly.  My sister and I would take turn to carry this divine being and see how its wings grew, dried and hardened, and it would attempt to fly away.  Initially reluctant to leave our hands, we would see this pretty butterfly that not too long ago was a tiny caterpillar took one brave leap of faith, carried by the wind, out from our 7th storey apartment, and disappeared right in front of our eyes.  Where did it go?  My sister and I would ask our dad, ask each other, ask ourselves.

Where did it go?

If I could travel back in time, I would have imagined our little baby butterfly grows up, turns into eggs that hatch into millions of fresh green plump caterpillars, and time stops.  All of a sudden, when time resumes, these beings magically transform into millions of butterflies.  And the cycle continues.

Articles say that caterpillars are like eating machines.  They eat and eat and that hunger, that relentless primal hunger reminds me of how our brains work when we are small.  Our brains like sponges that soak up everything around us.  We absorb knowledge, stimulated by all that is new.  We read, we listen, we watch.

We learn as the caterpillars eat.

How many of you stop right there?  You read a book, you return it to the bookshelf.  You take an exam, you move on.  How much do you get out of this reading, listening, and watching?

I cannot recall when I have started to obsess about internalizing what I learned and to find someone to share the newly acquired knowledge or idea with.  It is exhilarating.  In sharing I force myself to question what I’ve absorbed.  While sharing opens my eyes to how other may apply the knowledge.  And I think, the learning process is as simple as step one, two, three: absorb, internalize, and share.  For that two extra steps, just a little bit of extra effort, I get much more than what I used to.

That vision of a flying butterfly turning into eggs that in turn transform into millions of butterfly prompts me to imagine that learning is a cycle on its own.  We learn (i.e. absorb, internalize, and share), we experience, and we re-learn.  One wise man once told me that experience is the opposite of examination; we take the test before the lesson.

So true.

As I write this blog entry, using my wireless phone, I can’t help but to be taken back to the days when I was with my family in Hong Kong, looking at the butterfly took flight.  So brave it was; so happy we were; so beautiful the nature.

Next time when you learn something new, stop for a moment and ask yourself one question: why be a caterpillar when you can be a butterfly?

Notes: (1) Some of you were curious if I created or drew the recent black-and-white pictures by myself.  Yes I did and I enjoy doing that.  (2) This entry was written entirely using my wireless phone while waiting for Cynthia to finish her work.  Hence the different writing style.  (3) Happy Father’s Day.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

Categories
Coincidence Diary

The Coincidental Encounters and the Incidental Chain of Events That Leads to This – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 2

I don’t want to sound too much like a rip off from Haruki Murakami’s short story “Chance Traveler” but I too have my share of coincidental encounters to share.  Totally random of course but interestingly, these coincidences happened in the span of three consecutive days.  And outside this three-day window, puff, my days have become as ordinary as they have always been no matter how hard I observe.

What are the odds to meet the same person in the morning queuing just one spot in front of you at your favorite coffee joint two days in a roll?  And the queue was otherwise empty, just you and him.  And if you think that I always have the same timing every morning, I don’t.  I have not seen him since then.

How about the same colleague whom enters a lift with you when you head out for lunch, both of you have your own lunch plan, and you see her taking the same lift with you when you are done with your lunch?  In my case, I wasn’t even observing the lunch hours.  And apparently, neither was she.

One morning at ten, I was at the lift lobby and with me was the cleaning lady who was done with the day.  We chatted and I learned that she starts work at six every morning.  The following morning at ten twenty, I was at the same lift lobby, patiently waiting for a lift, and with me, the same cleaning lady.  She was late because there was more trash to attend to.  This time, I learned that after she has finished with the cleaning work at our office, she heads over to another office.  And she lamented that we only pay her S$350 a month for that 4 hours of work a day.

