"To be or not to be - That is the question"

Afterthoughts of Macau Holiday Trip with The Changed Man (Day 2 of 3)

2011-12-14T09:23:00.012+08:00

Day 2/Dim Sum Breakfast/Macau Island/0900hrs

It was a really cold morning and our stomachs were grumbling for a nice hot breakfast. Not knowing which shops were opened for business, we donned on our jackets and started searching the streets of Macau until we found a corner-sited Chinese restaurant selling dim sum. We ordered meatball porridge, shrimp dumplings, some roasted pork buns and washed them down with hot Chinese tea. Satisfied, we pored through the tourist map, deciding that day to be spent visiting the various world heritage sites on Macau Island.

Day 2/Visiting World Heritage Sites/Macau Island/1000hrs

We started by heading towards the famous A-Ma Temple at the south-western tip of Macau Island and as we walked through streets of Macau Island, I could not help but be amazed by how narrow the pedestrian walkways were and how the residential houses reminded me of Hongkong. They were really tightly-packed, a tad dirty and gloomy but all of these were muted by the shivering cold in the morning. We passed by only a handful of locals and odd backpacking tourists before we arrived at the already crowded A-Ma Temple - so that was where they gathered in the morning.

Both the Changed Man and myself bought huge incense sticks and began praying at the main temple hall (there were quite a few small temples including a huge Tai-Yi stone at the top of the small knoll). There was also a bronze cauldron for people to try and rub their hands on until the cauldron vibrates but we were interested in pressing on as there were at least another ten more sites to visit.

Subsequently, we visited the Lilau Square, the Mandarin's House, St Lawrence Church, and stopped at St Joseph's Church. The latter was worth a more detailed mention here because it was such a beautiful Portuguese church, with every nook and corner filled with something divine and related to Christianity. The whole place was imbued with a solemn and stately feel that one cannot help but keep one's volume down to really enjoy the visit there.

We then moved on to visit the signature Senado Square, Ruins of St Paul's, Mount Fortress and of course, the Macau Museum at the summit of Mount Fortress. The Museum was very well-decorated with relics from both Portuguese and Chinese heritage, which showed the fusion of the two cultures on Macau itself. I loved the display formats within the museum as they had very clear and different ways to present actual artifacts or even replicas with minimal barriers so one can get really close to the artifacts.

Day 2/Buying Local Goodies To Bring Back Home/Macau Island/1200hrs

The Changed Man dragged me into this store Koi Kei Bakery to buy some of the local goodies to bring back which includes black sesame biscuits, almond cookies and egg rolls. Not wanting to miss out since I like to eat, I bought as much as I could carry before we headed back to Metropole Hotel to unload and take a small break from all the walking up and down the slopes, nooks and corners for the entire morning.

Day 2/More Casino Visiting/Macau Island/1500hrs

The Changed Man fell asleep again and not wishing to wake him up, I took the liberty to watch more television until he managed to rouse himself up again. The poor sod was overworking and the trip was more like some form of escape from the drudgery. Feeling hungry again, we hunted down the elusive Portuguese egg tart store (which I could not remember the name..haha) and shoved down some egg tarts before proceeding to visit more casinos - Casino Wynn and Casino MGM Grand. I remember Casino Wynn better because we managed to catch a mechanized performance of some golden tree and a beautiful rooftop that opened up to reveal a gigantic chandelier. A lot of the gamblers were throwing money onto the tree, hoping to get some good luck for their gambling later on. Casino or not, I like places that offer a twist for the people milling within because they add that kind of excitement and anticipation which is seriously lacking in Singapore's shopping malls.

Day 2/Dinner at Portuguese Restaurant/Macau Island/1900hrs

The Changed Man wanted to watch some soccer match at any pub he could find in Macau so we went to look around but after more than one hour, we still could not find any working pubs. We settled down for a nice dinner at some Portuguese restaurant located at the south-western tip of Macau Island with red wine and a five-course dinner. I remembered I had some appetizer vegetables, soup, some really interesting sardines, steak and desserts with some odd nut powder I could not recognize. It was one slow dinner but we were more than happy to be out of the way of the coldness.

Day 2/Soccer Pub Hunting/Macau Island/2200hrs
Rejuvenated by the food, we kept on asking passers-by until we managed to find a small stretch of soccer pubs on the far side of that section of shops near Avenida de Sagres. Most of the pubs were quite poorly decorated and the only one which seemed decent enough with a proper screen and live singing performances was that place called Moonwalker. On hindsight, Singapore has a much better pub culture - more variety, better pubs and crowds. We ordered some gin volka and chicken wings and watched the match before Manchester United and Wolves but the Changed Man was actually trying to find the Arsenal match. By around 0100hrs, we were heading back to Metropole Hotel again for the closure of the day.

(Stay tuned for the third and final blog post on Day 3 of the Holiday Trip to Macau)

Afterthoughts of Macau Holiday Trip with The Changed Man (Day 1 of 3)

2011-12-12T11:39:00.019+08:00

Day 1/Prelude/On a cab towards Budget Terminal/1030hrs
A chance to go on a holiday - finally - after slogging for a year at work and attending a couple of volunteering camps in December. The trip to Macau was planned within the space of a few hours because The Changed Man (A VIP friend of mine) was so busy with work that he could only grab leave from work on the day before and he was actually in full work attire when he turned up to meet me at the Budget Terminal in Singapore prior to our flight itself.

We packed really light and with no exact plan in mind, we hopped onto the flight we booked and off we go on a holiday together to explore Macau - a group of three islands - the casino city of Asia.

(Photos are still inside The Changed Man's superior camera phone. Will upload them once I have them on hand.)

Day 1/Budget Terminal/Singapore Changi/1230hrs

My first time taking Tiger Airways from the Budget Terminal in Changi. The seats were really cramped and there wasn't any entertainment onboard. I must have looked so bored from studying the lines on my palms that the Singaporean middle-aged couple offered their Straits Times newspapers for me to read. Thankfully, that helped me pass some time for the four hour flight.

Day 1/Macau International Airport/Taipa Island/1630hrs

Customs are tough and vague in Macau International Airport and after several attempts, I finally got the arrival and departure blue slips right by running to and fro from the check-in counters to the writing counters several times, much to the amusement of the customs officials. Hey, it's my first time in Macau and nobody told me that the slips are to be filled in together in the midst of all the frantic rush by the frequent travelers.

The first thing I grabbed after clearing the customs was a tourist map of Macau. The map was one bizarre labyrinth of streets clustered with hotels, sightseeing venues, casinos, residential housing, colonial fortresses and churches. That would take some head-scratching to interpret them all to plan some decent itinerary.

The weather was blisteringly cold when we waited at the taxi stand. An icy northern wind was blowing across the whole island and temperature plummeted to 12 Degrees Celsius in a matter of hours.

Day 1/Metropole Hotel/Macau Island/1730hrs

Finally checked into the hotel that the Changed Man had booked last minute. The room rate was unfortunately higher since it was done at last notice - around 660 SGD for a 3D2N stay. I was a little skeptical since the hotel was nothing much to look at from the exterior - a bland-looking building smack right alongside a busy mainstreet road but I was delightfully surprised when we entered the room. It was on the top floor and was actually an executive suite with sofa, two televisions, two bathrooms, one bathtub, bedroom on the second floor and an excellent view of the island of Macau itself.

Day 1/God of Kitchen Restaurant (食神)/ Macau Island/1830hrs

Our first dinner was at a fairly large restaurant tucked at one of the many streets of Macau Island nearby to our Hotel. The Changed Man ordered some salted egg toufu, green kailan, duck meat stir-fried with beans and Peking Duck.

Day 1/Touring The Grand Lisboa, Lisboa/Macau Island/2030hrs

Casinos are the main attractions in Macau and obviously I am not going to miss the chance to tour the casinos even though I don't even gamble at all. After dinner, we made our way down the streets and came across The Grand Lisboa and Lisboa Casino - brother casinos of the same company and their differences - the stakes at each time. Lisboa is the less glitzy one with stakes from HKD200 while Grand Lisboa can easily be at HKD500 onwards. They have every game imaginable - baccarat (the most popular one), blackjack, slot machines, dominoes, texas poker, dice, roulette and many discreet VIP rooms for the high rollers whom I imagine to put at least HKD10,000 per hand. I shudder at the sheer amount of money that changed hands in the space of just one night in one casino alone, let alone the twenty odd ones in Macau itself.

Being the less experienced when it comes to casinos, I asked The Changed Man what the average working hours of the croupiers are and the answer came in: easily more than 14hours. No wonder some of the croupiers were haggard looking and yawning away whenever their supervisors were not looking. As I have studied a couple of modules in architectural design when I was still an undergraduate, I turned my attention to the designs of the casinos - high ceiling, plenty of glided gold, ambient light to reflect on the glitz and glamor intended to seduce the customers with extra wads of money to spend on.

Day 1/Metropole Hotel/Macau Island/1030hrs

Lazing on the bed watching B.I.O channel on the bedroom wall. The Changed Man was fast asleep and snoring away. I had a hot shower to fend off the coldness in my bones and was trying to figure out about compulsive hoarding which is being featured on the television program then. Maybe gamblers themselves are also compulsive hoarders too - they hoard winning streaks to boost to friends and peers? Hmm...maybe...

Yes, I am a weird person who suddenly watches psychology related shows in the middle of a holiday trip. Oh well, I like to learn new things everyday, no matter where I am and I knocked out around midnight. Zzzzz....

Stay tuned for the next two blog posts on what I did for the remaining impromptu trip at Macau. ^__^

World Vision Singapore 30 Hour Famine Camp 2011 @ Ngee Ann Polytechnic from 17 June to 18 June 2011 Camp Review and Afterthoughts

2011-06-19T23:04:00.037+08:00

Finally, after a long hiatus at blogging, I've finally found something to blog about extensively - my most recent camping experience at World Vision Singapore's 30 Hour Famine Camp 2011.

The 30 HOUR FAMINE Camp in Singapore aims to transform the mindset of youth in Singapore towards issues of poverty, and to motivate campers to take action steps towards achieving change.

This is the third time I joined them as a Camp Facilitator to try and do some good. My primary objective is, of course, to help World Vision Singapore reach out to the youths of Singapore through experiential activities in the camp to raise awareness about poverty and hopefully, spur them further to help impoverished children around the world through World Vision Singapore's various programs. My secondary objective is to do something I enjoyed all my life - camping and leading groups to achieve something for themselves so they can grow to become better persons through camping.

For this particular camp review and afterthoughts, I shall be going through the key activities within the camp which started from 17 June 2011 at 1300hrs and concluded at 18 June 2011 1900hrs and bring across my thoughts about the hits and the misses of the camp. It is intended to provide a clear reflective view of what has transpired through what I have seen for myself so that readers of this camp review can have different perspectives through which they can understand the camp better and learn more about it if they have not experienced it themselves during that duration.

To conveniently sum up my thoughts for readers who wanted something to reflect all those wordy paragraphs, I will use a blue ☺ to signify my personal approval of each key activity or a red ☹ to represent my personal disapproval of each key activity.

Click the subheadings for beautiful camp photos provided and uploaded on Facebook by Eric Chow, one of the volunteer photographers of the camp.

Without further ado, here we go...

Day 1/1300hrs/Opening Ceremony:

The Camp Facilitators, Logistics Warriors, Game Masters were already waiting in positions to receive the newly-minted campers from the Convention Hall of Ngee Ann Polytechnic. None of these groups actually attended the Opening Ceremony of the 30 Hour Famine Camp 2011 because we had plenty to do - final administration work and program briefing for the facilitators before the campers were released, logistics (primarily water and securing of the bags of the campers) to be moved around, game stations to be set up and checked by Game Masters so that campers can enjoy Day 1's experiential activities without a hitch. Personally, I would love to enjoy watching the Opening Ceremony with the campers but I suppose this arrangement, which differs from previous Famine Camps I had attended, is better because there was so much more groundwork to be done and those groundwork was better coordinated if all those three groups of camp volunteers were not inside the convention hall for the Opening Ceremony. ☺ X 1

Day 1/1430hrs/Beginning of 4 Phases of Experiential Activities:

One of the major highlights of Day 1 is the experiential activities which are divided into four phases. Once the campers has been grouped into "families" of different "countries", they are briefed by the Camp Facilitators about their objectives which will included accumulating iconic food, water, health vaccinations, education and monetary savings in Game Dollars for their respective families to survive in simulated Third World conditions. The Campers were then to explore Ngee Ann Polytechnic with a very simple map and a token sum of 10 Game Dollars for the entire "family" which averages around 10 family members comprising of Family Head, Family Vice Head, Adults and Children. I loved the series of experiential activities because it allowed the Campers time to bond together and interact with one another to solve problems at dozens of Game Stations scattered around the campus grounds of Ngee Ann Polytechnic. I am glad World Vision Singapore did not deviate from this and continued to use interesting Game Stations to test the strengths, tenacity, intelligence and even wits of Campers. ☺ X 2

Day 1/1500hrs/Dialogue In The Dark (D.I.D):

Dialogue In The Dark is a completely new program in the camp itinerary compared to previous 30 Hour Famine Camps. This is like a blind man's trail but it is conducted in a completely dark maze and small groups are actually led by visually-handicapped guides through a selection of tours with different themes. The idea is to let Campers experience the loss of use of their sight in the maze so they have to rely on other senses to find their way inside, listening to instructions, learning how to trust their fellow group mates, overcoming simple obstacles within and learning how important it is to communicate in such a context. As a Camp Facilitator, I have already experienced D.I.D and I thought it was quite a challenging and intriguing experience which lasted approximately about 20 to 30minutes.☺ X 2

Day 1/1500hrs/Bottleneck outside D.I.D:

A problem developed when one of the groups inside D.I.D was delayed long enough for other groups to start gathering outside, creating a bottleneck as only five Campers from each "family" got to experience D.I.D, which meant those five members had to suspend their Phase 1 or even Phase 2 activities to wait outside D.I.D and that actually defeated part of the experiential purpose of the Phase 1 to Phase 4 activities as the "families" were split up and thus could not really bond well enough to be tackling Phase 3 and Phase 4 as a closer "family" unit. Personally, I thought D.I.D should not be interjected within the experiential activities, which would disrupt the flow of the activities but it should be made as a separate activity on perhaps Day 2 instead, alternating with some of the written work activities. This bottleneck obviously was not a good thing in the camp. ☹ X 1

Day 1/2300hrs/Sleeping Arrangements:

The female Campers and female Camp Facilitators were to sleep in LT56 while their male counterparts are to sleep in Block 50. So after collecting our bags in the holding area, I made my way to Block 50 with other Campers and Camp Facilitators. Block 50 was a way off from the Convention Hall area and the bag holding area so it was quite a trudge for many who were now running on empty engines and fatigued from an entire day's worth of physical activities. Most of the male Campers were too restless, however, to fall asleep and they were trying to clean themselves up as best as they could since there was no shower heads available for anyone to use. The Camp Facilitators were quick to fall asleep as they knew they had a long day ahead the next day. After briefing my roomful of Campers about how to overcome some of the possible "uncleanliness" from the story I had heard from Ngee Ann Polytechnic Campers about Block 50, I turned in at around 12.30am and woke up at 5.30am, giving myself a full five hours of undisturbed sleep. The next morning, a number of Campers and Camp Facilitators were grumbling about how cold the place was for all the sleeping rooms had air-conditioning within. For me, I think the accommodations were much better than most of the other camps I had attended. ☺ X 1

Day 2/0900hrs/Fish To Infinity:

Fish To Infinity is one of the less physically demanding activities in the camp which requires Campers to break into small groups to come up with a business proposal to help children. The Campers were given some parameters to work with and they had to submit the proposal after consulting information within a catalogue provided by World Vision Singapore. As the Camp Facilitators were not briefed or trained to provide any direct guidance to help the Campers, most of the Camp Facilitators just left the Campers to their own for their brainstorming sessions. I felt that forty-five minutes were a little too short for proper organization of a decent proposal and some of the Campers made use of this time to take naps instead of participating. Perhaps, more could be done if Camp Facilitators had a preview of the catalogue and a better idea of how to assist the Campers instead of milling around. ☺ X 1 + ☹ X 1

Day 2/1100hrs/R.O.M.A.S:

This is an outreach activity aimed at Campers to interact with members of the public outside key shopping venues along Orchard Road so as to raise public awareness of World Vision Singapore, its 30 Hour Famine Camp, as well as the plight of children who are in dire need of help. It involved photo-taking sessions with members of the public, as well as Campers to take jump shots and creative shots of themselves to be uploaded to a specific Flickr account created by World Vision Singapore. My group had only about less than twenty minutes outside Paragon to accomplish all the activities and I thought it was far too short compared to the originally allocated ninety minutes so most of the photos taken were hurried though the Campers enjoyed the short excursion away from the confines of the camping grounds.

I thought the outreach was successful to a good extent but it could have been better if the Campers stayed at Orchard Road longer with more planned activities to keep them in the limelight. Then again, activities along Orchard Road always had to go through stringent checks and approval from the Singapore Police Force. ☺ X 1 + ☹ X 1

Day 2/1400hrs/Reflection Time:

Reflection times are necessary in such camps as they involve more cozy discussions about learning points which should be aligned with the learning objectives of the various camp activities and overall camp focus - awareness and action. Most of the Camp Facilitators had gone through at least two and a half day's worth of training, which is a good thing but the reflection time in that afternoon stretched more than three hours till 1700hrs. That posed a serious problem for Camp Facilitators whom some of them commented that they were running out of ice-breaking games to play and were worried that idling time would bring the thoughts of hunger back into the minds of the Campers who had then been keep busy since the moment they woke up.

Fortunately, the Camp Facilitators from my country, Ethiopia, whom I wished to commend publicly here, were a resilient bunch who tried their best to keep the Campers entertained after reflection time by combining all the "families" under Ethiopia for mass games. A total of three mass games were played which somehow worked the Campers to peals of laughter, brought smiles to their faces and thankfully took one hour off the possible idling time. I guessed somehow this lengthy time slot did bring the Campers and Camp Facilitators closer. I just thought more ice-breakers taught to the Facilitators, some of them who were completely new to facilitating groups, during pre-camp training, would have helped a little more in situations like that. ☺ X 1 + ☹ X 1

Day 2/1800hrs/Closing Ceremony:

The Closing Ceremony was much more entertaining than the previous year as the performers were much better prepared and they took efforts to whip up the mood of the audience who were hungry but ecstatic enough to enjoy popular English songs. Some of the more energetic ones even stood up to dance! I recalled games played by deejays from FM91.3, a cheer-leading performance, two sets of songs performed by Jack and Rai and a female singer whom I could not remember her name at the moment. There was then a countdown event though the official Break Fast timing was supposed to be at 1900hrs (which marked the official end time for the 30 Hour Famine Camp itself) but the Closing Ceremony ended at around 1920hrs.

