spiderman 3 is coming

Caught a glimpse of the new spidey movie trailer at cineleisure last week when I was there for flyboys. it's slated for a summer release and i can't wait to see spidey in his black costume and perhaps venom in cg glory too!

Inside looking out

The weather is so unbelievably beautiful outside. The trees are glowing green under the crystal blue sky. There is a slight breeze and the birds are chirping happily away. This is so surreal. I wanna go to the beach or East coast once the exams are over.

The Godfather II

What a beautiful tragedy. Highly recommended movie.

I removed the Godfather theme song that plays automatically. It's getting quite irritating.

Lily Allen

A catchy tune she's got there. I wonder if I've heard it somewhere before. I've got to admit, I was caught by her sweet looks (on one of those music blogs under I've linked on the left) before I checked out her music. Apparently she's on a upward trajectory because of sizeable internet buzz like the Arctic Monkeys did. Cool..

Check out her music at lilyallenmusic.com

Funny Video about the Yellow Peril

Been feeling like crap for the past few days. Strangely, this vid manages to life the spirits.

Something new..

I happened to see the 'moderate comments' link and realised that people actually read my blog and post comments. Thanks! The reason your comments didn't appear earlier was because I had turned on the moderating option before comments could be published.

Excerpt from the one comment that took me by surprise!

"...I was not unaware of the fact that people sat down after the first three songs (except the two brave dudes in the front), but I didn't take it as an f you from the audience." -Jammypack, Panda no Panda

Awesome. I'd only posted a brief rave on his performance during Baybeats and Mr. Jammypack actually bothered to leave a comment! Viva la Internet! I like unpretentious, weird bands even though we have so few of them here in Singapore. That's also another reason why fans wouldn't want their favourite obscure bands to sell out. (I'm afraid Panda no Panda is unlikely to shake up the mainstream anytime soon.. hurhur..)

Anyway.. those two brave dudes were lulu and I. ;p Again, great show. Ja mata! In NY or Tokyo where it'll be lots different, I'm sure.

Three Stories from Steve Jobs

An inspirational speech given by Steve Jobs to the graduating class of Stanford University. It is about believing in yourself and pursuing your dreams. Enjoy.
http://www.inspirationpeak.com/cgi-bin/stories.cgi?record=82

The Quiet American

I wrote the following observations on the movie 'The Quiet American' in a forum for my war history module:

This movie is so cool! Watching Pyle’s frustration in his last meeting with Fowler as he says ‘It’d be so much easier if I hadn’t met either of you’, alluding to the French and Vietnamese is so much more poignant than reading from books Lyndon Johnson calling the conflict a ‘bitch of a war’.
I also like the allegory of the French people as the angry conservative wife who “doesn’t believe in divorce”, stopping Fowler from marrying Phuong (or Phoenix rising from the ashes like the embittered Vietnamese fighting for liberation? Wow.. there’s no end to this!). It also alludes to France’s inability to divorce itself from its grand civilizing mission.
Finally, the film ends dramatically with Pyle’s death. He is dressed in white, representing the sincerity and virtue of America fight against the evils of communism. Also, while Pyle’s death symbolizes Kennedy’s assassination, the way he was stabbed to death alludes to Diem’s assassination. The news reports that follow immediately tells us of the escalation of U.S. involvement that followed after the assassinations. ☺

It was so much fun trying to decipher the allegories in the movie! History/movie buffs should not miss 'The Quiet American'! Now I understand why Jo loves literature. So chim...

What an awful lot of movies I'm watching this sem..

What's new?

So N.Korea's threatened to carry out nuclear weapons test yesterday. I feel like the girl in Sophie's World: events are strangely deja vu as I'm reading about post-WWII history. Coups, communist threats and wars. What's new? Don't believe anybody who says humankind learns from history.

Buddhist crisis '63

Been reading about Vietnam's history lately. I was quite surprised to see a familiar picture of a Buddhist monk in flames. It was actually used in the cover of RATM's groundbreaking self-titled album. The subsequent coup that happened after the Buddhist crisis in 1963 made me feel poignant too, considering the coup that just happened in Thailand. Some things never change.

weezer rocks!

Weezer rocks! Catch this live video before it's gone!

Have been busy with school and nothing much to blog about. Examined if documentary and feature narrative make any difference in remembering Buddy Holly. Heck, documentary uses real footages but they're both the same myth-making machines. I like... blablabla..

