RIP - Artists that left us in 2009

A tribute to some of the artists that left us in 2009.

26th June - Michael Jackson

Share with you my favourite MJ song:




2nd Dec - Eric Woolfson from Alan Parsons Project

Quoting Eric's Facebook profile:

"We are very sad to have to tell you that Eric Woolfson passed away in the early hours of this morning after a long and brave battle with cancer. He very much enjoyed seeing all your kind comments and posts on this Facebook page and his family wanted to thank you for your appreciation of his work."

Eric Woolfson was the main songwriter of the Alan Parsons Project. He also played keyboards and sang on a good amount of tracks, like "Eye In The Sky", "Time", "Don't Answer Me" among some others.

Days are Numbers (Time Traveler) song is my favourite, pardon the lousy video:



14th Sep - Patrick Swayze

One hit wonder from the movie Dirty Dancing



6th Aug - John Hughes

I grew up watching alot of his works, which are synonymous with the 1980s teen movies. My personal favourite from him is Ferris Bueller's Day Off, other notable ones include Uncle Buck, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Home Alone.

Found this video clip made by a fan as a tribute to John Hughes:

Mary and Max

Mary and Max is not your typical Disney, Pixar cutesy kiddish cartoon. It is a clay animation production, similar to the what we have seen in Wallace and Gromit and Chicke Run.

The film is directed and produced by a talented Australian Adam Elliot and it won the feature film award in the 2009 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

It is a touching story recounting the penpal relationship between Mary, a 8 year old girl from Australia and Max, an Asperger's suffering 44 year old man from New York. Asperger syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder, and people suffering from it has difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.

You may wonder what's so special about a story about this young girl and an old man and how interesting can it be but under the creative hands of the director, he was able to pen this story of a pen-relationship between two very different people with such a big age gap and from different continents. The story touches on many issues revolving friendship, psychiatry, trust and much much more.

I'm really glad I watched this, not sure if it was shown in the local cinmeas or not cos it was released in April this year, either I missed it or there wasn't much publicity or reviews.

I googled the director Adam Elliot and found out that he won a Best Animated Short Film Oscar back in 2003 for another clay-animated film titled Harvey Krumpet. I will definitely get the DVD.

Oh ya forgot to mention the casts of Mary and Max, the production feature credible Australian stars like Toni Collette and Eric Bana. In Harvet Krumpet, Geoffrey Rush was the voice over for the main character.

Pixar's Up

"Up" is Pixar's 10th feature animation film and I watched it the 2nd time recently en-route to Sydney.

Some critics and fans said that "Up" is not as nice compared to some of its previous productions but personally I like it very much. I would say it is my top 3 favourite Pixar cartoons alongside with Monster Inc and Finding Nemo.

For the first 10 minutes, I can't stop myself tearing even when watching it on the small screen on the plane. I can't remember if I did the first time I watched it in the cinema a few months back but despite it being a cartoon, the film subtly brings out its sentimental side.

The film has a great soundtrack too, really enjoyed the tracks done by Michael Giacchino.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

Watched this Japanese cartoon Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea on New Year's day.
This Hayao Miyazaki's production is rumoured to be his last project, the master of Japan's animation is 67 years old, dont know if he will still continue to churn out any more wonderful works for us.











The story is about a girl goldfish who tries to escape from her father and got trapped in a bottle. The bottle eventually find its way to a 5 year old boy Sousuke and he kept it as a pet and names the fish Ponyo. Partly adapted from The Little Mermaid, the girl fish has the power and magic to transform herself to a little girl to be with the boy. The story continues from there in many interesting ways.

The animation are mostly hand drawn, something so rare these days where almost everything is computer animated. Ponyo is so cute, with her goldfish like chubby cheeks.

I also find myself humming to the cute theme song after the show, here's the clip for you to enjoy!

Beautiful Song!

I woke up to a beautiful song today.