Dismissal from the Convention Hall was also delaying the collection of the break fast meals and I thought the delays were probably excruciating for those Campers who had already made plans after the Break Fast timing of 1900hrs. After more than thirty camps under my belt, I completely understood that no camp could end exactly on the dot but the thing was that the Facilitators were not briefed on such a contingency and thus some of them were a little lost when Campers asked about delays and collection procedures of the Break Fast meals.☺ X 3 + ☹ X 1

Day 2/1930hrs/Break Fast Meal Collection:

That, in my opinion, was the biggest and most visible glitch in the 30 Hour Famine Camp 2011 because by the time my group of Campers were dismissed from the Convention Hall where the Closing Ceremony was held at, it was already past 1930hrs and without knowing exactly where to collect the meals, I only managed to spot two queues forming outside the Hall. I joined one of them only to find out that that was but the drinks queue and the other one was actually for the food. Deciding to collect drinks first since I was far ahead in the queue, someone then shouted to the Facilitators there to get a helper from the Campers since there was a lot to carry. That posed an immediate problem because I had already dispatched my Camper to the allocated Facilitation Venue which was at least 400 meters away from the queue. So I took out some large plastic bags to try and carry every packet of drink and food for my group as I moved to queue the food queue.

To my utter dismay, the food distributors announced that they ran out of rice and thus everyone had to wait for at least 15 to 20 minutes for the next batch of rice to be cooked. The time on my watch was nearly 2000hrs so I decided to head back to my group of Campers and dismiss them straightaway without the Break Fast meal as they would be waiting far longer than 20 minutes on empty stomachs. It was, of course, not a good piece of news, because some of them seemed really keen to break fast on an official note but a few were really in a big hurry to leave the Camp as their parents were waiting. I made the decision but I was in quite a foul mood as I thought the Break Fast was an important finale to the Camp and should have been more well-prepared instead and that it was not the first time World Vision Singapore had organized a 30 Hour Famine Camp. After talking to the various members of the organizing committee, I finally verified the reason behind - the newly appointed food caterer was not well-equipped to handle the sheer number of people requiring food to the point that one of their two rice-cookers broke down in the midst of cooking. It was one spanner in the works thrown into the final hour of the camp when everything else was relatively smooth and the hiccups paled in comparison to that rice-cooker problem. ☹ X 3

Nonetheless, I felt that the 30 Hour Famine Camp 2011 was all in all much better organized than the previous ones with a lot more attention on Camp Facilitators' training, clearer program objectives, more variety of programs to keep the Campers engaged, and much better camp accommodations so that everyone was better taken care of.

Of course, there is still room for improvement and every Camp Facilitator had even received an email which asked for their feedback about the camp. This alone speaks volumes of how World Vision Singapore remains pro-active in improving themselves and their activities. ☺ X 1

I believe this blog post would suffice as my reply. For now, I am already looking forward to attending World Vision Singapore 30 Hour Famine Camp 2012 because it surely has the potential to become one of the best camps in Singapore!

Thank you for reading such a long and lengthy post. I'll end with a Youtube video of photo montage of the camp itself. Have a great week ahead! ^__^

Chijazz 2010 Concert @ Chijmes

2010-12-12T09:02:00.025+08:00

This event took me ages to settle because most of my friends were not interested in jazz music and were not free to accompany me to the concert. So for two weeks, I was searching high and low for the suitable companions to go to the concert with. Eventually, I managed to get hold of one of my best friends and made it just in time.

The concert was set in the beautiful and cozy lawn of Chijmes, right in the heart of the City Hall area and yet away from the hustle and bustle of the city life because of the high courtyard walls of Chijmes.

My friend and I arrived right at 7pm to hear the opening jazz act from a band from Raffles Junior College. The cello player was great but the lead singer was a tad under-dressed for the event and many of the audience could not properly hear what he was singing. Speaking of the dress code, there was quite a variety - from FBT shorts to T-shirts to little black dresses to full flowing gowns. The lead singer was in jeans and a drab-looking collarless shirt though and needed much more stage presence to command the attention of the listeners.

The crowd was beautiful and mostly very attentive under the lights though some more breezes would have helped in the ventilation since there were as many as three hundred packing the tent in which the concert was held under.

The next act was the BDS Jazz Orchestra led by Boni de Souza and it was actually they who started the jazz numbers and kick-started the concert. They were competent musicians though none of them seemed to be versed in singing anything. No worries though - for they had help from Tay Kewei and Angelita Li who were both veterans in jazz and live concerts.

(Source: Kewei's Facebook Fanpage For Illustration purposes only.)

Tay Kewei went onstage after a few jazz pieces from the BDS Jazz Orchestra but it was such a pity that she only sang two songs before she exited the concert. The microphone that was working against the RJC lead singer was once again drowning Kewei's voice because most of her singing was nearly inaudible, which was disappointing of course. Kewei seemed to have noticed the reaction from the audience and tried to project her voice but even her powerful vocals were insufficient when the microphone was not cooperating. Her latest album song 可不可以 was also transfused into a jazz number but I thought it was a little too draggy and took off the original song's momentum. Nevertheless, I still think she is a competent singer. It's just that the evening did not went as well for her.

(Source: Kewei's Facebook Fanpage For Illustration purposes only.)

Angelita Li went onstage after Kewei and put in a couple of songs before the BDS Orchestra ended with even more numbers on their own. Somehow, Angelita managed to coax more volume from the faulty microphone and her ability to warm up the crowd helped a lot too.

(Source: http://gbcode.rthk.org.hk/gb/www.rthk.org.hk/special/xmasconcert2008/artists.htm For Illustration purposes only.)

The third group was Angelita Li and her salsa band. According to the emcee, she was a veteran in salsa and Brazilian jazz so I was looking forward to hear what she had to offer. Within the first two songs, it was easily discernible that she knew how to work the audience to a high with her familiar salsa numbers but it sort of went a little downhill onwards because her Brazilian jazz style did not seem to sit that well with the night's audience, who probably expected more classic jazz numbers. The audience was a little fidgety as her segment's songs started to sound a little more repetitive than they could bear. Perhaps she could have chosen more classic jazz numbers to accommodate the needs of the audience.

Olivia Ong before she went onstage for her segment. Also, the sheer variety of musical instruments playing to coordinate jazz music itself from all the performing groups was already stunning on their own. (Source: Olivia's Facebook Page For Illustration purposes only.)

The final group was Olivia and her own jazz band and the crowd seemed a lot less lethargic from the sitting down on the lawn as they expected Olivia to deliver her quality singing. She did not disappoint - clear singing and a solid command of the notes finally set the finale tone of the concert. The microphone still hampered a small portion of Olivia's singing and I felt that must have been the most irritating glitch of the entire concert. Olivia ended her segment of the concert with her rendition of her latest album song "You and Me" before giving the stage back to BDS Jazz Orchestra who was to lead the crowd into a final jamming session.

Olivia was handed a small bouquet of roses from one of the young children attending the concert. Obviously, she looked elated to receive so much support from the crowd. (Source: Olivia's Facebook Page For Illustration purposes only.)

I left before the jamming session started because both my friend and I needed some supper and stretching from the sitting down. All in all, it was still a beautiful crowd listening to a beautiful concert. I loved the audience responsiveness, the efforts by the various performers and the perfect atmosphere at Chijmes for a jazz concert. I believe I will be there again next year. ^__^

Movie Review: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)

2010-11-19T13:18:00.026+08:00

Movie Review: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Pt 1 (2010)

Well, it was a tough choice between Red and Harry Potter since I am limiting myself to watch only one movie per week and the latter finally got my vote because I thought the movie preview was a little reminiscent of Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of The Ring where Harry, Hermione and Ron had to travel through so many scenic places to reach somewhere. I am not a fan of Harry Potter but I just like to visit those magical fantasy movies once in a while to dazzle my imagination with spells, fireballs, dragons, etc.

The movie starts off with Harry, Hermione and Ron leaving their homes because Voldemort has successfully infiltrated and eventually took over The Ministry of Magic. The trio of close friends barely escaped with their lives under the cover of their friends and family and they realized they must venture to find Voldemort's Horcruxes since Voldemort had imbued seven items his soul and hence can always resurrect himself whenever he dies. They must find these seven items and destroy them to defeat Voldemort.

Of the seven Horcruxes, an Elder wand, a Resurrection stone and a cloak of invisibility are the most powerful items because when these three Horcruxes, when brought together, will give the wielder the power of Death itself. Henceforth begins a long quest spanning unfamiliar landscapes to find clues to find these magical items without the help of their friends, protection from their Hogswart professors and perpetually under deadly pursuit by the Death Eaters.

Patience, tolerance and friendship between Harry, Hermione and Ron were tested amidst bitter words, jealousy, nervous intimacy and frustration when their inner nature were periodically corrupted by one of the Horcruxes in the form of a locket which they could neither destroy nor discard until they finally discovered the use of the Sword of Gryffindor.

I shall not provide too many spoilers there but expect the touching scene of a burial of a memorable and likeable character when this character narrowly saved Harry and his companions but sacrificed his life to do so.

I was hoping for some good magical action scenes but other than the forest chase scene, most of the others were too fast to be truly enjoyable for a non-fan viewer like me but the acting was subtle and good and at least the graphical effects were good enough and the treachery ran deep enough on the side of Voldemort who managed to find one of the most powerful Horcruxes to use against Harry Potter and his friends in Part II.

Blog Modifications and Changes:

I realized that some of my links on my blog are no longer working and it's high time that I updated them and change some of them completely. So here are the most recent blog modifications and changes made:

Blog Roll:

Olivia Ong's Facebook Group is included at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Olivia-Ong/41155493643

-> Started off in Japan as a singer specializing in bossanova, Olivia Ong came back to Singapore with a big bang and received more accolades for her comfortable singing style and her squeaky clean image in her latest album "Olivia".

Tay Kewei's blog url is updated to become http://taykewei.com/

-> The Singaporean singer-songwriter-vocalist is moving on to bigger events and gigs with her latest album "Come Closer...with Kewei" and now has her own website. A true inspiration to all that such dreams can be realized in Singapore.

Serene Koong's blog url is included at http://blog.omy.sg/serenekoong/

-> The Singaporean singer-songwriter from Funkie Monkies Productions has came quite some ways to reach where she is. Her hard work paid off when her most recent album "55:38:7" was well-received in the region.

KTVClub SG's blog url is included at http://www.ktvclub.blogspot.com/

-> This is an interest group for singing enthusiasts to gather for karaoke outings and regular singing competitions. The leader of the group, Nigel Tan, has been making admirable efforts to organize such activities to bring together more people.

William's blog url is included at http://moveondaily.blogspot.com/

-> The artiste manager of Royal International Group has a blog updating his artistes' events as well as his own feelings about the highs and lows of artiste management.

Serena's blog url is included at http://workingtowardsmydream-serena.blogspot.com/

-> Another artiste manager of Royal International Group maintains a blog about her artistes' events as well as her own thoughts about grooming young artistes in Singapore.

Elson's blog url included at http://elsonsoh.blogspot.com/

-> A Singaporean artiste under Royal International Group who has been working hard for the past few years to get his fledgling career up into the air. He is earmarked to release his album in November 2010 with a newly-released track, Saranghamnida, on the radio station FM93.3.

Shanice's blog url included at http://www.silvergrandeur.blogspot.com/

-> An even younger Singaporean artiste who is also trying to get her dream as a singer realized. Her stellar appearance has already drawn invitations from modeling and acting agencies even before she has found her path in singing.

Joseph's blog url included at http://josephhuiblog.blogspot.com/

-> A boyish looking Singaporean artiste recently recruited into Royal International Group. Being already a founder of the local artiste group Youthbox, Joseph is actually more experienced on the stage than he looks in his profile pictures.

Alright. Signing off with a quote from Flora Whittemore:

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live."

That's all for now. Have a wonderful weekend ahead, my faithful blog readers! ^__^

Blog Post on 30 October 2010

2010-10-30T15:18:00.017+08:00

28 October 2010 (Thursday):

Attended the publicity concert for the Singapore FM93.3 Hit Awards at IMM Jurong East Garden Plaza to watch three of Singapore's best - Olivia, Kewei and Serene to perform. I did not regret the long trip down (especially since IMM is not exactly accessible and the parking there is hard to get). I reached the venue around 6pm to have my dinner before venturing to the Garden Plaza at 6.30pm, only to find only a handful of photographers standing in front of the stage. There were a few supporters seated early at the nearby benches but I was most impressed by Serene, who was already at backstage practicing her songs and testing the sound system.

Serene interacting very well with the emcees onstage at the mini-concert. (For illustration purposes only. Photo credit goes to this site)

I waited patiently and finally, the mini concert began at 7.10pm where Serene kicked off with very entertaining performances, followed by Kewei and wrapped up by Olivia. Most unfortunately, the turnout was a mere fifty odd, probably due to the fact that it was a weekday and there wasn't that much publicity about these ladies appearing at IMM.

Here's Kewei singing So In Love and I loved her powerful voice, which was ideal in delivering the song to perfection.

29 October 2010 (Friday):

I tuned in to FM93.3 for the awards ceremony which was aired live for viewers like me who did not want to turn up because personally, I disliked sitting there for nearly five hours so I'd rather hear it from my own speakers instead. The best moments were the following:

1) Hebe Tian of S.H.E commenting about Selina's recovery and urged the entire audience there to pray for Selina to come out from the crisis. As far as I know, Selina still has a long way to recover because her third-degree burns from an explosion during the filming of a TV series in China covered more than 40 percent of her body. I am not exactly a fan of S.H.E but they sure worked hard to become what they are today and I did not wish such an artiste to disappear forever.

(For illustration purposes only. Photo credit goes to xinmsn)

2) 黄小琥, a very experienced Taiwanese singer, received the best performing female artiste award and she was completely taken aback by her win. I thought amongst all those who were shortlisted, she definitely could lay claim to this award. Don't believe me? Hear for yourself to determine why she rules in performance capabilities with her voice.

This is Olivia Ong singing a duet with Jeff Chang. I thought these are two of the most beautiful and soulful voices to have performed on the same stage.
(For illustrative purposes only. Photo credit goes to xinmsn)

30 October 2010 (Saturday):

I started today by climbing the staircase for 24 floors because I am supposed to train for a charity camp which I had promised to attend so I must keep myself fit if I am to be useful in the camp. After breakfast, I actually wanted to go for the KTV.sg Club KTV Idol Grand Finals at Swee Lee Cafe but considering that it was a sold-out event so I did not want to bother the organizers to try and squeeze in a seat for me if I suddenly gate-crashed the event.

I hope it's a successful event (it's still ongoing as I typed) because I attended their auditions and the contestants were very good indeed. It's really a good platform to singing enthusiasts and the club is really friendly and warm to be in.

Thus I spent my lunchtime eating a deliberate and delicious meal of salmon and mushroom spaghetti and a serving of sticky chewy chocolate before getting myself a nice book to read from a library. I tried to find a new game Fallout New Vegas but it was out of stock so no luck there. I also skipped into a shop selling camping equipment to determine what to replenish before my trip begins.

On reaching home, I decided it would be a good time to blog since I have been neglecting my blog for more than a month and here it is.

Movie Review: The Devil (2010) NC16

2010-09-21T13:58:00.012+08:00

(Image credit goes to this url website)

Initially, I was daunted by the length of the movie, which is but a mere 81 minutes, but I was really intrigued by the storyline of how everything can be compacted so tightly within an elevator so I went ahead and watched the movie anyway.

I did not regret my decision - it was worth a full five popcorns rating. If Avatar is widely recognized as one of the best action movies of the year, I think this movie will go well as one of the best suspense/morality thriller of the year. The story revolves around how five strangers in a office building's elevator were trapped and suffered a series of horrifying experiences which led them to believe that one of them was the culprit. The story is then narrated by a South American security guard who goes on to reveal that according to a folktale by his grandmother - the Devil sometimes transforms itself into human form and punishes a group of sinners in the most bizarre ways unimaginable.

Expect a lot of deaths and blood in the movie, which explain its NC16 rating but for those readers who are able to watch this movie, please don't miss it. A strange suicide off the 35th floor of a building with the victim holding onto a string of rosemary, a brilliant and hardworking detective who recently lost his family, a temp security officer, a senior-looking office lady, a rough man with a missing red sack, an arrogant and talkative mattress salesman and an attractive girl looking for a lawyer. The story brings all of these people together a way to explain how the Devil manipulates the fears, doubts and suspicions of people in the modern world who have so many secrets hidden in their lives.

The detective works as hard as he can, summoning policemen, mechanics, firefighters to the scene as well, but as he begins to realize that none of his excellent detective skills and logical reasoning is able to make sense of the scene, he begins to believe the South American security guard that something supernatural is involved in the whole scheme of things and that he is actually the intended audience for all that is about to happen in that fateful elevator.

Why is the detective chosen? Will any human being actually make it out of that elevator alive with the Devil lurking as one of the passengers? I won't spoil the surprise. Please do not go to Youtube to read the comments because some of them have actually posted full spoilers ahead. Go with an inquisitive mind and an open heart about The God, The Devil, The Man and how all these three beings can possibly interact and have a great 81 minutes in the movie theater!

Movie Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife (NC16)

2010-09-13T14:01:00.007+08:00

I ain't a fan of Resident Evil but I thought the movie plot's backdrop was really interesting. A virus known as T-virus was accidentally released into the human population and it turned them into killer zombies. The very few human survivors struggled against the endless and tireless zombie hordes as they barricaded themselves against the flesh-eating zombies.

The female protagonist, Alice, is one formidable survivor because not only she is the only human with genes capable of merging with the T-virus and survived without the zombie transformation, she is also experimented upon by the mysterious Umbrella Corporation (which is the culprit behind the T-virus) and is implanted with powers beyond the ordinary human.

Alice, in this installment of the movie, tries to find the location of Arcadia, which has been broadcasting over the radio waves that it is a sanctuary against the T-virus, providing shelter, protection and food for all the remaining survivors who have managed to elude and evade the zombies across the world. Alice arrives at Arcadia, only to find an empty island full of aircraft supposedly left behind by survivors who were lured by the radio broadcast. Alice then goes to Los Angeles with her two-seater propeller plane and discovers a small group of survivors besieged within a city prison. Will Alice manage to rally and rescue this band of unusual survivors with conflicting interests and find the true Arcadia and the rest of the survivors who abandoned their aircraft? I won't spoil the movie here.

Personally, I think the movie is only passable because beyond the movie's exciting and fiery firefights and zombie slaughtering, which usually end with blood-splattering to the head by the twin powerful shotguns or the samurai swords carried by Alice, the movie lacks depth and explanation on why some scenes are not continued through properly and just fizzled, expecting the audience to figure out the ill logic behind them.

For example, for all her skills and agility, Alice was actually overpowered by the leader of the Umbrella Corporation so easily and assuming all her superhuman powers were removed by the latter in that blow, how could Alice have survived the catastrophic plane crash without breaking a limb or two? There were also some cheap scares without truly showing the tenacity of the zombies, so despite their numbers, the zombies seem to be more functional as mere cannon or explosive fodder than to actually push the intensity of the movie. In short, the movie becomes Alice vs Umbrella Corporation with the zombies and other survivors as mere forgettable expendables.

