Friday 30th June 2007

cool words fm dramas

"I admire you for your courage to love, and to love so unconditionally and selflessly, regardless of whether the other party knows you exist or not."

It sounds tacky and cliched and is hardly worth mentioning perhaps, but it's a romantic notion, no?

Friday 29th June 2007

A very cool blogger

Who is to say whether a blog is cool or not? Whether the content is important or not? Whether it is useful or not? And as my anti-blogging friend says, blogging is just a waste of time and another way for a person to praise himself/herself endlessly.

Monday 25th June 2007

GuZheng

Had the 2nd lesson of guzheng yesterday. Here are some fun facts on guzheng i've gathered so far for anyone interested:

(i) You only use one hand (right) to pluck the strings and u have to pluck it as near to the right edge as possible so you have to sit at the right end of the instrument.
(ii) You use ur left hand just to make some 'doin'doin'' sound effects which is done by pressing [press (An)] three fingers down up and down on any one of the strings dat u have plucked with ur right hand. There may be more sound effects, but we have not learnt them yet. A quick search on the internet indicated dat there are other styles like slide (Hua), quiver (Chan), knead (Rou). How exciting.
(iii) Instead of keeping really long finger nails, you purchase a set of plucks that look like a cross between a guitar pluck and fake fingernails and them around the pads of ur fingers (thumb, index and 3rd finger only so far). Our instructor claims that if we used real long fingernails instead, we risk breaking off the nails, spurting blood and all. Gorry but cool....hehe
(iv) There are only Do,Re,Mi,So and La on the guzheng, so it's rather impossible to play an ordinary pop-tune on it. There are 21 strings on the guzheng (err... if i remembered right) giving us 4 octaves and 1 extra high 'Do', and this is the standard no. so far. It may change because the instrument is still evolving. There are some with 25 strings used by certain group of ingenious people.
(v) Each finger pluck is named differently. I think it goes something like: Thumb-support (Tuo), Index-wipe (Mo), Middle-draw (Gou), Ring-pinch (Cuo), Ring-not used. We have only used Tuo, Mo and Gou so far.

So, here are the exciting facts. Till we meet again, thank you and good night.

Wednesday 11th June 2007

Mechatronica

Watched Mechatronica with Karen last Friday. The musical performance is made to look like a product demonstration by a company called Maywa Denki, and all the performers dressed like engineers in light blue jumpsuit. We were late going in (a likely case whenever Karen is in the picture, right K?) so we had to wait for about 15 minutes before they let us into the concert hall. It was entertaining but not as much fun as I had hoped for. I guess maybe coz the music was not as good. The show was quite entertaining though, with the chief promoter cum engineer speaking in his purposefully broken english, and the 'workers' all dance in robotic manner and perform in absolutely serious expressions. The show was balanced thinly between ridiculous and brilliant, at one point, the chief was whacking the audience with one of his company products and showing other audiences that it has a counter embedded in to count the number of whacks it has given. Those interested in small toys also crowded around the small stall setup outside the concert hall, buying all cute small toys at exorbitant prices.

Friday 8th June 2007

GreeeeN

Was snooping around in iTunes when I learnt about this band, GreeeeN. Very cool band, but wat i dig was this video clip. soooo cute....

Tuesday 5th June 2007

Kid Gloves

I used to think obnoxious children should be hung in some forgotten closet till they are willing to behave or at least grow up. I have never really understood why their parents don't do something about it, i'll be more than willing to loan them a ruler or two. Recently, I encountered a few of these alien species, learnt some lessons from them on good behaviour and reassess my judgement of kids.

These 'revelation' of mine started when A's daughter came to stay for a couple of days. At first, she was extremely quiet, with a constant sulk plastered across her face. It was evening, her mom said that she must be tired and shy. "Alright." I thought to myself. She must be like most kids, who would warm up after a couple of hours or so.

The next day, we were treated to her full array of expressions, which consisted of sulking, glaring and scowling. Such a bad tempered child, I have never seen. I think even Yoda would agree with us that we have a dark force here. She was so rude, that at one point after our lunch, my sister whispered to me, "I feel like slapping that girl." I secretly agreed. Whenever the girl was asked a question, her answer is a vehement "No!". "Would you like some fried rice?" "No!" "Pork?" "No!" "Some dumplings then." "No" And after all the "No"s, I decided to plain ignore her. She eventually ate all the above but I restrained myself from snidely asking her "I thought you said no." That was not the worst part of course, the remark my sister whispered to me was actually after she heard the girl rudely scolding her own mom and ignoring her mom when asked a question. Even my sister, who is a patient mom, twice over, is offended by such unruly behaviour. The girl is also superbly pissed off whenever we decide to take pictures of her, mumbling that she can't understand why we can't stop obsessing about ourselves and plainly refusing to look into a camera. She fancies herself a great photographer though, no doubt fueled by her mom's encouragements and support.

So, how did all these disgusts turned into respect? Well...

She got my first nod of respect when, after many hours of walk, even though she was so tired she was already squatting in the lift, she didn't utter a single word of protest. This could be easily attributed to her stubborness and refusal to admit defeat. Nonetheless, it took real steel to be able to clamp her mouth dat way. So, a definite nod, i say.

She got my 2nd nod of respect when, after all the rushing and lining up dat we endured, we could not visit the Underwater World like i'd planned. She didn't throw any tantrums and we trudged on home without any complain from her. Although she had a sulk on her face the whole day, it did not escalate into any full-blown childishness. Honestly, if I were in her shows, I'd be a sniffling, annoying brat at this last straw.

She got my 3rd and last nod of respect, during dinner that night. I had been wondering the whole day why her mom could put up with such bad tempered behaviour from her daughter when during our conversation her mom mentioned that of all her children, this kiddo here is the one who is always willing to help her out at home, be it in baby sitting her younger sisters, cooking dinner or cleaning the house. Her other children won't do all these household chores willingly but this kid with not a single ounce of sweetness in her is always assisting her mom without so much as a complain. When faced with such praise, the kid simply sneered in her usual rude way, "That's because no one else wants to do it."

Despite all her bad temperaments and refusal to play nice, I finally realized that the kid is really a cool kid with her own sets of ideas and maturity.

Believe it or not, she has made me learn that no matter how hateful a kid seems, it's always not as it seems.

Sunday 7th June 2007

Fm ShadowMarch

Unhappiness is stubbornly ambitious

Sunday 3rd June 2007

amazing race

My sis, SY, A and her daughter came to visit during the long weekend. Since SY has never set foot on this country before, we thought we'd try to bring her to as many places as possible, and who else to do such a noble job but yours truly.

So, the poor souls ended up traipsing around town with me the whole day, at one point or another near the end, they have been rendered so exhausted, they just plain planted their butts on one of the malls' benches and refuses to budge anymore. *wicked laughter* It's rather fun, I must say.

I should put an additional note here stating that the lack of stamina should not be faulted wholly on the speed and distance I set, rather, because, they have been so spoiled rotten with their own vehicles back home, they have not had the fortunate opportunities to use their leg muscles.

So, to all the lucky brats out there with a set of wheels below them, here's a suggestion. Take a bus 11 once awhile people. Save the environment. Use ur calves a bit.

Currently reading: Darker Masques edited by J.N. Williamson - A paperback chucked full with dark tales from funny scary, silly to down right gross.

Just finished reading: 1) Smitten by Janet Evanovich - paperback love story
2)Full Bloom by Janet Evanovich & Charlotte Hughes - another one, which is slightly longer and includes a small murder mystery
3) Black by Ted Dekker - Book 1 of the Trilogy (Black, Red, White) about a man who exists in two realities.