Dedicate to the one you love or use the lyrics to teach your kids the days of the week :)

Chorus:

You’re my Sunday, Make my Monday come alive
Just like Tuesday you’re a new day, wakes me up,
Wednesday’s raining, Thursday’s yearning, Friday nights, Then it all ends at the weekend, you’re my star

Track: You're my star
Artiste: Stereophonics
Album: Decade In The Sun: The Best Of Stereophonics

Enjoy!

"Rabbit Without Ears" (Keinohrhasen)

I happen to watch this German romantic comedy "Rabbit Without Ears" (Keinohrhasen) on one of my recent flights. I enjoyed it very much, so different from the Nazi, WWII subject related ones that German films are known for.

I'm not saying that I dont enjoy their serious films, I am quite a fan and have watched many over the years, among them:

Run Lola Run
Good Bye Lenin!
Downfall
The Lives of Others
Sophie Scholl – The Final Days
The Counterfeiters

So it was quite refreshing when I chanced upon this. There were other non interesting movies on the other channels so I just tikam and pick this one :)

It is a simple story, about a reporter (the male lead) who has just been released on probation and needs to work in a day care center, help to look after the kids and then falls in love with the female lead. As to why the title "Rabbit Without Ears", you will have to watch it to find out! Bad synopsis, haha :) The DVD is out and it is also showing in Singapore as part of Goethe German film festival.















I also got to know of this particular song from the movie, which was played towards the end and I kept rewinding it back to listen. The movie soundtrack feature lots of good stuff including music by Keane, One Republic and many more!

Here's the instrumental version. You may find it a bit noisy but enjoy the catchy beat.

Track: My Brightside
Artiste: The Killers

High-Tea

Took wife for high-tea yesterday afternoon. It is literally a "high" tea as the restaurant is located on the 60th floor at the UOB plaza :)




















It has a nice ambience , and you can get a bird's eye view of the city skyline, overseeing the Esplanade, city hall, Clarke Quay.

The high tea set consists of 4 dim sum items and 3 dessert items. Be forewarned though, the servings are very very small. One can probably gobble up everything in about 15mins, so to really enjoy the experience, you have to slowly sip your tea and savour the food one by one.

The waiter can be too anxious to serve all the food at one go, so you can ask them to serve each item after you are done.

The menu changes every month, here is the Sep menu:

Main:

1. Crispy carrot cake. Very nice, I like. It's like carrot cake wrapped in a fried popiah skin.
2. glutinous rice ball wrapped in banana leaf, very tiny.
3. steamed glutinous rice dumpling, tiny also.
4. Steamed shark fin dumpling, so-so, like har gao filled with some shark fins.


The above dim sum items are paired with 龙井 tea.

For dessert, we had:

1. Si chuan chilled noodle, very nice.
2. steamed layer cake with olive, not nice.
3. fried pumpkin pancake.
4. homemade beancurd and water chestnut

We are served with 大红泡 , a kind of red tea like 乌龙茶.

I recommend you to give this place a try, wonderful way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon here though the food is so-so. Do remember to bring along some magazines, or your PSP to play to help kill time and to really soak in the atmosphere.

Tian Fu Teahouse
80 Raffles Place #60-01
Tel: 6535 6006
High Tea served daily from 2.30pm to 6pm

Clarke Quay mid autumn celebration

To celebrate Mid Autumn, the Clarke Quay area is lighted up. Were there for dinner but didnt bring my camera along so took some of these cute fu wa lantern pics using my phone camera.

Lantern Festival at Chinese Garden

Wife's company organised a family day at the Chinese Garden to celebrate mid autumn. Its been really ages since I last went there.















This year's theme is Hello Kitty and friends, so you see lots of cartoon characters lanterns from Sanrio.

Sightings of fw wa

I was at the Starhub Olympics roadshow to renew my broadband plane just before the Olympics started and there happen to be a fu wa appearance at Suntec.

Olympic mascots

How many Olympic mascots can you remember ?