I would only give the movie a 2.5 popcorn out of a possible 5.0 because it has so much room for improvement especially in terms of character development and zombie action. Most of the blood shed could have had more meaning than a simple scream and struggling limbs.

Royal International Group's Challenge the Celebrities 2010 @ Bukit Timah Plaza

2010-08-10T20:03:00.032+08:00

(For illustration purposes on this blog only. Photo credits goes solely to Royal Singapore on Facebook).

Here I am again to review on the latest event which I attended, which is a PK competition organized by Royal International Group, a local artiste management group which I am currently paying attention to. The event was held on 8 August 2010 Saturday at Bukit Timah Plaza, seemingly a home-ground of sorts for its artistes, and it was from 4pm to nearly 7pm.

I could not catch most of the contestants' names because I was busy trying to record my findings and reviews of their performances so I'll just use their order of appearance as a gauge. For a change, I shall use Chinese language instead for the following critiques of their performances during that event.

Round 1: In this round, there are a total of 3 groups. 2 PK Challengers in each group will face off their scores against 1 RIG Defender in that group. If the best scorer in each of the three groups will advance into the 2nd round, regardless if they are challengers or defenders.

PK Challenger 1 (Edwyen Ng): 虽然平稳，却少了独特的风格。挑战者算是中规中矩。

PK Challenger 2 (Yuhong Lin?): 挑战者唱得太大声了，虽肺活量过于常人，却没有层次感地飚声量。

RIG Defender 3 (Juyoi Chang): 选错歌应战，舒情歌曲没有办法发挥。虽然镇定，已失策了。

PK Challenger 4 (?): 虽然平稳，却少了独特的风格。挑战者算是中规中矩。

PK Challenger 5 (?): 高音清亮，可是选了比较冷门的歌曲，减少了共鸣。

RIG Defender 6 (Koh Yi Ting): 过度紧张，猛抢拍子，僵硬地在背歌，可是听得出音色的可塑性。

PK Challenger 7 (Joseph Hui): 咬字有些不清，不过掌握到了R&B曲风，很有娱乐性。

PK Challenger 8 (?): 音质好，雄厚的嗓音，控制歌曲得法，是场中最稳扎的表演。

RIG Defender 9 (Dayan Ying Peng): 主歌有点虚，但情感驾驭得好，很亮眼的努力。

Round 2：After the first round, it got confusing because the emcee suddenly announced a change of PK rules and instead of the best of 3 of each of the earlier three groups, a total of 6, including one of the RIG Defender, Dayan, made it through to the 2nd Round. The reason given was that all these six round 1 competitors scored very closely. Personally, with no announcements made about how much they scored, nobody really knew if there were really so many ties in the first place. These 6 challengers would then pit their 2nd round scores against the average score of Elson Soh and Faith who seemed to be the final two defenders of the competition.

PK Challenger 1: 过度依赖肺活量来镇歌，轻重音不分明。

PK Challenger 2: 复歌歌词太草草带过，主歌还唱得不错。

PK Challenger 3: 主歌收得太快，有催歌的迹象，复歌入错位，有点儿走音。

PK Challenger 4:“让我”常得太虚，有点鼻音，复歌被背景音乐给覆盖了。

PK Challenger 5 (Bryan): 主歌好像唱慢了半拍，犯了在重点句上断词来换气，破坏了歌曲的神髓。

PK Challenger 6 (Dayan): 复歌第一个字吃字，层次感用得好，高音也掌控得好。

RIG Defender 1 (Faith): 复歌唱得美，清亮，只不过收得不齐全，不须加入太多个人技巧。

RIG Defender 2 (Elson): 麦克风被手指挡住了发音，复歌不能强行都音乐，导致几乎破音。

Eventual Winners: Elson and Faith

Highest Personal Scorer: Bryan

My personal thoughts and awards:

Most Memorable Performer : Dayan, because he is the only participant who managed to deliver two consecutive and consistent performances and he managed to overcome the major difficulties of each of his two songs adequately without compromising the songs.

Most Entertaining Performer: Joseph, because although his second performance was lackluster, his first performance definitely perked up the entire event as he seems to be the only participant that day who truly knew how to capture audience's attention with good stage-work.

That's all for my event and performance review! All the best to my faithful blog readers and have a wonderful week ahead! ^__^

Performance Commentaries For Royal International Group (R.I.G) Artistes' Showcase 10 Jul 2010 @ Bukit Timah Plaza

2010-07-10T18:48:00.047+08:00

It's been a while since I went for such artistes' showcases - there aren't many new artistes around in Singapore since most of the attention is shifted to Korean popstars. The last ones were an album release by Tay Kewei and a media press conference by Serene Koong. This one is different because it features a group of newcomers who have just started their lives as artistes under Royal International Group.

As usual, I arrived early to recce the place and explore Bukit Timah Plaza. It's been many years since I last stepped inside the place and it was renovated and many new shops replaced the old ones which I remembered. There was some live beauty pageant competition about usual beauty which featured people with non-hourglass figures and I thought it was a refreshing take on beauty but I did not stay to watch because my feet were eager to explore the place more.

The stage was quite well done - a cross-stage with plenty of illumination at each corner and flanked by two small floral stands. There seemed to be something missing though - feedback speakers, which meant the performers would not hear how they sound onstage at all.
R.I.G artistes were already at the venue before the event began and they were seated and waiting patiently at their seats. This was a major plus to the artiste management of R.I.G because punctuality is such an under-rated virtue and this first impression of punctuality will add a lot of brownie points in the minds of future sponsors and event organizers who usually have a lot at stake whenever artistes arrive late or behave irresponsibly.
The emcee,Wei Lun, kicked off the event at 3.30pm sharp and started warming up the audience for the upcoming series of performances and games. Late digging revealed that he was no ordinary emcee but actually an important figure of RIG - no wonder he has above average observation skills.
I believe this artiste is called Angie and she was the first performer for the event. It must have been nerve-wrecking for her because although her conversations with the emcee were friendly, her body language was pretty stiff as seen above.
Overall, she made a tremendous effort to warm up the stage for the rest of her colleagues at R.I.G. Thumbs up for her consideration.
I could not catch the name of this artiste but she seemed to know about stage movement and made some use of the beautifully-carpeted stage but she was still very nervous and kept missing the beats of her songs. At a certain point, she forgot her lyrics for a Liang Yongqi's song and got even more nervous, taking quite long before she could recover her composure. She has my compliments because it was not easy to recover after one has forgotten the song lyrics and broke momentum for so long. I know because I forgot my lyrics once too. Hahaha.
I thought she tried her best to regain her composure onstage but he was obviously disturbed after she left the stage. All I could say is that at least she finished her song instead of just waiting for the music to end. That reminded me of a contestant of some previous competition who ended up sobbing onstage because she forgot her lyrics. This artiste did not break down - she has more courage indeed.
The emcee then introduced the 3rd R.I.G artiste, known as Max.
I liked the quality of Max's singing voice because he was able to find some of the older Mandarin pop songs with decency - choosing Jackie Cheung and Daniel Chen's classic songs. I especially liked the second song because he delivered a kind of feel which most younger singers lacked whenever they sang such songs. However, Max seemed easily distracted by almost everything downstage and could not concentrate on his songs as well - rushing beats at certain points and he made such deliberate attempts to end some of the chorus lines that it seemed too forced and unnatural. I suppose Max must learn to find his own way to handle the song instead of rigidly trying to copy the original singers' ways of handling the same songs.
Overall, I thought Max would be able to fulfill more potential once he has learned more about singing and game participation skills (see below) and with age on his side, it would be plausible to contemplate a bright future in this line.
Max did below-par in this round of games where each of the three artistes who had performed had to find a partner from the audience and read out some tongue twisters aloud. Although he tried to circumvent the game by splitting the tongue-twister with his audience partner, he was not attentive enough to give a hand to his audience partner and merely stood beside the audience partner after the games had ended. In fact, I did not recall any of the artistes personally thanking their audience partners onstage or interacting more with them. I believe some brownie points were lost for lack of public relations skills onstage.
An important lesson for artistes is to showcase the human side of their stage personalities - to be able to interact freely with their audience onstage and be attentive enough to their needs and not neglect them just because the games were interesting to watch.
The fourth artiste from R.I.G is called Yi Ting and the poor new artiste was being bombarded till dumbfounded by the emcee with difficult questions. It must have been incredibly difficult to construct answers to questions about how her role in the artiste group was but she seemed composed enough and I wanted to compliment on her superior dress sense, which amplified her presence onstage even before she performed.
Yi Ting picked the classic English song "Sometimes When We Touch" but failed to deliver a good rendition of it because her lack of experience in singing was obvious from her lack of breath and weak vocal projection. She did not manage to buildup properly to the chorus and the song went pretty flat from there onwards.
Yi Ting then picked a fast number from Mandarin pop and yet she seemed to be able to enunciate Mandarin better than what the emcee had given credit for. Although she maintained very friendly facial expression to suit the song's theme, her body language and gesticulation needed more work. She seemed to enjoy the song though but could not relay that enjoyment to the audience.
The emcee stepped onstage again after she finished her two songs and emcee interaction improved tremendously compared to the earlier one. At least she wrapped up her performance on a lighter-hearted note. This artiste definitely had the presence onstage but would need quite some help to develop her stage skills if she is to shine further onstage.
Joseph, the young founder of Youthbox Singapore, went onstage to show his singing chops. Although he is renowned for his emo-ness on Facebook, Joseph displayed his brand of professionalism by delivering stable performances and much better presentation of body language onstage. His stage experience showed the relativity between what experienced performers could not compared to the inexperienced ones seen earlier on.
This elegantly-dressed lady is the artiste manager for this group of R.I.G artistes - Serena is her name. She was busy moving from group to group, not forgetting to interact with the various managers of the venue and other VIPs at the audience area. (Pardon the poor lighting because there was a spotlight right behind the audience standing area in the way)
Joseph at his work again. Nothing much to say about his singing but he could surely do with another outfit because I keep seeing him in the same stage outfit with that tie. Haha.
The emcee then surprised Joseph by arranging Elson, Joseph's idol, to sing an impromptu duet together. Joseph was, of course, elated and both of them took up the performance together with gusto.
I am not familiar with Elson's songs and since this one is an impromptu performance and a surprise present for Joseph, no performance commentary was made since both of them were having so much fun singing.
Well, both of them simply enjoyed the duet. Enough said.
The emcee then invited another new R.I.G artiste onstage, Joy, who was supposed to sing another duet with Joseph. Joy had some trouble interacting onstage because she kept forgetting to speak into the microphone but fortunately, she corrected her error later on during her performances.
I think it was a fast track from a Mandarin pop group called 大嘴巴 and both of them danced and teased each other onstage within the dynamic song. I thought it was one of the best performance for the day because it had so much entertainment value as Joseph and Joy had quite some synergy between them.
Joy was next to deliver a solo performance and I must say she was very energetic throughout, and being able to dance freely and stay cheery onstage are major pluses for new artistes. One must be comfortable in one's skin onstage and remember to deliver entertainment to the audience. She managed to do all these, which was pretty impressive for a newcomer.
She managed her songs with a fluidity that is rare for usually nervous newcomers but her control of her ending notes on some lines needed some work before her singing skills could truly mature well.
Another round of games where the artistes themselves were supposed to play some charade of sorts but I thought it was not exactly a good game to play because there was barely any audience interaction. These four artistes lost a valuable opportunity to do so just because the game was only between the artistes themselves. The prizes were some donuts, which was alright for a weekend snack I suppose.
The next R.I.G artiste to be invited onstage was known as YP. A tall, suave-looking young man who seemed rather confident onstage and I heard that he is due to release his very own EP next month.
YP's singing was rather coarse at the start with slurred lyrics at the verses but he managed to buildup properly towards the chorus portions. Other than Yi Ting, this YP is another young artiste who exudes calm confidence and a stage presence through his words and actions. No wonder he is picked to release an EP.

Another new R.I.G artiste called Clara was invited onstage to sing a duet with YP and this was the second of the very good performances for the afternoon because their coordination was very good and the harmonizing was seamless because both voices blended excellently into each other's. The only thing lacking was the lack of interaction between the two duet singers. See how far apart they are standing from each other.
Even when they are singing together and facing each other, neither of them budged an inch. Maybe they were too shy. Haha.
The social distance remained alienable even when they moved to the lower part of the stage and swapped positions. It was only till the end that they managed to interact directly by holding hands. I thought it was a awkward duet to watch (due to the shyness of the performers) but a pleasurable one to listen to.
Clara is also one of the most stable performers I have witnessed in the entire afternoon. She seemed experienced onstage - not a shred of fear nor hesitation and was fully concentrating on delivering her songs. She also had one of the best buildup for her songs though she sang off-key for one of the later choruses.
She is definitely another young artiste who has strong potential to grow in this area, given the opportunities and development space. I was actually looking forward to her second song but she picked a fairly weak song that failed to showcase her strengths to further impress the audience. A pity there.
Elson Soh, the final of the artistes to come onstage, was probably most suitable for the finale performances because his singing is stable and his presence is comfortable onstage. It seems he is very popular within Bukit Timah Plaza - late investigations reveal he was a favorite poster boy for sponsorships within the mall.
His choice of the first two songs were a little bit less lack-luster though because neither of the songs manage to reach any form of climax to draw enough attention to the audience (the punchlines within the songs were not obvious enough). The last two songs were much better, probably because they were his own songs and thus he was much more familiar with them. Word has reached me that he had just recovered from a surgical procedure and I could tell that he was not really pushing his vocals, as there was that tiny edge of caution whenever he hit the falsetto portions.
Lastly, all the RIG artistes were invited onstage for everyone to have a second good look at them. I thought they have potential to shine but they will need at least another half-dozen stage exposures to allow them to grow to be comfortable onstage and hone their performance skills.
Overall, I thought the showcase was a respectable one since most of them are very new to the stage but has shown some promise in entertaining the people. The venue, Bukit Timah Plaza, though homeground to Elson Soh, was however not an ideal location if all these young RIG artistes hope to gain more publicity because the number of people going through the mall is not still optimal, considering it was a weekend. Perhaps the management can consider, if they are ever reading this, to try rotating them through some of the other major neighborhood malls before eventually putting them onstage at the city center malls.

The emcee then announced again that there would be a PK challenge on the 8 August 2010 against three defending artistes from RIG. The winner of the competition gets to win a one-year contract from RIG. I have invited some of the competent singing enthusiasts that I know to try out at the competition. I hope it will be another enriching exchange of songs and talent then!

All the best to these young aspiring stars! ^__^

Movie Review: Toy Story 3 (2010)

2010-06-26T19:41:00.011+08:00

A snapshot of Toy Story 2's main characters - most of them pulled through the storyline and made it to Toy Story 3 but a few of them, accordingly to Woody The Cowboy, were adopted by other children and did not continue with them for the next adventure.
Sunnyside - a seemingly sunny-looking place for abandoned and second-hand toys where they get to be played by children from the day-care center in the neighborhood. Seems like a good deal the toys when they misunderstood Andy's intentions about their fate when Andy (their original owner who was then17 years old) was about to head off the college.

Upon their initial arrival at Sunnyside, the toys were totally bowled over by the sheer size, colors and spaciousness of the day-care center's playroom. There were also many other interesting toys whom they made friends with. Only Woody seemed worried about the place because he was more interested in getting back the attention of Andy.

Toy Story 3 is one movie about how a group of toys struggled deeply with their loyalty to their original owner and with their desires to continue their lives as playable toys with integrity rather than risk being stashed away in the dark attic or thrown right out to be incinerated as trash.

As the toys generally decided to try their luck at continued survival at Sunnyside Daycare Center, what seems to be a friendly cohort of new toys belies a dangerous and tyrannical regime of anger and rejection of love. Realizing they need to get back to their original owner, the toys planned to stage a daring escape from Sunnyside but there were numerous obstacles in the way.

How will they get past locked doors, alert patrols, floodlights and a sleepless, screaming monkey with surveillance cameras installed all around the godforsaken place? How will they make their way back to Andy without freaking out the neighborhood if they are seen trotting down the streets? Will they be united with their owner Andy who will be leaving for college in a matter of hours?

I shall not elaborate any further and spoil the fun for all you readers out there. Go catch the latest and epic five-popcorn-worth story of the toys at your nearest cinema now!

All I can say is that, by the final scene of the movie, I was close to tears as it brought back memories of how I could have chosen to save so many of my childhood toys but I chose to throw them away instead. My toys cars, my plastic toy soldiers, my magic drawing board and my only LEGO set. If only I had caught this movie then, I would have fought every objection from my parents and kept all of them or recycle them.

I want to watch the movie again - this time - with the only surviving childhood toy - Blackie - a brownish teddy bear from a toy factory many many years ago. It's still sitting there at my study table. And I will see to it that it will remain by my side till the end of my days. I swear it.

Movie Review: The Karate Kid (2010)

2010-06-17T14:05:00.011+08:00

I finally found some time to watch the movie - a newer version of the original Karate Kid trilogy many years ago. The movie is about how a reluctant Detroit-born kid is forced to move to Beijing to start life anew because her mother Sherry (Taraji P. Henson) is transferred to a new workplace. New to the neighborhood, Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) tries to make friends with the children, especially to a violin prodigy Meiying (Wenwen Han) but instead has a series of bad encounters with the local bullies. During one of the deadlier encounters, Mr Han (Jackie Chan) finally intervened and stopped the bullies in time.

After much pleading, Mr Han accompanied Dre Parker to the martial arts school where the bullies learned their arts, only to realize they were trained to be cruel, unthinking fighters by their teacher Master Li (Rongguang Yu) inside. Master Li arrogantly put up a challenge and Mr Han reluctantly agreed to train Dre Parker to meet Master Li's disciples in a national martial arts tournament.

What follows is a series of interesting training sessions, including the seemingly-mindless "Take off your jacket-put up your jacket-take it off" routine but what is truly captivating is when Mr Han takes Dre Parker to what I believed to be Mount Wudang (one of the top martial arts sect in China where Taiji Quan is originated from). Dre Parker witnesses all sorts of martial arts and is deeply moved by the concentration level of all the master practitioners there.

All these while, Dre Parker tries even harder to develop a love relationship with Meiying, only to be rebuffed by her strict parents, because Dre takes off with Meiying from a violin practice session without permission and nearly costs Meiying's violin auditions with the Beijing Academy of Music. A sincere reading of an apology to Meiying's father finally wins the forgiveness and the two young lovebirds are together again before Dre's impending martial arts tournament.

The tournament is one exciting affair and the audience is treated to a spectacular display of agility and aggression from the various promising young martial artistes. Dre Parker, after the initial confusion, finally gets the hang of the competition rules, and starts delivering excellent moves, match after match but suffers a horrific injury to his thigh at the semi-finals when Master Li instructs his semi-finalist disciple to break his leg. Dre Parker pleads with Mr Han to use an ancient bulb-heating healing technique to temporarily heal his leg and he forces himself to enter the finals only to be floored badly by his nemesis bully and with his thigh twice injured, Dre Parker struggles up for one final technique which he learns on his own (a snake stance which he witnesses at Mount Wudang) and delivers an amazing flip kick to gain the final point for his victory.

