one-hit wonders

I was listening to Class 95 a while ago and they had this segment called One-Hit Wonder Triple Play. The first song played was Once In A Lifetime by Gregorian. Ok, I thought, I've never heard another song from him/her/it/whatever, so that makes Gregorian a one-hit wonder.

The second song was Toad The Wet Sprocket's All I Want, which is obviously wrong. TTWS had two hits from the same album back then - the other being Walk On The Ocean. I remember very clearly because I love both these songs. So that makes them a two-hit wonder. (I have something to say about that, but I'll leave that to my next post.) The third song was a song I can't remember the title of, nor can I recall which boyband sang it. So nothing to talk about there.

Anyway, since I'm so free and all today, I decided to come up with my own list of Top One-Hit Wonders of the 90s. I had wanted to list just 10, but boy, there are many! And they're only off the top of my head. So I went all the way to 20. There might be even more I've forgotten at this moment.

The purists and die-hard fans might dispute my choices, but anyway, take a look at my list (in rough order of greatness):

20. Sunny Came Home - Shawn Colvin
Is this a really dark song or what - it should be banned! And I love it!

19. Life In Mono - Mono
From the soundtrack of Great Expectations.

18. Breathe - Midge Ure
The song that made all other songs from Swatch commercials famous?

17. Cantaloop - Us3
Funky, funky!

16. Your Woman - White Town
I heard that this song was recorded in a living room, which probably explains its low-fi sound. But a great song, and a great gay anthem, haha.

15. Bitch - Meredith Brooks
This song was known as Nothing In Between in Singapore, because apparently the title is too explicit for all the little kids here (that would be us).

14. One Of Us - Joan Osborne
A really Godly song. Yeah, what if.

13. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm - Crash Test Dummies
Another dark song. But the most memorable thing about it is perhaps its video.

12. I'm Too Sexy - Right Said Fred
They're too sexy to be indulging in more hits, ha!

11. Where Have All The Cowboys Gone - Paula Cole
Well she actually had two hits, but this was the one big one. Nominated for several Grammys for this and showed the world her armpit hair.

10. Tubthumping - Chumbawamba
A song that makes you Jump! Jump!

9. That Thing You Do - The Wonders
This isn't a real band, and I still have no clue who sang it. Originally known as The Oneders, it's a dig at all one-hit wonders.

8. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something
A great perky song everyone loves.

7. Informer - Snow
A white rapper à la Vanilla Ice.

6. Dying Inside To Hold You - Timmy Thomas
This song was BIG in Singapore. But like MLTR, I'm not sure if it's known anywhere else in the world.

5. Mambo No 5 - Lou Bega
4. Macarena - Los Del Rio
3. Lemon Tree - Fool's Garden
These three songs epitomize the short era of wacky dance hits somewhere around 96-98.

2. Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
No explanation required. This would be a strong contender for my No 1 spot if not for the reasons below.

1. Torn - Natalie Imbruglia
If I recall corrrectly, this was the No 1 song on Rick Dees' chart for the top hits of the 90s. Now if it's the No 1 hit of the decade, surely that automatically makes it the No 1 one-hit wonder of the decade too?


What other choices do you have?

problem

Alright folks, we have a problem...

I need a camera-less phone for my cruise! Anyone has one to spare?

Help!

Life is frail

Miss No Comments alerted me to a show about Traditional Chinese Medicine on Channel 8 at 9.30pm. Today's episode talked about a 45 year old man who turned to TCM after contracting cancer. Guess what? He's our drums teacher!

Apparently, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer last year, and after undergoing operation is left with just 20% of his stomach. He ended up with poor appetite and sleepless nights, causing his weight to drop from 68kg to 50kg, before he decided to try out TCM. Some of his old photos were shown, where he looked plump and very different from how he is now. Although I feel that he looks better now, he does seem a little frail.

OMFG, we had no idea. He appears to be such a happy-go-lucky person. Poor guy. :(

A Simple Prop's Worth

A simple prop may not be worth much, compared to other blogs out there, but it still commands a respectable four figure sum.

My blog is worth $1,693.62.

How much is your blog worth?

Anyone interested in buying? I'll consider letting go at half the price! :p

Gone cruising.. almost

Ah.. today's my last day at work. No, no, my friends, I've not thrown the letter. I mean the last day before I go off for my cruise. While everyone and his grandmother are going for vacations over the holiday period, I have this to contend with.