All these lift encounters can’t beat this particular one.  I often carry with me a cup of freshly brewed coffee to work every morning.  The lift was crowded and at one floor, the door opened.  Just when it was about to close, one guy from behind jerked into action and pushed through the crowd as he dashed towards the closing door.  He knocked onto me and I spilt the hot coffee onto a huge fellow in front of me.  How embarrassing!  But it was not as embarrassing as meeting the same huge fellow in the same lift the next morning with me holding another cup of hot coffee.  I so wanted to dig a hole and hide inside.

*          *          *          *

While the above encounters that happened in the span of three consecutive days may sound random, the incidental chain of events that leads to my wanting to create a video blog is all but.

I don’t get to have lunch with my good buddy Choong Yoong often.  We both know about it though we both deny it.  We meet once a year, usually due to some last minute arrangements.  It is just the way how we operate, I guess.  Every time we meet, I am always delighted by the variety of topics he has.  Mostly out of the world kind of ideas or news or theories or gossips, it is hard not to be enchanted by this precious lunch appointment that rarely occurs.  So out of the blue, I suggested that he should set up a podcast and I will be his faithful subscriber.  He laughed and told me that he has tried making an episode, and that was hard.  He then turned to me and said: You should have your own podcast instead!  I asked why and he pointed out that I have a dynamic voice to keep the audience interested (or something like that since that event happened quite a while ago).

Podcast and me, you have got to the kidding right?

But ideas are strange little fellows.  They stick to your head and refuse to go away.  And I parked this little idea in my head for months.

Another idea comes from the limitation I feel about blogging.  Don’t get me wrong.  Blogging is great; it is spontaneous; and I can write about anything and everything to my heart content.  Almost.  Except the invisible word count restriction that hangs on my neck all the time.  I have to try very hard to keep my blog entries within 500 to 1,000 word count.  Occasionally I hit 1,500 words and I have to remind myself not to do that often for I do treasure my own little crowd of online readers.  It is said that an average adult reads prose text at 250 to 300 words per minute.  In that sense, perhaps even a 500 words entry is still too much for the my precious audience to take.

And because of that, I have got another idea – to have a series of blog entries with a related theme and a time table to adhere to.  I often wonder what the online readers would feel if there is a sense of anticipation, like a TV series.  And even if this little experiment doesn’t take off, I would have published a 10,000 words entry that is broken down into ten little pieces.

Finally, I have always fantasized with the idea of making a little video using 100% original materials.  Can this be done?  How far can I stretch myself?  Connecting all these three little ideas prompts me wanting to just do it.

So, do it I shall.  A v-blog it will be.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

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Announcement Whacky Thoughts

A New, Shall I Say, Mini-Series and I’m Still Not Sure About It – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 1

Ideas are peculiar little tangibly intangibles.  They are not as abstract as dreams like you want to marry a perfect guy (or girl) when you grow up or that Lamborghini you must have; wanting to be a rock star or to save the world.  Ideas on the other hand are more tangible than that.  It could be as simple as wanting to date this particular person whom you’ve met at a concert, to shop for a car, to learn how to play a musical instrument, or simply signing up for a beauty contest and hopefully be an ambassador of world peace.

So on and so forth.

Ideas are tangible because they are something you can action upon.  Like right now, right here.  Ideas are alive and can be planted in our heads; they grow and some are hard to be obliviated.  Think of it as metamorphosis – you have to kill an idea or an idea will turn into a series of actions whether you like it or not.

And because it is so easy to kill an idea – I murdered gazillion of them since I was a toddler – and I am notorious in sitting on ideas or taking forever to finish what I have started (like taking 3 years to complete that Bangkok video), I have decided that if I go public at even the crystallization stage, an idea may be materialized into something tangible.  Pretty much like how a virgin vow works.  Not a 100% guarantee, but it is much better than just a feeble idea.

So I have decided to create a video blog, with 100% original materials.  That is, from storyboarding to scriptwriting, from pictures of the primitive animation to the even more primitive soundtrack.  And I intend to roll the end credits with a sample of one of my refurbished songs.

Sounds exciting?  Since I have already put in 72 hours on this video blog and I am – keeping my fingers crossed – 20% from completing it, I have even come out with the following timetable.  What’s entertainment without a sense of anticipation after all?

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series: