Saturday, September 29, 2007

THE CHICK WHO KILLED AFRICA

Growing up in the 80’s I was constantly exposed to music of that era, especially when I hung out at grandma’s. It was fun while it lasted, but then life dictated that school was a must, and well music took a backseat while I concentrated on adding and subtracting, synonyms, homonyms and antonyms, as well as trying to figure out which countries had earthquakes and why, or how photosynthesis occurred.

It was when I was in my teens where I got reacquainted with music, but this time it was even better, because I had information about the titles as well as the artistes.

Recently, a relatively new singer came up with a new song, which actually wasn’t entirely new. In fact, she sampled the intro from Africa by Toto, which coincidentally happens to be one of my favourite songs ever.

Had she only covered the song, it wouldn’t have been half as bad, but she took the liberty to include her own mushy lyrics while poor old Toto sang in the background. Ugh! And she’s not the first, either… some time back, another singer had the gall to sample “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music. 


If Video Killed the Radio Star, then Sampling surely killed the Classics (used very loosely and may not be similar to everyone else's definition of classics)

PS: No offense intended to the fans of the (vaguely) mentioned singers

Thursday, September 27, 2007

PLASTIC CARDS AND SMART CHIPS

There's this piece of document we all lug around and hold on to for dear life. Although we can very well say that we are so and so (insert name here) but if the document doesn't say so, then we might as well dig a hole and bury ourselves in it. This so called document is none other than a normal sized card that fits snugly into some wallets which goes by the name MyKad.
I was watching the local news last night (surprisingly there was no hailstorm that followed - not in this part of the world anyway) on channel no 7 which ceased making us feel good with their self righteous, moral police wannabe ways. They had a poll seeking the opinion of the general public about the new rate for replacing MyKad. I'm taking the liberty to make assumptions as I could not obtain the full story - I seriously lack the time to do proper research.
All I know, is there might be an increase. And it makes you wonder if the people in charge of suggesting this idea actually think that people lose their MyKads on purpose. Hence the need to replace it.
"Oh, this photograph is so bloody ugly. Maybe I'll just throw this MyKad out of the window. Then I can get a new one. Woo hoo!"

or

"Sheesh, they locked me out, those gits. Hmmm... I think I'll use my MyKad to perform some McGyver like maneouver"

5 minutes later

"Oops! It's broken"

Yeah, that's what most probably crosses the minds of the people who are in charge. Undeniably, almost everyone's photo on their respective MyKads have an uncanny resemblance to a jaundiced, stretched out version of themselves. But no one in their right mind would toss it out just because...
The fact is I had two of my previous ICs (the older version of MyKad and stands for Identity Card - photo equally ugly) stolen by *pick pockets within 3 years and it was not exactly my fault. And yet i had to report about it at the police station, and apply for a new IC and on top of that pay a fine. Did anyone catch the culprit? No... it (gender unknown) is most probably still moving around doing greater pick pocketing - maybe on a rich Datin or something.
As for the missing IC, of course I missed it. It was with me from 12 until a few days short of my 19th birthday. But I think my then roomate and another friend missed it even more because it used to serve as a depressive mood relieving thingy - something to do with the photo :)
Yeah, so those people at NRD should think like about a few more hundred times before they decide to increase the fee. Maybe they can do it after they've nabbed about like say 1000 pick pockets in about 3 months?
*a very general term. the first case had the person actually coming into our dorm room in the dead of the night and taking whatever was in reach. In the second case, my backpack - which was on my back was opened without me realising. very slick, indeed.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

THE GRADUATE - A REVIEW


Within reach was a site that offered movies, a sister who recommended a great movie, Vista behaving itself, and some spare time.
Set in 1967, long before I saw daylight and based on a book written by Charles Webb, we see a clueless young man, Benjamin, who had just recently graduated from college, played perfectly by Dustin Hoffman. For the viewer, his friends only seem to be his parents friends, and he doesn't seem very excited to see them or have proper conversations with them at a party which was organised for him. He then gets cornered by a Mrs. Robinson played by Anne Bancroft, an stylish woman with class who seduces him. Or so he thinks.
The dialogue is witty throughout the movie, but not in a trying too hard way. The actors are all really good, and they seem to just be the characters. One memorable scene is at the hotel, where he's actually planning to have an affair with Mrs Robinson...
Hotel clerk: Are you here for an affair, sir?
Benjamin:??? (Guilty look flashes across his face)
He then proceeds to book a room, gets a single room, and signs himself under an assumed name. Then he calls Mrs Robinson, explains to her about the hotel clerk being suspicious, thanks her for doing this for him and asks her to come up to the room 5 minutes later.