This is one movie worth watching because you get to enjoy an innocent love story beyond racial lines, an unusual martial arts training regime, an exciting martial arts tournament and even a emotional scene between Mr Han as he shares the reason why he has a car in his house's living room. I love the acting and chemistry between Mr Han and Jaden Smith and also the realism between the mother and son relationship as they struggle to cope with a completely alien culture.

I will give a four popcorn out of five for this not-to-be-missed movie, which really influences the audience, especially the young movie-goers who are just re-enacting the moves even as they leave the cinema. I hope they will also understand not just the beauty of martial arts but also the deep philosophies behind the value of them as a way of living and respecting oneself and others as well.

"Kungfu is in everyday life!"

This is an edited version of the original Karate Kid which shows most of the footage of their version of karate tournament. Hope you enjoy this as well... ^__^

Worldvision Famine Camp 2010 Afterthoughts

2010-06-12T13:52:00.016+08:00

I AM HUNGRY! THEY'RE STARVING!

This year's Worldvision Famine Camp 2010 had intended to focus on increasing the awareness and the empathy of Singapore's youths about the plight of starving children across the world. The camp was organized around a series of experiental activities for a duration of 30 hours to bring across the message and hopefully stir the youths into action to help the starving children.

The Symbolic Bite Before The 30 Hour Famine:

One of the main activities on Day 1 was the symbolic bite of a delicious Crystal Jade bun by all the participants - campers, facilitators, and organizers before the actual camp commences and I thought it was a fabulous idea to mentally and physically prepare all the participants about the hardship to come.

The Experiental Games As A Family:

The campers were separated into 8 different countries with approximately 10 families in each country and every family group has a family head, vice-head, a few adults and a few children. The concept is for each family to try and figure the best way to achieve the experiental games' objectives - $100, education for all the family members, vaccinations for all the family members, 40 kilograms of water and 10 kilograms of food. The family has to make collective decisions on how best to juggle school, work and even illegal jobs to fulfill such needy objectives, thus mimicking the life conditions of a typical family in 3rd world conditions. This game concept was as realistic as it could get because the campers were made to decide under imperfect market conditions - most of them have to rely on guesswork and persuasion, subjecting themselves to simulated harsh treatment by various station masters who acted as employers for jobs or disgruntled workers from 3rd world hospitals or schools.

However, a major drawback from that, unlike a limitless supply of water from last year's Famine Camp, this year, each camp participant only had a refillable 125ml mineral water bottle, with which they were told to refill whenever they were thirsty. The problem was the camp never really gave any time for breaks for refilling of such water as the experiental games were really intense and most of the campers seemed to be really parched from all the running and games. Personally, I thought that was an schedule oversight, especially when the campers were then both hungry and thirsty and tired when they did not have to be subjected to such a punishing camp schedule.

Talks, Videos and Presentations:

After the grueling experiental activities which lasted from nearly 4 hours, the campers were finally able to take a reprieve from the heat, confusion and physical fatigue by listening to a series of talks, presentations and videos at the main hall as Worldvision Singapore had invited the speakers to give their views and share their experiences about working at difficult, and sometimes dangerous, places to secure the safety, freedom and integrity of the much needy people in other parts of the world. One of the speakers' talk was pretty dry and bored many of the campers as the speaker droned on and on but another speaker managed to capture the attention with a more lively talk and an interesting video about the plight of street children in Asia. A further question and answer session perked up the morale of the campers once more before the talks, videos and presentations concluded and the campers made their way to dinner - packet drinks before retiring for the night.

1,200 Campers Sleeping In For The Night:

This was one of the logistical nightmares of the camp because it was really not easy trying to arrange 1,200 camp participants into a sports hall, with all their belongings, decent sleeping space and of course, enduring the noise, smell and clutter. Most the waking night before the lights out timing at around 1am was spent arranging the sleeping bags and making sure none of the camp participants slipped out at night without permission as Worldvision Singapore actually hired two professional guards to keep watch over the camp participants. This was considered as a nice touch as most of the camps that I had attended (no less than twenty) had very little concern over the security of the place at night. Another major plus was that the camp facilitators did not have to endure late night debriefing sessions (which lasted till nearly 4am last year) and most of the facilitators actually managed to squeeze some decent hours' of sleep for this year's camp.

Area Cleaning Before Departing For Orchard Road:

It seemed like many of the campers, who were students in various secondary schools and junior colleges, had trouble trying to clean up the camp. Many were reluctant to clear the litter and the rubbish bins and were groaning throughout the entire exercise. I thought it sort of acted as another unintended experiental activity since many of these students had maids at their beck and call back home but had to personally clear and clean up in the camp. After much complaining, the camp was tidied up and everyone fell back to the assembly hall.

The Arduous Waiting For The Buses:

All the camp participants spent most of the second morning waiting for the buses to get ready to bring the whole camp to Orchard Road Scape Park and thus the organizers used the time to practice the mass dance for the event. The dancers were brought in and instructions and rehearsals were conducted. I must say the dance was pretty interesting but there seemed too little time for everyone to learn a dance within an hour and deliver the dance competently and confidently on Orchard Road in front of so many strangers - this was later translated into a less enthusiastic-than-expected dance because most of the campers were still unfamiliar and shy about dancing in front of complete strangers on the busiest street of Singapore. As a facilitator, the second morning was also one of the greatest challenges that faced me because I had to try and motivate and cheer my group on since the waiting was amplifying the hunger. Most of my group were already bent over from the hunger but fortunately the dance practices cheered them up somewhat.

More Waiting at Scape Park Orchard:

When my group finally reached Scape Park Orchard, yet another two challenges awaited us. One of them was that there weren't enough buses to bring all the 1,200 campers to the venue so the buses had to make multiple trips - this easily translated into more waiting time - about 2 hours before all the camp participants were present at Scape Park Orchard for the mass shelter building for some world record. The second challenge was the intermittent rains which prevented the activity from happening until the organizers decided to go ahead with everyone setting up cardboard shelters (one per family of eight campers) under slight drizzling conditions. Although the weather was looking gloomy, everyone seemed a lot happier to be doing something rather than waiting for something to happen or some instructions to filter down. After about 45 minutes, all the shelters were up and everyone got ready for the mass dance and flash mob along Orchard Road.

The Mass Dance and Flash Mob:

My group was assigned to do the mass dance in front of Takashimaya Singapore and alongside with a number of families, the contingent swelled to about 350 people and it was really prominent as we were in bright orange and green T-shirts saying "I am hungry! They are starving!". As the timing was in the afternoon around 5pm, I took the audacity to allow my group to do some window-shopping and have a stroll inside the air-conditioned mall since all of them had just built the shelter under drizzling rain and subsequent hot sun. The mass dance was activated upon the timing with an impressive display by dancers from the Singapore Youth Festival and there were even mascots to bring the mood even higher. Unfortunately, not all of the campers were energized enough to deliver a properly coordinated dance so I myself thought we could have more practice and preparations for such a public display before we commit ourselves on Orchard Road. The Flash Mob was done with more gusto than the mass dance but it was suddenly limited to just one venue along Orchard Road instead of the briefed three locations. Such last minute changes also caused much confusion amongst the campers and facilitators alike.

Finale Concert and Break Fast:

The Break Fast, after an arduous 30 hours of activity and waiting, was quite a disappointment. Although it was mooted from Crystal Jade Restaurant, it only consisted of white rice, two small slices of chicken in some unidentifiable sauce, two small cauliflowers and a thin slice of carrot with a small bottle of mineral water. This less-than-expected meal triggered a small uproar amongst the campers who began to filter out of the Finale Concert watching area and started to head to collect their own bags without permission from the organizers. Apparently, most had the idea to find more rewarding food to satisfy their hunger pangs. The Finale Concert was thus being neglected by most of the hungry campers even though there was a slight perk at Jack and Rai's performances but it went downhill from there onwards as almost 500 campers were already making their way to the bag collection room five floors above the concert area. The human traffic jam there was spectacularly chaotic and after much impromptu crowd control, most of the bags were collected by the campers after another arduous hour of waiting and pushing by the mass of hungry and eager-to-go-home campers.

By the time every major event concluded, my fellow facilitators from the same country and myself were so exhausted that most of us chose to find a nice, cozy Japanese restaurant to tuck into some ramen and ice-cream and rest our tired feet (we had been sitting on the floor for no less than 4 hours for the entire second day of the camp). The general consensus was that the camp was enjoyable in its own rights but some parts of the camps were rather lacking organization whilst overly-ambitious and the camp organizers were underestimating the cumulative effects of hunger and fatigue working against both campers and facilitators, especially resulting in the ragged morale and exhaustion on the second day.

Personally, I am still thinking if I would still join Famine Camp 2011 because ultimately, I would not want to dismiss the good charitable cause behind the Famine Camp 2010 - more awareness was indeed created amongst youths about hunger and starvation and the poor living conditions of children across the world, even though the organization of the camp was weaker compared to last year.

I think there was a saying which goes something like "Hate the sin, not the sinner". Perhaps that saying would sum up my afterthoughts for this camp after all...

(Thank you for reading the extensive afterthought blog post. Time to bathe and sleep ^__^ Tomorrow will be a better day.)

Pending Posts: Worldvision Famine Camp 2010 Singapore and Singapore's Children's Society Anti-Bully Camp 2010

2010-06-10T22:38:00.004+08:00

Hmm..it's been so long since I last blogged. Been so busy and lethargic about blogging that I have to admit the guilt of neglecting my poor old blog. I have intended to blog about the two recent camps that I have just attended and this pending blog post will be long and as detailed as possible to satisfy those faithful blog readers who are still popping over to take a peek once in a while (I know because I have a good counter program embedded).

I promise the blog post will be up before the weekend is up. For now, time to rest my exhausted feet and mind from the camps before I rush off to work tomorrow morning again. Goodnight everyone! ^__^

Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

2010-03-29T13:14:00.004+08:00

The movie is about how Hiccup, the young son of a Viking tribal chief, becomes a dragon rider after realizing he has an affinity to dragons, rather than a self-induced thirst to kill one to prove his place in the tribe and subsequently saves his tribe from a powerful dragon.

Hiccup lives in a Viking village where it is perpetually being harassed by pests, not rats, snakes or wolves, but dragons - many different types of dragons which grabs their livestock and set fire to their houses.

"More than three generations of Vikings have lived since the village started and all the houses are new."

During one of the dragons' raids on the village, Hiccup managed to spot the most elusive and seemingly deadly dragons they have encountered - The Night Fury, and fired off a shot which successfully captured the lightning ball-breathing dragon. Although Hiccup was tempted to kill the dragon to put an end to the laughing he had endured as the most incompetent dragon-killing Viking in the village, he was won over by his own compassion and started befriending the injured and fish-eating Night Fury whom he named "Toothless".

As their unusual friendship grew and he began to try and modify the dragon's injured tail wing and fly with the dragon, Hiccup had to pretend he was interested in the dragon-killing training approved by his Father and trained by the village blacksmith. For a while, Hiccup found his double life as a dragon trainer and a dragon killer useful as he studied Night Fury's behavior and learned how to control other types of dragons without resorting to bashing their brains out with a Viking war hammer. His long time love interest began to suspect something was amiss when Hiccup became an expert against dragons over a short space of time and found out about his friendship with Night Fury.

An unexpected flight in the mist led the three of them to the Dragons' Lair which they found to be a resting place of a gigantic dragon and all the raids were actually conducted to feed the enormous appetite of this might dragon, contrary to what the villagers thought all along. When Hiccup's father finally discovered Night Fury and the location of the Dragons' Lair, he led the entire tribe's warriors to the lair, hoping to expel the dragons and stop the raids but without realizing the presence of the much more powerful six-eyed ancient dragon, Hiccup's father's army was defeated and routed before Hiccup arrived with the other young Vikings-in-training on the backs of lesser dragons.

A dragon fight ensued and I am not going to tell you what happened in the end because it would be such a spoiler to do so if you haven't watched the movie. Haha.

I particularly loved the part where how Hiccup and his father were trying to communicate about their diverse interests in dragons and how the awkward scene was portrayed so accurately with all the nuances in expressions and body languages. The graphics were great but unlike some of the proponents of the movie, I thought the flying scenes were not that impressive. It's probably because I have already seen Avatar The Movie and thus thought lesser of another protagonist flying on the back of a dragon-like creature. The thematic concerns of the movie were good though, showing how people may struggle with expectations of others and realizing that things do not have to happen in the ways in order to come up with a better solution to the seemingly impossible situation.

I would give the movie a 3.5 star out of 5 and it would be considered an entertaining and humorous movie to spend your movie money on.

Movie Review: The Green Zone (2010)

2010-03-16T22:12:00.005+08:00

When Master Warrant Officer, Miller (Matt Daemon), realized that his special WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) Search unit had hit yet another empty site after being given "reliable" intelligence from the US Army in Iraq, he began to suspect that he was being led into a wild-goose chase. An out-of-the-blue tip-off by a seemingly ordinary Iraqi citizen brought Miller and his team to intervene in a meeting by the top generals in the then-defeated Iraqi Army and when Miller finally captured a suspect in the meeting and got hold of a encrypted notebook, Special Forces members suddenly arrived in helicopters and took away the suspect while Miller hid the notebook away. The bizarre and unexpected arrival of these mysterious Special Forces operatives further fueled Miller's suspicions that something was amiss.

I thought the movie was pretty well-made around MWO Miller, a one-legged Iraqi citizen, an imposing and elusive Iraqi general, a CIA chief, a top US official in the Iraqi Interim Authority, interspersed with realistic gun battles on the streets of Iraq, moments of tension within the various operating units of the US Army, teething moments of political cunning and outbursts of frustration by Iraqis who wanted peace and stability but faced such real threats of surviving the harsh post-war conditions.

It was a movie that I enjoyed watching and following the action, which was evenly and cleverly-spaced out between the acting and the unraveling of the storyline of what might truly have happened during the fateful Iraq War - it could have been just an excuse for war - there was no weapons of mass destruction and many have died in vain. I encourage those who wanted to learn more about the field conditions of the post-war Iraq then to watch this absorbing movie. A 3.5 out of 5, worthy of the movie ticket price.

Impresario Grand Finals 2010 at NTU Nanyang Auditorium (Updated)

2010-03-07T15:54:00.029+08:00

(Personal: Shocked to find out - I just realized my post linking to this blog post on the wall of Impresario on Facebook has been deleted. I wondered if NTU Cultural Activities Club deliberately chose to cover their eyes about genuine and objective feedback by deleting wall posts. If it is so, I am very disappointed by their act of trying to cocoon themselves from constructive criticisms. One of their committee is now trying to find out why my wall post is deleted without an explanation. Let's find out what happened when this person gets back to me about it.)

(Personal: The NTU CAC Committee replied: "We apologise, of course we will not object to negative feedbacks but hope you understand we would like to portray our best side to those who're following impresario throughout these period."

Well, I have organized far bigger events before and I thought there could have been a better remedy action than to merely "portray our best side". Sponsors, who caught my link before they deleted them, are probably their main concern, but those elite business development and public communications managers from those sponsors would know better than to hood things over and stick heads into the sand to pretend nothing has happened. Bad move, NTU CAC. You guys have a long way to go.)

(Personal: I am actually grateful that Impresario continues to be a staging ground for local music talents and enthusiasts. What I am displeased about was some of the hiccups they are still being able to make after having so much experience in hosting Impresario competitions in the years before. Do they learn from their predecessors? For example:

1) the waiting time and the admission time before the competition was delayed without any reason given to all the people waiting at the lobby from 6pm to 6.40pm. Organizers should have honored the timings stated on the tickets. The people came from all the corners of Singapore just to be given more waiting time is poorly thought out. (An announcer would be important here to keep the audience informed so they would not be kept waiting in the dark. Chairs for any disabled or elderly members of the audience to sit while waiting for admission would be a nice touch.)

2) the continual waiting time with an empty stage when the audience were finally seated. There was no assurance as to when the competition can start. Where are the emcees? Why isn't there any schedule adjustments announced to let people know when the event is expected to end? (In the "command centre" of the event manager, there should be a person who is able to project an updated event schedule on the white screen so that the audience will be kept informed. Don't forget not everyone is able to stay back later than as promised on the tickets.)

3) the VIP seating areas were not clearly marked out, which resulted in ushers having to repeat the phrases for the umpteenth time "I am sorry. This area is reserved. Can you please find seats elsewhere?". A waste of precious manpower resources here. (Grab some removable adhesive hooks and plastic chains to box up the reserved seats area and have ushers to remove the chains whenever the reserved seats' audience is able to take up their seats.)

4) the EP booth for Kewei and Ein Ein was but a table with the EP albums fanned out. There was little effort made to help the guest performers' booth look even attractive. Considering Kewei and Ein Ein are providing guest performances to boost the entertainment allure of the competition, that overly-skeletal booth was not gracious. (You need a stand to prop up a poster which shows guest performers' album cover and the name of the booth - this is a minimum for a booth, not a piece of A4-sized paper blue-tagged at the front of the booth)

5) the ushers do not greet the audience who walked past. This is basic courtesy. People came to attend the competition and thus expected to be treated with the barest respect. The ushers whom I walked past barely even gave a smile or a nod. (Greet the audience not because they are paying the tickets but because you want to send out a reputation that NTU CAC is not just a student club but a club learning what professional service is all about.)

6) the sound system caused tremendous delays in quite a number of sets of performances, resulting in cumulative delays that costs the whole competition to drag further on into the night. I wonder who is in charge of the sound system and how come there isn't any backup system? If those equipment have not been tested to the fullest, it would reflect badly on the smooth running of the entire event. (Field-test the sound system - roll it up full blast for one hour at least to make sure it can withstand that kind of pressure and have a good sound engineer/technician standing by. If the performers had to go down on their knees to help the stage crew, it would look bad.)

7) the guest judges had to write in the dark on their scoresheets. I could not see clearly but I don't seem to see any torchlights, table lamps or ceiling lights to help the judges to write their comments. That was really unthoughtful. (Torchlights would have helped)

8) the lighting system - the spotlight was poorly-timed. There were at least a dozen instances where the emcees were trying to engage some of the performers in conversation and the spotlight simply stayed with the emcees where the performers had to talk in the darkened stage. What is the use of a spotlight if it is not spot-on on the right people at the right time? (The spotlight incharge must always have his eyeball on the stage and a clear channel to what the emcees are saying so he/she can shine the spotlight timely.)

I may look like a complainer here but if my readers had been there with me, they would have agreed - there was much room for improvement before Impresario can say it is a great event successfully held.)

(Update on 08 March 2010: The Chairman of Impresario contacted me and explained their perspective and because he was finally polite enough to understand my point of view. I will include what I know (in green font color above) so they can improve the future Impresario events. I think they misconstrued my wall post as an advertisement to earn adsense money even though this blog is a non-profit, non-aligned commentary platform for performances, singing and events.