Animals Concerns Research & Education Society (Acres) set up a booth to create awareness in campus two days back. My curiosity leads me from one point to the other on the Internet. Here's a well-designed video with jarring images and a strong message.
http://www.stopanimaltests.com/feat/testing123/

boycott KFC

What do you get when you think of Pamela Anderson and chicks?

time is a human construct

Braindead.. Here's a filler for my blog drought:

It is time.... it is time.... and this is my simple message for today.
If there's something special you want to do, now is the time... if you
want to make a difference in the world, now is the time.  Don't be
fooled into thinking you should wait until you are older or wiser or
more 'secure' - because it doesn't work that way. The wisdom will come.
The security will come. But first you must begin your adventure. 

Carry peace with you,

(and send us a postcard once in awhile! ;-)

Ron Atchison
The Mayor of Inspiration Peak                 
http://www.inspirationpeak.com

city hall

Seldom do I think about how beautiful Singapore can be..

Fireworks at the River

9 Aug was Singapore's national day. Over that weekend, there were fireworks shows to celebrate it at the mouth of Singapore river. I was there to snap some pictures. Here are the better ones. Hope you like them.

Back in school now. hope to blog more often than this.

Earlier, the MD of BMW Asia came to give a talk sharing his experiences of his South Pole expedition. No mean feat. I kept this inspiration as I ran 10km New Balance Real Run at Sentosa. The sandy beaches almost killed me. The thought of the 21km army half marathon this sunday is looming like a bad nightmare now. That guy's right: tough challenges take long and focused preparations. Which, of course, I haven't and I will surely pay for it on Sunday.

Cheers.

Imagine.

Although hopelessly idealistic, Lennon's lyrics in Imagine still fits the mood perfectly now:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

good cooking = result of experimentation?

No, the food doesn't look appetizing at all. I just got sick of take-away dinner and my dad's cooking and instead of complaining, I decided to make my own dinner. How refreshing, the potatoes were crunchy and the veggies soggy and tasteless. The steak was splendid with generous dips of ketchup. The microwave probably wasn't working right. I guess I will have to experiment some more before it gives me anything decent. Hurhur..

Guillotine

French guillotine, war museum in Vietnam (2005)

I found critics attacking bbc's bias against Israel on the net. Thinking back about the broadcasts I've heard, it does seem like there's some truth in the criticisms.

....

Many innocent civilians are killed in this conflict, and this alone is enough reason to call for an immediate ceasefire. Of course, there must be a resolution to end the conflict between the parties, but the process to a "sustainable peace" should be political, not militarist.

The road to complete resolutioin and lasting peace in the region will most certainly be long and arduous. The conflict is so complex with historical antecedents that calling the other party 'terrorists' and trying to wipe them out is unrealistic. Wouldn't those dislocated and dispossessed in this conflict form the next wave of reteliation?

the possibility of anything begins in the mind

Stole the title from the video. :p

I first heard dj shadow's music from this music video, six days, directed beautifully by wong kar wai.

Nothing beats listening to the songs you love live, so I went wif lulu n luke (not twin sidekicks, haha) to zouk where dj shadow played last night. Woah, rocked the house he did. The house, however, was unbelievably packed and I could only move my head to the music.

you can listen to dj shadow on kcrw here. they call his music "experimentalinstrumental hip/hop". :)

This is inspirational

You can lose everything -- even control over your own body. Yet nothing is impossible if you truly believe in yourself.
Thanks for the link, Claud!

Forever Nirvana

Nirvana is the first band that really made a huge impact on my life. It was perhaps the angst that I related to most in Kurt Cobain's songs. The world can have it their way while I implode in my pop punk music. Of course, it's only a matter of time before I trace Nirvana's music other bands - from more well-known ones from R.E.M. and U2 to the more obscure ones like The Pixies and Vaselines.

While it much more time and effort to discover obscure bands then, the internet revolution changed things for the better. Almost a decade ago, searching for acclaimed indie American bands required researching for their references in band's biographies or mags like maximumrocknroll at Tower Records. To actually listen to these music I could either download with impunity mp3's if I'm lucky or buy the expensive imports.

Now I go to either of the following. Although the list is pitiable, these are more than I ever dreamed of.
launch: customised radio service from yahoo;
kcrw: podcasts that feature exciting, new bands weekly;
youtube: surprisingly, a growing library of bootlegs and music videos uploaded by fans.

Outside in

camera obscura!

Just for the record, the Palestinian-israeli conflict has been the hot topic with wx and thengz. Listening to bbc to stave off boredom during, I realised how sad and desperate the Lebanese are. Why can't there be peace in the MidEast?