These are the Summer olympics mascots over the past 2 decades:



Athena and Phevos - mascots of the 2004 Olympic in Athens, Greece



















Syd, Olly and Millie - mascots of the 2000 Olympic in Sydney, Australia




















Izzy - mascot of the 1996 Olympic in Atlanta, USA



















Cobi - mascot of the 1992 Olympic held in Barcelonda, Spain. Quite ugly if you ask me :)



















Hodori - mascot of the 1988 Olympic in Seoul, South Korea. When I was working with the Korean company in my first few years , I travelled to Seoul quite frequently. In one of the trip, I remembered I made a trip to the Olympic village and bought some Hodori souvenirs, I think it was a baseball, wonder where I have kept it :) It is one of my favourite mascots.




















Sam - mascot of the 1984 Olympic in LA, USA. The face and white hair looks abit like Bush, no? :)





















Misha - mascot of the 1980 Olympic in Moscow, Russia.

Off to Hong Kong

Flying to HK for a few days.

母亲节

母亲已经过世有六年了。上个星期五在早报副刊读到这则文章,在这跟大家分享:

龙应台－母亲节

（2008-05-09）

收到安德烈的电邮，有点意外。这家伙，不是天打雷劈的大事──譬如急需钱，是不会给他母亲发电邮的。不知怎么回事，有这么一大批十几二十岁左右的人 类，在他们广阔的、全球覆盖的交友网络里──这包括电邮、MSN、FACEBOOK、Bebo、Twitter、聊天室、手机简讯等等，“母亲”是被他们 归入spam （垃圾）或“资源回收筒”那个类别里去的。简直毫无道理，但是你一点办法都没有。高科技使你能够“看见”他，譬如三更半夜时，如果你也在通宵工作，突然 “叮”一声，你知道他上网了。也就是说，天涯海角，像一个雷达荧幕，他现身在一个定点上。或者说，夜航海上，茫茫中突然浮现一粒渔火，分明无比。虽然也可 能是万里之遥，但是那个定点让你放心──亲爱的孩子，他在那里。

　　可是高科技也给了他一个逃生门──手指按几个键，他可以把你“隔离”掉，让那个“叮”一声，再也不出现，那个小小的点，从你的“爱心”雷达网上彻底消失。

　　朋友说，送你一个电脑相机，你就可以在电脑上看见儿子了。我说，你开玩笑吧？哪一个儿子愿意在自己电脑上装一个“监视器”，让母亲可以千里追踪啊？这种东西是给情人，不是给母子的。

　　我问安德烈，你为什么都不跟我写电邮？

　　他说，妈，因为我很忙。

　　我说，你很没良心耶。你小时候我花多少时间跟你混啊？

　　他说，理智一点。

　　我说，为什么不能跟我多点沟通呢？

　　他说，因为你每次都写一样的电邮，讲一样的话。

我说，才没有。

　　他说，有，你每次都问一样的问题，讲一样的话，重复又重复。

　　我说，怎么可能，你乱讲！我这么聪明的人，怎么可能？

　　打开安德烈的电邮，他没有一句话，只是传来一个网址，一则影像──“我很无聊网”，已经有四千个点击，主题是，“与母亲的典型对话”。作者用漫画手法，配上语音，速描出一段自己跟妈妈的对话：

　　我去探望我妈。一起在厨房里混时间，她说，“我烧了鱼。你爱吃鱼吧？”

　　我说：“妈，我不爱吃鱼。”

　　她说：“你不爱吃鱼？”

　　我说：“妈，我不爱吃鱼。”

　　她说：“是鲔鱼呀。”

　　我说：“谢谢啦。我不爱吃鱼。”

她说：“我加了芹菜。”

　　我说：“我不爱吃鱼。”

　　她说：“可是吃鱼很健康。”

　　我说：“我知道，可是我不爱吃鱼。”

　　她说：“健康的人通常吃很多鱼。”

　　我说：“我知道，可是我不吃鱼。”

　　她说：“长寿的人吃鱼比吃鸡肉还多。”

　　我说：“是的，妈妈，可是我不爱吃鱼。”