To all the media friends and sponsors who are reading this blog post, I suppose so many of us have made a hundred mistakes, big and small ones, to come so far to where we are, or what we are doing now, so it will be a gracious act to leave some more room for students to rectify what their earlier inexperience could not reveal to them. I hope to see a better Impresario in 2011 then! All the best! )

I bought myself a ticket to watch the Impresario Grand Finals because two of my familiar friends in music - Miaoru and Kewei are performing in the competition. I took the liberty to take one of the shuttle services to NTU Nanyang Auditorium because I was not very familiar with the place and I did not want to be late. The shuttle bus left on time but I was kept waiting outside till 6.35pm even though the admission and seating time was 6pm. Wasn't very happy about that so minus 1 point for the organizing committee, which I heard from NTU Cultural Activities Club.
There was even more waiting when I went inside and I took a snapshot of the stage before the competition began. There was a goodie bag for everyone and I found things like magazines, two cans of coffee drink, two packets of soya bean drink powder, one small squeeze bottle of honey, a packet of sweets, some discount vouchers, a bottle of mineral water, a pen and some notepads. I thought it was an abundant goodie pack so plus one point to organizing committee.

According to the website by Impresario, the following categories would be competing:

Grand Finals: Vocal Solo

G063 Ainul Suhaidah
C005 Kan Mun Hoe
C006 Kong Min Qi (April)
E023 Kueo Miao Ru
A050 Mohaddmad Faliq Rais
F033 Teo Yi Poi

Grand Finals: Vocal Duet/Group

A070 Chocolatier
E021 Maveric & Christy
D039 REIS
E051 Rubberband
G066 VOTE4us
F029 无名氏

Grand Finals: Street Dance

H001 Ditch B
H009 Flickerholic
H005 HoWUse
H012 Jaders
H006 O.K. (Ordinary Kids)

Grand Finals: Original Composition

NDB0383 Aldrich Tjahjadi 愛的魔力
NDB0271 Lim Ming Swin 讓他走
NDB0247 Liu Yuning 三人舞
NDA0027 Lynn Koh 一句話也沒說
NDB0246 Tan Pok Loon Eric 冰心

I could not remember every single performance in the same level of detail because the audience seating area was in the dark for most of the event so there was little light to write anything down. Even the judges seemed to have to use their handphones to illuminate their scoresheets, which I thought was quite inconvenient. Let me try and recall what I could and comment on their performances here.

Grand Finals: Vocal Solo

G063 Ainul Suhaidah ("Listen" by Beyonce) - She was THE powerhouse of the night, with incredible volume and projection and energy that none of the others could really contend with. She was also very popular with a number of the audience and it was heard later that she won the vocal solo competition. I thought although Ainul delivered the power in the song, she neglected the softer portions of the song, as if she was only waiting to showcase her strengths but did little to impress with the more delicate verses of the song. I could not really hear her enunciate the lyrics that well during her powerful portions either.

C005 Kan Mun Hoe (第几个100天 by JJ Lin Junjie) - If I had said he did not sing well, it would have been telling a blatant lie because he was focused and he did not make that kind of mistakes obvious enough in some of the other contestants' performances. However, his performance lacked that kind of champion's luster which makes it look comparatively dull and he did not really want to interact with the audience, choosing to focus on his song and that took away quite a lot of points as he kept too safe and secure to be memorable enough for the audience.

C006 Kong Min Qi, April (I will always love you by Whitney Houston) - This is one song that one either does very well in it or fails utterly. I thought April did a very respectable job getting the song's feel. Her showmanship was generally weaker than the rest of the vocal soloists because she looked nervous and could not really know where to stand at which juncture of the song. I loved the way she reached her high notes but she spoiled it a little but modifying certain portions of the song when she could have paid more attention to her stagework.

E023 Kueo Miao Ru (掉了 by Amei) - Miaoru picked a very difficult song and it was a pretty dangerous choice because it was that kind of signature songs that is very hard to emulate or emote properly. Miaoru looked more worried than confident onstage and her voice sounded strained and unstable at certain points. She faulted by missing to project certain lyrics properly and although she eventually picked up the song during the first chorus onwards, I believe the damage done to the verses were too high to secure a good placing in the judges' minds. I still gave her credit, not because I knew her before the competition, for she was the only one who did Amei's songs justice that night, being the only one who could come close to that kind of free-range feeling that none of the other contestants who sang Amei songs that night could reach.

A050 Mohaddmad Faliq Rais (Medley: Superstitious by Stevie Wonder and I Believe I Can Fly by R Kelly) - Easily the most charimatic of all the category's contenders, I felt that he was playing it a little too safe, picking the second song as it was already over-sung and he did not really tried anything new with that song to make it genuinely his own rendition. Personally, I disliked medleys because it seemed to hide one's ability to perform the song in its entirety and Rais avoided showing the audience how he would have managed each song on their own, choosing not to show how he would handle the duller portions of the two songs. Still, he was a crowd-pleaser with a megawatt smile, fantastic audience interaction with lots of eye contact and confident stagework.

F033 Teo Yi Poi (泪的方向 by 施文斌) - This was one of the most stunning performances I had seen because when this Yi Poi went onstage, I could hear how some of the girls in the audience were whispering how insignificant his appearance was compared to the more charismatic ones earlier on. However, when he started singing, he slowly magnetized the audience with a consistency and sincerity that was way beyond what the other contestants could offer. He was NOT charismatic, with poor stagework or audience interaction, but his feel for the song was superb. He was totally into the song and applause was given again and again for his crystal clear high notes and stability of his techniques. It is not flawless though, as he really needed work on choosing a better attire and working on his rock-hard facial expressions, but he was one of the performers who made the event memorable - someone who picked a simple-sounding song and devoted an epic feeling to it.

Grand Finals: Vocal Duet/Group

A070 Chocolatier - I thought their instruments were really interesting and their group seems really friendly and enjoying their performance onstage. However, their ability to harmonize is not as good as I have hoped and both the male and female singers are not coordinated properly and their voice projection is unclear at times, dragging down the performance. It could be due to the lack of practice as they said, but I think they should be well-prepared if they are to be Grand Finalists.

E021 Maveric & Christy - Considered to be the most sensual and provocative duet/group compared to the rest, this group focused a lot more on stagework and entertainment value. I see much effort in their choreography of those scream-inducing moves and their acting skills and courage onstage were above par. However, the more they divert attention to their stage moves, the less attention is given to their singing, which was a drawback as I could not hear how their singing is considered as a duet since more acting is done than singing.

D039 REIS - REIS was a really unfortunate group. Due to the technical delays, their stage momentum was broken and they finally got their electric guitars to be properly plugged in after 20minutes of delay (-2 points for stage crew of organizers). I must admit they sang well and had a lot of practice but they reminded me too much of Jack and Rai, which makes it harder for them to differentiate themselves as a group with an identity they can call their own.

E051 Rubberband - Rubberband seemed to be the most experienced with harmonizing vocals compared to the other duets/groups. There were attempts to add entertainment value to their performance but I thought given their already established technical skills, they could have been more playful onstage instead of being rooted to their chairs and delivered a rather formal and strait-jacketed performance similar to that of an acapella group.

G066 VOTE4us - No offense but I felt that VOTE4us was the most uncoordinated duet amongst this category. The reason - the two of them were busy showcasing their own range of notes and volume projection and did not seem interested in delivering a duet, which calls for consideration and harmony. The male sounded weaker than the female singer but the female singer was so eager to show her ability to drag the notes that they either start on the wrong beat or end at the wrong timing. If there were any emotions supposedly to be delivered within the song, it was lost within this internal competition.

F029 无名氏 - A rocker-wannabe group who was trying to sell stage charisma with relatively decent vocals. However, their stagework actually prevented them from acting as a group - with one on either far side of the stage, my attention was split and could not really see how they could have cooperated with each other on the same song. It was as if they were singing their own parts and ignoring the other most of the time. There is only one way to do rock - give it all you've got but I saw restraint and control that hindered their intended purpose.

Grand Finals: Street Dance

I am not expert in streetdance so my performance commentaries for this category is probably superficial. I'll try my best anyway.

H001 Ditch B - Lots of youthful energy. I can see a lot of effort done in showing that kind of vitality and it really boosted the solemn atmosphere from the earlier category competitions. What I didn't see was a central theme which the group rallied around so I only saw dance sequences after dance sequences but there were not tied up together in a more coherent way.

H009 Flickerholic - The group with the most entertainment value because there was some playful acting coupled with dance. I like their well-sequenced and choreographed moves which tallied with their storytelling. Frankly, it's hard to fault them on anything I could remember about.

H005 HoWUse - I don't recall this group ever performing. Did they pull out of the competition?

H012 Jaders - I don't recall this group ever performing. Did they pull out of the competition at the last minute too or I am too ancient to have a good memory of the groups' lineup?

H006 O.K. (Ordinary Kids)- A lot of guys showcasing some excellent dance moves. I particularly enjoyed how they mixed the slow and sleazy moves with lightning quick ones to simulate the visual sense. They pale slightly in comparison because they did not have a clearer and more engaging characterization behind the dance and I thought it was a bit of a waste when they could have mixed some more solo portions to excite the audience even more.

Grand Finals: Original Composition

I am skipping performance commentaries for this one because I am really too uneducated on this category to be making commentaries. All I could say is good efforts by all the groups. Jia you!

NDB0383 Aldrich Tjahjadi 愛的魔力

NDB0271 Lim Ming Swin 讓他走

NDB0247 Liu Yuning 三人舞

NDA0027 Lynn Koh 一句話也沒說

NDB0246 Tan Pok Loon Eric 冰心

This is a snapshot taken during the sand art performance. It was beautiful and amazing to see it live onstage and it looked so life-like even on the white screen. I like such performances to be inserted to entertain the audience from too much singing and dancing in a 4 hour event and plus one point to the organizing committee for this.

End of blog post.

Chinese New Year Celebrations and more photos of food during outings.

2010-02-22T22:42:00.011+08:00

Birthday Celebrations with The Changed Man and his girlfriend at JurongPoint:

Outing With Ex-Student At West Mall Swenson's Restaurant Before He Goes Into Army:
Chinese New Year Eve Dinner Preparations In The Kitchen:

Sumptuous Chinese New Year Eve Dinner:

An after-dinner glass of red wine as traditional of my family.

Chinese New Year Day One Breakfast- Fusion of Western and Eastern Goodies:

Chinese New Year Day Three Lunch:

Chinese New Year Day Eight Lunch With YuSheng:

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T19:41:00.005+08:00

A very short post here. Still busy with celebrating Chinese New Year since I have no Valentine's Day celebrations. Here's one of those songs which I think has done a very accurate portrayal of love. It needs to match like fried youtiao and beancurd drink in order to make love really seasoned. Happy Valentine's Day to all my blog readers!

I will put up Chinese New Year celebrations photos once I have more time. Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves and fatten up with all those Chinese New Year goodies! ^__^

Movie Review: 14 Blades 锦衣卫 (2010)

2010-02-08T14:13:00.007+08:00

Movie Review:

I went to watch this movie because I support Donnie Yen's action flicks and I like the actors Sammo Hung and Zhao Wei. The movie is about how the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Guards, also known as The Brocade Guards (due to the silk brocades they wore on the outside), was being used in a power struggle and Qing Long, the commander of the Imperial Guards, was being pursued because he was in the way of the usurpers.

Qing Long felt compelled to prevent the conspiracy, which involved an exiled prince who wanted to get the Imperial Seal to allow him to return to the Imperial Palace to usurp the throne. The Imperial Seal is historically real but was lost in the folds of history. Qing Long, wounded in his failed attempt in one of his missions, decided to hire the services of an armed escort house known as Justice Escorts, in which acted by Zhao Wei was the daughter of the escort chief. The two of them ventured in the outer desert plains of China where the story would culminate into a series of deadly fights between Qing Long, Wu Zhun (who acted as a leader of some desert raider groups), Xuan Wu (acted by Qi Yingwu) and a mysterious and highly-skilled girl called Tuo Tuo (supposedly the adopted daughter of the exiled Prince).

The movie was quite alright since I was looking for some kungfu action from Donnie who managed to deliver despite the fact that he had to lug some heavy-looking box containing fourteen blades used to torture and kill enemies. There were some comical scenes in the show which lightened up the relatively morbid story about how Qing Long had to recover his dignity as an Imperial Guard because of all the treachery and betrayal. Wu Zhun was not much of an actor but at least he looked the part of the charismatic desert raider who bravely fought the mysterious female pugilist. The final scene was about how Qing Long had to face off the female pugilist who was incredibly powerful and the movie ended with a narrative of Zhao Wei recollecting the finer moments of the movie.

I would advise my blog readers not to hold their breath for any good acting close enough to the movie Bodyguards and Assassins but the action scenes were definitely impressive enough to keep my ticket value worthwhile. Zhao Wei was probably the one shouldering most of the heavy acting since almost none of the male leads could act well given their rather stony expressions and rigid body language. I took in more of the beautiful scenery but I lamented the lack of any character development of the main villain, Tuo Tuo, who seemed to only provide pugilistic scenes with too little acting to be connected well.

It's just a three popcorn movie to pass the week before Chinese New Year and I'd be looking forward to see Jackie Chan and Lee Hom's movie Big Soldier and Little General during the CNY period. Have a good Chinese Lunar New Year ahead! ^__^

Sweetlovenat Collections Blogshop and OB Music Forest Scape Chinese Confession @ Orchard 23 Jan 2010

2010-01-24T09:54:00.043+08:00

Sweetlovenat Collections Blogshop:

I am doing my friend, Natasha, a favor by helping her to advertise her new blogshop here. Yes, I know it's the fashionable entrepreneur thingy for most of the girls these days but I thought why not? It helps the girls to learn what a business start-up is all about. Without further ado, let me show my readers what I thought, as a guy, that a girl would look good in from Natasha's collection...

Elegant black and white combination. I like the flora pattern and the sheen of that small coat, which brings out that stylish-ness of the overall feel.
This outfit should be intended for the girl to look sweet but the fabric seems thicker than usual, which is probably a good thing since the girl won't freeze to death in those seriously cold air-conditioned places. Maybe I have a thing for black and white but this outfit looks good with black slacks.
Another prom-night inspired outfit. I think what would catch a guy's eye should be the folds and the sheen of the dress. With just a couple of accessories, this outfit should be quite a winner during those formal events.
This should be a semi-formal outfit, which I think would be suitable for outings which involve some up-class restaurants or places where a firmer dress code is good. I thought a matching handbag would be nice as well. =)

Impressed enough. Just click here to visit Natasha's blogshop to find out more about her collection.

OB Music Forest Scape Chinese Confession @ Orchard 23 Jan 2010:

To honour my promise to Miaoru, I had to took a taxi to rush down from work....I was already late from the traffic jam so by the time I reached the venue, it was already 8.15pm and the event had already started. There was already a crowd of nearly 100 around the stage along Orchard Road walkway from Wisma to Ngee Ann City so I had to find a suitable spot to take the photos and watch the performances. Please remember to cite me as the source of the photos if you decide to copy and paste them on other websites or profiles. ^__^

Lighting was bad from this angle. Some of the photos' quality were atrocious because of the humans walking past the stage so I had to keep deleting photos because the heads were in the way. I think most of the photographers there had the same problem too.
Miaoru looks nervous here from this photo. Haha.
Can't remember the names of all the singers yesterday night because there were no name cards to indicate who is singing what song. Although there was a deejay announcing, it's really difficult without an actual name list to tally with one's memory of those names.

This is the emcee taken with the backdrop "Sounds like Saturday". I thought he needs a little bit of work in warming up the crowd rather than just announcing items. Maybe it's the programme over-run he is worried about but wouldn't it be better to pack less performances but have a steadier flow of entertainment?
Singing ~~~

Some retro stagework here.
Well, this guy is doing something really difficult live - to sing and play an instrument at the same time. He needs practice because the moment he sings, he slows down his playing. Maybe he is really nervous with a hundred people staring at him...haha.
Singing~~~
I thought he looked a little like Dai Yang Tian from this photo angle eh?
Dancing~~
Sorry for the poor quality. I had to tiptoe to do this shot because people kept getting in my way without saying sorry.
A more stable shot capturing some stylized poses.
My camera is no good at capturing motion shots.
.... -__-"
Singing~~~
Ah~~ she seems to be looking straight at me...gasps...
Another shot..beautiful smile she's got.
Miaoru again..singing a solo~~~

Maybe my camera has a hypnotic lens..performers' gaze are attracted to the camera somehow.
Another performer with a beautiful smile, though the performance was a little too girly for my taste.
Butt swinging~~~
Butt swinging again~~~

A duet performance~~~

Awww..so sweet to hold hands..they seem the most natural duet compared to the ones I have seen later on in the night.

Another duet performance by even younger singers...
They tried to look intimate on the stage to look the part but it's not convincing enough..haha
The left side of the stage has not enough lighting...
Singing~~~
Duet~~~ see how the duet performers are so afraid to even stand together to sing...

Finally, something better to show...the guy still looks pretty nervous..haha
Dancing~~
Dancing real hard~~~
Shake those locks~~~
They sure looked they are enjoying themselves..I like dances which the performers smiled...
This is their dance instructor receiving an interview...
Some beatbox performer

Two beatbox performers strutting their stuff into the microphone..haha

Singing~~~
Rotating the singers~~~

The girl on the right needs to pin up her hair..a quarter of her face is covered up. How would anyone remember what she looks like?

Dancing~~~

A solo piece...needs lots of confidence for such things...
A final pose before the end of their performance
A more memorable performance where the acting is better...

The shy boy trying to woo the shy girl~~~hahaha

Roses for every girl eh?
Two of the better performers that night capable of delivering Kit Chan's songs to a reasonable standard.

Some nifty chairwork onstage.
Butt shoving..hahaha
More hip shoving~~~
Forever fever?

A twelve year old girl trying to reach stardom...not bad singing for her age.
Another stronger performer with a reasonably good control of his falsetto reach.

Dancing~~~
Singing~~~
They looked bored waiting for their turn..didn't even look at the audience...
My camera finally ran out of memory. So I had to leave. Overall, it's good to know that there are still young musicians and singers working hard to realize their dreams onstage. It's a valuable experience to sing at Orchard Road live, working through those less-than-desirable sound systems, having no proper chairs to sit down and cheering fellow performers.

Hope to see such performances more often in the future. Good work! ^__^

Birthday Celebrations For 2010

2010-01-21T19:44:00.005+08:00

Birthday Breakfast Celebrations at White Coffee Cafe at Toa Payoh:

Siew Ching invited me for a early birthday treat at a cafe that I would not have found myself in Toa Payoh Central, near Sizzler restaurant. We ordered two breakfast sets and spent the morning there eating, talking and amusing ourselves with the clumsy waiters there who would misplace our food on the wrong tables, place the bill before the meal started and confused about the billing again. Hahaha. Oh well, all those did not matter that much since I had my treat satisfied. Burp.
My Western Food set - the sausages were to my liking but the egg yolk was broken. It was filling at least since I had to make my way early down to the Toa Payoh Central whilst still yawning.
A couple of photographs taken after we had our breakfast, talking about photographs, cameras and why some pictures are worth the taking.
We parted ways around 11.45pm because Siew Ching still had another appointment while I had another family celebration in the afternoon before going to work.