Now Mrs Robinson is one of the best characters I've ever seen. Not only is she gorgeous, her crisp clear voice makes anyone who listens to her obey her at once. She domineers Benjamin in a way that is extremely hilarious - not in a slapstick way, of course. On the other hand, Benjamin is clueless, lacks ambition, and plans to not have any plans.
Things take a terrible turn when he is forced to take the Robinson's daughter on a date and proceeds to fall in love with her.
The soundtrack of the movie consists mainly of music by Simon & Garfunkel. Three main songs are played throughout the movie, whenever the characters are not really talking to show the passage of time. Tunes like Sound of Silence, Mrs Robinson and Scarborough Fair are intermittently scattered throughout the movie. Personally I never knew that the Sound of Silence was that old.
All in all, the movie is wonderfully enjoyable, and the final scene is one that you're never likely to forget in a hurry!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

THE DREAM...

It was strange waking up today to the annoying alarm.

I have been having a few dreams the last few days, and they all seem to be interconnected, like chapters in a book that you take your time to read. It's filled with characters from my real life that don't know each other, but the places we go to are sometimes familiar, and at other times seem to be a combination of several places.

In this particular dream, I was with a colleague of mine, and apparently it was Thursday (in real life , I would be waking up to Wednesday) and it was also the day for sports... (We're supposed to pick our favourite sport, and after work at 5:30, we head out to the fields and play) and I was wondering how come I was not aware of this new fun idea. (Once again, in reality this is simply impossible!)

Anyway, this colleague and I were in a stationary car, and I was looking at this tree which fell down across a hill which looked like the hill where our training centre was when I went down to S'pore a few months back. (At this point, the colleague moved away from view)

Some time later, a lanky guy (whom I've never seen before in real life, but was someone I knew in the dream as an essay writing competition winner - we took part in a competition a few days before that) moved forward, and stopped where I was, I pretended to sleep, but he still hung around, and I said "The tree fell down" and pointed towards the tree. He moved closer and we started talking through the window. Weird!

And then, suddenly while we were talking he holds my hand and I suddenly felt all warm and fuzzy (I am seriously blushing as I'm typing this out) Hmmm... looks like I've met the guy of my dreams through a dream! Ha! Ha! But then, there's suddenly a lot of noise, and he says he has to go... there's a parade going on the road we were on, and as he left, his hand fell off at the wrist. I looked at the hand which was still in mine in horror, and realised that it was like a glove and could not possibly be his real hand.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

CHASING WILD GEESE

Hehehe... this story was funny when it first happened, which was somewhere around last Thursday, technically the last day of the month (31st was a public holiday) and of course everyone was running around because it was the last day, etc

There's a whole new meaning to the wild goose chase.
Imagine a stationary item,... a whole bunch of people are on the lookout for the said item. Besides, it's like 200kgs which is more or less 440 pounds of liquid weight. It can't just vanish like that without a trace, but that's what seemed to have happened.

We covered the 3 storeys in turns, pausing at every container looking for the elusive one. We searched the waste disposal area, if some smart aleck had decided to chuck it there. 6 people and no results. The sad part is that it takes about 3 days to make the item we were looking for. 3 long days and plenty of hassle. Nothing is easy.... yeah.
In the end, the last person to handle the item was called. He was asked a few questions and was requested to look for the item. Within 1/2 an hour, he found it. Hidden under a pile of other containers. He found it because he recognised how it looked. Some paint splatters or stuff like that. In the end we were all ecstatic, albeit feeling silly that no one had found it earlier!

IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Time for the Annual Appraisal again.  It's a cloudy Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished giving scores to my subordinates on their ...