Tommy Emmanuel

I was staring at my guitar that has been (almost) rotting in the corner of my room.

Here's Tommy Emmanuel with 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow', and one of his live performances.



Enjoy.

The blunt cuts.

A cold cabin. Alone. No sound for years, save for the ocassional ring of the phone. Then a voice, calling. Vague, unclear, towards the door. With hands on the knob, shivers. Opens, to white. Without shoes, the foot hovers, hesitant. As it decends, fear grips, till it finally lands. On the unknown. The hard, cold. And the hard, cold, it travels. Up. Back into the heart. And the mind, ripping it. To shreds. The leg retracts in shock. The eyes look down. To red. Dripped over white. A trail back to the self. The hard, cold out of white. Before, hidden. No pain - the cold. The blunt, it cut. And the self realises. The origin of the voice, the head. For it had been silent outside, the voice grew. From the mind, but percieved, the door. The foot, hesitant, that gave in. The cut, deep. Not fatal. The pain, non-existant. A dull ache. Up the length, running. A step back into the cabin. The fireplace. To warm, with tea. On the sofa that served its purpose. Retracing steps. Confused, lost. But. No blame. And the self sits still and blank. Quiet. With the door left.

Open.

Tongue-tied.

Ironically, <<有话就说>> is playing on the television.

Igudesman & Joo

Steven the YouTube addict just showed me this. Totally hilarious. Must watch! Igudesman and Joo are both students from the Yehudi Menuhin School, with exceptional skill in their own instruments. And oh, Igudeseman worked together with Hans Zimmer too. Not for Spider Pig, I'd suppose. Anyways, enjoy.

Piano Lessons.


I Will Survive.


For a mix of everything, watch this.


From their website:

“A Little Nightmare Music” will venture down under with performances in Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and ultimately the US and the UK."

Please come soon.

Concert: In Song 2007

Yesterday night, the Victoria Chorale, alumni choir of the Victoria Junior College Choir, held it's annual concert at the Esplanade Concert Hall. In Song 07 celebrates the choir's twenty-year journey since it's formation back in 1987, with songs chosen from it's long list of competition pieces throughout it's history.

Concert Programme:

Il Coro Delle Malmaritate - Luigi Dallapiccola
Il Coro Dei Malammogliati - Luigi Dallapiccola

Amor Vittorioso - Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi
All Cretures Now - John Bennet

Deus In Adjutorium - Benjamin Britten
Four Psalms, Op.74: 1) How Fair is Thy Face - Edvard Greg
Four Psalms, Op.74: 4) In Heaven Above - Edvard Greg

Tu Es Petrus - Giovanni Palestrina
Jerusalem Surge - Heinrich Issac

Lux Aurumque - Eric Whitacre
Sleep - Eric Whitacre

--Intermission--

Together Since - Ho Chee Kong

さくら [Sakura] - Tofu Takemitsa, arr.
夢みたものは [Yume Mita Monowa] - Toshiyuki Ogata

云飞天不动 [Yun Fei Tian Bu Dong] - Huo Xi Xian lyrics, Guangxi folksong
马头琴奏起来了 [Ma Tou Qin Zou Qi Lai Le] - Liu Zhang
苗家少女 [Miao Jia Shao Nu] -Nelson Kwei, arr.

Wayang Kulit Medley - Pawl Widyawan
Janger - Avip Priatna and Babang J., arr.

落水天 [Lok Sui Tian] - Zechariah Goh Toh Chai, arr., Hakka folksong
In Song - Zechariah Goh Toh Chai

--End--

I must say that the concert was quite enjoyable overall. I personally enjoyed the 1st half for it's selection of songs, but I preferred the delivery of songs from the 2nd half.

It was a great idea to introduce the songs via interviews with the seniors from VC, getting them to share their memories of the songs. Very nice to get a chance to hear what they have to say about the songs they have sung in the past.

The Italian songs was a good start to the concert. Liked the alto intro, only that the basses were hanging around the inaudible regions.
First time hearing the two Renaissance pieces that came next, so nothing much to comment.
Deus In Adjutorium was done quite differently this time, with an obvious change in tempo for the opening lines. Could have been slightly more 'magestic'.
Lighting effects for both Lux Aurumque and Sleep really did add to the effects of the song. Well done guys.
さくら really did bring back memories from six years ago. Lovely song.
I loved the whole of 苗家少女. Nice control over the tempo, and really neat without sounding too technical. Long time since I heard this song sung like this.
Most enjoyable section would be the Indonesian songs comprising of Wayang Kulit Medley and Janger. Loved the tempo and cleaniness of the pieces.
First time listening to Dr Goh's 落水天. Rather interesting piece.