Nevertheless, I hope it'll be a good 2.5 weeks breather. Yes, I know, I work too hard. You don't need to tell me that. C'est dur, la vie.. non? I should learn to skive more, like all of you!

And I have 2 weeks to shave off about 30-40 seconds of my time, I reckon, though it's a very rough estimate (might be more!). It won't be easy, but I think it's possible and I will try. No harm mah. What say you?

Sliding Doors

I sometimes wonder if I run into someone who hasn't seen me since I was a little kid, would he or she recognize me. Judging from what happened today, I guess it's probably not.

As I was queueing up to board the train on my way home, I stood behind a young couple. I only saw the guy's face as I was right behind the gal. After everyone had charged into the train, I found myself sitting right across them. And I instantaneously recognized the gal to be my primary school classmate. I'm not entirely surprised to see her because I've seen her a few times when I was working at Science Park. But we've never talked to each other. In fact, we've not even had eye contact then. But this time was different, as she was sitting right in front of me. So I tried looking at her, thinking that maybe I'll give her a smile.

We had a few glimpses of eye contact, but there was not the slightest reaction from her. Either she genuinely didn't find me familiar or she could really act like she didn't. So I didn't really want to risk a smile, especially when her man's right beside her. And they were quite intimate. I figured I'd mind my own business rather than act like a pervert and stare at her. Which was a pity, really. The last time I saw her, she had long curly hair, too much makeup, and was all too serious like someone out of The Apprentice. It sort of put me off a little, which was why I didn't really bother at that time. Now the hair is neatly cropped short and she looked dressed down but pretty fine. So it's a bit different now. I know, I know, men are like that. Tsk tsk.

And then the guy alighted. If this was a movie setting she'd suddenly turn to me with a beaming smile, rush over, cry about how delighted she is to see me and we would head for a drink or two without her man knowing. But it's not. In the end it was my turn to alight. If she'd got off at the same stop, I might just go over and reveal myself as her long-lost 老乡好, and we could still head for a drink or two without her man knowing. But she didn't. So that was that.

Well, I certainly hope she's not acting blur. After all, like what Kevin Spacey said in American Beauty, I wouldn't remember myself too!

Two Chinese Students

I just came across this video of two Chinese students performing Backstreet Boys' I Want It That Way. It loads really slow but it's hilarious, especially that guy on the left!

The fact that there's a guy sitting behind seemingly totally oblivious to their singing makes it even wackier, ha!

Le Penalty Cock-Up

Video of Le Penalty Cock-Up, as coined by the funniest footy site in the world - Football365.

Enjoy and have a good laugh before I take it down! :D

(removed)

So Typical

It seems that everytime I tell a guy about PPLive, I'd definitely get this question:

Got porn channels or not?

Wooo......

Well, the answer is... I don't know! I've only tried most of the sports channels and a few movie ones. But I'm sure if there are any, I'd have come across them by now. Anyway, go find out yourselves!

Tsk tsk. Men, can't stand them.

Running Away

At Le Gym today, I didn't touch any of the weights or the machines (well, except the abs one). Instead, I went running on the treadmill.

I'm not exactly into running, because as everyone knows, I should be stockpiling on the calories rather than expending them for no good reason. This was, in fact, only the second time I ran in a year (the first time was 4 days ago). Typically, if I want to keep fit, I'd rather do something fun like playing tennis, blading, chasing after girls or running away from work. Ok, the last activity isn't about fun; it's the art of survival.

But I don't have much choice basically, because the Inevitable & Painful Physical Torture is coming up soon. So for the next week or so, that'll be what I'll be doing everytime I hit Le Gym. (Running on the treadmill, that is; not away from work. Though the incentive and reward are so much greater, haha.)

I ran 5km today, which is a great deal to me because the last time I did that was ten years ago. And I discovered that when I ran at 10km/h, my pace synchronized perfectly with the beat of Outkast's Hey Ya, which was playing over the radio. It made the running so much more enjoyable. After all, running is the most boring sport ever, if you could even call it a sport. Too bad 10km/h won't make you pass the IPPT. And too bad the song is only 3 minutes plus. I could carry on running for another hour if the song had kept playing, but then I don't think the singer has the stamina to last that long, non?

