all the kings men.

after yesterday's bout of catharsis, it feels a lot better to "own" this space again.

blogs are great communication tools, but ultimately, if they aren't personal.. they aren't really engaging.

i think different blogs serve different purposes, and for the purpose of harmless? bananas! it'll always remain my personal communications tool.

if you know me, at least in the past year or two, you'd have noticed that i love a genre of music called "alternative-country". in fact, two of my favourite artistes would be Ryan Adams and Joe Henry.

there's something about America that's always fascinated me.. probably because of all the cartoons and TV i used to watch, add to that, the music, literature, fashion and culture.. and you might have gotten an American-phile in me. unfortunately for would be marketers who try to sell me stuff.. i tend to be rather subversive in my lifestyle choices. hence, it's always been a case of sticking it to the man, and then developing into a loathing of mere hippie / empty punk rock promises.

but somehow, this genre of country music has captured my imagination. i can only speak like an outsider looking in, for i never grew up on a farm, or the suburbs, nor have i seen or lived the mountain ranges or the iconic streets and hole-in-the-wall bars that these singers croon about. yet, perhaps it's because of that fishbowl i constantly peer into, that i'm so enamored by it all. the undue love i place upon this piece of art, only because i cannot identify with it.

still, they sing songs that are so ridiculously universal.. emotions down to the commonest denominator, that even a city-dweller like me longs for the yearnings that these singer-songwriters sing about. some place in the past that they still hold on to, or brings them happiness.. some place in the future that they hope for.. all the while that while i will never be a part of it, they always invite me to keep on observing.

and with that i am content.

Time is a lion - Joe Henry


If you fear the angels above while you sleep
Then I'll be the blood, you paint on your door
Your dream is a worry that nothing will keep, but
time is a story and there will be more

Your dream is a worry that nothing will keep,
but time is a story and there will be more

and death in disgrace can seduce anyone
that needs to believe there’s judgment at hand
or God may be kind and see you like a son, but
time is a lion when you are a lamb

Or God may be kind and see you like a son, but
time is a lion when you are a lamb

The years see the best of intentions and greed
they come without shame, they'll leave you with some
men become old when their hurt becomes need, but
time is a lover and your time is young

Men become old when their hurt becomes need, but

time is a lover and your time is young

The sun is a soldier, out crawling the hills
setting fire to every house that’s in view
lighting the ruin of my hope and my will
till I’m like a shadow and I’m falling on you,
crawling on you..
Oh you know how I do..

So sleep here with me and I’ll keep you close
for now while i try to live up to you
You can’t see the challenge of this I suppose, but
time is a dare and I’m trying to

You can’t see the challenge of this I suppose, but
time is a dare and I’m trying to

time is a dare and I’m trying to

Fix it - Ryan Adams & The Cardinals


What makes them walk away, after all these years?
These years are burning in the hard way by the lessons from the tears
I know it’s not a game
But it feels like losing when someone you love throws you away

I’d fix it
I’d fix it
I’d fix it
I’d fix it if I could
And I’d always win
I’d always win
So you can always win the in end

How easy was it for you making those plans you made?
Before I became someone for you you know to try to dislocate
But, I know it’s not a game
But if feels like losing when someone you love gets up and walks away

I’d fix it
I’d fix it
I’d fix it
I’d fix it if I could
And I’d always win
I’d always win
And you’d always lose

Look what I did to you
Look what you did to me
Fixed it
I’d fix it, id fix it if I could
And I’d always win
I’d always win
I’d always win in the end

Let it Ride - Ryan Adams


Movin' like the fog on the Cumberland River
I was leaving on the Delta Queen
I wasn't ready to go
I'm never ready to go
Twenty-seven years of nothin' but failures and promises that I couldn't keep
Oh lord I wasn't ready to go
I'm never ready to go
Let it ride
Let it ride easy down the road
Let it ride
Let it take away all of the darkness
Let it ride
Let it rock me in the arms of strangers, angels until it brings me home
Let it ride
Let it roll
Let it go

Loaded like a sailor
Tumbling off a ferry boat
I was at the bar till three
Oh Lord, and I wasn't ready to go
I'm never ready to go
Tennessee's a brother to my sister Carolina where they're gonna bury me
And I ain't ready to go
I'm never ready to go
Let it ride let it ride easy down the road
Let it ride
Let it take away all of this darkness
Let it ride
Let it rock me in the arms of strangers, angels until it brings me home
Let it ride
Let it roll
Let it go

I wanna see you tonight
Dancing in the endless moonlight
In the parking lot in the headlights of cars
Someplace on the moon
Where they moved the drive-in theater
Where I left the car that I can't find but I still got the keys to
Let it ride
Let it ride easy down the road
Let it ride
Let it take away all of this darkness
Let it ride
Let it rock me in the arms of strangers, angels until it brings me home
Let it ride
Let it roll
Let it go

i am a huge nerd.

i think i'm spiraling from geek-dom to n3rd-dom because i laughed myself silly watching this video:


awesome shortcuts from alpkan kirayoglu on Vimeo.

taken from the Rhode Island School of Design Blog and contributed by one of my heroes, John Maeda

What did you do on World AIDS Day?