It was nice to see so many people again at the Esplanade. Seniors, friends from other choirs, and even friends not from choirs, there to give support to the performers on stage. Great chance to catch up with many people.

Alas, the only thing that I felt was really disappointing was the ticket sales.

Aussie Fair

Dropped by the IDP Australian Uni Fair held over the weekend at Hilton Hotel in Orchard with James. Quite crowded today.

Went off for a quick dinner at Swensens. Then to Starbucks.
"Can I please have a Java Chip Frap, Venti, with Whipped Cream, thank you."

Finally, off to Hereen for a short shopping session. Got a Tee from Mooks, as well as their membership. So yes, anyone who needs anything from Mooks or NUM, (Gosh. Can't believe I'd ever end up 'advertising' for NUM.) please feel free to get the card for me, although it's only a pathetic 10%. Hey, at least it's storewide.

Back to my book. And to sleep.

My VisualDNA

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

I's rather accurate. Notice, it's only rather. -Wink-

Blogaholic.

75%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

And I get high.

Shopping.

Went to do a little bit of shopping today. Walked around Marina Square, a little bit of Suntec (effectively one shop). Not exactly alot for a shopping trip, but hey, it's a trip. Not a shopping spree. 1 Tee, 1 Shirt, 2 Pairs of socks. Hmm. Nothing compared to what my friend bought.

'I have a dream.'

Back to my book.

(Shucks. I thought today's Friday.)

Broadband Prices

I remember the days where my PC used to beep and screech whenever I needed to check out who might have sent me an email. Then came SingTel with Magix, bringing alot of convenience with time saved, as well as comfort to my ears, but I still could not believe that I had to pay almost S$3 per hour. The 56k to 512k upgrade was really quite remarkable. Then came the big broadband boom. 1M to 3M to 10M, and whatever you think your pockets can afford, all within a short span of less than 10 years. Now you have SingTel's SingNet, PacNet, StarHub's MaxOnline, and I believe that there would be another one (or even two) in time to come.

I bet most of us here have taken their high-speed connections for granted like I conveniently have. While surfing around the net (again, randomly), I came across this set of data.

Broadband prices per megabit
South Korea $0.34
Sweden $0.65
Japan $0.70
Amsterdam (FttH 100/100) $1.39
France $1.68
Finland $2.85
Italy $3.45
Norway $4.14
Netherlands $4.42
Denmark $5.05
Iceland $5.13
Amsterdam (20/1 ADSL2+) $5.38
Germany $5.33
Austria $6.14
Belgium $6.68
UK $11.31
Portugal $11.80
Spain $12.79
Poland $13.33
Ireland $14.18
Luxembourg $18.97
Switzerland $22.28
China $23.18
Czech Republic $24.75
Singapore $28.63
Thailand $30.36
Greece $34.06
Sri Lanka $40.90
Philippines $43.62
Australia $45.33
Hungary $49.46
Slovakia $51.48
Pakistan $80.43
Malaysia $88.61
India $88.61
Turkey $118.83
Myanmar $261.75
Fiji $354.45
Indonesia $2,453.87

Mind you, prices quoted are in US$, not S$.

That's where corruption gets you to.

With US$2,453.87 in Singapore, I could download GBs, get sued by Odex, and still have spare cash for my boardband bill.

Sex Laws 1-10

[WARNING: Mildly obscene post.]
Surfing random blogs and I happened to come across something really unexpected.

I really hope that these are all untrue.

• No man is allowed to make love to his wife with the smell of garlic, onions, or sardines on his breath in Alexandria, Minnesota. If his wife so requests, law mandates that he must brush his teeth.
Warn your hubby that after lovemaking in Ames, Iowa, he isn't allowed to take more than three gulps of beer while lying in bed with you-or holding you in his arms.
• Bozeman, Montana, has a law that bans all sexual activity between members of the opposite sex in the front yard of a home after sundown-if they're nude. (Apparently, if you wear socks, you're safe from the law!)
• During lunch breaks in Carlsbad, New Mexico no couple should engage in a sexual act while parked in their vehicle, unless their car has curtains.
• In Cleveland, Ohio women are not allowed to wear patent-leather shoes.
• Clinton, Oklahoma has a law against masturbating while watching two people having sex in a car.
• It's safe to make love while parked in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Police officers aren't allowed to walk up and knock on the window. Any suspicious officer who thinks that sex is taking place must drive up from behind, honk his horn three times and wait approximately two minutes before getting out of his car to investigate. [Hmmm... okay, there's one place with a law that makes sense... -psl]
• In Connorsville, Wisconsin no man shall shoot off a gun while his female partner is having a sexual orgasm.
• In Detroit, couples are not allowed to make love in an automobile unless the act takes place while the vehicle is parked on the couple's own property.
• A law in Fairbanks, Alaska does not allow moose to have sex on city streets.
• In Florida it is illegal for single, divorced, or widowed women to parachute on Sunday afternoons.