I should have kept on running, if only to spare myself from coming home and seeing another charity show on Channel 8. Some great acting going on as usual. So marvelous it makes you cringe and sick in the stomach, and roll all over the floor in pain not knowing if you're crying or laughing. If I had the slightest ounce of strength left in me, I would've carried my laptop and run as far as I could away from the tele. But I was already spent.

If they do such shows often enough, though, very soon I'll be a Marathoner as well. Heheheh.

Fulham 2 Liverpool 0

Following the just concluded match between Fulham and Liverpool, the Armchair Critic, that is moi, shall have his say.

Liverpool sucks. Big time.

That will be all for now.

Bizarre Penalty

Anyone saw that Arsenal second penalty attempt against Manchester City? I've never seen anything like that!

What happened was, as Pires stepped up to take the kick, he stopped and tried to dummy David James. Then he tried to do a very short pass to Henry who was rushing in. It was clearly well orchestrated beforehand. But he either screwed up or hesitated too long, because Henry didn't get to the ball and in the end the referee blew for a free kick to City.

Like what the commentator said, Arsenal ended with egg on their faces for trying something so different. They weren't exactly leading comfortably at that time (it was only 1-0), and City had a goal disallowed after that. Boy, if that had stood, it would be really malu man.

I don't know if you can do that for penalties, but it was definitely the most bizarre attempt I've seen. Such arrogance!

Painful Lessons

Oxymoron of the day: Spending 60k to study a masters in wealth management.

If that isn't a straight F, I don't know what is. Imagine at the first day in class, the lecturer says: "I've got nothing to teach you. You should've learnt your lessons by now."

Talk about having practical lessons. Ahahahahaha.

PPLive

I don't know if everyone's aware of this, but there's a program called PPLive that lets you watch tv channels from China over the Internet. It's a peer-to-peer thingy, so the more people use it, the better it's supposed to get. That's why I going to tell everyone about it. Spread the news!

So far, I've tried it a number of times. At home the streaming isn't that good. I have a feeling it's like BitTorrent, where the streaming will slowly pick up and get better over time. But until now, it's been so-so only. However, when I tried it in my office, it was pretty neat. No, that's an understatement.. it was fantabulous!

If I could get decent streaming at home, I would have said this is really another ho gai siao. In fact, it'll be the best thing since sliced kaya toast with kopi siu dai extra gao. With over 50 channels, we can kick the evil cable company's big fat arse, throw the set-top box back at it and tell it to piss off for charging us exorbitant prices!

Pay for a Happy Birthday

Sorry, no more Happy Birthday for you

Here's an interesting bit of information everyone should know: The song Happy Birthday is copyrighted and owned by Time Warner. Everytime you sing it in a public place, like a restaurant, you're liable to pay royalty fees. Check out UnhappyBirthday.com and this Snopes article.

I quote from UnhappyBirthday.com:

This means that if you sing Happy Birthday to your family at home, you're probably not committing copyright infringment. However, if you do it in an restaurant — and if the restaurant hasn't already worked out a deal with ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) — you may be engaging in copyright infringement.

If you have seen someone singing Happy Birthday in a restaurant, a park, or at a school, you should tell ASCAP so that they can arrange for a license. If you are an offender, you should apologize and offer to pay whatever is due — a nickel, a quarter, a dollar — whatever ASCAP demands.

To think that there're pirates in all the MacDonald's and Hard Rock Cafes all over the world everyday. But now you have the perfect excuse to ask your date home just so you can sing Happy Birthday to her!

Incidentally, I'm now reading Nick Hornby's About A Boy, and it's about a thirty-something man who never had to work because his grandfather wrote a famous Christmas jingle and the royalties kept him rich. If you think about it, songs like Happy Birthday and We Wish You A Merry Christmas are so simple, yet people never get sick of them. If you can write one as catchy and popular, you'll never have to work for the rest of your life!

100 Greatest Novels

The movie A Clockwork Orange

I just came across Time magazine's 100 Greatest English Novels since 1923.

Looking at the list, I can proudly say I've read a grand total of..... 2 of them! The first is Animal Farm, which was my literature text during school days. The other is A Clockwork Orange.