AIDS has always been a bit of a taboo subject, after all, it is a disease often associated with drug abuse or casual unprotected sex, activities often going against the status quo of society.

But i think something needs changing, more light needs to be shed on what is ultimately more than just taboo or what we think we know. In countries like Africa, the disease has become an epidemic, due to lack of education on protected sex or the dangers of drug abuse. The disease is often passed on to children, and you know what? there is no cure yet.

and whether we contracted the disease due to our own negligence, or we were an innocent victim, do we all not have a right to treatment that can help such victims that has claimed so many lives? regardless your moral judgment (which so many of us tend to have.) this is more a cry out for compassion and love, values not bound by prejudices.

back in the 90's, AIDS was much more fearsome, people died within months. but advances in medicine can help HIV victims survive and be a part of society. and this is the sigma i'm talking about, sometimes perhaps we still cringe at the thought of someone with AIDS. vestiges of the stories we were told before as kids perhaps?

i'd like to highlight this video that World Community Grid (full disclosure: World Community Grid is a client of mine.) put on youtube on World Aids Day to share more about the stigmas and facts regarding AIDS, and how we can help in research projects like FightAIDS@Home and find a cure to this disease:



i hope you can join us. ridz has already started a team called "small changes" where you can join other Singaporeans in making a contribution to help the world.

Interesting links
World Community Grid website
World Community Grid Youtube Channel Learn more about WCG and its other projects)
Action For Aids
Love Amplified - World AIDS Day Concert

how Apple will continue to pwn the recession.

this is two good not to share.
taken off wired.com (possibly a geek's tabloid of unnecessary information)

Who says nothing good ever comes out of using vulgarities?

We got a freakhog distinction for shooting this documentary back when we were film students in murdoch university in 2004.

the idea came out from nowhere, with some unconventional titles. "!" was chosen because you couldn't really say it, and yet.. as a punctuation mark, it means so much. After that, the content naturally flowed..

what were we comfortable with?
what's uniquely singaporean?
does it make us special?

i think this documentary shows how language is a cultural force so many of us take for granted. And in even more extremes, cussing and swearing are language tools we use to connect with each other!

Enjoy!


! from Brian Koh on Vimeo.

All Your Livejournal Are Belong To Us

Here's a funny Error 404 page from the folks at www.livejournal.com



And to put this in context, here are a couple of videos to help you with your sense of humour.

all your base are belong to us


zero wing rhapsody


thank me later.

my life in point form

1. played with plurk.com

2. left work

3. listening to matthew good

4. discovered fail blog
- what is the culture of "fail"? [please watch video]


5. ate durians at geylang

6. met friends from perth whom i've not seen in a year

7. still hearting oceansize
[please watch videos]
women who love men who love drugs
[emo spaz moments at 1:58 and 4:17]

Serial killer
Lifeus Exitus
So don't dare
Kill her
It's on me
It's on you
Yeah

So Don't You
Believe
Women
Who Love
Men Who
Love
Drugs
Yeah...

unfamiliar
[love the arrangement of this song, mindblowing vocal melody at 3:40]

During the laceration all you wanna do is cry
At last that realization how quickly fresh blood dries
Needs little explanation, 'sgonna take a lot of time
Ideas above our station are below the fog in my mind
When I see I see my signs
It's the same face presenting the same lie
If you keep walking sideways, if you keep changing your mind
When i see i see my signs
And obsolete your voices are
They say that silence it sometimes pays
In war silence it sometimes pays
Souls and windows stops existing
And holes where his eyes used to be
Needle and thread hold together his love for the dead
And all who sail in her
Saw the seashore, unfamiliar
The water and oil, unfamiliar
Success and toil, unfamiliar
Unaccustomed, unfamiliar

8. playing a gig with Kevin Matthews and the Groovy People on Saturday 930pm @ Timbre for Rock The Sub!

Freakhog Cool Cadbury Egg Crushing Machine

This is so freakhog cool! plus i think it makes a great "user-ad" for Cadbury eggs, much like what Coke Lite and Mentos were in a past life.

Hillarious Korean Drummer (Not Drama)

Oh man, this cracks me up so much. It's a tape found in a studio when a Korean band seemed to be shooting a music video (probably in the 1990's)

Just pay attention to the drummer, his expressions are the things that legends are made from!