More to come.

Stephen Sing and Odex.

Sorry Stephen Sing, you're reputation (whatever you had of it) seems to have gone down the canals of this island, never to be raised ever again in your entire lifetime. Gotcha! That should teach you to keep your mouth shut.

The amount of (bad) publicity you can get on the internet is really scary. Well done Odex, you got yourself 'listed' on Wikipedia. Only problem you might have with that is that the article does not really seem to be in praise of you. Wiki-Odex

One-Winged Angel.

Ponder.

Gimme a Java Chip.

Java Chip Frappuccino

You're a caffeine addict and pretty high maintenance about your coffee. There's a good chance that everyone at your Starbucks knows your name.

What Flavor Frappuccino Are You?

Spot on!

It's been awhile since I had the chance to sit down at any coffee joint quietly and watch the world go by. And it's scary considering I might hardly ever have the chance to do that again.

Something's eating into me again.

Downloads.

It seems like Odex has got itself into alot of problems with the Singaporean population over pressing charges over people who (illegally) download anime that the company is licensed to distribute. And they claim that sales have fallen by about 60-70% recently. Apparently, people who have been sent letters for payments of $3000 to $5000, and it seems that many of those who recieved these letters from the company happen to be students.

Now now, let's not go into how these students are going to cough out the 4-digit sum to pay or argue over whether the parents/guardians or the people involved directly should pay. Question should be on the amount of money they are demanding/requesting for. I am not sure how much 60%-70% of their sales amount to. (A loss of 70 dollars out of a hundred is 70%.) But certainly, asking a student to pay $3000 for the amount of anime one can download sounds rather ridiculous. If a VCD can cost about $20 dollars and can contain about (assuming they do not fill the entire CD-ROM to the max.) 500MB of data, $3000 would give roughly 75GB of data. Hmm. What about $5000. If they really did download 75GB of anime, then I guess perhaps they do deserve it. But I somehow have my doubts that they would have 75GB of anime. (Unless they happen to watch quite a number of series.)

If sales of their anime did drop by 60%-70% 'recently', then I wonder what the rest of the download-ers have been doing for the entire time 'before recently'. What utter bullshit. And if you are asking for an estimated 1000 names from Singnet, Starhub and Pacnet each, that would give you about 3000 names. An avergage of $3000 of damages each person would give you 9 million SGD. If your sales fell by 9 Million, you must have been doing a hell lot of business 'before recently'.

How much can a greying population of 4.7 million (an estimate based on a figure of 4.48 million with a 3.3% annual growth in Jun 2006 from Singstat.gov.sg), consisting of a significant proportion of foreign talents and foreign workers, spend on anime, considering that (illegal) downloading and uploading of animes on websites like YT and CR have been around for a long enough time and that a healthy portion of the population has access to broadband to watch them online?

Go figure.

$3000 can get me a PS3 and 75GB of [ORIGINAL] games.

Movie: The Bourne Ultimatum.

Sadly, it seems that I have a tendency to always catch the third movie in movie series without watching the first two. (Pirates of the Carribean being the other.) Damn. But anyways, just like Pirates, not watching the first two did not really affect the enjoyment level. The Bourne Ultimatum (Follow-up to The Bourne Identity [2002] and The Bourne Supremacy [2004] ) brings Jason Bourne back to New York City to search for his real identity as he travels across different countries while escaping his 'creators' who want him dead.

Plenty of action to keep you at the edge of your seat. Very interesting plot and storyline, as well as a very interesting display of intelligence and counter-intelligence. Filming as done quite nicely, not the boring still-camera style (rather chaotic at times though), and the sound effects were quite good.

Really liked the entire story. (Thanks to everyone for the full story from the previous two films.) Worth the watch. And especially if you have already watched the first two shows, there is no reason to give this movie a miss.

Another day out.