Speaking of A Clockwork Orange, most people know of it as that ultra-violent 70s movie. The show's indeed very interesting (and super-ultra-xxx-rated), but the book's another thing altogether. I must say it is one of the most facinating books I've ever read. In fact, it's my 2nd favourite book of all time, although that's not saying a lot since I don't read tonnes. The amazing thing about this book is that it is written entirely in a slang called Nadsat invented by the author himself. Once you get the gist of it, you'll appreciate just how beautiful the writing is, or to describe in Nadsat, absolutely horrorshow. Everyone go read!

Among the list are some other very famous titles, like The Lord Of The Rings, Lord Of The Flies and To Kill A Mocking Bird, non of which I've read. One of them - 1984-, I find so dry that I gave up about one third into the book. Too bad.

It's such a coincidence, also, that I just found The Catcher In The Rye yesterday, after searching high and low over several rental bookstores. This is a very controversial book, partly because John Lennon's assassin was carrying this book when he was caught at the spot of the killing. A few chapters in and I'm already loving it! When I'm done, there'll be just 96⅔ more to go! :D

What's it going to be then, eh?

2 Marks' Worth

After all the brouhaha over a PSLE Math question, MOE finally admitted that the question was flawed. But wait a minute... Is it really wrong?

Actually the problem itself looks perfectly legitimate to me (provided the papers didn't missed out any other information). This is because, like what some who wrote in said, you can't assume that the diagonal SXQ is a straight line. If you've taken an exam like the GRE, you'll know never to make such an assumption. But of course, we can't expect Primary 6 students to know that.

You can redraw the figure in different scales to get very different perceptions, as long as the dimensions given are consistent. So the whole figure, unlike what the papers said, is not mathematically impossible.

Anyway, I tried working out the solution. Yes, I can be quite boliao at times, haha, but how can I resist such a controversial question? And I haven't done math for a long time! I obtained two solutions via working out 4 simultaneous equations. The problem is my answers don't match any of the multiple-choice options.

Take a look. Looking at my pictures, you definitely won't think the long diagonal is a straight line!
Let me know if I got anything wrong. If it's ok, then it's two marks for me too! :D

Celebrity Look-a-like

How I look before my haircut (*horrors*)

As most of my friends who've seen me over the past week would have noticed by now, I've given up on my 4-month long struggle to look like Rob Thomas.

I guessed I'm not born to look like that. Which was a great pity. Instead, I was beginning to resemble Bae Yong Jun, except that I look better because I don't wear dorky glasses. But I simply couldn't allow that, since I can't stand anything Korean other than kimchi. So I went to have it cut short.

Now I look like a cross between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Just that somewhere, somehow, all the good-looking parts got crossed out as well.

Heheheh.

Oh what a day

Yesterday was such a long day! In fact, it was a day that lasted two, from the moment I got up for work at 7am Friday morning and lasting through to past Saturday midnight when I finally collapsed into bed.

After knocking off work at 7pm on Friday, I rushed home for a quick shower before heading out again. (In F1 parlance, they call it a "splash and dash", which actually refers to a very quick refuelling pit-stop when there're just a few more laps to go.) It was Friday night mahjong again! Normally we would just play 3 rounds, but this time we made it to 4 rounds, till almost 9am Saturday morning.

The plan after that was to head home and sleep for like 5-6 hours, before getting up and ready for the concert. But I forgot to tell Le Boss the plan. Just when I was about to drop dead in bed, he called me at 10am to do some tasks. It's suffice to say that I wasn't a happy cow when I dragged my heavy arse out of bed and tried to set up VPN and remote desktop access to my office network. Tamade, that didn't work, so there was no choice but to head down to office. Now, I couldn't possibly reject him and say that I hadn't slept the whole night because I was out having fun, could I? Urgh!!

He even wanted me to stick around in office the whole day in case some stupid developer in the US has some new fixes up, but I wasn't having any of that nonsense. I'm not going to burn my weekend just because someone else screwed up his work. Two hours was all I could offer, before I went home at 1pm. Finally I could get some bloody sleep. I'm not joining the Subaru Impreza challenge, so I really don't need this sleep deprivation training! But I didn't exactly sleep well neither, because Le Boss called again to check on the work and there were a few other SMSes. And I was up before 4 to check my company email, wash up and get ready to go to the concert.