Birthday Cake Celebrations in the afternoon at home:

My parents always remembered my birthday and bought a delicious chocolate cake, red eggs and juice drinks for a simple family celebration. It's a tradition that has never been broken for all my life and I loved such simple gatherings, with the cake in my mouth and the thoughts of contentment in my mind.

To show my appreciation, I bought a huge packet of cereal prawns for dinner since it's their favorite food as well as mine. My thanks to all my Facebook friends who remembered and gave their timely well-wishes on my wall too!

Movie Review: Bodyguards and Assassins (2009), Photos of Memorable Moments of 2009

2010-01-02T18:07:00.012+08:00

Movie Review: Bodyguards and Assassins (2009):

This movie is probably best compared with Avatar because if the latter is considered the pinnacle of graphics excellence, the former is considered to be the pinnacle of acting for Hongkong movies for 2009. Boasting a formidable array of actors and actresses, the movie storyline is about how a group of ordinary (well, some of them do possess extraordinary martial arts skills) people do their utmost to protect Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary leader who is on an hour's trip to organize some revolutions in Hongkong.

The problem is that The Chinese government of the Qing Dynasty has ordered imperial assassins to kill Dr. Sun in the British controlled colony of Hongkong and both sides clashed valiantly in their respective attempts to fulfill their mission objectives. I am not going to spoil the movie by revealing too much here but you can get a glimpse from the general description of the main characters here:

A Hongkong policeman who is a gambling and a secret mercenary for crime.
A street beggar who punished himself after falling for his mother and watching her die.
A rickshaw puller who is a loyal servant to a generous merchant.
A merchant who lives a secret life as a revolutionary but refuses his son to participate.
A merchant's son who believes that a revolution is more important than carrying on the bloodline.
A concubine who did not wish to see the death of her husband.
An escaped Shaolin monk who wishes to regain his honor to return back to the temple.
A Hongkong police chief who is squashed between British interests and Chinese revolutionaries.
A newspaper editor who is prepared to die everyday in order to print revolutionary news.
A daughter of an exiled Chinese general who wants to repay her father by living his dream.
An imperial assassin who believes that western imperialism has given nothing to the Chinese.

Now...watch the movie to see how their lives, beliefs, fears and honour are all intertwined to clash into a climax along the busy streets of Hongkong for a deadly 60 minutes visit by Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

Photos from Memorable Moments in 2009:
The Hokkaido chocolate ice-cream dessert from Ministry of Food for me.
My lunch outing with Sushi Rabbit consists of a salmon set which tasted quite delicious but the salmon is a little over-fried till it charred on the underside. The Ministry of Food at Bugis Junction can be quite expensive so be prepared to fork out at least $50+ for a decent meal for two.
Some Hokkaido green tea ice-cream dessert for Sushi Rabbit, one of my VIP friends who is always flying around the world.
Sushi Rabbit ordered some egg-like soup with chicken in it. The portion was so big that she insisted that I helped her finish the food. As mischievous as I was that afternoon, I re-insisted her to finish up all the food before we leave. Hahaha.
The spaghetti with sausage was just passable because the sausages were way undersized compared to the picture on the menu and there was little ingredients besides to really make the dish as flavorful as I would have wanted. Still, after a 4 hour KTV session, I am too hungry to care that much that night.
The KTV.sg Club people decided to have dinner after the four hour session and we headed out to this Japanese foodcourt somewhere behind The Cathay. I did not know such a place existed so the outing yielded another location for me.
This was taken during my first outing with the KTV.sg Club people on an undisclosed date and location. I was most intrigued by the efforts of such an interest club, which is exceedingly rare in Singapore, and it turned out to be a memorable experience because there were really incredibly skilful members who could easily belt out difficult songs and it really livened up the outing.
This was the dinner at Marche at VivoCity when I met Da Niu and his wife after so many years apart. Da Niu is doing well with his own company and we had a jolly good evening talking and reminiscing about the old times during our secondary school years.
The map of Ferelden in Dragon Age: Origins. It sure looks plain but during my gameplay, I remembered crossing the game continent no less than twenty times and almost every trip entailed some random encounters which was both fun to watch and overcome. Imagine an encounter where wolves actually laid hunter traps for my adventuring party members??
This is a screenshot that I took from the game Dragon Age: Origins. I think this was about the quest to try and resolve some armed/clawed conflict between the werewolves and the elves in the forest. Eventually, I managed to persuade the leaders of both sides to commit suicide to end the conflict since neither of them wished to forgive the other whilst trying to avoid implicating their peoples/beasts to more bloodshed.
This was my last lunch for 2009 - Chicken Chop. It's been quite some time since I ate authentic Western food and I wanted to give myself a nice treat before the year ends. 2009 had been a terrible year in so many aspects.

My Childhood Memories: This is how I learnt about telephones when I was young

2009-12-30T10:57:00.005+08:00

Sesame Street - Yip Yip Martians and the telephone:

This is how I learnt about telephones when I was young. Education on television, especially with Sesame Street and Electric City, was so fun and entertaining, right? Yip...yip...yip...yip...yip...yip.

Channel U's tele-movie "The Promise" 《向日葵的约定》

2009-12-27T11:25:00.010+08:00

Channel U is showing a new telemovie called The Promise 《向日葵的约定》 on 27 Dec 2009 at 9.30pm and I am hoping to encourage more readers to view the movie because I thought it will be a good showcase of acting and songs. The story is about how two young lovers are trying to realize a romance of innocence and purity (the girl is suffering from a aliment which renders her to be child-like whilst the boy is quite lost with his own directions in life). How will all these work out in the end? Stay tuned tonight.

I came to know of it when XiaoHan started advertising her song composition of 《受保護》 on Facebook and wanted the readers to write in to collect the song from Funkie Monkies Productions instead of ripping the song off from the Internet directly.

For those who are interested in the song, here's the youtube video preview (it's not the complete song version) and if you are further interested in the song, please either click on XiaoHan's blog or within the youtube video itself and follow the instructions there to write in to get the song.

I have already gotten my copy of the complete song version from Funkie Monkies through email but I refuse to upload the entire song up here because I think they are collating data for those appreciative of the song and I don't want to spoil their deliberate efforts here. I also want to support the song because the song is completed locally by a local singer and a local songwriter. Long live music by Singaporeans! ^__^

Without further ado, let's hear the shortened version before you decide whether to apply to grab the song from the original producers.

Song Recommendation for Dec 2009
龔芝怡（芝麻）作曲、演唱，並參於編曲的《受保護》
小寒作词

A
心疼你一臉無能為力
你最不擅長演戲
反讓我更愛你

心領了你的小心翼翼
是怕我會委屈
傻瓜別怪自己

B
有你深愛過的我
有甚麼事談不妥
乖聽我說
過你要的生活

C
我們其中一個幸福
好過兩人都不知足
你懂我最愛哭
眼淚並不表示我怕孤獨

這一刻最大的幸福
是錯下去前說不
分離不苦這不算苦
不要想著彌補

我不是個孩子無須再受保護

A
別以為我的心像瓷器
心碎並不是委屈
是成長的必須

別小看這一路的回憶
它會開成感激
給我存在意義

B
有你深愛過的我
有甚麼事談不妥
乖聽我說
過你要的生活

C
我們其中一個幸福
好過兩人都不知足
你懂我最愛哭
眼淚並不表示我很無助

這一刻最大的幸福
是錯下去前說不
分離不苦這不算苦
不要感觸

D
不要反覆不要反顧
不要愛她吞吞吐吐
女生最恨戀人還想保護
上一段追逐

C
我們其中一個幸福
好過兩人都不知足
你懂我最愛哭
眼淚並不表示我很無助

這一刻最大的幸福
是錯下去前說不
分離不苦這不算苦
不要想著彌補
我不是個孩子
無須再受保護

我因為愛了你
無須再受保護

Movie Review: Avatar (2009), Tycoons: A Business Simulation Facebook Application

2009-12-25T19:29:00.006+08:00

Merry Christmas to all my blog readers out there. I didn't really celebrate this year's Christmas because I wasn't in any mood to do so in any elaborate manner.

It seems the predominant mood amongst most of my circle of friends. Perhaps New Year Eve will be different. Meanwhile, I am just slacking away at home, gaming, napping and treating my parents to a small dinner. Hope all of you are spending the time the best way you deem appropriate. ^__^

Movie Review: Avatar (2009)

This is indeed the one movie you should be watching because the graphics are superbly done and the storyline is riveting, particularly so because of its theme of materialistic greed versus the genuine connection of humanity to nature.

The story revolves around how a US Marine soldier, Jack Sully, who was crippled from waist downwards took over a special assignment from his deceased brother - to enter a new world of Pandora using a state-of-the-art avatar (a genetically modified being created from both the genes of his brother and a native species of Pandora). Although the soldier made a double pact with both the scientific faction as well as the military faction of the entire Pandora expeditionary team, he began to realize how the native species, Na'vi, were incredulously human-like, but with a much deeper appreciation and connection to the natural world of Pandora.

Pulled in so many different directions, and with the time ticking on an all-out battle between the bow-wielding Na'vi and the machine-gun-toting ex-Marines mercenaries from the expeditionary team, Jack must choose his side and be prepared to lay his life down to determine the future of Pandora.

As the viewer, be prepared to be awed by the bewildering variety of flora and fauna on Pandora and be shell-shocked by the stunning battle scenes as both groups clashed fiercely and heroically over the fate of the entire planet. I would not hesitate to give this movie a 5 stars out of a possible 5 because it's been so long since so much effort is being put into weaving graphics, action, acting together and pace them into a heart-pounding and yet heart-rending movie. Don't miss it.

Tycoons: A Business Simulation Facebook Application

I am spending quite some time online playing a new facebook application game called Tycoons. It's another of those business simulation games but I thought it has been able to capture my attention for quite a few days so far because there is actually a good deal of realism within the game. It's highly recommended for any blog reader who is hoping for a feel of what business trading is all about and how business people plan for their investments and returns over commodities such as power, aluminium, oil, clothings, cars, housing and many more.

I am only a few days into the game and am still struggling with trying to hit the level necessary for the building for a national bank and a nuclear power plant. The learning curve is high but with careful use of the game reward points, I think it will be providing a nice platform for some learning on financial management for those trying to develop some business acumen.

2009-12-18T11:22:00.011+08:00

Movie Review: Storm Warriors (2009)

Well, the main actors still look so handsome and charismatic but I really hated the storyline of this movie - too much was left unsaid and it could leave viewers pretty confused about why such and such happened. There was too little acting and too much display of computer enhanced graphics that I was a little disappointed because in the original comic book series, the battle between Wind and Cloud was a lot better and much more emotional than the movie could depict.

The story revolves around how Godless, a Japanese warlord, who "somehow" captured the Chinese Emperor and was trying to force the latter to reveal the location of the Dragon Tomb (where the first Emperor of China was buried) to find a relic (which was actually a spine) to gain invincible hold over the entire of China. Wind and Cloud, despite their initial efforts, could not defeat Godless and had to escape while many Chinese pugilists sacrificed their lives to cover their retreat.

Nameless, a supposedly great master, was so seriously injured that he decided to teach Cloud more skills to help to defeat Godless, which eventually laid the foundations of Cloud's mighty swordplay "Ba". On the other hand, Wind decided to take a shortcut by learning the Demonic skills from another great master. This had a terrible price though as Wind could end up as a demon so the former forced Cloud to promise to kill him if he could not recover from his demon state before he entered the training.

Upon accomplishing their skills, both Wind and Cloud went to the Dragon Tomb and managed to defeat Godless in a spectacular display of combat prowess but Wind became more maniacal and actually took the relic and headed off on his own. The Chinese Emperor pleaded with Cloud to recover the relic as Cloud was the only one capable of stopping Wind.

The final scene was how Wind and Cloud slugged it out and eventually, Cloud managed to slice Wind on the source of his demonic madness (an opening on his forehead) and as both of them, along with Dream (Wind's longtime penpal and lover-to-be), plunged from an extremely high mountain cliff, Cloud pushed the other two up while he plummeted even faster into the abyss. The movie ended abruptly there and I thought the ending could have been much better.

All in all, if you are watching for a storyline that made sense, don't watch this movie. If you are already a fan of the comic book series and are looking for the improvements made in making the kungfu display, go ahead and indulge in the fighting scenes, especially the one where Cloud intelligently used his new swordplay to trap the overly-arrogant Godless at the Dragon Tomb.

I would give the movie a mere 2.5 out of 5 as after so much trouble in getting the two main leads to act together again, I would expect a better story development. The fight scenes were over-emphasized at a huge cost to plot layout. I hope Bodyguards and Assassins and Avatar will be much better movies.

Game Review: Dragon Age Origins (2009)

After one week of playing, I finally completed the game and I must say it really provided quite some entertainment in role-playing and satisfaction in making good decisions which led to good outcomes. Of course, I made some bad decisions too which resulted in lost companions, incomplete quests and missing out on items which could have made my gameplay life a little bit better.

Oh well, at least I had fun watching how my Human Noble Warrior fared as he ventured through so many different quest areas to explore, solve quests, move the main storyline and tried his best at shopping for the ideal items to send gifts to his companions. The right gifts would even open up personal quests, which would affect the approval ratings of the companions about the main character one is role-playing in. For myself, I used Alistair (a Templar Warrior), Leliana (a Bardic Rogue), and Morrigan (a Shapeshifter Mage).

The other thing I loved about this game is that the very dialogue options you choose can really determine how the game turns out to be. Answer curtly and you may well have a huge fight ahead of you immediately. Answer intelligently and you may be able to pick the characters and vendors for more information that could lead to better rewards and even new areas of explorations.

It also pays well to read up on those scraps of paper, books and scrolls that the main character and his party of three other companions pick up during their travels. Some will open up new quests, some will provide history on the background of the game universe (which will also earn valuable experience points), while others may provide clues to unhidden quests and procedures in the game. This is one game which will surely penalize those players who only know how to kill anything that moves without doing their reading up on those books and scrolls (all conveniently located inside the journal that the main character carries).

My recommendations for those who intend to start up on this 5-star role-playing game are:

1) Buy the PC version - it allows one to pause in the middle of the chaotic battles to issue specific commands to individual companions, especially when to drink health poultices.

2) Complete the tombstones quest to get the full set of Juggernaut armor, which gives high resistances to various elemental attacks. This set of armor prevented my main warrior character from dying a single time throughout the entire game.

3) Develop a love for cold spells because almost everything in the game has a lower resistance to cold and freezing the enemy monsters give valuable time to reorganize your adventuring party, especially when they are caught out in the open.

4) Be nice to your companions - buy them appropriate gifts and don't be stingy in giving them out to develop their approval ratings for your main character. The personal quests that can be unlocked out of each of the companions are worth the trouble and some major plot developments hinge on whether they will actually comply with your decisions or walk right out from your party - forever.

5) Save your game often - sometimes, you may accidentally click on something that you will regret, be it a dialogue option, a vial of glass, or a door, especially when your adventuring party are not ready to face the consequences.

That's all for the blog post now. Sorry to keep my readers waiting. I wish I could update more about music and artistes for those enthusiastic about news as such, but there simply isn't much happening right now to garner a blog post. I will try my best to look for these meanwhile.

Have a good weekend ahead! ^__^

The Mayan Aztecs and their amazing calendars

2009-12-06T19:42:00.003+08:00

(Warning: Some of the paintings and illustrations contain explicit images of violence, torture and death and thus may be unsuitable for viewing for young children who may be reading this entry.)

I am not selling any idea that the world will end in the year 2012. I am just saying we have a lot to learn about these mysterious, ancient and yet incredibly advanced civilizations. If only the colonial explorers studied together with these civilizations instead of eliminating them, we could have preserved so much important history and knowledge that may actually help mankind evolve better than we are doing now.

We really need more peace instead of war amongst ourselves.

A Sand Drawing of World War II by Kseniya Simonova

2009-12-01T07:31:00.005+08:00

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

And I thought it was a beautiful story told...enough said.

Amazing Sand Drawing @ Yahoo! Video

歌曲介绍：《昇F大調行版》 by 伍思凯

2009-11-28T21:41:00.006+08:00

我想应该有很多人听过张韶涵的《C大调》，可是应该没几人能记得伍思凯曾经创作一首《昇F大調行版》。

这是一首很短，很小品的歌，可是却对我的音乐领悟有很深的影响。因为它让我明白了音乐可以那么的轻柔又简单，可是却又能丝丝入扣，让人在一瞬间心情平伏下来。

这就是音乐的魔力，而此小品尽展无疑... ...

昇F大調行版　詞曲:鄭華娟　編曲:伍思凱
　　
你是誰能不問我就知道我傷悲
你是誰能為我拭心上淚
你是誰能夠為我等待為我憔悴
你是誰陪我哭泣陪我醉

夢的血液孤單的身體
飄浮在這人海裏如果月亮隨風搖曳
我會想著你

多少苦我都經歷愛不能變言語
多少恨只能忘記當真心被拋棄

Movie Review: Ninja Assassin (2009) M18 Rating

2009-11-26T14:41:00.006+08:00

Alright, I just returned from the movie "Ninja Assassin" and I thought it really had some superb action scenes - definitely too gory for most of the under-18-year-olds because blood was copious and bodies were dismembered in horrifyingly sudden ways, but it was jaw-dropping and vicious. I think it really gives a very realistic view of how deadly martial combat is and a moment's hesitation would bring death so quickly and those ninjas did not hesitate at all, which is probably why they are so good in their job.

The plot follows how Raizo was brought up from a child in a top-secret mountain stronghold to be one of the deadly assassins in the Ozunu Clan (aka The Black Sand Clan) and during the course of the very brutal training, befriended a fellow female student who taught him about the value of a beating heart and a freedom beyond the strict regime of Ozunu. Raizo, eventually, betrayed the clan and allied himself with a forensic researcher from an intelligence agency. They were trailed by the rest of the assassins and a number of bloody fights ensued.

The final scene culminated when Raizo carried a homing beacon inside him for a large group of international special forces operatives to track him all the way back to the mountain stronghold of Ozunu. Both groups went all out with bullets, shurikens, swords and rocket launchers against each other while Raizo fought his nemesis in his class before taking on the Ozunu teacher himself.

I thought the last fight was a bit over the top because the movie did not explain how Raizo could still summon enough strength to fight his ninja sensei when he was slashed and cut and torn to nearly oblivion by his sensei who had an amazing skill to semi-teleport in and out of the fight. I suppose that was to address that ninjas had developed superhuman strength, endurance and speed to withstand that kind of injuries and pain to begin with.