Haven't been keeping track of the latest podcasts for a long time, and boy am I ecstatic to find camera obscura featured in kcrw-morning becomes eclectic! The band was a serendipity when lulu and I were at cafecosmos(now defunct). Download the show.

daiko..

I was surprised when the website spdaiko I designed for my daiko club turned up when I googled the term 'daiko'. It almost gave a sensation of pride, or nostalgia -- the site wasn't a sophisticated piece of work.

Anyway, if you do visit the site, the drummer show on the homepage was my sensei, Akemi Jige, when I was in Japan for a daiko-drum workshop. To this day, I am filled with awe and respect for her when I think about her skills. Her drumming was energetic, forceful and vigourous, and you could see her completely absorbed in the rhythms, I wasn't surprised she was in her early 50's packing over a thousand push-ups and sit-ups everyday to get her physique.

In fact, ChannelNewsAsia did a feature on the revival of daiko-drumming in Japan and interviewed sensei Jige. Read about it here.

for seekers only

I stumbled upon this cool resources site, consciouschoice that professes "to help readers live healthier lives and create a sustainable society" -- and [more importantly] have fun doing it." Check it out!

Monster

Every once in a while, I get hooked to a VCD series that I can't resist putting the next disc into the player. Even if it's the nth one. The latest series giving me such cliffhanger dilemma is the anime, Monster. With foresight, I only rent 6discs at a time to prevent VCD overdose.

The story tells of a genius neurosurgeon whose life is turned upside down when he saved a boy from a gunshot in the head. The extraordinary boy is in the centre of a series of mysterious murders, which the surgeon feels responsible for. .

Like the other widely-acclaimed series, Ghost in the Shell, Monster is laden with deep questions for the attentive audience. For example, by what measure can we attribute one's evil deeds to him or he? Do we also factor in family background and society in our judgement?

According to wiki, New Line Cinema is adapting the series for Hollywood. Hmm.. I can't wait.

Official Monster site

music.. cabaret & baybeats

I had a good dose of live music over the past two weekends. Sadly, I found both rather disappointing.

Baybeats was a 3day music festival at the Esplanade Bay featuring local and overseas rock acts. Although touted as a festival, the atmosphere was however quite sombre. There were no hippy, happy dancing teens, hotdogs, burgers, nor beer. Instead, the young crowd milled around, looked "cool", and generally unaffected by the music. The moshing, bodyslamming skinnieheads don't count; they vent their teenage angst at every opportunity. (In fact, according to wx, they got into trouble with the "security".) To be fair, it wasn't the fault of the bands. Not all of them anyway. Velvet Teen and Panda no Panda were awesome. The former is like Jeff Buckley with his balls squeezed backed by Sonic Youth, and the latter is just unbelievably funny rap and electronica (they're beyond me.)

I guess the lukewarm response is unavoidable. The organizer even got the audience to stand up and jive to Panda no Panda, but they sat down after maybe 3 songs. In fact, Velvet Teen was the second frustrated american band utter 'fuckyou' to their uninterested audience here in singapore. The first was Matchbox20 before they were really big playing to picnicking families on the Padang for free. So probably Singaporeans only get high at concerts they pay $100++. :(


Last Saturday, I was again at the Esplanade - to watch the musical, cabaret, with grette. I can't say much about it, perhaps the singing was a bit weak, but the costumes looked great. However, we were seating right at the last row, and the airconditioning was so warm that probably made me miss all the good parts.

So that's two unsatisfying music weekends for me. I really should shell out the bucks for Mogwai who's coming real soon. Really sad that the student tickets were sold out by the 3rd day...

site of memories 1: boredom=doodles

tokyo tower 2002...
bugis st. twilight mystique...

Zidane-inspired

I can't explain the kick I get out of seeing these head butts. Hurhurhur... thx thengz.

You make the Decision

I love the quotes from inspirationpeak.com! Here's one.

"Having the energy to pursue our passions will always come if that's
our
wish. Most of who we are, what we do, and where we are going relates to
our attitude. Being tired, bored, scared, or unhappy are decisions,
nothing more. Coming to grips with this reality has the potential for
changing every aspect of what remains of our lives."

Author Unknown
But Very Much Appreciated!

Do Not Fall In Love

The door on the right says: Do not fall in love.
Why? Because it hurts. The subway holds so many surprises that makes me want to visit NY again.

yamakazi

Got this video link from wx. These guys make Jackie Chan look like papa gorilla.