So on to the concert. That was when the plan got foiled for the second time in a day. We had arranged to meet at the Leisure Drome for dinner. That was straightforward enough, except the place doesn't exist anymore! It wasn't exactly our favourite haunt, so we didn't know until we got there. In the end, the Zeeless Zombie, that is moi, round head and Javelin found ourselves in a place littered with expensive restaurants, and chose a packed Taiwan porridge restaurant which was probably the cheapest. The rest of the motley gang hasn't arrived: chiakhong was stuck in City Hall waiting for the next bus that wasn't jam-packed, Mr Nice Guy got caught up with work and would be late, and zx has just landed and was rushing over.

Fortunately, all's well that ends well and we finally assembled before the concert was slated to start at 8 o'clock. :)

Talk about the concert. Yeah, Beyond rocks - there's no doubt about that, non? But the performance seemed subdued. I guess it was inevitable with a Singaporean audience. It was ironic that those who paid for the most expensive seats didn't want to sit on them, and stood throughout, which was great. The others with cheaper seats had their heavy arses glued to them. It was only until the final one or two songs when they've warmed the seats long enough to melt the glue that they finally stood up. Maybe they were all zeeless like moi?

Notwithstanding that, we were treated to all their classic hits like Amani, 长城，情人，遥望，海阔天空，光辉岁月, 真的爱你, 遥远的Paradise and a whole host of other songs. Even without their former lead singer, Beyond proved that each one of them could sing better than those stupid boybands with 4D number names. The audience seemed especially appreciative when the drummer 叶世荣 sang solo in a few songs like 遥望 and I-can't-remember-what. Awesome is how you'll describe them.

As they say, all good things come to an end. How do you pack more than 2 decades of music into that 2 plus hours? The concert ended at around 10.40pm. At the start, they had told us that there wouldn't be an encore, because they would sing every song. True to their word, they disppeared behind the stage after the last song, leaving the audience standing there and screaming for 10-15 minutes before they realized that there really wouldn't be any encore. It was the end - the end of the legacy, the end of an era. Period.

Unless they go broke and decide to reunite in future, of course. But that's another story altogether.

Being a rock fan myself, I was naturally gutted. Beyond was like the Nirvana of Chinese/Canto rock, with the death of a lead singer hauntingly coincidental. No other bands even come close. Would we ever see another band that rocks like them? I really don't know. But rock was the genre of the 90s. Now the in thing is R&B and the likes of Jay Chou. So we can sadly conclude that, once Beyond is no more, Chinese/Canto rock music is officially dead.

Time to bring out the tissue and cry our hearts out. Don't go, Beyond! Don't go! As one of my favourite songs go, 冷雨夜我不想归家. Hey you forgot to sing that! :'(

在雨中漫步 蓝色街灯渐露
相对望 无声紧拥抱着
为了找往日 寻温馨的往日
消失了

任雨湿我面 难分水点泪痕
心更乱 愁丝绕千百段
骤变的态度 无心伤她说话
收不了

冷雨夜我在你身边
盼望你会知
可知道我的心
比当初已改变
只牵强地相处

冷雨夜我不想归家
怕望你背影
只苦笑望雨点
须知要说清楚
可惜我没胆试

-- Beyond, 冷雨夜

Sudoku

The round headed one forwarded me a link to the game Sudoku. It's quite fun and challenging and is supposed to be taking the world by storm (at least according to itself and its Wiki page).

Try it out. You can find some tips at the Wiki page, like cross-hatching. It can be quite time consuming for first timers, but good entertainment on a lazy Friday. I took 46 minutes to complete my first Easy game.

Not bad, I think, when you consider the fact that I took a nap and read some email in between. Haha. I completed my second in 8 minutes 30 seconds without breaking!

Oh ya, just one more day to go!!

Letter of the Day (13.10.05)

Presenting to you, the 5-star Letter of the Day, a-hey-hey.

Pity it didn't make it to print. But good to know there's some sense in the world after all!

Of special mention is this letter by NTU Assistant Professor Cherian George, as well as this other letter.

Congratulations to them all. :D

South Asia Quake

Quake survivors scramble for relief supplies

Today, or whenever you should read this, I'll forgive you if you don't Help Feed The Poor. Instead, you might wanted to help those desperately in need.

Yeah, I'm talking about those affected by the earthquake in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Money doesn't just make the world go round, it can save lives too. See how you can help here, instead of sitting in front of the tv and feeling sorry. I don't know if they accept online donations, but there're plenty of international relief sites that definitely do.