All in all, I would want to give a A for the action scenes because of their realism, but falling short of an A+ because the lighting in the movie was too dark to justify all the efforts put in by Rain and the stuntmen. Those somersaults in mid-fight were real but it was too dark for those not accustomed to fighting scenes to see properly. It was a real pity because I thought they really practiced supremely hard for the movie.

The plot would only garner a C+ because the movie did not address how Rain could have escaped the Ozunu Clan's assassinations for so long and who passed Raizo the message to save that forensic researcher from harm. I also find it difficult to see how Raizo could quickly defy his ninja sensei after finishing his first assassination attempt in the male toilet with very little account of his character development or inner thoughts. I also could not understand how come a large group of international special forces operatives could be deployed when it was described in the movie that the Ozunu Clan was regularly hired by many governments in the world for assassination jobs at the price of 100 pounds of gold per head. I thought the governments would gain more if they kept the Ozunu Clan instead of eradicating it.

A 2.5 popcorn out of 5 popcorn. It was a little disappointing for me because it's been so long since a movie about ninjas was made but I hope the standards would improve even more with this movie as a modern benchmark.

Ninja Assassin 2009 (NC18) Looking forward to watch it

2009-11-24T19:24:00.007+08:00

This is one movie that I am just waiting to watch in a few days' time. The trailer looks cool but what appeals to me if all that mystery and magic behind those masked assassins. Reminds me of the days when I first watched American Ninja 1 and 2 - those movies looked really cheesy now but they were considered the pioneers for starting all the ninja fantasy in the movies and now after more than 30 years, we now have this...

Cool right? And just when you think most of the fighting in the trailer alone must have been done with computer graphics and lots of wires in the air...take a look at this video behind the scenes...

Wow...all those hard work put in by Rain and the team of stuntmen is enough motivation for me just pay that movie ticket. I know most of the movie reviews seem to say the movie plot is quite thin but for the sake of the action-junkie inside me, I think I will like this movie at least for the action and sincerity behind all those practices to make the scenes realistic. Will tell all you readers what I have witnessed in the movie as soon as I can.

Have a good week ahead meanwhile! ^__^

Movie Review: 2012

2009-11-17T13:55:00.006+08:00

I finally found time to watch this movie and get to blog about it. The story revolves around how a down-and-out author had to struggle to reconnect with his estranged family who is living separately when he encountered a seemingly-mad radio deejay who told him about the coming of the end of the world, showed him photos of the unfortunate politicians and scientists, who tried to tell the world the truth, were assassinated in freak accidents, and whispered about a map where spaceships were being built to escape the apocalyptic changes that were about to come.

The male lead, acted by John Cusack, began by recklessly pawning his watch to a pilot at an airfield and quickly drove to his family in a bid to prevent disaster from happening to his loved ones. What happens from there is a series of death-defying escape on a mini-airplane as the family raced to try and reach the secret base in China where a flotilla of special ships were designed to carry a selected few to safety. There are obviously problems to this plan - the plan is too small to make the trans-oceanic trip, the Chinese military might shoot them, and they would not be able to afford seats on those spaceships - ten billion eurodollars per seat.

How are they going to reach safety amidst the chaos of sinking continents, exploding volcanoes, gigantic earthquakes, and yet juggle with human selfishness, selfless courage and elitist attitudes of the rich and the powerful? I am not going to spoil the movie by telling too much - go watch and find out yourself.

What I can offer as feedback for this movie review are:

1) The male lead seems to be so lucky that he doesn't feel real to be able to escape those disasters unscathed.

2) Hijacking planes from airports seem really easy.

3) I loved the speech given by one of the actors who appealed to the world leaders onboard those spaceships to open the doors to save those who had no tickets.

4) The disaster scenes are by far the best I had ever seen but the movie's touching moments could not outdo those from Deep Impact and the movie's humorous scenes could not outdo Armageddon. Those two movies are what I considered to be really impressive disaster movies about the end of our world.

Armageddon Movie Trailer

Deep Impact Movie Trailer

5) I don't know if 2012 will be the end of our world but I do know we should be doing what we ought to be doing - living our lives the best ways that we can instead of procrastinating, complaining, lamenting or worrying.

End of review. Time to take my nap. Zzzz...

RAZORTV's videos on the three upcoming local singers whom I am covering recently

2009-11-15T11:10:00.012+08:00

I thought the impromptu performances and interviews from RazorTV's entertainment videos are really interesting to watch. Some seemed well-prepared whilst some just take it as it goes along. Come to think of it - it's really not easy to do so.

The album's songs seem to be catering to a niche market but it's still encouraging to see local young singers willing to take the leap and learn their way to realize their dreams.

黄业翔

叶慧馨

黄秀莹

The three singers on their dreams and time management

黄宏墨 (The album producer behind these three singers)

Singapore Children's Society Project Cabin Camp 2009 9 Nov to 11 Nov

2009-11-12T19:32:00.002+08:00

I have just returned from the above-mentioned camp as a volunteer group leader and this blog post is all about all the interesting encounters that have happened during this camp. The objective of the camp is to enrich the values of the students using the core motto of the camp for this year "No Man Is An Island".

The camp started on 09 November 2009 (Monday) from Bukit Merah Student Hub Centre with a group of 10 staff, 9 volunteers and 64 Cabin Club students and the entire group traveled all the way to Pasir Ris Holiday Flats and Dormitories for the residential part of the camp.

I was in charge of one of the eight groups of students and was also in charge of a group of 14 students in the male dormitory whilst the rest of the campers were residing either inside the female dormitory or the holiday flats. It will be too cluttered to write everything inside this post so I will just highlight some of the major events and what I considered to be really memorable encounters during the camp itself.

Night Trail at Pasir Ris Park Mangrove Boardwalk:

This was one of the biggest event for Day One where students would have to traverse the Mangrove Boardwalk in pitch dark conditions to reach five different stations within the Boardwalk to perform certain activities to earn tokens for a subsequent camp event the following day.

Although each of the groups, led by a volunteer group leader, was allowed to bring torch lights, the lighting conditions inside the Boardwalk were so bad that none of the torches could shine beyond 5 meters before the darkness enveloped each group. Hence, the Night Trail was of considerable challenge to students who had to overcome their individual fear of the dark and rely on the strength and courage of the group to complete the tasks at hand.

Special Encounter - Dark Presence in the Forest:

(Disclaimer: I am not advocating any idea of superstition or negating any form of religious beliefs here. I am merely stating what I have encountered during the camp.)

During the second station, where each group was supposed to visit a unmanned pavilion to search for some tokens in a treasure chest, my group, which was the last one, made quite a racket in the darkness, talking and discussing loudly about the search for the tokens when I noticed the surrounding darkness becoming "thicker" and "thicker".

Logically, darkness should only constitute the color of black, but the longer my group lingered at the station (they were really keen on finding every single token), the darkness surrounding the pavilion seemed to have increased its shade of black multiple times over in the space of a few minutes and the surrounding air became much colder.

Realizing something was amiss, I quickly warned my group to keep their volume down and exit the station as quickly as they could. As we were leaving the pavilion (I placed myself as the last person of the group), a deep chill ran down the entire length of my spine and I felt a huge dark presence standing right behind me. I remembered what my National Service platoon commander told me - resist the temptation to look back in the middle of the forest so I did exactly that - I walked quietly without a word as my entire group proceeded to the next station.

For what it seemed like an eternity, the dark presence followed right behind me, and I had to resist the urge to push my group to go faster lest I aroused the curiosity of the students who might look back at me. We prodded until the next station was nearly in sight and suddenly the dark presence just stopped following me and seemed to have turned back. The cold chill in my spine disappeared instantly as well.

When I reached home, I "googled" what I had encountered and realized that dark presences are part of paranormal activities and cross-checking with some of the more experienced ones revealed that a possibility of that particular dark presence was a manifestation of what they would call as a shadow giant - an ancient of the dark dimension that resides in extremely dark places. Reputed sizes of these shadow giants could reach up to several stories high. According to what I had estimated, that dark presence was at least 9 feet tall so it could have tallied with what the experienced ones had said.

Thankfully, that shadow giant seemed more intent on escorting the entire group out of its territory than on harming us. I was so worried that the students in my group might be harmed in any way while it was following us for that seemingly forever few minutes. I am going to stay away from that particular pavilion from now onwards.

Loss: Thankfully none.
Gain: +1 Luck, +1 Wisdom

Outdoor Fun at VivoCity:

The second major camp activity was on Day Two where the groups had to weave in and out of the many shops within VivoCity to try and compare prices of items. Simply put, they are supposed to find items starting with a set number of letters in the alphabet and to collate the prices of these items. The group with the lowest prices from all these items wins. The activity was enormously draining because groups had to run around the entire VivoCity to fulfill the task which was further interspersed with three game stations that they had to find using only clues.

Special Encounter - The Defiant Rebel

My group, in my opinion, was the most difficult group to lead in the entire camp. That was because the group was fractured into very different groups - half the group had such close friends who were allocated to other groups was always clinging onto their friends for most of the time, refusing to temporarily leave their cliques even for the camp. The other half consisted of loners who barely uttered more than twenty sentences in the forty-eight-hour camp, sleepy heads who would grab any possible time to return to the sleeping quarters to nap, and rebels who would want to defy any instructions because their philosophy of life was "rules are meant to be broken".

What I considered to the most obnoxious rebel happened to be in my group. During the Outdoor Fun activity at VivoCity, he was shouting and ordering another volunteer group leader around at one of the game stations in front of many groups and members of the public that I had to yell at him to shut up. Although I was given pre-camp advice that "everyone had some good in them", I did not seem to see what good was there in that blatantly rude behavior of that Obnoxious Rebel.

After lodging a seriously-worded complaint with the relevant staff member from the Singapore Children's Society, a meeting between that staff member, the Obnoxious Rebel and myself was convened later that afternoon where the student in error apologized for his behavior, citing the reason that all his friends had always been giving way to his antics. I explained that although some rules could be broken given the circumstances, not all rules and decorum are to be abandoned at the cost and embarrassment of so many innocent others. I also told him that his actions at VivoCity had put his fellow groups to shame, offended the other volunteer group leader, disgraced his authority over the other group's campers and brought bad light to Singapore Children's Society in the eyes of those members of the public who witnessed the incident.

The Obnoxious Rebel subsequently tried to participate and cooperate more actively in the remaining activities without a single word of complaint and the camp eventually passed with no further incident or conflict. I learned that some rebellious youths expected everyone to give way to them and to understand their every action and word, no matter what the potential consequences are. I also understood that I had, and will continue to have, nearly zero tolerance for selfish individuals when they are supposed to take into consideration the best interests of the group before themselves.

Loss: The remaining members of the group caught on his bad example of rebelling and began to laze during most of the camp, making my work even harder at times.
Gain: +1 Speech, +1 Knowledge

The Night Watch at Pasir Ris Holiday Compound:

On the final night of the Project Cabin Camp 2009, all the nine volunteers agreed to take over the night watch duties for the entire camp compound so the over-worked staff members could take some much-needed rest. What followed was a night of eating, drinking, playing, observing and catching of some naughty campers who tried to slip out of their sleeping quarters for unknown objectives.

The nine volunteers dragged out a number of chairs and arranged them in a circle in the middle of the only road running through the camp compound at around 12.30am. We also lugged our favorite items with us to accompany us for the long watch of nearly 6 hours ahead of us - soft toys, mini pillows, torch lights, windbreakers, ipods, video cameras and not forgetting, loads of packet drinks, snacks and leftover food from that night's buffet dinner.

For nearly an hour, the volunteers were talking about some of their most interesting personalities within their respective groups. At around 1.30am, we began to play the game "Murderer" to pass time. Believe me, it was really difficult in the semi-darkness to see those winks and we had a lot of fun trying to find out who the murderer and the detective was. We surely had a good laugh over one of the volunteers who seemed to be always one of the first victims to be "killed", one of the most unobservant detectives who took a long time to seek out the murderer and also one of the most reluctant murderer who took a long time to seek out his victims. To sum it up, we labeled him as the worst player for the game which he still took it within his stride in good sport. ^__^

Special Encounter - The "Night Crawlers"

Somewhere around 3am to 4am, two of the male campers tried to slip out of their holiday flat quarters for reasons unknown. A stealthy and quiet opening of the door followed by two crawling figures in the semi-darkness. However, my night vision was better than what they had expected and I already spotted their movements and pointed out the little misadventure. One of the volunteers immediately recognized the identities of the crawling figures and quickly ran up to stop them from crawling towards a back stairway.

The volunteers continued their night watch by playing a prank on one of the female volunteers who had just returned from a regular patrol session around the camp compound. The prank was hilariously simple - totally ignore the presence of that volunteer as if she had already returned to the sleeping quarters to sleep. The results was wriggling fun as the volunteer was stomping her feet and going around "strangling" all the volunteers seated at the circle, only to be answered with "Oh my god! I felt something touching my neck! Was it the wind?"

The whole prank continued to balloon with the inclusion of the "Flying Plastic Fork". The female volunteer had a white plastic fork in her mouth then and we all commented with pretentious awe that a "holy fork" had joined the circle of night watch and whenever the "holy fork" moved, we would hail it as some sort of divine sign of communication. The end result - the female volunteer was so tickled that she played along with the game and used the fork to continue some silly charade for another hour or so.

When the night watch ended the next morning, I thought to myself - it was definitely the most entertaining and enjoyable night watch that I had ever participated in as the jokes were great, the pranks were hilarious and the watch was fruitful with another four more students caught walking out of their sleeping quarters before the reverie hour was approaching. If I had another chance to go on another night watch, I would definitely seek the company of those eight people.

Loss: I only managed to grab 15 minutes of sleep after my night watch duties ended.
Gain: +1 Fun, +1 Experience in Night Watch

The volunteers were under strict instructions not to take any photos or videos of students during the camp so as to protect the identities of these students whom the Singapore Children's Society consider as children/youths-at-risk. Hence, I could only take back memories and recollections on this blog. The following are some of the more scenic pictures that I had taken.

The sunrise photograph was taken on the morning of Day 3 when I was nearing the end of my guard duty. I was stretching myself and waiting for the campers to wake up when I noticed the beautiful sunrise creeping up from the tree horizon.
The sky was full of alto-cumulus clouds - small and fluffy like numerous cotton buds. It provided a really serene touch to that particular morning. It has been so long since I could find time to cloud-watch and snap such pictures. What a beautiful world of Nature if one could only stop and smell the flowers and feel the breeze.
As a volunteer group leader and dormitory in-charge, my in-camp schedule was usually so tightly-packed that I could only have time to put up a picture of the dinner that was handed to us during Day One - packet lunch with rice, eggs, chicken pieces, beancurd and mixed vegetables. It tasted delicious because I was already famished from all the work from settling in the campers, briefings and ice-breakers.

黄宏墨《这一切都会过去》创作珍集藏版2 新歌发布会

2009-11-08T18:11:00.023+08:00

黄宏墨《这一切都会过去》创作珍集藏版2 新歌发布会:

我很荣幸被邀去看场新歌发布会，并决定把所看和听到的，写在我小小博客栏上，让对本地音乐有兴趣的读者能有更多的资讯。

这发布会在勿兰图书馆底层的室内会议场举办，从下午两点至四点半。

我在两点二十五分入座。
会场内有好多人呀。据我估计，应该有两百五十人出席，反应热烈。

黄宏墨终于在司仪的介绍后，在两点三十五分入场，正式开始了发布会。
黄宏墨说他的创作灵感来自庄子之道，并说平衡生活是件很重要的事。
黄宏墨和他的歌坛老战友“锦祥”一起弹奏合音，唱了首《桃花红红》的闵南语台湾民谣曲。虽然默契有加，可是黄宏墨却说唱得没有彩排时好。
三位由黄宏墨亲自调教的新人，打头阵先锋的是十八岁的叶慧馨。在司仪的鼓励下，清唱了萧亚轩的一首《爱的主打歌》，声线宏亮，为新人的阵团打响了第一炮。叶慧馨虽然在司仪发问下，回答得有点战战兢兢，可是她接下来所呈献在专辑里的一首《将你的心装上翅膀》，很快得又回复了自信，唱得清亮又有活力，现场的歌唱和台风实力，也博得一轮热烈的掌声。我个人认为她在握麦克风时，似乎用麦克风不一样的位置发音，结果歌唱时音量时大时小声，有待注意这小瑕疵。
很抱歉接下来的几张照片很膜糊，因为我的手机实在太不中用了，灯光一变，就拍得很差了。打中阵的是十九岁的黄秀莹。黄宏墨选了两首他认为对秀莹很不公平的歌曲，因为词曲都很成熟，所以秀莹要驾驭这两首歌并非易事。第一首《朝花夕拾》，因为现场经验不足，黄秀莹唱得有点吃力，可是黄宏墨一再勉励，黄秀莹终于拿出勇气，把她的第二首《爱你上了瘾》，唱得淋漓尽致，发挥了歌曲中淡淡的陶醉。我认为黄秀莹的高音和尾音都处理得很好，只不过台风蛮僵硬的，得多多磨练在不同的场合发挥水准才行。
压轴的是黄宏墨一再推举的黄业翔。他以一首慢歌《梦中情缘》来让现场观众看到他深情诠释的一面，然后以他更擅长的舞蹈带来专辑的主打歌曲《这一切都会过去》。劲歌热舞把现场搞得沸沸腾腾的，确实是新人阵团压轴的适当人选。黄业翔现场的舞蹈魅力感染度高，而且舞得自信满满，唯一能挑的是他在唱的某些部份，咬字有点含糊不清，整体表现就稍微扣了点分。

我其实还有些笔录还没添加，可是明天我还有露营活动，有些事项配备还得打理，过几天等我回来再补上，好吗？我答应你们一直默默支持我小小博客的读者们，我一定会把这篇写完。你们要祝我露营一切都顺利喔！^__^ Updated on 15 Nov 2009: 黄宏墨接着介绍了他在歌坛上的战友，并把他们邀上台，和观众分享了创作的心得。
黄宏墨也介绍了《野鸽子的黄昏》和《长恨歌》，并也道说一把价值八百万新币的古典小提琴在机缘下为《长恨歌》的录音伴奏。
两位歌手在十八年后再一次合唱《花约》，默契依然，功力不减当年。
发布会最后邀请了所有的表演者和嘉宾一同上台，合唱一首《源》做为压轴曲－虽然很多嘉宾对歌词不熟悉，可是大家唱得随意自在，观众也听得窝心。必竟，能三代歌手同台献唱，是件非常难得的事了。完结篇。

Enjoying Fallout 3 again on new PC, Reward Lunch at Swensen's, Conversations Between A Master and A Disciple

2009-11-05T18:33:00.006+08:00

Enjoying Fallout 3 again on new PC:

Finally, after two weeks of deliberation, I had my new PC up and running.

Intel I 7 Quad Core
Gigabyte Motherboard
Vista Home Premium Operating System
4GB Ram
Geforce GTS 250 Graphics Card
500GB SATA HDD
2GB DDR 3
DVD Writer

It's not exactly THE best configuration around the country but according to my computer technician, it's already a very impressive setup which will power the latest games and ensure a good performance whenever I surf the Internet.