Singapore's best kept fast food secret

Waffletown and i have quite a bit of history together. I basically grew up eating Waffletown as a kid, when mom would buy back fried chicken, mashed potatoes and the awesome waffles with ice-cream home for lunch. maybe i was a pretty spoiled kid. lesse, i'd probably need to have been in primary school if i were to count back the number of years its been since i've eaten their food.

probably about fourteen years.

imagine my excitement when my friends decided we'd actually have dinner there before one of our poker sessions.



Stepping into Waffletown is really a slice of nostalgia. the outlet at Bukit Timah Shopping Centre has since moved to Balmoral Plaza, and it's the only existing outlet left in Singapore. i think most of the crew is still the original staff, and amidst all the fast food outlets in Singapore modernising themselves, Waffletown preserves a lot of that 80's charm



the ambiance is suitably the way it's always been, and it really is a taste of things to come. i was excited to hear how my friends were going re-live a fragment of their past





it may not look like much, but these burgers make no qualms about not being gourmet, and just good plain'ol junk food for the soul



don't you wish you were the one sinking your teeth into this?



i opted for the three piece fried chicken meal.



this was absolute joy. it tasted more local than KFC, and probably reminiscent of the fried chicken you find at western food stalls in hawker centres. but it was so oily, crispy and it just added to the whole flavour of a real 80's diner. the coleslaw and mashed potatoes were just the way i remembered them as well.

and that's the thing that's so amazing about Waffletown, after 14 years, the food tastes EXACTLY the same! it all dawned onto me as i plunged into my first bite of the waffle ala mode blueberry with vanilla ice cream.



the same blueberry sauce, the same waffle batter, and the same non-gourmet ice cream that they've been using for years! consistent good food, despite the changing world around us, Waffletown is in a stasis lock, and a welcome haven for those who remember it.

i've got nothing against gourmet ice cream like Haggan Daaz, Ben & Jerrys, Island Creamery and the multitude of other similar chains, but there's a certain confidence about an establishment that doesn't see a need to compete with other market forces, and change their look, style or food.

it's just the way it's been, and just the way we like it -)

Road Trip to KL

so, some of you might have been wondering what i've been keeping up to all this time. as per my last post, i did go up to KL to watch explosions in the sky. read on for our escapades!

if you feel inclined, you can check my pictures out on facebook or flickr

but i'll leave it to rudi, dewi and dhany to tell you about what you missed out on.



and here's a taste of the music that i recorded from the gig. i don't know what the track is called, but it becomes glorious at 0:27




dhany having a go at the batting cages. i love the hitting of softballs into the sunset


rudi at the end of a full swing


i love this shot of dewi right before she hits a cracker!


fake x-process yet again


quintessential group walking shot, in the heart of puduraya i reckon?


thanks for listening.

The Fine Fate of Steph Song: Acting in jPod

every now and then, something interesting pops into your life when you least expect it, especially when it's something you know not many people know about either.

for those of you who remember steph song, she charmed many hearts as an FHM cover girl, and later on acted in a few TCS programmes. and then she disappeared off the face of Singaporean TV.

I guess she went back to Canada where she's originally from (i read FHM articles, not just ogle).. and to prove that i read, i've been reading douglas coupland's jPod. and being from the internet generation, i google jPod to find out more about it, only to find a series was being made. i youtubed "jPod" and found this trailer:



which i then found out that steph song was acting as the jPod character, Bree, a sassy motion capture artist who tries to sleep with every man she meets (or so it says in her character's bio in the novel)


i mean, can you blame us? or her?

so anyway, my point is that: jPod is one of the better things i've been reading, and now i've just downloaded the first episode and it's currently into it's fourth episode. and this is another reason why the Internet is a valuable tool for the discerning consumer of his media. jPod, you are a geek's dream book, and now.. slightly funny drama series based on the same novel. coupland would be proud, he is after all the series's executive producer.

how i like my women (and maybe get a higher ping.sg rating)

women can be said to be a lost art. i'll let my muse, anna karina speak in my stead..

roller girl


ne dis rien

how embedding a Leeson video evolved my videoblogging experience

i used to be a production student, and so i was trained to shoot video in the highest possible format, and also be technical in the way i approached my cinematography, production, what format to shoot on, what format to export to and all the things that go in between. i shan't say i'm very good, but i guess i wasn't too shabby either.

anyway, fast forward a year, i find myself in the PR industry as opposed to production, and i found myself still holding on to those processes. i'd want to edit with professional software like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premeire Pro, but getting my hand on the software and hardware was an issue altogether, i just wasn't earning enough to equip myself with a semi-professional studio.

enter: my epiphany that social media has flourished because processes were simpler.

my ethos now, to borrow Masamune Shirow's Appleseed quote: functional simplicity, structural complexity

i want technology that works. at the push of a button, processes are automated, a product of high quality through the automation process, and then perhaps an improvement of a process when customised by the human touch.

anyway, my point is this, after i decided on this, i ditched trying to get my HD camcorder to work with my offline editing programme, and got a video recording of my band's performance through my point-and-shoot digital camera, which records a compressed .avi file. after which, i edited in Windows Movie Maker, exporting to a .wmv format, and then using a video converter, i converted it into a .mp4 format. Which is now ready to be hosted on youtube.