It's not about other people's lives and leaving others to help them. If just one of you responds, this post would have succeeded.

Jeez, I'm getting a tad too serious. 2 more days to go!

唱, 为这世界歌唱
献出一点关注
尽量令她温暖

唱, 共你挽手歌唱
献出一点真挚
尽量令她可爱

放开心中思虑
共创美好不必恐惧
愿永远

-- Beyond, 交织千个心

D'oh!

Oh no, there's an unexpected glitch with 3 days to go!

The Marathoner's called up for a sudden overseas trip. By the time he lands, the concert will be starting! How? How? Hooooww?

Hey, why don't I recommend you some web-conferencing tools? Don't need to fly all the way there! :D

Stupid things people do

Why do I still get chain mail from some people? I hate them! I would have thought that such things only worked in the past, when the Internet was a novelty and people were still naive. But it seems that stupidity knows no bounds.

And they're not even funny or interesting, just some silly and meaningless personality tests or horoscope that anyone could have written, and that threaten you with bad luck if you don't forward them to your hapless friends. If you think broadband subscription is expensive, blame it on these pea-brains for forwarding and flooding the bandwidth.

Being pissed off, the Stupidity Healer, that is moi, shall write my own "chain post" today.

Oh's Personality Test

Question: What keeps you occupied?

A. Listening to the ipod.
B. Supporting Manchester United.
C. Forwarding chain mail.
D. Reading a simple prop.

If you answered:

A. You're a twat.
B. You're a twat.
C. You're a twat.
D. You're the coolest kid in the neighbourhood. :)

Your horoscope for the rest of your life:
A. You shall remain a twat.
B. You shall remain a twat.
C. You shall remain a twat.
D. You'll become a multi-billionaire, get all the pretty gals, live to 200 yrs and become mankind's saviour.

Ok, now that you've enjoyed the personality test and horoscope, please:

• Tell 1 friend about this blog and enjoy 1 month of good luck.
• Tell 5 friends about this blog and enjoy 5 months of good luck.
• Tell 10 friends about this blog and enjoy one year of good luck (that's a bonus 2 months!).
• Comment on every post in this blog or nobody will ever give a hoot about what you think. Ever.
  
• Click on a Help The Poor link at the sidebar on every visit or you won't strike Toto/4D/whatever-you-may-pin-your-hopes-on for the next ten years.

So there you go. Not very hard to write something to keep them fools occupied right? But for the rest of us, even clicking on the Delete button is an utter waste of our time.

What the heck. 4 more days to go!

Letter of the Day

Check out what the Health Promotion Board has to say in the ST Forum today in response to a letter asking how quit smoking ambassador Taufik Batisah could have been smoking since 12, given the tough laws and restrictions.

That's a whole letter's worth of information without answering that simple question. Like what my army warrant used to say, if you can't convince them, confuse them. We should all learn to write like that, ha!

A different point of view

Do you:

• loathe Mondays?
• wish you work 4 days a week instead of 5?
• long for a longer weekend?
• wish for more free time each day?
• wish for more sunlight hours away from office?
  
• want to cut down on daily chores?
  

If you answered yes to all the above, check out this site. A revolutionary new idea that solves all these woes and grants you all your wishes. And some idea it is!

Meanwhile, 5 more days to go!

Beyond - 长城

The Final Countdown

Beyond: 三缺一 for so long

6 more days to the Beyond Farewell Concert!

It's hard not to get excited when my old friend is counting down to it almost everyday. He's their greatest fan EVER. Although I'm not as big a fan as he is, I'm also really looking forward to it.

This morning, I digged out an old Beyond compilation cd I used to really like and ripped it. It's one of those you could get from Bugis Street back in the mid-to-late-90s. It is, in fact, one of two cds that introduced me to Cantonese songs (the other being an Andy Lau Greatest Hits also from Bugis Street).

It is also the only Beyond cd I have, so you can see I'm not the mostest die-hardest fan out there. Shame on me, yeah. But with one cd I got most of their famous hits before 黄家驹 died. No wonder the RIAA is hoping mad, ha!

Who cares? I think Beyond rocks! Everybody loves Beyond, non? Heheh.. maybe it's just a guy thing. It seems like the gals don't really dig them.