How far into the future do you care about? 200 years? Or 2 months? An historian argues that it is only recently when we really only care about our immediate future. By contrast, people before the world wars cared much more for posterity hundreds of years into the future. As a result, while they stewarded their lives and fortunes for the future generations with hope and optimism, we spend and consume voraciously all available resources, and think twice about bearing offspring into this terrible, uncertain world.

This is because the world has become generally pessimistic about the future. It is filled with uncertainties and a big pile of mess we created: environmental deterioration, global warming, nuclear proliferation etc. If we can't be certain of the future, we might as well take all and enjoy while we can, no? Or we can choose to undo the mess we created and make the world a better place for ourselves and the future generations?

This was done in 2004 over many sleepless nights. I thought I'd end up in the multimedia industry but later I found that the idea of endless hours in front of the computer too daunting. Oh well, 'twas fun anyways.

love
the hot summer air
turns the room into a furnace
fanning flames of desire
melting steely will to
thoughts of cotton candy
sweat runs down the back
darker and darker patches
of navy blue; maroon
wings outstretched and
deodorant slaps
but she is not there

The impermanence of things
Yay.. My Powerbook's alive again. I just got it back from co-op yesterday. The problem started when one fine day it decided to crash whenever it felt like it. Nothing I did could solve the problem. The hardware check revealed no problems and I formatted the harddisk, re-installed the OS, reformatted, re-installed... Apparently my RAM was fried; the guy at the co-op told me they replaced it. Shrug.
The malfunction's given me a huge dose of anxiety and disappointment already. First, it costs me bomb and second, more importantly, I haven't done anything fantastic with it except writing essays and surfing the web. Yes I admit that I'm not maximising the features of this baby for fun stuff like making videos and music. Nonetheless, the zoom-in-zoom-out accessibility feature is already well worth the money (i can't see well).
Anyways.. i'm glad it's ok now. I should create something with it before it dies on me again..

Chocky - a song by Mogwai is playing on my Launch radio station now. It expresses how I feel about the thought of missing their coming concert--dark melancholy and a little angry. Their tickets sold out on the 3rd after ticket sales opened. They're not as expensive as Coldplay, yet I must stick to my budget. Or make more money.

This is the link to MOE's 2003 games for primary school chinese language. Check out the 2nd and 3rd rows.i programmed for Ministry of Education when I interned at the edutech division 3years ago. Have fun! http://www1.moe.edu.sg/happytown/S3playground/archive/2003/2003gamesArchives.htm
Oh by the way, if you don't read chinese, use the left, right and space keys to move and shoot/jump.

posted by kobzilla | 5:17 AM | 0 comments
The (Mis)Adventure Begins...

I'm writing this in the wee quiet morning at 4am. My head is incredibly alert. Why I want to start blogging at this hour contradicts the claim that I'm alert when I should be sleeping. I haven't been blogging for ages 'cause I think it's a bloody narcissistic exercise and most of the time I haven't got anything worthwhile to say. Well, I've had a couple of beers so who's to stop me?

I joined some friends from secondary school for a gathering. It was a lame excuse for us to have some beer at Brewerkz, I guess. I've always liked the brew there, the drinks had fancy names - 'Darkside', 'Golden Ale' and 'Indian Pale Ale', and they were good. Smooth, wheaty and with a tasty aftertaste.

We talked mostly about mundane stuff:

"How was work?

"Seeing anybody new?

"What're you gonna do few years from now?"

Yea.. The real highlight was when Brewerkz closed for the day and we decided to head down to the Balcony at Heeren. We were a little tipsy but what happened came as no surprise. Some idiot thought it was funny to mount a bike and topple it over. The Kawasaki's going to have some serious scratches. We didn't know who the guy was and most definitely didn't want to be around if the owner was nearby so we ran like hell away. Haha.. Real stupid.

So that's it. My first post in Kobacabana. I will be away on a short backpacking trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Although the above incident was insignificant, I certainly wouldn't want it to be a prelude to a major-cock-up(disastrous) trip. I just want to see some French colonial architecture, ancient temples and gigantic Buddha statues. It's the stuff of drama and movies, but no misadventures, please. hahaha... Right..

Met up with Grette for lunch and shopping. We talked about New York and how exciting and vibrant it is. We also imagined how interesting it would be to live and work there. When I lamented how much my mom would miss me if I relocated to NY, Grette said that I should dream for myself and live my own life.

Gone are the days when I dream that I would leave for a faraway place to find adventure and happiness. What's the point? Wherever I am or will be, it's going to be the same as everywhere else, with its pros and cons, heaven and hell.