Absolute Beginners

and the good that came out of this, is that my video converter is my new maxim in wonderful ones and zeros. it converts most formats (.flv .avi .mpg) into .mp4 which seems to be the language of ipods, mobile phones, mobile devices, portable media players and video hosting sites such as youtube.

the complexity of social media, powered by a single "convert now!" button on this beautiful piece of software. i now enjoy videos on the go through my ipod, from stuff i've downloaded off the net. next up, figuring out how video podcasting works in syncing with my ipod, and perhaps starting my own vodcast! we'll see..

saint sea hart!

just shut up and watch this. then laugh your suspenders off...

a quotable quote

best thing i've heard all day while searching for bravestarr clips on youtube.



"The guy was a futuristic native american shaman sherrif with a cyborg Horse how cool was that!" - monkeybeasto

when you put it that way, the creators of this fine cartoon must've been smokin' some serious pot.

The Spirit That Guides Us

i discovered this band about three years back, was crazy about them, lost their music in the great hard drive crash of 2006 and totally forgot about them till now. and omigosh, how i love the lyrics..



Agnes
What if I cut my wrist just because You made me like this.
I want You to show me what love is.
What if the fifth car would take us anywhere but far away.
I want You to drive me home tonight.

We've got absolutely nothing in common.
Except for the fact that we're stuck in this place.
We're completely God forsaken.
And I have not truck with with You or Your grace.
Homophobice explanations dragging me around and around again.
Stroboscopice expectations dragging me around and around again.

What if I have no friends just because You named me Agnès.
I wish I was someone else some where else any where but far from here.
I wish I was someone else some where else any where but far from here.

Homophobice explanations dragging me around and around again.
Stroboscopice expectations dragging me around anfd around again.
We've got absolutely nothing in common.
Except for the fact that we're stuck in this place.
We're completely God forsaken.
And I have not truck with with You or Your grace.

You don't care about my feelings my emotions don't mean anything to You.
What love's for You ain't love for me.
I can't love You like You love me

Agnes means pure, and holy in Greek



Real Life Motion Picture Soundtrack
Can I save your life. Lift you up to the sky.
How far is heaven. Let's go tonight.

Don't give up on me hanging there.
Don't you die on me please keep breathing.
'Cause it's a lie that your better of dead.
This is not a movie no happy endings here.

If you are not there I don't want to go I'd stick by your side and follow you back home.
I'd give up forever I'd trade in my life just to be with you.
Just to be with you just to be with you.

Don't give up on me hanging there.
Don't you die on me please keep breathing.
'Cause it's a lie that yor better of dead.
This is not a movie no happy endings here.

You are a car crash, train accident
It's inevitable.
The kingdom is at hand.
Hey Randell are you well where would you be.
Please Randell can you tell are you gonna be fine.

'Cause it's a lie that your better of dead.
This is not a movie no happy endings here.
No happy endings here.
No happy endings here.

as cities burn - terrible! how terrible for the great city!


song starts at 1:00

am I a monster when I sink my teeth into her
when I don't love her
no, I don't love you
forgive me darling, but love has nothing to do with this
it has nothing to do with how I can't stop
until I get what I want from you

this is what real men keep quiet
it doesn't exist if you can hide it behind your teeth
and sleep at night next to your wife
who you love too much to tell her
you don't love her at all

I just feel as empty as the lungs
of those waiting in the womb
do you feel as empty as the lungs of those waiting
to come into this world
where being beautiful means being used

how long will we blame the devils on our shoulders
and pose like angels on the outside
when all I am is a monster

engaging. repeat. expounding
i was reading a few articles days before about some new media forces that are at work in the world today. it's rather scary, the amount of information that gets traded back and forth between users, and i think i was getting a bit over my head in trying to understand the systems in which this information gets communicated through.

anyway, i found this on youtube, and it really is a wonderful resource for explaining fundamental differences between digital media and conventional media. the introduction text grabs you immediately and i believe the future of infocommunications lies in understanding the changing landscape brought upon by the internet and other new forms of digital communications. the agencies that bring us together, be they fiber optic cables or satellite transmissions.

either way, enjoy.