Whatever. Let the countdown begin! :D

Live and Let Die

The blatant discrimination continues. And by non other than a certain Lee Wei Ling as well.

This issue shouldn't concern me at all (really!), but I'm appalled at the inability and unwillingness of some to live and let die live. People should have a choice of what they want to do. If they don't mind dying young, then it's their own bloody business.

We've already got the bans at public spots like pubs, bus-stops, sport complexes and all. That's reasonable enough. But now you won't even let people smoke in their own private spaces? What's the matter with you people?

Hear, hear! For the nation's good, I say we should ban all fast food like MacDonald's, char kuay teow and seafood with high cholesterol. If that is too drastic, we shall start with a 500% tax on such food items (like $30 for a Big Mac), and special designated areas of less than 10% of total dining area for such consumption (only 2 tables per coffeeshop for eating char kuay teow at a minimum distance of 500m away from other diners).

In addition, all overweight folks shall follow strict dietary restrictions and undergo mandatory exercise programs. Underweight people shall be forced to fill up that 10% space that sells char kuay teow and fast food, thereby preventing others from eating them as well.

Last but not least, since I can't stand people who make too much noise (the "second-hand" noise stresses me up and is bad for my mental health), we shall ban all loud talking and noise making as well. Or we could start with special designated sound-proofed rooms where they can shout all they want inside.

There you go. All for the nation's good!

Buble - King of Covers

Buble doing a cover of Steven Gerrard

Michael Buble, who is in town for a concert on monday, is quoted in Life! today saying:

It's easy to write a song. I wrote Home in 15 minutes and it was No. 1 on American jazz charts for, like, eight weeks. But I think it's a lot harder to re-invent an old song.

Ah, so much for songwriting then. Now wouldn't that make Boyzone the greatest group in the world?

Haha. Sorry Michael, as much as I love your covers like Sway and How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, I think it'll do your credibility as a singer a lot of good if you sing more original hits.

After all, it'll only take you 150 minutes to come up with an album like that. ;)

ST Forum Online

I wonder if you all know that my favourite section of the ST is accessible online for free. Recently, they added a solely online section for letters that aren't in print.

Why do I like the Forum? Because unlike the rest of the ST, you get really honest views from the people, and not National Education articles disguised as op-eds. I love it especially when they sound off on those big, fat evil corporations or government bodies. Like here, here and here (in reply to this).

Ha!

If it ain't broke, break it

In mid-July, LTA did a really stupid thing. And I thought it was an accident waiting to happen. Well I was right!

As Today reported, there is now a total of 8 accidents over the past 3 working days at the junction of Cecil Street and Robinson Road(see star on map). Surely, that makes it the most dangerous spot in Singapore. But I wasn't expecting car accidents. Instead I was thinking that sooner or later, someone's going to get knocked down by a car.

You see, I pass by this junction to and from work almost everyday. Previously there were traffic lights where pedestrians could cross safely. After they were removed, pedestrians still cross at the same junction. If you see the amount of traffic there, especially during knocking off hours, you'll fear for them! Imagine 10-20 people at one time, squeezing into the narrow divider while cars zoom pass them. Dangerous!

You could hardly blame the pedestrians too. Like for me, I often go over to Republic Plaza where my gym's located. Even after a few months, like the traveling salesman, I'm still trying to figure out which is the shortest way for me to get from the Cosco Building over to Republic Plaza (because I think it's too dangerous to jaywalk). I could use the mrt underpass, but there're so many exits in there. No matter which I tried, it seemed like I have to cover up to 3 times the distance to get to Republic Plaza, which is like only 10m away if I just cross the road directly.

LTA has done a few things since then. Firstly they put up a kerb divider to prevent cars from Robinson Road entering straight into D'Almeida Street. This, apparently, is the whole motive behind the changes. Then they removed the kerb to prevent pedestrians from standing on it. This led to cars from Robinson Road unknowingly banging into cars coming from Cecil Street, because they didn't see the flat divider. This morning I saw that they have put up bright yellow poles. But nothing they do could prevent the jaywalkers. Something has to be done quick before someone gets injured.

Haiz, a classic case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Insecure Messaging

We all know about the threat of viruses and worms in email, but I think most people are letting their guards off when it comes to instant messaging (IM). Check out these articles:

• Worms biting harder into IM, P2P
• Spying worm spreads via MSN Messenger, AIM
• Does IM stand for insecure messaging?