Went out for a little stroll, got myself my music book, had a drink at Coffee Club, had dinner at Swensens, went to PS for a movie, had supper around the area, and came home. No stay over.

That's pretty much all that happened today. Tired.

'You gotta be kicking me.' -wink-

Wayne Rooney.

He broke his leg again eh? Haha. Funny guy.

"Hey There Delilah"

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
and we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you're to blame

Hey there Delilah
You be good and don't you miss me
Two more years and you'll be done with school
And I'll be making history like I do
You'll know it's all because of you
We can do whatever we want to
Hey there Delilah here's to you
This ones for you

Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
What you do to me.

Movie: Rush Hour 3

The third installation of the Jackie-Chris movie brings the two to Paris to track down a triad secret after the assasination of an ambassador. Another action movie with a few spectacular stunts, except for a few typical Jackie stunts. This time round however, the movie was less action-packed than I expected.

Rather expected of them to do have some of the filming done at the Eiffel Tower, but the fight scene there was quite entertaining. Nothing special about the story, but heck, who watches action movies for storylines anyway.

Although they decided to cut down on the action scenes, Rush Hour 3 is not at all boring. Alot more humour in the movie to keep you curled up in your seat throughout the entire 90 minutes or so.

Not too bad a movie, at least we did not complain about the $9.50 for weekend tickets. Still worth watching at the cinemas. And oh, don't rush off right after the movie.

我的家就在这里

While we are still in the mood, I've got something to share with everyone. Thanks to my friend who sent this link to me.

Gathering again.

Headed over to Suelynn's place for a 'house warming' after some OT at work yesterday. Thanks for driving out to pick me up, and thanks again for dinner and hosting us.

I never fail to enjoy such meet-ups. Never once have I felt that going out with the group - be it the entire group or just a small part of the group - was in any way a waste of time. Even simply hanging around in the room chatting about random stuff brings back nice memories. Not forgetting the occasional quip or (frequently) revisited jokes.

Anyways, Happy Birthday Singapore. Although I have never been a NDP parade enthusiast, I must admit that I still feel very attached to this place - especially so for the people, and I have never once believed that I can ever find a better place to live in. All the talks of retirement in a farm in Perth was just, well, plain talk. I am pretty sure that I will eventually end up in a coffin or urn somewhere in this island.

Whether or not I will have anyone to witness it would be another issue altogether.

Hanging on.

I guess I'm starting to understand why there are people who really love taking on challenges. Perhaps the sense of achievement you get from completing your work really pays off. Also, watching whatever you are doing slowly move towards the direction you want really spurs you one to go all out.

Sometimes, I cannot help but deceive myself. But looking at the bigger picture, I guess a little bit of self-denial might be beneficial. Maybe it just serves as a painkiller. Just don't ever get addicted to it.

Things seem to be taking shape. Slowly fitting together again, just like how it did the other time round. Well, almost similar.

Just got to hang in there for this two weeks and everything would be fine.

Final decision.

For those who cannot make decisions over tracks on your iTunes list, or for those who find their playlists too outdated, try Sky.fm. Sky.fm is an online radio service that allows you to tune into different channels for different genre of music over the net via Windows Media Player. Quite a decent range of channels to choose from, and you can channel-surf if you find the current song boring.

I have more or less decided to go overseas. (Yes, I am not staying behind.) Right now, the only issue is when will I fly over. I guess I do not see a big enough reason to stay back. Not saying that singing in a local choir is not something I enjoy, but rather, that there is nothing much for me to 'develop' (although there is alot to improve on).

Anyways, meeting the group tomorrow for lunch. Should be fun.

Transformers.

I guess not matter how tough your opponent is, be it an individual, a group, an organisation, or a system, there is only one way out - to use its flaws to your advantage.

Anyways, got thiis from a friend. Quite funny.
Here you go. Enjoy.

Italy.

Heard that EBChoir might be going to Italy next year for a competition. Yes, at Riva del Garda. I really want to go to Italy with the choir. Competition is from the 16th to the 20th of March 2008. But school starts 3rd March 2008 (if I am going to Melbourne).

I am rather tempted to start school in July instead. At least I do not need to rush off to Australia right after this, and I can go for the trip. But I'm not sure if my parents would be keen on that idea. Afterall, we went through quite alot of trouble just to get this all planned out.

I am not sure if staying in Singapore because of singing would be worth it.
I am not sure if delaying school in Australia for the trip would be worth it.

I don't seem to be sure about anything. Bah.