　　她说：“我也不是在说，你应该每天吃鱼鱼鱼，因为鱼吃太多了也不好，很多鱼可能含汞。”

我说：“是的，妈妈，可是我不去烦恼这问题，因为我反正不吃鱼。”

她说：“很多文明国家的人，都是以鱼为主食的。”

　　我说：“我知道，可是我不吃鱼。”

　　她说：“那你有没有去检查过身体里的含汞量？”

　　我说：“没有，妈妈，因为我不吃鱼。”

　　她说：“可是汞不只是在鱼里头。”

　　我说：“我知道，可是反正我不吃鱼。”

　　她说：“真的不吃鱼？”

　　我说：“真的不吃。”

　　她说：“连鲔鱼也不吃？”

　　我说：“对，鲔鱼也不吃。”

她说：“那你有没有试过加了芹菜的鲔鱼？”

　　我说：“没有。”

　　她说：“没试过，你怎么知道会不喜欢呢？”

　　我说：“妈，我真的不喜欢吃鱼。”

　　她说：“你就试试看嘛。”

　　所以……我就吃了，尝了一点点。之后，她说：“怎么样，好吃吗？”

　　我说：“不喜欢，妈，我真的不爱吃鱼。”

　　她说：“那下次试试鲑鱼。你现在不多吃也好，我们反正要去餐厅。”

　　我说：“好，可以走了。”

　　她说：“你不多穿点衣服？”

我说：“外面不冷。”

　　她说：“你加件外套吧。”

　　我说：“外面不冷。”

　　她说：“考虑一下吧。我要加件外套呢。”

　　我说：“你加吧。外面真的不冷。”

　　她说：“我帮你拿一件？”

　　我说：“我刚刚出去过，妈妈，外面真的一点也不冷。”

　　她说：“唉，好吧。等一下就会变冷，你这么坚持，等着瞧吧，待会儿会冻死。”

　　我们就出发了。到了餐厅，发现客满，要排很长的队。这时，妈妈就说：“我们还是去那家海鲜馆子吧。”

　　原来，这个电邮，是安德烈给我的母亲节礼物呢。

Sight seeing

Beijing is bustling with activities. You can see posters such as this in the subway and the 5 cute Olympic mascots 福娃 in souvenirs shops.


































With the Summer Olympics just around the corner, there are two more new attractions for people to sight see when in Beijing. One being the Olympic stadium, also known as the bird nest 鸟巢 because of its design and the National Aquatics Center 水一方.










Artiste impression - Day shot















My poorly taken shot of the aquatic center, didnt bring my digital camera lah.












Artiste impression - Night view when it is illuminated.






























The construction of the stadium has been completed but security was tight, there were fences around it so was not able to get up close to it. The surrounding area was abit messy, there are still some pending roads works to be done.













Artiste impression - exterior view















Artiste impression - night view

With the stadium and the aquatic center side by side, it really looks quite nice:



























































This building stands opposite the stadium and the aquatic center, the top looks like a dragon's head, not sure if its some hotel or offices. Might be the Olympic village where all the athletes stay, looks quite posh.

Off to Beijing

Its exactly 1 month since my last trip. This time, I'm off to Beijing to give training.

Been busy, didnt blog :( excuses excuses :)

Hope I will have some leisure time to go take a look at the "bird nest" Olympic Stadium and post some pics here.

View from my hotel room. The picture is taken from my phone camera, not that sharp:















This weird looking structure is actually the new China Central Television (CCTV) and Headquarters Building & Cultural Centre building.

Once completed, it will look something like this, quite nice and modern. My Beijing colleague was lamenting how ugly it looks and we were wondering how the lift is being built, will it be slanted ?


The entire structure and the facade will be completed before the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.











Another similar senget structure in Madrid:














I visited Madrid in 2005 but it was abit far so didnt go and take a look. It is the KIO (Kuwaiti Investment Office) Towers, located at Plaza de Castilla, looks like a modern version of the Twin Pisa Towers.