The bottomline is, like email, DO NOT assume that the message or file transfer request you receive is from your contact, even if it appears so in the messenger window. More importantly, DO NOT accept a file transfer or click on a link unless you've verified its authenticity. Ask your contact first if he or she has really sent it.

So be careful, and let your friends know too!

Irrationality

Bali was actually one of the places mooted for our company year-end trip. In the end, they decided on Bangkok.

But after what happened in Bali, my colleagues are having second thoughts on going to Bangkok as well, reason being that it's also a tourist destination in the region. Maybe it's just me, but I really can't see the logic in that. Wouldn't that rule out just about everywhere in the region? Not that I care much anyway. I wasn't too keen on Bangkok in the first place.

A colleague also suggested that it'll be safe to go during the month of Ramadan, as Muslims aren't supposed to commit evil during then. When I heard this I was like, you mean they're allowed to kill people outside of Ramadan??

Anyway, I don't think it's any safer back home. There's an intrinsic fear in me when I take the mrt to work during the morning peak hour. I think it's one of the most dangerous places to be. That's why I tend to go to the very first few cabins. I figure that a terrorist would likely target the middle where it's most crowded. The tail part isn't safe too because you'll gana no matter what. Then again, maybe it's just me.

Go kill yourselves lah, stupid terrorists.

Google bid to WiFi San Francisco

I've always believed that in future, all cities (if not the whole world) would be WiFi-ed for free access to everyone. San Francisco is poised to become the first. And by who else but Google?

But as always, there will be cynics when it comes to anything new. C'mon people, this is the future. Don't be like the dinosaurs of the RIAA. You can't stop technology!

If you think about it, Singapore is sooo small. Surely it wouldn't be too hard or expensive to do that here as well, non? Now, wouldn't that be great?

As usual, check back here for the latest outdated news! :D

Today in history

1990: East and West Germany reunited.

1977: On the small island of Singapore, a little baby was born. He went on to greater things, like sneaking into the class and getting to know Oh in Primary 4.

Haha. Happy birthday my prehistoric friend. :)

Launchcast

If you listen to music on the Internet at work or at home, I have this ho gai siao (good recommendation) for you.

Launch.com is already quite well known as a great place for watching music videos, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. Check out Launchcast - internet radio from the same site. I've tried quite a few others like Live365, or via Windows Media Player and Winamp, but nothing quite matches it.

Launchcast allows you to create your own customized station, which will play songs and genres that you like. How does it know? For every song, album, artist and genre, you can rate it according to your preference. You can choose the rating system to be either a simple 5 grades (never play again, it's ok, like it, love it, and can't get enough), or on a scale of 1-100.

This customizing thingy really works. If you rate frequently, more of the songs you dig will be played. Sometimes when there's a song I really like that hasn't been played, I'll search for it on the website and give it a maximum rating. Sure enough, next time I'll hear it on my station. The system will also play songs unrated but related to what you like. For every song played, there's an explanation on why it's selected. I've been tuning in and customizing my station while at work for over a year now. I've made nearly 900 ratings, which sets me as a Trendsetter, haha. When I reach 1000, I'll become a Fanatic. Woohoo!

Besides having your own station, there's also a very good selection of programmed stations based on themes and genres. Sometimes when I want more variety, I tune in to stations like Today's Big Hits, 1990s Rock, New Releases, Love Songs, or Lite Office Music. There is a host more I've not heard; I tend to stick to the same stations. :p

There are three ways you can tune in. First and most basic of all is via Internet Explorer (no link required). Secondly, if you use Yahoo messenger, you can tune in from there also. The last method I know is via the new Yahoo Music Engine, which is an iTunes-like player that lets you do things like rip music, listen to samples, purchase online and all.

My main gripe about Launchcast is that it doesn't support Netscape(=Firefox). In addition, there'll be commercials every few songs (some are actually quite funny, heheh). I've actually tried subscribing to Launchcast Plus, their paid service with even more programmed stations and no commercials. But too bad, it is not supported outside the US. Then again, Launchcast is good enough for me. In fact, I like it so much I wrote such a long post to tell everyone!

By the way, since Yahoo has bought over Launch (as you would've noticed by now), you'll need a Yahoo account to use Launchcast. Check it out. Oh gai siao, sure not bad! :D