Here's a picture of the Quad Core I7 Processor which my technician whistled with approval.

Reward Lunch at Swensen's:

I have been working real hard and clocking overtime so my blogging took a back seat for these two weeks. Just a couple more days and I'll be able to enjoy some seamless rest and recreation, especially when I have a goody computer at home to play around with whenever I am not out meeting my VIP friends.

I took a nice lunch to reward myself for working so hard and ordered at Swensen's Holland Village since I was there to finish up some work. A slow lunch is also good for the mind and body and I took my time to savor it. I think I should do this more often since I've been chowing instant noodles and cornflakes with milk for a disproportionate number of my meals recently.

A picture of the main course - roasted chicken with basil herbs for lunch.

Conversations Between a Master and a Disciple:

Disciple: Master, this is so difficult - why are we working so hard? Life is so impermanent and shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves instead of slogging so hard?

Master: Life is indeed impermanent and far more unpredictable for so many of us yet we should not stop working hard because the more we do, experience and engage, the more we learn. As long as we are learning, we are doing good to the quality of our lives. Of course, we can still enjoy ourselves whilst working but we should not crave quick gratification without the genuine sweetness from hard work.

Disciple: If we are so impermanent, it really makes very little sense to even work so hard. Everything will still come to nil when our lives ran out.

Master: We may lose everything we think we possess the moment we expire but the indirect benefits that we have exerted on the lives of others may endure for many years to come. For example, a soya bean milk seller may have lived out his life but his service to have provided drink and nourishment to so many others may have yielded far greater good that he can ever imagine - those people may in turn bring benefits to further others. So we should commit ourselves to whatever we are at so we may prove to be useful, be it during or after our lifetimes.

Stay tuned. I will have more photos and blog posts coming up, now that I will soon have time to really blog about the things around us. Time for dinner! Bye! ^__^

《这一切都会过去》创作合辑歌曲音乐评论篇 Music Review

2009-10-26T08:41:00.035+08:00

And I had a pleasant surprise yesterday as someone actually mailed me a copy of the album 《这一切都会过去》创作合辑. It seemed like this someone who has been reading my blog knows I am looking for that album and graciously helped me with it so I could spend less time hunting for it in the middle of my work and all, so firstly, my thanks to this someone.

In my review of this album, I will only be focusing on these three newcomers because they stir my greatest interest as they are not only Singaporeans, they are also attempting to make some breakthrough in the industry I am most concerned with on this blog - music and entertainment.

I did a research on the Internet and found that the three of them have some sort of an artiste profile on Sifon Music website so I decided to put the profiles here as well. Let's take a look at their backgrounds before we hear how they sound like on the album.

姓名：黄业翔，Alfred

生日：4 月 2 日

星座：白羊座

血型： O 型

身高：177 cm

体重： 68 kg

兴趣：歌唱，跳舞，打球，健身

语言：英语，华语

个人荣誉：

2001－2004 曾夺下多项青少年国际公开赛拉丁舞冠军

2005 新秀卡拉 OK 歌唱大赛冠军

2005 第七届木船民谣歌厅歌唱大赛亚军

2005 新传媒 Superband 亚军

2008 全国超级 K 歌大赛冠军

2008 云顶 Be A Star歌唱大赛季军，最佳舞台魅力奖

2008 第四届香港亚太区，新马印泰汶中港澳大决赛季军

2009 十方唱将国际流行音乐大赛冠军

最佳人气奖

喜欢的颜色：白，红

最喜欢的食物：妈妈煮的食物

最喜欢的水果：苹果

最喜欢的歌手： Rain

欣赏的艺人：李连杰

最喜欢的动物：狗，龙猫

最喜欢的电影：好电影就喜欢

最想表演的地方：北京鸟巢

My comments: This guy likes to exercise, which is a good thing, since he seems to be portrayed as a dancer for most of his music and entertainment gigs and exposures. He has consistently done well in various competitions since 2001 until 2009, snagging either the champion, 1st runner up or 2nd runner up positions. This is a major plus to his future exploits as he seems constantly in practice and in form for singing and dancing. There is ambition in him as well because he actually wanted to perform at the Beijing "Bird Nest" Stadium. Accordingly to what I know of that place, only the best and most influential will get invited to perform at that venue.

What 黄业翔 sang on the album - Song Number 1: 《这一切都会过去》
How I felt after listening to the song:

It uses a range of themes very similar to those from the Chinese Rock and Roll 中国摇滚, which speaks of love and separation, growth and maturity, transcendence of time and even contains a satirical jab at the income inequality of the modern society. The chorus of the song repeats itself with its title 这一切都会过去 as if to try and quantify that nothing is permanent in the midst of all these temporal ideas of love and wealth. 黄业翔 is able to deliver this song with confidence in the KTV music video, with his slick dance moves and a small group of backup dancers.

I really think this song is meant for the listeners in mainland China because it does not seem to sit well with Singaporeans who are more influenced by Taiwanese mandarin pop music. There is a certain level of maturity in the song, which may be harder to grasp for the younger listeners if they do not understand the meaning behind the lyrics. Initially, I thought 黄业翔 is not exactly the best choice for such a song but on hindsight, I believe the album producer picked him for his ability to deliver the song in a rock and roll format which should have certain resonance in mainland China. This will be a very interesting attempt for a Singaporean to deliver 中国风 and it remains to be seen until the album is released in China itself. I wouldn't be surprised to see this song grow in popularity in those pubs and cafes with rock bands.

姓名：叶慧馨

国籍：新加坡

生日：9月23日

星座：天秤座

血型：AB型

身高：161cm

体重：44Kg

兴趣：演戏、唱歌、跳舞、平面设计、摄影、绘画、到世界各地旅游

专长：演戏、唱歌、舞蹈

语言：英语、华语

表演经验：

1997-2001 模特儿走秀及担任杂志模特儿

2001 儿童电视剧《IQ档案》

2002-2004 儿童资讯节目《IN 一代》

2002 电视连续剧《小孩不笨》

2002电视广告肯德基家乡鸡

2004 儿童电视剧《爸爸向前冲》

2004 电视剧《我爱我家真情实录之不带伞的男人》

2004 电视连续剧《甜蜜风暴》（月亮的秘密）

2004 电视广告家具站

1996-2009 ：

多次代表文工团登台作个人演唱

多次代表学校舞蹈、歌唱演出

校内个人及团体歌舞、戏剧表演

参与多项慈善演出，为慈光常年活动主持及表演

个人荣誉：

1996-2009：校内、外个人歌唱及舞蹈比赛荣获冠、亚、季军极优异奖多次

2006 选美比赛 Universal Royalty Pageant 总冠军

其他资料：

喜欢的颜色：浅绿、浅蓝、粉红

最喜欢的食物：寿司、海鲜、巧克力

最喜欢的水果：苹果、番茄

最喜欢的歌手：Kelly Clarkson、萧亚轩、소녀시대、Super Junior

欣赏的艺人：尹恩惠

最喜欢的动物：小狗、小猫

最喜欢的电影：A Walk To Remember、Lord of the Rings

My comments: This girl definitely has that star appeal appearance - bright-eyed, good complexion and a good smile to boot. If the profile is accurate as it says, she is one talented girl who can act, sing, dance, design, flim and draw. From what I could recollect, only a very small handful of artistes come close to such an impressive repertoire of skills. Her music and entertainment career started at 1996 and she seems to participating in modeling, acting, advertisements, beauty pageants, singing and dancing competitions. Her interests seem to be those of a neighborly girl-next-door but her vast experience speaks otherwise. I believe she is another interesting new artiste to watch out for in the coming years.

What 叶慧馨 sang on the album - Song Number 4: 《将你的心装上翅膀》
How I felt after listening to the song:

I tried searching for the title of the song on the Google Search Engine and I realized the title of this song is a very popular phrase on the mainland Chinese websites. Needless to say, this is another song deliberated for the audience of mainland China. The song, however, sounded more light-hearted as it sings of freedom and of being oneself, which more or less speak for the song title. There are plenty of references to nature - blue skies, white clouds, green forests, which is easily recognized as common motifs used for simple country-styled songs. It provides a good contrast to the earlier songs which sounded heavier and it's a refreshing break from most of the love ballads that are floating on the market right now.

叶慧馨 seems the ideal choice for this song because of her girl-next-door look and although the music video looked a little bit awkward at certain shots due to the overly-lush background greener against a smaller-framed singer, its simplicity was a clever stroke when laid alongside with this song.

Initially, I thought the song was suitable for only country music lovers but I thought the song can go far enough to reach be a nice complement for products and services based on natural themes and even be a song attached to those idol dramas because of its light tunes and catchy phrases. Also, I can imagine quite a number of female singers in the market who can sing this song too since it's technically not that difficult so it remains a question on whether this female newcomer can stamp her own unique style to make the song truly hers to own.

姓名：黄秀莹

国籍：新加坡

生日：12月17日

星座：射手座

血型：B+ 型

身高：167cm

兴趣：唱歌，跳舞，逛街，听音乐

专长：唱歌，主持

语言：英语，华文，广东

表演经验：

• 2004-2007 校内表演，主持和各场比赛参与

• 2008 Teenage Icon 歌唱比赛参与

个人荣誉：

• 2004-2007 校内，个人歌唱比赛，亚

学校代表，团体歌唱比赛，亚

其他资料：

喜欢的颜色：粉红，黑，白

最喜欢的食物：炒年糕，拉面，鸡饭

最喜欢的水果：西瓜，哈密瓜

最喜欢的歌手：张栋樑，林忆莲，Ayumi Hamasaki

欣赏的艺人：蔡依林，张惠妹

最喜欢的动物：猪，狗

最喜欢的电影：空恋，The Pursuit Of Happiness，Transformers

My comments: This girl seems to have least experience amongst the three newcomers with interests comparable to most girls and having her first foray into music and entertainment from 2004 with her most prominent competition participation in Teenage Icon 2008. The picture profile looks a little mundane and I really thought there is still room for improvement on how she could have been photographed. The content profile also does not give that much details as I would like to know more about other things like either her aspirations or her special talents in any area.

What 黄秀莹 sang in the album - Song Number 2: 《爱你上了瘾》
How I felt after listening to the song:

This is a soft rock song which played emphasized on the singer's ability to reach the high notes in a good projection of her voice. There is quite a few references to liquor as if the song is trying to say that falling in love is as good as being addicted to liquor. I think this song is meant for a market of adult listeners and I can imagine this song to be played at many KTV lounges either as a live band song or as the background song for such places or even as an advertisement jingle for liquor beverages because of the sleazy tune behind the song, coupled by the suggestive lyrics.

黄秀莹 has a very suitable voice for such genres of songs because I thought she could really dip into the emotions behind those themes with her singing and I cannot think of how the other two young newcomers can manage such a song with an equally convincing performance on the music video.

The song has a tinge of Moulin Rouge in it, and yet carefully balances the sense of sensuality without tipping over. It takes a while to get used to such songs but just like the previous two songs, it can grow on you if you allow your mind to be opened up on difference genres of singing the same themed songs on social happiness, freedom and nature and love and intoxication.

Overview of these three songs:

As the album is marketed as a compilation, with majority of the songs being oldies or written in ways that are not easily understood by generations born after 1980s, there is a slight danger that these three songs may ended up being drowned out by those more contemporary pop songs heavily marketed by the larger music companies. Personally, I thought these songs are pretty suitable for each of these young singers and depending on the efforts of their music production companies, they still stand a chance in getting the word out that they are the new kids on the block.

For these three songs in total, I would rate a 6.5 out of 10. They did not really strike resoundingly on originality or creativity in song composition or lyrics usage but they are durable on my ears, which means I won't get sick of listening to them as quickly as some of the other heavily-commercialized songs on the market.

End of review. ^__^

Upcoming Album and New Local Artistes of Interest in《这一切都会过去》创作合辑

2009-10-23T22:31:00.015+08:00

Yes, I know. It's been quite some time since I have blogged about anything related to local music and entertainment because nothing recent seems to be catching my blogging interest since The One Million Star Season 5 Competition in Taiwan has ended and our various contestants from Singapore have returned victorious and experienced.

Until a couple of days ago, my habitual reading of entertainment news on the web has caught a series of articles about a new compilation album from a local songwriter and album producer 黄宏墨 and it's been quite some time since this person is active on the news as he has always been busy with his music school 十方乐廊”（Sifon Music) and its competition 《十方唱将国际流行音乐大赛》.

Yet something new seemed to be moving on the landscape as there is mention of three newly-minted local artistes whom he is grooming to be future stars...

Interestingly, he has even included these three young artistes in his latest album 《这一切都会过去》创作合辑 and being one of the entertainment bloggers in Singapore, I ran a check on the articles and found out that one of them, 黄业翔, is the elder brother of Renfred Ng (黄业伦), the male first-runner up for Campus Superstar Season One (Rings a bell in any reader's head?)

The other two female artistes 叶慧馨 and 黄秀莹 being groomed are relatively unknown in the singing and entertainment circle in Singapore but I do heard that the former seemed to have acted in a couple of MediaCorp Singapore's television serials as a child actor. I took the liberty to include their photos here from both www.xin.sg and www.mypaper.sg for the reading convenience of my blog readers. As per usual for disclaimers, I don't earn a single cent from my blogging so there's no monetary profit in for me.

From clockwise upper left hand corner, we have the experienced local song and music producer, Huang Hong Mo, followed by Huang Ye Xiang (黄业翔) , Alfred, followed by Ye Hui Xin (叶慧馨)and finally Huang Xiu Ying (黄秀莹) . The photo isn't very clear but there is a xin.sg article floating around on the Internet waves, which I have included at the bottom of my blog post for more reading convenience of my readers.

This picture shows 黄宏墨 on the guitar giving 黄业翔 some practice on his singing. I have seen Alfred in action before as a member of Soul from Superband competition but this seemed like a rare picture of him concentrating on singing rather than dancing? Interesting.

I am not very sure what these two ladies can do, be it singing or dancing or etc, but I suppose since they are handpicked by 黄宏墨 for the compilation album, they must be worth their salt in their respective area(s) of expertise. Well, they do look radiant and confident for this photograph, which at least shows they are not camera shy. This 叶慧馨 was quoted that her role model is Elva Hsiao (萧亚轩)while 黄秀莹's role model is Sandy Lam (林忆莲) . Those are hard targets to reach. Will be looking forward to see what they can do in the album once I get hold of it.
A pretty nice group shot of the album producer and these three upcoming young artistes. I put their names up on the search engines and it seems that they are having some local radio interviews as well as a roadshow:

黄宏墨创作集2《这一切都会过去》发布会”
日期：11月8日（星期日）下午2点
出席歌手：黄宏墨、黄业翔、叶慧馨、黄秀莹
地点：兀兰区域图书馆（900 Woodlands Drive，#01-03，Woodlands Civic Centre）

I have not gotten hold of this compilation album from the CD shops yet so there is still no way to know about their vocal capabilities. Let's hope they can sing well and make their way to represent Singapore eventually on the world stage.

(Article and Image Source: http://www.xin.sg/article.php?article=32730&st=dtl)

(Image Source: http://myepaper.mypaper.sg/ebook/web_php/fvbrowserjs.php?urljs=http://myepaper.mypaper.sg/ecreator/sphopf/ep231009cnd_opf_files/ep231009cnd.js&ver=Gen)

Soul成员黄业翔（Alfred）被本地创作才子黄宏墨相中，重新出发再战乐坛，但出片前却得先写一篇华文作文！

还记不记得06年，新传媒U频道歌唱实况比赛《非常Superband》的亚军得主Soul，那舞艺超凡的5位男生组合？黄业翔（Alfred）就是其中一位成员，他的弟弟黄业伦（Renfred）则是U频道歌唱比赛第一届《校园Superstar》男亚军。

22岁的黄业翔属于动感派歌手，黄宏墨却是本地朴实的音乐人兼歌手，两人怎会凑在一起呢？后者这次推出创作集珍藏合辑《这一切都会过去》，黄业翔还演唱了其中的两首歌曲，《这一切都会过去》和《梦中情缘》。

黄宏墨：惊讶本地还有这样的表演人才

二人接受新动网专访时，黄宏墨透露，他的公司“十方乐廊”（Sifon Music）今年4月举办了《十方唱将国际流行音乐大赛》，业翔勇夺冠军。

黄宏墨说：“他的舞台魅力和整体表现，简直是专业歌手的水准。初赛时，我就注意到他，很惊讶本地还有这样的表演人才，所以决定签下他成为公司旗下的第一位歌手。我很少看电视，不晓得他曾参加过《非常Superband》。”

他还说，业翔私下很害羞，可是一上台表演，仿佛是另一个人。业翔告诉记者：“我很喜欢掌声，在台上比在台下舒服自然。”

他坦言，之前从未接触过黄宏墨的作品，刚认识后者时，觉得他很严肃，相处久了，发现“黄老师”其实非常幽默。

黄业翔：中文不好，写作文是一大考验

《这一切都会过去》是黄宏墨为业翔量身定做的作品，创作前，他要求对方撰写一篇华文作品。业翔笑言：“这真的是一大考验，因为我的中文程度不好，老师的水平又那么高，所以写了一个星期，内容是为什么喜欢唱歌跳舞。”

黄宏墨表示，不是刻意刁难爱徒，而是希望透过文章，更加了解年轻人的想法。虽然业翔在合辑中只主唱两首歌，不过，黄宏墨指出，不久后将为他筹备个人专辑。

Soul成员Ishi突离世导致Soul解散？

两年前，Soul的其中一位成员Ishi被发现死在车内，疑是自杀，谈起这件事，业翔告诉记者：“当时大家都很痛苦，我们有共同的兴趣和理想，他却这样走了。不过，我们其他4人从没有放弃过音乐！”

他解释，Soul的解散并不是Ishi的死亡所致，而是比赛结束后，大家各忙各的，比如，自己赛后必须服役，退伍后就到拉萨尔艺术学院音乐系就读4年课程，要两年后才毕业。虽然Soul不存在了，可是，他们还是保持联系，因为Ishi的离世，他们更珍惜之间的友情。

如今再战歌坛，可曾想过与弟弟黄业伦组成“兄弟档”，业翔笑着回答：“虽然我们都喜欢唱歌跳舞，却从没有这么想过！”

两位女新人叶慧馨和黄秀莹歌声打动黄宏墨

除了黄业翔，黄宏墨也在《十方唱将国际流行音乐大赛》发掘了两把动人的歌声，她们就是18岁的叶慧馨和19岁的黄秀莹，还是学生的两人也在合辑中演唱了老师的创作。

第一次录歌，她们透露，非常紧张，很担心唱得不好，令黄宏墨失望。黄秀莹说：“我最喜欢的女歌手是林忆莲，觉得她的歌声和表演很值得我学习。”

至于叶慧馨，她学习的榜样是萧亚轩，“当然希望有天可以向她那样红，不过现在最重要是把歌唱好。”

黄宏墨创作集2《这一切都会过去》已在各大唱片行出售。

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